For my Country

Empire Avenue

2011-07-25T21:12:00.000-07:00

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http://www.empireavenue.com/LEEFOX

Teacher, Why Dost Thou Lie?

2011-05-11T09:56:00.000-07:00

California teachers have been going berserk crying loud and long about budget cuts and layoffs. They are bound and determined that you Must pay greater taxes so they can save our schools.

They have been running ads highlighting the 20 Billion in budget cuts to our schools over the last three years and the 30,000 teachers that have been laid off this year.

Just one problem:

They're Lying.

20 Billion in budget cuts?

Here is a graphical representation of the budget trend for K-16 provided by the state controller's office...

See that red line?

See it going up rather than down?

That's pretty much the opposite of a budget cut, don't you think?

Let's move on to the 30,000 lay offs the teachers claim have been made.

It didn't happen. Every one of those teachers is still on the job. (If you can call standing in front of legislator's offices screaming epithets teaching)

What actually happened was that, by law, school districts are required to send out "pink slips" to teachers for Next Year that warn them about potential budget problems for Next Year.

Last year, Lisa Snell at Reason.org issued a good summary of the process and the problems generated by it:

March 17, 2010, 2:08pm
As the AP reports this week, California's budget crisis could cost nearly 22,000 teachers their jobs this year.
State school districts had issued 21,905 pink slips to teachers and other school employees by Monday, the legal deadline for districts to send preliminary layoff notices.
While these numbers are exaggerated because California law mandates that districts can only issue pink slips before March 15th (so districts overstate layoffs and then rescind them later), it is clear that thousands of teachers will be let go in 2010. Therefore, it is critical that we continue to examine how these layoffs effect both teacher quality and cost savings for school districts.
Teachers unions could negotiate less extreme budget saving measures such as wage freezes or pay cuts rather than large layoffs. However, unions have negotiated automatic "step" salary increases years in advance and have been reluctant to freeze these policies even if it means thousands of teachers losing their jobs. In light of this behavior, it is likely that most districts in California will move forward with some teacher layoffs.
In California state law and local collective bargaining agreements dictate that teachers are layed-off on a "last-hired, first fired" system based on seniority. This seniority-based system means that a much larger number of teachers are fired because it takes a larger number of "new" teachers to fill budget gaps than more strategically looking at the entire teacher workforce and laying off teachers based on performance. It also means that students will lose many high-quality teachers that rank lower on the seniority scale.
As education researcher Marguerite argues in ”Seniority-Based Layoffs will Exacerbate Job Loss in Public Education,” to reduce salary expenditures by 10 percent, a district must cut 14.3 percent of the workforce when time served in the district is the driving factor. In this scenario, seniority-based layoffs result in 262,367 more job losses nationwide than seniority-neutral policies. And since teachers make up 51.2 percent of the school workforce, nearly 134,000 of those extra losses would be teachers.
California needs a quality-based layoff system.

While, for good reasons, political ads are not required to be factual, it is disgusting that Teachers, of all people, are willing to engage in such extreme obfuscations and outright lies to protect and grow their power and jumbo sized pay and benefit packages.

You might be a Conservative...

2011-05-05T15:21:00.000-07:00

If, instead of tearing down the rich to make sure everybody is miserable, you'd rather make sure that everybody has unlimited opportunities to make themselves rich...

You might be a Conservative.

If you understand it's self evident human life begins at conception and it's an illogical abomination for a mother to terminate an unborn child for her convenience...

You might be a Conservative.

If you know that America is a sovereign nation and has every right and the inherent duty to protect her citizens from illegal aliens, drug smugglers, human smugglers, criminality and third world diseases by securing her borders and enforcing her laws...

You might be a Conservative.

If you think that Americans have the right to choose their own doctors and health coverage without interference from the government...

You might be a Conservative.

If you think parents should be allowed to make the nutrition decisions for their own children without schools and other government agencies telling them what to feed their kids...

You might be a Conservative.

If you understand that "democracy" means "one man one vote" and that everyone has equality of opportunity and that it does Not mean equality of outcome...

