Illinois Legislative Hogs Seek to Increase Tax Feed in the Trough

According to a Quad City Times article, the Illinois State Senate narrowly passed legislation that would increase the States Income tax receipts from 3% to 5% in order to fix Illinois’ current financial crisis. The State of Illinois needs the money as they are traveling down the same Over-Taxation and Spend-Spend-Spend legislative superhighway that is currently driving the State of California towards bankruptcy. The vote was expected to be close enough that the current  Democrat State leaders had former Republican Governors -Edgar and Thompson, without much success- attempting to gain Republican legislator votes through political lobbying. Despite the legislation’s passage in the Illinois Senate the article also asserted that it would face even tougher scrutiny to pass in the Illinois House. I do not doubt it. Most current politicians that vote for the plan will wind up giving an opponent canon fodder come election time. People are tired of Big Government taking away the working stiffs money that they need to survive. In fact, when taxes are brought up for a vote – few items placed on ballots seem to get a rousing !YES! vote from the voting public. A Chicago Tribune article quotes some politicians  as saying –> that they will try and sell a tax increase to the public by binding the taxes to political reform and clean up of our State’s legislation. Right and if anyone believes that they will actually reform government and take our money at the same time –-> you are a chump! Politicians like to talk of reform when they want elected, but it is just rhetoric to get our votes. You do not pick up a rattlesnake just because he promises not to bite you. Legitimate political reform just isn’t in the Nature of the Beast of politicians.

Much of the public wants many of the tax produced social projects that has become part of the fabric of Big Government. They just want the money to come out of someone else’s pocket. That is why we continue to see Illinois Big Government gambling with State employees’ pension funds and choosing specialty tax increases of products. In what is an ironic twist the products taxed are often items like cigarettes, booze and probably soon to be included many fast food products, which the Government also spends a lot of time and money attempting to influence and/or force consumers to use less. ROFLMAO –-> that has become standard operating procedure Big Government logic in a nutshell! The current crop of politicians  have little to none when it comes to business sense. But then politics has become saturated by lifetime politicians and lawyers that are clueless when it comes to running a business or balancing money. They just legally stick-up the voters for a tax increase when they want more money to fund their special interest promises.

Another problem facing legislators is the continued dissatisfaction growth by those outside Chicago about the amount of State of Illinois money that gets pumped into the bottomless money sucking vortex that links Illinois Big Government political power structure to Chicago. My suggestion to Governor Quinn and the rest of the money-grubbers running our State is, if you want Non-Chicago voters to be more responsive to your wailing for money – quit sending our money to Richard Daley and Co. to be wasted with their Big Top Circuses. It is not our responsibility to keep Richard Daley and Co. in fine wine and caviar. I do not mind helping the needy in any part of the State but I am not interested in taxpayer funding of the Richard Daley and Co. political machine.

That leads to a problem that will create backlash for most legislators that vote for the tax increase proposal. Many voters have tired of paying for a crooked and top-heavy government bureaucracy where State legislators seek to create programs to keep their friends and family employed at the taxpayer’s expense. Nepotism still majestically rules in the halls of the State of Illinois Government. Which is sad – because many projects created really have value to people in need. But too much of the money never reaches the needy it was meant for. Too much of the money winds up in the pockets of the friends and family of politicians through job appointments or special consideration come time for State funded projects. The needy lose. The voters lose. Meanwhile the politicians and their friends live like fat hogs feeding at a trough filled from John and Jane Doe’s hard earned money needed to keep Captain Crunch on the breakfast table for their kids. The kids go to school hungry while Illinois Legislators and their family/friends go Oink-Oink-Oink all the way to the bank with our money.

That is my Illinois Tax and Spend rant for today!

Hot For Teacher Pedophilia – Gaining Acceptance?

Caution the following post deals with adult situations and sexual material.

