The Government Sucks – So We, the People, Have to Step Up

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Today’s bad news: our economy added only 80,000 jobs in June – while another 85,000 workers dropped out of the labor force to join the ranks of the disabled.  As fewer people can find or keep jobs, our federal government continues to take former workers onto the “dole” to artificially hide the true unemployment rate.

Our President’s reaction?  “It’s still Bush’s fault”, and “We need more government union workers who will vote for me (teachers and firemen)”, and “Things are not all that bad”, and “There are no quick fixes”.  Not exactly inspirational, is it?

By the way, when did you agree to have your federal tax dollars spent on more firemen for the city of El Paso?

And when did your local school board decide that your federal tax dollars should pay for “hundreds of thousands more teachers”?

Punch after punch, the federal assault on citizens continues.  It’s enough to drive one to depression or drink, or both.  Unless . . .

Unless we conservatives can make ourselves so strong individually and collectively that we can fight and win the daily battles in our city, state and federal government offices – and strong enough to educate and convince our misguided or disengaged brethren to vote correctly this fall.

When times are tough I take comfort in something I learned a long time ago, when I joined a bunch of young friends in a civic group called Optimists, Intl.   Even the first line is enough to bring you out of your funk:  “Promise yourself to be so strong . . . ”

The Optimist Creed

Promise Yourself …
To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.
To talk health, happiness and prosperity to every person you meet.
To make all your friends feel that there is something in them.
To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.
To think only of the best, to work only for the best, and to expect only the best.
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.
To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
To wear a cheerful countenance at all times and give every living creature you meet a smile.
To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others.
To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

Sounds kind of “Reagan-esque”, doesn’t it?

Tom Balek, Rockin’ On the Right Side

Give me a job, give me security
Give me a chance to survive
I’m just a poor soul in the unemployment line
My God, I’m hardly alive

“Blue Collar Man” – Styx

The Insults That Triggered our Declaration of Independence Are Here Again

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On July 4, 1776, representatives of the States (not the nation) declared their Declaration of Independenceindependence from King George and Great Britain.  The document they presented to the world included a list of grievances against the King that justified their bold action.

There are grand passages from the Declaration that are widely quoted and remembered.  But the part that interests me today is the list of grievances.  These guys were really ticked off, and with good reason.  It surprises me how many of these “repeated injuries and usurpations” against the States exist today.

“Let Facts be submitted to a candid world”, they began.  Each complaint in the list begins with “He . . .”, referring to King George.  I can’t help making a mental substitution.

  • “He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome necessary for the public good.”  (We now have an administration that has stated it will choose which laws it wishes to enforce.)
  • “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.” (Over-reach and bloated, uncontrolled growth by the EPA, the BLM, HUD, Fanny/Freddy, Education, Labor, Energy, Commerce, Justice, Agriculture, Health and Welfare,  all of the “czars” – where do I stop?)
  • “He has combined with others . . . giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation for imposing Taxes on us without our Consent.”  ObamaCare is the tip of the iceberg.

Fortunately, we can redress our grievances today without the bloodshed our forefathers bravely endured.  We can again declare our independence by voting this fall to end the creeping tyranny that, left unchallenged, would destroy the freedoms our States have enjoyed for 236 years.

Tom Balek, Rockin’ On the Right Side

“Somebody Get Me A Cheeseburger!” – Steve Miller, ‘Livin’ In the USA‘

They Don’t Talk about “The Children” Any More

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Remember when the favorite justification for every liberal idea was “the children”?  We would hear countless public service announcements on radio and TV, extolling the virtues of this government program or that, in the ubiquitous deep, oh-so-sensitive PBS voice – stretching out that first syllable – “the CHILLLLLdren.”  It didn’t matter if the latest big-government program had anything to do with children – it could be providing free socks for desert toads –  you could still count on hearing that it must be done for “the CHILLLLLdren.”

Something changed.  In recent years you seldom hear “the children” invoked by the left.  Could it be because any rational person knows that a 16 trillion dollar debt is really not so good for the children?

I became a grandpa when my twins grandbabies were born a couple of years ago.  And, while I have known for some time that we are screwing things up pretty royally for future generations, it really hit home when I realized that one of those future generations includes my own precious twins.  Now I see everything in a broader context.  It makes political activism real for me. I feel compelled to do whatever I can for the future of my grandkids.