You might be a Conservative.

If you know that a strong military makes America safer and that her veterans are heroes...

You might be a Conservative.

If you know that our founding fathers were on the right track in specifically limiting the powers of government to control your commerce, your religion, your speech, and your guns...

You might be a Conservative.

If you're proud of America and Love her with all your heart...

You might be a Conservative.

True Progressive Hero

2011-04-30T12:06:00.000-07:00

The democrats have begun their "California Democratic State Convention 2011".

They're bragging about providing "live, streaming video of the General Session, including a speech by Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, Attorney General Kamala Harris, and a keynote address by a true progressive hero, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont."

Didja catch that?

They just called Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders a "true progressive hero".

Hero?

Bernie Sanders is as anti-Capitalist, anti-Liberty, anti-American as it gets without wearing an "I Heart Che Guevara" t-shirt.

From Wikipedia:

"" Sanders is a self-described democratic socialist, and has praised European social democracy. He is the first person elected to the U.S. Senate to identify as a socialist. Sanders caucuses with the Democratic Party and is counted as a Democrat for the purposes of committee assignments, but because he does not belong to a formal political party, he appears as an independent on the ballot.

His speeches are laced with anti-business, anti-wealth rhetoric, and cries for social justice that are utterly antithetical to Liberty and the American way of life.

If the democrats consider this fellow a hero, they need a moral, ethical, political, and intellectual enema.

America fought for many decades to defeat the evils of socialism around the globe. Now we must fight these socialist statists and expunge them from our own shores.

Elections Matter

democrat Euphemology

2011-04-23T19:33:00.000-07:00

In no particular order...

Democracy = Equality of Outcome for all citizens.

Living Constitution = democrats get to change the rules as they wish.

Tax Reform = Soak the Rich.

Welfare = The systematic government tool used to make men irrelevant and destroy the nuclear family causing more people to depend on government money and entitlements / democrat voter recruiting tool.

Welfare Reform = Getting more people on Welfare.

Fairness Doctrine = Government tool used to silence conservative media voices.

Doctrine of Responsibility to Protect = A country's sovereignty is a privilege, not a right. Justification used to break ties with Israel and assist radical Islamists attack both Israel and the USA.

Manmade Global Climate Change = The communist hoax perpetrated to inhibit and destroy economic growth as well as villify capitalism.

Global Warming = See Manmade Global Climate Change.

TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) = Slush fund used to funnel cash to unions and protect them from economic downturns / money laundering operation sending campaign contributions (bribes) to democrats via unions.

Budget Reform = Expansion of government spending for entitlement programs while punishing productive citizens with increased taxes.

Entitlement Program = Government welfare system used to weaken individual drive and responsibility and destigmatize dependency on government largess / systematic democrat voter recruiting program.

Wealthy Person = Thief

Corporation = Gathering of thieves.

Women's Health = Abortion on demand.

Abortion = democrat contraception / family planning tool.

Tax Cut = Stealing money from the Treasury and giving it to rich.

Tax Code Expenditure = Tax Cut.

Tax Code Expenditure Reduction = Tax Hike.

Immigration Reform = Amnesty and Citizenship for Illegal Aliens / democrat voter recruiting tool.

If We're Gone Tomorrow...

2011-04-22T09:47:00.000-07:00

Before he died, Charlton Heston called in to the Rush Limbaugh show and read for all of us a bit of Michael Crichton's prologue to Jurassic Park:

"" You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity.

Let me tell you about our planet. Earth is four-and-a-half-billion-years-old. There's been life on it for nearly that long, 3.8 billion years. Bacteria first; later the first multicellular life, then the first complex creatures in the sea, on the land. Then finally the great sweeping ages of animals, the amphibians, the dinosaurs, at last the mammals, each one enduring millions on millions of years, great dynasties of creatures rising, flourishing, dying away -- all this against a background of continuous and violent upheaval. Mountain ranges thrust up, eroded away, cometary impacts, volcano eruptions, oceans rising and falling, whole continents moving, an endless, constant, violent change, colliding, buckling to make mountains over millions of years.