Most non traditional sexual fetishes have historically faced both legal obstacles and the unforgiving wrath of society. Yet many sexual acts that were once considered scandalous and/or illegal have found champions that brought the behavior to a point of legal acceptance by society. Bondage/Sadomasochism and anal sex –both were once considered unacceptable acts of perversion- are  sexual behaviors that have worked their way into a modicum of acceptance and “in” to mainstream society. Considering this I am now asking –> Are female pedophilia acts becoming a new and legitimate “in” fetish?  I have spoken before of the increasing number of female pedophiles that have been publicly exposed – including many that were in the business of public school teaching our children. For the most part the majority of women pedophiles seem to get excused by the system unless the cases are extreme or the sexual offenses are repetitive. Men facing similar circumstances would not see the light of day from behind prison bars for years, after committing similar acts. And after the men are released they find themselves looked on as pariahs among society. We are justifiably restrictive and harsh on male pedophiles. Yet women pedophiles seem to find far more acceptance back into society and fewer tribulations than their male counterparts. I am not sure I understand that standard – it just is what it is. And over the years I have known many male and female adults that look at acts of statutory rape performed on young males by female pedophiles as humorous and/or a right of passage for young males. Now I read where one of the most notorious female predator teachers, Mary Kay Letourneau – that engaged in a sexual relationship with her sixth grade student/ now husband – is hosting a “Hot For Teacher Night” at Seattle bars. And it is evidently not a one-time event as this is the third such show she has partaken in. An event that creates enough buzz to be repeated, makes me reiterate – is female pedophilia in danger of becoming a legitimate and an acceptable sexual fetish of our society? This writer hopes not, but the Seattle “Hot for Teacher” shows give me cause to wonder!!!

Spring has Sprung – Time to Let the Dogs Out

It is running a little late this year but must be spring! The cold of winter is grudgingly giving way to the gentle warm sunshine that will soon become oppressive summer heat that allows you to fry your eggs on the front sidewalk. All the signs are there. The birds are chirping earlier and earlier. My lilacs have bloomed. The trees are turning green, red and pink. Flowers are blooming. The seedlings in my garden are actually starting to become recognizable as something other than a greenish something-or-other. Young women go outside in skimpier and skimpier clothing stalking the perfect tan line. Young Evil Kenivel wannabes are out cruising the busy car packed streets on their bicycles trying to become hood ornaments or road kill. And as the weather warms up two other more significant signs of spring and summer display their presence like an atomic clock that ticks almost perfectly.

First, as the weather gets nice enough to actually enjoy the best time of the year: road construction shuts down the roads in and around the Quad City. Sigh! Yes if you wish to travel anywhere inside or outside of the Quad City during the spring and summer it is a good plan to leave the house early. In some cases say like you want to travel from the Illinois Quad City side to Iowa Quad City side or vice-versa I suggest a good two-day head start. The same can probably be said if you wish to visit many of the little villages like Erie, where recent road construction required traveling gravel roads to actually enter the town. If you have to travel-the-gravel in Whiteside Co. and are not familiar with your surroundings – you might have to stop on occasion to get directions as the roads are named not numbered. And much like Grand Ave. in Davenport some of the roads are roads to everywhere and nowhere.

And if Spring has sprung you can bet your bottom dollar the door-to-door scam artists are hovering around the houses and streets of the various towns and cities. You know the ones! Individuals running door-to-door trying to sell you on quick fix labor work with too-good-to-be-true prices for your home or driveway. Or the ones I always get when the weather turns nice – nice young men and women selling magazines door-to-door. I got my first magazine scammer today. The trouble is they usually get your money and you get no magazines in return.

Ahh the signs of Spring – they are all finally here. I guess it is time to let the dogs out to greet the visitors.