If you are still reading at this point, you should meet Lydia, the apple of Grandpa’s eye!  I write and record songs for the kids, and here’s one I did for her – along with a video.  By the way, if you remember “the Jetsons”, chances are you have grandkids to worry about too.  We can’t let them down.  Here she is!

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On The Right Side

I Wanna Dance With Lydia! – Tom Balek

I Pledge Allegiance – to the Maple Leaf?

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Saskatchewan RoughridersMy son and I are big CFL (Canadian Football League) fans.  We make the long drive from our Montana home to Regina, SK for a game every summer, and listen to our beloved Roughriders on the web.

The Rider fans are amazing – they paint the town green for every home game.  They yell and scream and guzzle Molson Canadian beer, and wear watermelons on their heads.  It’s about as fun a football atmosphere as you could want (well, except for the Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium).  And the Canadian rules make for a fast and furious game of football (“He’s at the fifty!  the fifty-five!  and down at the 53-yard line!”)

But that’s not what this blog is aboot (Canadian for “about”), eh?

Whenever we attend a Canadian football game, or listen on the internet, I can’t help but notice that they always play O Canada, the Canadian national anthem, but then never play the Star Spangled Banner.   Never.  The same is true at a Canadian hockey game, baseball game, or any other public event.  They never recognize the US.

By rule, 19 of the 42 players on any CFL team are from the United States.  Obviously, there are not that many good Canadian native football players.  The best players are all from the US, as are the coaches.  Canadians love their football, but it is an American game.  Still, there is never any recognition of the United States at any CFL game.  No flag.  No national anthem. Nothing.  It’s all about Canada.

Now, I don’t have a problem with this.  Really.  It’s their country, it’s their league, they are very patriotic about it, and more power to them.  The Canadian fans welcome my son and I as a curiosity, and frankly as “football experts from the States, eh?”  Our celebrity status is very cool, just like that great Canadian beer.

What I don’t understand is this:  last weekend my band played music for three nights at the fantastic rodeo weekend in Augusta, MT, and we enjoyed watching the rodeo on Sunday.  In addition to the athletic prowess and the terrific Western atmosphere, there was a lot of pageantry and patriotism.  As far as I know, there were no Canadian participants in the event.  There may have been a couple of Canadian spectators.  Still, the rodeo officials made a big deal of riding the Canadian maple leaf flag around the arena, and playing O Canada before our national anthem.

Why?

Even stranger than that, about HALF of the spectators stood there with hands over their hearts for the Canadian anthem!  Like they were pledging allegiance to Canada!

Why?

Here in Lewistown we have local drag races on summer weekends.  What a great American event!  Vintage American Chevies and Fords,  classic Beach Boys music – it just doesn’t get better.  So why the heck do we have to listen to O Canada before our own precious Star Spangled Banner?  I mean, I like Bachman Turner Overdrive as well as the next guy, but hey!  This is American Drag Racing!

I don’t think the Canucks need to pay homage to the US at their events.  But I also don’t think “O Canada” is required at ours.

Tom Balek, Rockin’ On the Right Side

American Woman, Stay Away from Me! – the Guess Who

The Rattle of Jerking Knees

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Hear that noise?  It’s the sound of knees jerking all over the place from the news that the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

I have to admit, I was puzzled too when Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts sided with the transparently liberal judges on this one.  I kept thinking, “there has to be more to this than meets the eye.”  The reaction by many conservative pundits was to lament that Roberts caved in to the evil liberals, for any number of purported reasons.  My knee started to twitch, but failed to fully jerk.

First of all, we want our judges and justices to be apolitical, so don’t go there.  Second, there has never been any indication that Justice Roberts is wishy-washy on the Constitution.  And third, back in 2009 when President Obama was vehemently denying that his “mandate” penalty was not a tax, I was thinking, “Of course it’s a tax.  When you have to pay money to the IRS, for whatever purpose, it sure smells like a tax to me.”

Now that the smoke has cleared the battlefield, we can assess the extent of the damage.  Or of victory.  And I am leaning in the direction of the latter.  By ruling that the ObamaCare mandate is a tax, Chief Justice Roberts took the whole “Commerce Clause” justification off the table.  I was seriously concerned that a constitutional victory for the mandate could open the Pandora’s Box, allowing the government the tool to force citizens into anything.   This would have set a dangerous precedent in Constitutional interpretation, but Roberts threw an extra padlock on the box.