Earth has survived everything in its time. It will certainly survive us.

If all the nuclear weapons in the world went off at once and all the plants, all the animals died and the earth was sizzling hot for a hundred thousand years, life would survive, somewhere: under the soil, frozen in Arctic ice. Sooner or later, when the planet was no longer inhospitable, life would spread again. The evolutionary process would begin again. It might take a few billion years for life to regain its present variety. Of course, it would be very different from what it is now, but the earth would survive our folly, only we would not.

If the ozone layer gets thinner, ultraviolet radiation sears the earth, so what?

Ultraviolet radiation is good for life. It's powerful energy. It promotes mutation, change. Many forms of life will thrive with more UV radiation. Many others will die out. Do you think this is the first time that's happened?

Think about oxygen. Necessary for life now, but oxygen is actually a metabolic poison, a corrosive gas, like fluorine. When oxygen was first produced as a waste product by certain plant cells some three billion years ago, it created a crisis for all other life on earth. Those plants were polluting the environment, exhaling a lethal gas. Earth eventually had an atmosphere incompatible with life. Nevertheless, life on earth took care of itself.

In the thinking of the human being a hundred years is a long time. A hundred years ago we didn't have cars, airplanes, computers, or vaccines. It was a whole different world, but to the earth, a hundred years is nothing.

A million years is nothing.

This planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale. We can't imagine its slow and powerful rhythms, and we haven't got the humility to try. We've been residents here for the blink of an eye.

If we're gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us. ""

"Temporary" Tax "Extensions"?

2011-03-27T10:19:00.000-07:00

Jerry Brown is exhorting Californians to vote to additionally tax themselves and help him "solve" California's budget problems. He and his cronies are attempting to paint those of us that oppose this further destruction of California's ability to attract new business and improve the lives of her citizens by declaring that they are not "allowing" the taxpayers to have their say in a vote on the issue.

How dare anybody stand in the way of the citizens getting a chance to vote!!!

Why should we NOT vote on this absurdity from Jerry Brown and his union bosses?

Nevermind the fact that we already voted on this issue and shot the lefties down two to one.

Nevermind the fact that None of what Gov.Brown is proposing establishes Any fixes for Any of the budget problems we are faced with here in California.

Nevermind the fact that Jerry's "balanced approach" demands Five years of higher taxes (55 billion dollars worth) while offering one 1 year of budget "cuts". A third of those cuts are only reshuffling monies already collected. None of the cuts are permanent, structural cuts.

Jerry will be back next year with the same cries of dire peril and demands for more tax money to feed the public employee unions' ravenous maws.

If this gets on the ballot, Jerry's bosses, the public employee unions, will spend untold millions to tug at every heart-string, highlight every fallacious negative, and put the fear of god into the voters that without the higher taxes, all of California will become a hell hole of uncontrolled fires, destruction, and crime waves.

(He's already started with the fear mongering by cutting programs for mentally disabled school children and claiming that without those higher taxes he will have to further defund programs for the neediest among us.)

And, where will all that money Jerry wants go?

Straight out of the wallets of the taxpayers and into the pockets of the public employee unions.

Anybody paying attention knows public employee union members are already over-paid and over-endowed with platinum retirement and benefits packages that Nobody in the private sector can compete with.

Just One example?

The California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. (one of the largest and most politically powerful state-employee unions) gets Both a defined benefit retirement plan And a 401k plan.

How did they get that amazing boon? Collective bargaining with democrats they pay off to get their say over the objections of informed taxpayers.

Must be nice huh?

The game is fixed and the power hungry public employee unions with their corrupt democrat allies are taking us all to the cleaners.

We do Not need to vote on new taxes as Jerry is trying to scare us into with his lies.

He needs to get a set and tell his bosses in the unions "No" and then guide the democrats into solving California's budget problems without all the bandaids and fake fixes.