Deja Vu – Big Bad Bush and the CIA Fooled Them

Just how much current Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and fellow Democrat power players knew about the CIA using interrogation techniques of waterboarding on terrorists is firing up the political machines of Washington DC. Pelosi along with Democrat Senator Bob Graham are both claiming that the CIA misled them concerning the use of waterboard interrogation tactics. Barack Obama’s current choice to lead the CIA, Leon Panetta, says that CIA briefing records show that both were fully briefed on CIA interrogation techniques used on terrorists in US custody and the value of such operations. Considering that Pelosi and Company used the Bush Administration waterboarding techniques as a constantly jabbing weapon in the last few elections it was inevitable that someone inside the Republican Party would strike back at Pelosi and Co. with fervor.  In trying not to miss a return chance at sticking a political shiv into the Democrat Party, a CNN article is reporting that Republican Newt Gingrich has sounded off calling Pelosi a “trivial politician, viciously using partisanship for the narrowest of purposes.” Not that the Gingrich revelation should be new news to anyone. Partisan politics has long been standard operational procedure for both political parties. Yet voters keep falling for the same tricks over and over again!

The Iraq War and its associated events will be the source of Partisan politics and Second Guesser Hindsight politics for decades to follow. The Democrat Party used the War and the War on Terror in expert Partisan Political play during the last two elections to seize complete control of the government. Two of the driving points they used as a battering ram were defining the Iraq War as GW Bush’s War and the waterboarding/interrogation techniques used on terrorists. They managed the first because the Iraq War drug on much longer than anyone expected until the short attention span of the American public grew impatient for results. When the public support for the War started waning – Pelosi and Company started selling the War as a never should have been event. This is despite the fact that the Congress voted heavily in favor of the War when the vote to choose War or No-War came to the floor. When queried why they were now changing their minds on the War – Pelosi and Co. claimed that Bush and the CIA had misled them. They all said, “Well all we read was the short form of the Bush Administration War Sale Ads”. This was despite the fact that they had all the same resource information made available to them that the Bush administration used in making their decision. So all the yea-sayers that were now nay-sayers pointed the finger at the Bush administration and said it was a bad war choice and it was all Bush’s fault. The media and the public let them get by with the falsehoods. Not long after Pelosi and Co. began their Bush Tortured campaign. Now that information is flowing like a river that Pelosi and Company were briefed in complete about the interrogation techniques on terrorists used by the CIA under the Bush Administration, the same interrogation techniques used as an example of how evil the Bush administration was by Pelosi and Co. during the elections, Pelosi is attempting to use the same spin rhetoric used about the Iraq War – Bush and the CIA misled the Pelosi and Company! Right. It is Déjà vu! The real concern is either Pelosi and Company are complete idiots if such were the case or the more likely is she is lying through her teeth with that plastic smile of her painted on her face. The all-worshiping lemmings of Pelosi and Company will just clap their hands together and say poor girl, the Big Bad Bush fooled them all again! The real question becomes will the more sane of the public and more importantly the supposed Watchdog Media, let Team Pelosi get away with the charade. Or will it be – Déjà Vu!

UPDATE

Newt Gingrich continues pushing Pelosi’s hypocrisy out into the open through the media. Yes it is more partisan politcs. Yet partisan politics seems to be the only thing US voters understand. I suppose voters reap what they sow.

Obama Makes a U-Turn

The events that determine the direction and policy of the United States Government is like trying to maneuver among a packed four-lane expressway where the cars are all traveling at 75 MPH and the four lanes are converging into two lanes because of construction. We have a far left lane and a far right lane that are often stable in their operational status. But the political lanes in the center are always under construction. That is why we have constant power shifts in our government.

Any regular reader of my blog knows that I am not a friendly face for the media selected Obama administration. I will say this positive about Obama -He was smart enough to surround himself with all the right political campaign drivers that say all the right things, help create and augment existing road construction events while changing election speed and direction, when needed to get elected during a road construction period. But my personal opinion is I think he is nothing more than another False Prophet in a political arena filled with POTUS wannabe pretenders to the crown. And he has been fulfilling some of my pre-election musings about the paths of leadership he would be forced to travel despite his grandiose  False Prophet  election promises. Like every President before him, during my 29+ years of living, he gets stuck in that political traffic jam where the majestic promises he made before the election get bottled up with the reality of traveling on the always-under-construction superhighways of America. These bottleneck situations where the illusionary world of campaign promises meets the everyday reality of running a huge country are what tend to erode the Teflon shine off elected officials among those voters that are forced to change lanes to merge with the rest of traffic. Unkind words from normally friendly faces usually follow.