Uncle SamThe proponents of the Act act one time publicly insisted that the mandate is not a tax.  Then the solicitor general insisted to the Supreme Court that it is, in fact, a tax.  No one can know exactly what Roberts’ motivations were, but the result is the same.  By labeling the mandate a tax, Roberts ensured that President Obama is the proud owner of an enormous tax increase, a deceptive one at that, and this will likely cost him a second term.  The frosting on that cake is the fact that tax laws are easily repealed, requiring only 51 votes in the Senate, so ObamaCare will likely be tossed to the ash-heap of history anyway.

An excellent analysis was made by Timothy Dalrymple – he pulled together a number of “silver linings” for conservatives in the wake of the SCOTUS decision.

Still, knee-jerk exercises are in order for conservatives.  We need to be in shape for some serious butt-kicking this fall.

Tom Balek, Rockin’ On the Right Side

If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street,
If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat.
If you get too cold I’ll tax the heat,
If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet.
TAX MAN – the Beatles

Let’s Just Ignore That Law

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I’ve heard it said that the United States is “a nation of laws.”  I’m not aware of any recent re-write of the Constitution, but last week it seems something changed.

Oh, the laws are still there, but our current president and attorney general have decided that they don’t feel our law officials need to enforce some of them.  For instance, they say that as many as 800,000 illegal immigrants will not be deported “as long as they aren’t doing something ‘illegal’.”  You can’t make this stuff up.

White House advisor David Ploufe insisted on TV that it’s not a political move intended to pander to Hispanic voters.  I’m sure the thought of trading amnesty for votes never crossed their minds.

My lovely bride had a great idea.  She said, “Why don’t we decide to not enforce the capital gains tax?”

That got me thinking.  There are a lot of laws that might be best forgotten.  I’ll bet the rancher who lost 58 of his sheep to a single grizzly bear last week near Conrad, Montana would like to say, “Oh sorry – heh, heh – I thought I could just ignore that little rule about shooting grizzlies.  My bad!”

MUS - Mexico Borderaybe next time I’m in that long line at the airport waiting to get groped by the TSA guy, I might just jump right over their little retaining rope, bypass the whole security checkpoint, and have time to grab a tasty Cinnabon roll  before my flight.  I say the groping laws should only be applied to nervous-looking bearded guys in turbans praying in Arabic, anyway.

But I suppose I am just dreaming.  Ordinary citizens don’t get to choose which rules they want to have enforced, at least not in our “nation of laws”.  Only a dictator could get away with something like that.

 

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

“I Fought the Law, and the Law Won” – Bobby Fuller Four

 

“First Class” Travel? Or “Government Class?”

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Just a few random ideas for cutting government spending . . .Image

  • Require all government employees to travel in coach with the rest of us.  There was an effort to clamp down on first-class and business-class travel by government employees several years ago, but it appears that this perk has quietly become acceptable again.  Next time you are herded with the other cattle back into those crowded coach seats, take a good look as you walk through the comfy first-class cabin.  There’s a good chance most of these passengers are there on the taxpayer’s dime.
  • Take a good look at the use of expensive “smart phones” by government employees.  Most government employees would be adequately served by inexpensive “dumb” cell phones, and in fact most employees already have, or would purchase, their own cell phones.  I’ll bet the cost of this item, including air time for web surfing, is shocking.
  • Stop paying government employees for all of their accumulated “sick pay” when they retire.  You should get sick pay when you are sick.  That’s why they call it “sick pay!”  Or maybe take sick pay out of the employee’s retirement account.  Some government employees receive six figure checks for accumulated sick pay at retirement in addition to a fat guaranteed pension plan.

This is just a start. The notion that government costs can not be reduced is ridiculous – give me a room full of retired, miserly old accountants and we could cut the budget by a third in no time, without reducing services.  And for crying out loud, could we please at least pass a budget?

Red Herring – favorite food of the Left

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What?  You don’t want to increase taxes on the RICH?  Why are you against teachers and policemen!  You must hate children!  You must not care if women get raped on street corners!   What about the millions of homeless people, the polluted rivers and the poor endangered snail darters!  You want dirty air and dirty water for our children!  Oh, you are so hateful!