Democracy

2011-03-25T11:29:00.000-07:00

When you and I think of democracy we think along the lines of the classic dictionary definition.

Per the Oxford dictionary...

Democracy(de·moc·ra·cy)

Pronunciation:/di'mäkr?se, /

noun (plural democracies)

A system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state , typically through elected representatives:

-Usage example: capitalism and democracy are ascendant in the third world

A state governed by a democracy:

-Usage example: a multiparty democracy

Control of an organization or group by the majority of its members:

-Usage example: the intended extension of industrial democracy

But, since before we vanquished our external enemies and beat the USSR in the cold war, the left has been on a long term mission to coopt our language for their own purposes and destroy us from within.

While democracy has always been meant to be one man, one vote, the left uses the word democracy as a cudgel to knock back any resistance to their advances against freedom. The Oxford dictionary reflects this cynical infection manifesting within our political discourse by adding...

The practice or principles of social equality:

-Usage example: demands for greater democracy

In other words, when the left, especially unions and union activists, cry "Democracy!" and dare you to challenge them in their righteous fight for "rights", they are hiding from you their true intentions.

Just like when the Russians claimed to want "detente", and the media told us they meant "peaceful co-existence", the Russians were happy to let us believe that meant we go our own way and they would leave us be. In actuality, they meant we would have peace after they had conquered us.

Just like Muslims screaming out "Allahu Akbar" before raging into battle, they are happy to let the masses of us believe they are only beatifically saying "god is great". In actuality they are angrily exclaiming that Their god is Greatest and superior to your god.

When the left cries out for democracy, they are not advocating for our hallowed principle of one man, one vote. They are demanding social equality where no person has more than another, where no person can strive to improve their lot in life, where no man stands out from his fellow man in any way.

Well, all except for the leadership of the left. The union bosses will maintain their lavish lifestyles with salaries an order of magnitude or more than the "worker".

Democracy is just one word the left is coopting and converting to a euphemism that has wholely different meaning than what we have traditionally known it to be. The next time you watch another rabid unionista rally and you hear them shout out some tripe about "rights" know that they do not mean rights as Americans grew up knowing them. For example...

Unionized public employees buying off democrat legislators with union dues in order to get more salary and benefits, including union dues, (wash, rinse, repeat) is not a "right". It's corruption and a fatal, unsustainable abuse of our democratic process. And who pays for all that greed, depravity, and fraud?

You, the taxpayer.

Redefining our language is a major tool socialists use to beat us back from daring to challenge them in their advance against us as we try to defend Freedom.

Do not be decieved or lulled into inaction, the left is coming for you and your freedoms. It's past time to inform and arm ourselves with the knowledge of the left's true intentions. Not doing so allows the left to run roughshod over us and they have nobody's best interests at heart but their own.

It's time to stand up and irrevocably tell these socialist thugs and their mentally bankrupt converts, "No, we are not fooled by you and you shall take no more from us."

2011-03-24T19:51:00.000-07:00

Anonymous Update

2010-11-05T11:41:00.000-07:00

I gave you a heads up about "Anonymous" and their attacks on the RIAA.

Now they've gone after the US government directly...

""After hitting riaa.org during the weekend, Anonymous members have turned their attention towards the United States Copyright Office and are currently coordinating a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against its website.""

More Details Here.

Green Jobs = Boondoggle?

2010-11-04T15:45:00.000-07:00

Back in September of 2009, Democrat President Barack Obama's administration announced $535 million in taxpayer guaranteed loans to finance construction of a new solar-equipment factory by a company called Solyndra in Freemont California.

Obama and RINO Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger hailed the loans and new plant plans as evidence of how green jobs were the wave of the future.

Well...

As is typical of the promises by the left of new green jobs that will save our economy even as CARB demands that prices for all energy generated by 'non-green' sources be raised to force people to accept the new technologies whether they are cost effective or not, Solyndra is slashing their plans.

They are cancelling their new factory that was supposed to provide a thousand green jobs and they are laying off over 150 additional people from their still existing facility.