President Obama’s latest traffic rerouting of government policy is a sharp detour from his campaign promises and a divergent movement from his first actions taken as President. Obama has performed a full circle U-turn and reinstated the military commissions organizations (that he originally closed shop on) that were overseeing the Guantanamo Bay prisoner tribunals. They will have an Obama flavor in their oversight but that is too be expected. The important part is that the terror suspects will not be released into mainland USA and that they will not be clogging up our already overworked national legal system. And though many of his supporters, like the ACLU, are already screaming foul – for the moment, I will actually give Obama an Atta-Boy for this decision.

Nancy Pelosi – “She Knows Nothing” – LOL

And if you believe that – I got this bridge crossing the Rock River that I can give you a great cash deal on! A real bargain!

According to a CNN story- an individual close to Speaker of the House Nancy “I Saw Nothing-I Heard Nothing –I Know Nothing” Pelosi says; that Pelosi actually did know about the waterboard interrogation tactics used by the Bush administration – at least as far back as 2003. Oops, did the cock just crow three times? Pelosi and other Democrat leaders have vomited an endless amount of hatred vilifying G.W. Bush, for allowing the use of harsh interrogation techniques on terrorists, in the Democrat effort to take control of the US government over the last few elections since 9-11. Yet more and more new evidence continues to show that, Nancy Pelosi, a major leader of the Democrat Party and the Speaker of the US House of Representatives (Just two stopped hearts away from the throne of the USA Presidency!) was far more aware of the Bush tactics than she has been publicly admitting. And you can bet what she knew – most other politicians, in positions of power within the Democrat Party, also knew about what was going on in the terrorist interrogations. Nor did Pelosi and her band of power players display any real interest in stopping the interrogation tactics. Yet she and the Democrat party have been extremely busy using the interrogation techniques to vilify the Bush administration and the interrogators that were working to protect this country from further terrorist attacks. Why should they have stopped the interrogations? After all the tactics were working and helping make our country safer from terrorists attacks. And since the Bush administration preferred to keep the tactics anonymous and not tip off future terrorist prisoners of the tactics – it was a win-win situation for Pelosi and the Democrat Party. Pelosi and Co. could have their cake and eat it to. They will just call in the political spin-doctors to create a smoke and mirrors distraction distancing them from the events. And their disciples will believe whatever they have to say. What choices do they have – as the real facts would only humiliate their worship of the False Prophet, Barack Obama, and his Democrat Bishops? The Pelosi and Co. Hypocrites can spin the facts and cry “I know nothing” all they want – the facts continue to come out that the Democrat Power Players probably knew most if not all of what was going on inside the interrogations. They just preferred to play political games with the interrogation information to secure power during the elections. Face it America – you all got screwed. You voted for hope and change and the media sold you a jackass in the guise of a unicorn.