The sad thing is the average guy and gal on the street are incapable of thinking deeply enough to see through an obvious RED HERRING (a statement or clue intended to distract from the real issue).  For generations now our schools have taught children to nevRed herringer question authority or cause any kind of conflict.  We must get along with each other, not be judgmental.  If you disagree it could be viewed as (here it comes, the new psycho-babble buzzword du jour) BULLYING!  Break out the ritalin!

If it sounds warm and fuzzy, or green – it must be good for us.

The Red Herring has been a favorite arrow in the quiver of the Left forever, it seems.  Decades ago I lived in a small city that had a mosquito problem.  Whenever the city council wanted more money, they would always say “we will have to cut back on our mosquito spraying this summer if we don’t get more funds”.  They knew that nobody would care if they couldn’t afford that 17th secretary at city hall, or if there was to be one fewer bike trail.  But mosquitos?  We hate them!  Here’s more money, take all you need!

School districts use this tactic religiously.  If you oppose any request for funds, you obviously hate children – even if the money is used to buy another $600,000 cruiser bus with video screens on each seat for the tennis team.  You are not allowed to question where the money goes.  Just keep forking it over, stupid.  A fellow blogger, Barbara Rush, makes a similar observation here.

I wish I had a solution, a way to get through to the can’t-thinkers.  All I can offer is Margaret Thatcher’s overused quote: “The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people’s money.”

Tom Balek, Rockin’ On The Right Side

“Tax the rich, feed the poor, ’til there ain’t no rich no more” – I’D LOVE TO CHANGE THE WORLD – Ten Year After

Sorry, I Wrote Off California

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As a conservative, and living in beautiful Montana, I admit I wrote off California a long time ago.

I had grown so tired of the lunacy that oozes from the Golden State on a daily basis – sanctuary cities, more-than-equal-rights for gays, barrio gang warfare, brainless Hollywood celebs, Pelosi and Waters and Boxer – I decided that if an earthquake shook the whole state into the sea, oh well.

I have an ex-Montana friend who lives in the Central Valley, and he was sending me daily S.O.S. messages, as his own government officials sold out the entire valley, trashing its economy and destroying thousands of jobs and businesses, by shutting off their water to protect a tiny fish.

I shook my head as the scandals piled on – Solyndra, small-town-mayors with monstrous salaries and pensions, and the $16 billion deficit.

But last month my wife and I took a short trip to California and I had a change of heart.

We found many good, hard-working people there, who were just as baffled and upset about the state’s problems as the rest of us are.  It’s a beautiful place, and in spite of its travails, California still has much talent, energy, and resources to offer the nation and the world.

If the USA is a family, California is our crazy, misguided, hyper little brother.  He might end up a superstar, or could be lying in a gutter soon.  There’s not much the rest of us can do to save him – he will have to learn on his own that he can’t spend money he doesn’t have, and he will have to get a haircut and get a real job.

Either way, he’s still part of the family and we should all keep trying to teach him what’s right.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On The Right Side

“We are all just prisoners here, of our own device.”  Hotel California – the Eagles

cartoon courtesy of Tony Branco – see more of his great work here.

One person CAN make a difference!

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A few months ago Judy Tankink was struggling.  She had been asked to reorganize and reinvigorate a Tea Party organization that was, well, sagging.  And she worried that she was in over her head.  She didn’t know if she was tough enough.

But Judy was so firm in her resolve that something had to be done, she threw her whole heart and soul into it.

She bought a new computer and installed web design software.  With help from a Tea Party friend (me!), she built a new website.  And then she rolled up her sleeves and went to work.  Judy started attending local government meetings.  She read and studied and learned about the tactics of the left, and their misguided intentions.  She organized meetings and presentations about important topics, from local (the exploding wolf population in Montana) to international (Agenda 21).

Then she learned that her city council was about to implement the Agenda 21 “Complete Streets” program.  Judy mobilized her troops, rallied at a series of presentations and city council meetings, and got the program rejected.  She single-handedly turned an expensive, freedom-threatening, heavy-handed government program on its head against all odds.

Judy, you are an inspiration!

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On The Right Side

Ain’t That Tough Enough?! – the Fabulous Thunderbirds