Why?

They can't compete with cheap chinese solar panels.

So, AB32 will not only destroy 100's of thousands of existing 'non-green' jobs in California and chase uncountable new employers away from the state, the green jobs it does create will be overseas in communist / totalitarian countries.

A democrat's utopian dream.

Neat, huh?

More Info.

And Here.

And Here

Communists/Leftists/Progressives

2010-11-02T12:07:00.001-07:00

Those on the far left do not believe in individual property rights. All should be free for all. When you dare demand that you be paid for what you create they lash out at you in every vile way you can imagine.

Case in point:

Limewire, a long time file sharing site, was taken to court by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) for copyright violations. Limewire helped people steal data (songs) by setting up peer to peer (P2P) file networks in which members could browse the files of other users and freely download them without any payment to the artists/creators of any kind.

The courts finally ruled in the RIAA's (artists and creators) favor and ordered Limewire shut down. That's when the offended leftists started striking out at the rest of us. They hacked the RIAA's website and shut it down. They also proceeded to publish their 'manifesto' in which they declared the RIAA to be the criminals for having restricted the "free flow of information".

The leftists (Calling themselves "Anonymous") also went to the next level and published personal info for both the head of the RIAA and his wife, including their personal home address.

What's next? Stalking? Physical assaults? Assassinations?

Make no mistake. These criminals on the left are Dangerous. They have no compunction against destroying the lives of those that wish to protect the rights of the rest of us.

What can be done?

Firstly, we need to make sure our children understand what's at stake. Freedom and the Free Enterprise system we all live and grow in. In other words, Our Way of Life.

Secondly, we need to find and prosecute these self righteous criminals to the fullest extent possible.

Thirdly, stay vigilant.

We cannot afford to allow the left to have their way if we wish to remain a Free people.

Go Here for more info.

Green Jobs

2010-10-26T07:53:00.000-07:00

One of the justifications that Jerry Brown and other leftist nuts make for destroying jobs with AB32 (The Global Warming Final Solutions Act) is that it will create "green" jobs and shift our economy away from dependence on fossil fuels.

As is typical of those on the left, they purposely ignore the easy-peasy solution to the problem of green job creation that is hugely obvious if you are even marginally paying attention.

Taxes.

The tax code is used by government to control behavior. Activities the government wants to see less of are penalized with greater taxes. Activities the government wants to see more of are taxed less and often subsidized with taxpayer dollars.

If we want to give green jobs a chance at accelerated growth and a shot at competing with oil, coal, etc., all we have to do is give them tax breaks.

Let's go whole hog. Allow, for a full decade, green startups that create three or more jobs to completely write off all of their taxes.

It's precisely that simple.

We would avoid cutting the throat of the rest of the economy while enabling 'green' companies the shot at the market they, and the left, say they need.

Who's in Charge?

2010-10-26T07:21:00.000-07:00

As Obama crisscrosses the country puking his poisonous pablum blaming George Bush and the Republicans for all the world's ills during the last decade, it becomes clear that George Bush is still in charge.

To quote an insightful post from an NPR blog...

George Bush, who doesn't have a vote in Congress and who no longer occupies the White House, is to blame for it all.

He broke Obama's promise to put all bills on the White House web site for five days before signing them.

He broke Obama's promise to have the congressional health care negotiations broadcast live on C-SPAN.

He broke Obama's promise to end earmarks.

He broke Obama's promise to keep unemployment from rising above 8 percent.

He broke Obama's promise to close the detention center at Guantanamo in the first year.

He broke Obama's promise to make peace with direct, no precondition talks, with America's most hate-filled enemies during his first year in office, ushering in a new era of global cooperation.

He broke Obama's promise to end the hiring of former lobbyists into high White House jobs.

If only George Bush wasn't still in charge, all of President Obama's problems would be solved. His promises would have been kept, the economy would be back on track, Iran would have stopped its work on developing a nuclear bomb and would be negotiating a peace treaty with Israel. North Korea would have ended its tyrannical regime, and integrity would have been restored to the federal government.