Mitt Romney’s Real Adversary – Religious Bigotry

I am not going to pretend that I know whether RNC Michael Steele’s  comments about Mitt Romney was a dig, an analytical assessment or a personal revelation from God. I did not or have I viewed the interview in which they were stated. I have only read some of the analytical comments of Steele’s commentary by commentators. Of what I have read – I have no problem if they are meant as an assessment of Romney’s electibility. That is his job. Here is the rub as I see it. I have no problem with Mitt Romney as a conservative, accepting him as a pro-life candidate (George Bush Sr. was pro-choice until he became VP) or the fact that he is Mormon. But I am not most people. My biggest problem with the Romney campaign was that he came across as the preppy rich kid you could not stand to be around in high school and that does not sell in most places. Still one glaring problem came out before the election and that is – just like JFK had to overcome cultural objections to his Catholic heritage- Romney or any other Mormon candidate will face an uphill climb in being accepted by the USA voting public. If you read the blog commentaries across the blogosphere there was no lack of negativity pointed towards his Mormon heritage. A nationwide across-the-board bigotry towards Mormons was also exposed in a 2008 Yahoo!/AP poll in which 50 % of those responding would have some or great reservations voting for a Mormon. The overall results did kind of surprise me considering how supposedly unbiased liberals most of the Internet population tends to be. Still Mitt should not feel too picked on. The Internet masses were considerably more bigoted towards Muslims (74% would have some or great reservations voting for), Older Americans (63% would have some or great reservations voting for) and Gay Americans (54% would have some or great reservations voting for).  In contrast the cultures which gather the most media headlines about facing bigoted voters in an election women and blacks saw a considerably lower intolerance factor in the poll – Women (25% has some or great reservation about voting for) and Blacks (19% had some or great reservations about voting for). For Mitt Romney to be accepted as a candidate he is going to have to find a way to win over not just Republicans, conservatives and moderates he is going to have to find a way to overcome the religious bigotry held by about fifty percent of All USA American citizens. Mitt Romney’s real adversary is not the liberals, moderates or even fellow conservative politicians. Mitt Romney’s real adversary is the bigotry still held in the hearts of many Americans towards the Mormon faith that crosses the whole political spectrum.

Manny being Manny and A-Rod being A-Rod and MLB is Embarrassed

I was reading the sports pages that are all up in arms about former Boston Red Sox and current LA Dodger MLB player, Manny Ramirez, getting suspended fifty games for failing MLB’s drug testing program. Manny, already known as one of the more eccentric and volatile MLB players in the game,  joins the  growing list of superstar MLB players being exposed and suspended for substance abuse associated with performance enhancement drug usage. The rumor is that Ramirez took MD prescribed fertility substances in order correct a male potency disorder of low testosterone that was probably caused by past steroid usage. Ramirez is claiming he was unaware that the prescribed substance was on the banned list.  Tom Verducci of S.I. is reporting that had Manny went through proper MLB channels he might have gotten permission to use the substance. The suspension makes more sense of the lack of MLB teams chasing Manny and his booming bat during the off-season free agent signings. Not only will Manny miss fifty games but also he will lose over 7 million dollars of his very fat salary over this suspension. Ouch! I personally think the performance enhancement drug policy should be relaxed. Until they are, as the saying goes – you do the crime you do the time and in this case Manny will also do a very large fine.

The timing of Manny’s spanking by MLB could not have been better for Alex Rodriguez. A-Rod was proclaimed several years ago by MLB and the Sports Press as the Golden Boy that would clear up MLB’s embarrassment over the Barry Bonds homerun record - that was tainted by steroid allegations – by surpassing Bonds lifetime HR totals. That went badly for both MLB, the A-Rod worshiping sportswriters and A-Rod as it was soon exposed that A-Rod was a former steroid abuser also. Oops! Yet for some reason I have never understood there seems to be less outrage by the press over A-Rods pursuit of the lifetime homerun record than there was with Bonds chase. I can only assume it has to do with the antagonism between Barry Bonds and the Press throughout his career. Still the latest Golden Boy A-Rod disturbing rumors have nothing to do with performance drug enhancement. Nope- the latest problems revolve around a new book that makes the allegation that A-Rod had a cheaters deal going with some of his player buddies on opposing teams. According to the rumor; the player playing defense would tip the friend batting – of his pitchers pitch selection- in order to fatten up their hitting numbers! Ouch – now that is some nasty allegations! In my book that is far more disturbing than any performance enhancement drug usage allegations. That brings back bad MLB Historical memories of the game-fixing gambling scandals that got several 1919 Chicago White Sox players banned from baseball. Yet the press has stayed relatively quiet about the current A-Rod scandal. I guess the Manny being Manny steroid scandal is more juicy. The A-Rod charges will be hard to prove –but if they are factual, then A-Rod should be banned from MLB and his statistics quarantined.