Oh, and did I mention what it would be like if the Democrats, under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, didn't have the heavy yoke of George Bush around their necks? There would be no ear marks, no closed-door drafting of bills, no increase in deficit spending, no special-interest influence (unions), no vote buying (Nebraska, Louisiana).

If only George Bush wasn't still in charge, we'd have real change by now.

All the broken promises, all the failed legislation and delay (health care reform, immigration reform) is not President Obama's fault or the fault of the Democrat-controlled Congress. It's all George Bush's fault.

Take for example the decision of Eric Holder, the president's attorney general, to hold terrorists' trials in New York City. Or his decision to try the Christmas Day underpants bomber as a civilian.

Two disastrous decisions.

Certainly those were bad judgments based on poor advice from George Bush.

Need more proof?

You might recall that when Scott Brown won last month's election to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts, capturing "the Ted Kennedy seat," President Obama said that Brown's victory was the result of the same voter anger that propelled Obama into office in 2008. People were still angry about George Bush and the policies of the past 10 years and they wanted change.

Yes, according to the president, the voter rebellion in Massachusetts last month was George Bush's fault.

Therefore, in retaliation, they elected a Republican to the Ted Kennedy seat, ending a half-century of domination by Democrats.

It is all George Bush's fault.

Jerry Admits Lying

2010-10-25T22:00:00.000-07:00

Pretty much says it all, don't you think?

Jerry Brown

2010-10-23T14:42:00.000-07:00

At the moment it looks like California is about to take a major step backwards and put Jerry Brown back in the Governor's seat.

His opponent, Meg Whitman, has been weak, but, that's another issue.

How can Californians want to have the same guy that so cold heartedly supported the loss of homes by Californians across the state as he opposed Prop 13?

How could Californians want to have the same guy that enabled state employees to unionize by signing into law their ability to engage in collective bargaining? We are still paying for that mistake and we will continue to pay for it for generations to come.

How could Californians want to have the same guy that appointed Rose Bird to the California Supreme Court? (The first California appellate judge in California history to be denied reconfirmation by voters due to her rabid anti-death penalty stance.)

What does he want to do now?

Well, while he was the Attorney General he utterly failed to investigate his friends on the California Air Resources Board (CARB) as they purposely used known bad data to come up with new, restrictive regulations that have already cost California thousands of jobs.

Now, he wants to go all in and demand that California fully implement all of the CARB recommendations and regulations that he claims will create a new green economy in California under the direction of the unaccountable CARB and their AB 32, The Global Warming Final Solutions Act.

Nevermind the Fact that man made global climate change is a tragic hoax. AB 32 and the CARB will cost California jobs. Hundreds of thousands of jobs. At least one study is predicting the loss of 1.3 million jobs in California due to AB 32 over the next ten years. (500,000 of those in the next two years.)

We are already enduring an unemployment rate of over 12% in California. Are we really willing to endure the death of the dreams of so many Californians?

No jobs = No California worth living in.

Jerry Brown claims that we will replace all those intentionally lost jobs with new, green jobs.

We're going to replace 1.3 million lost jobs with green jobs in ten years? It's a sad fantasy without basis in reality.

Spain already tried forcing the market to create "green" jobs.

They spent tens of thousands of dollars for every green job they "created" and for every one of those green jobs they Lost 2.2 regular jobs.

Even worse, most of those new green jobs were not permanent jobs.

The government cannot effectively create or manage an economy.

Any product, job, or service that requires a government subsidy to survive is not viable.

All the government can do is get the heck out of the way and let the free market do its thing.

Does Jerry Brown agree that we should all have the right to self determination and that the government should keep its grubby paws out of the way?

No.

Jerry Brown as the next Governor of California is a calamity in the making.

Welcome!

2010-10-23T14:33:00.000-07:00

Here you will find occasional rants by yours truly, Lee Fox.

Why?

Because, some things just need to be said.

Will you enjoy it?

We'll see.

Will you agree?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Let's get started, shall we?