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Posts Tagged → taxpayers

Dear GOP, it’s not about the economy, stupid

If you want to determine a person’s mindset, ask them tough questions. If they dodge those questions, or avoid them altogether, it is a clear signal where their mind is, and is not.

And thus we find the GOPe (Republican Party establishment) folks talking very loudly about the economy. As if that matters when a free America is being burnt to the ground, economy and all, by the Biden Administration and the Democrat Party’s anarchic friends like BLM, the anti-Republican so-called Lincoln Project, RINOs, and Antifa.

America’s most defining characteristic, the rule of law/ equal protection under the law/ equal accountability under the law regardless of station in life, has been utterly blown to smithereens in the past three months by the Biden Administration in coordination with the Washington, DC, administrative state like the FBI, DOJ, BATFE, etc.

Totally innocent Americans across the nation are having their front doors kicked in at 4:00am by heavily armed SWAT teams of FBI agents on made-up charges, brandishing search and seizure warrants out of a Cracker Jack box. These so-called “law enforcement agents” then steal everything of value or of necessity to the family in their home, lock down their bank accounts, and whisk these innocent people away to solitary confinement in jails without access to attorneys or prompt judicial hearings. These people are law-abiding patriots who had the temerity to lawfully assemble and petition their government for one main grievance: The Democrat Party’s theft of the 2020 election, and well, then about the two stolen senate seats in Georgia.

In doing these ultra-violent, over-gunned, unnecessary arrests, the corrupt, un-American, totalitarian message the corrupt Biden Administration and their corrupt administrative state allies at the FBI are sending is Don’t mess with us. We will destroy you. And they mean it, because while none of these innocent political prisoners the FBI is taking away and locking up in darkness have been accused of financial crimes, their bank accounts are being frozen. Which renders the family unable to pay bills, pay their mortgage, pay an attorney to defend them.

And while rifling through these people’s personal things inside their homes, the FBI agents are also taking family computers and tablets used for their small businesses and managing health medications that have zero to do with someone protesting at the US Capitol (The People’s House) on January 6th. The FBI is simply acting in a punitive way, using its huge law enforcement powers to abuse and hurt people because of basic political differences.

I don’t know why it is so hard for the GOP/GOPe to say this, but this FBI & DOJ detonation of the rule of law is the issue in America today. Everything else pales in comparison. Nothing else matters if your own government is using its huge police powers (given to it by We, The People to protect We, The People) to round up innocent citizen We, The People political prisoners, deprive them of their liberties, deprive them of due process, steal their personal property and never return it, and destroy their lives out of a vindictive political difference. Which should never matter to an impartial law enforcement agency, which of course the FBI and DOJ have shown themselves to no longer be; these two rogue agencies are strictly a domestic terror arm of the Democratic Party, used to punish its political enemies.

So hello, earth calling to GOPe, please stop sending out emails about how Joe Biden’s crappy economy is going to cause inflation. Of course Biden’s economy is going to be a disaster. How else do you think the Democrat Party will put as many Americans on the government dole as possible, if not by depriving us of an honest day’s living? Dependency on government handouts is a cornerstone of all tyrannies, as is the dependence on government leniency in law enforcement areas. The Democrat Party and its Washington, DC, minions want us all groveling on our knees, begging for bread and to not be beaten again.

America as we knew it since 1787 ended on January 20th 2021, and now it is up to Americans to re-assert their ownership of the government apparatus that is quickly making a mockery of the most basic tenets of democratic self-rule. We would like some help from the Republican Party in this undertaking. The people who work at the FBI and DOJ are paid by us, the US taxpayers, and they are supposed to work for us, not against us; not as some hired gun meant to terrorize the countryside and bring the population to heel, to get into line and do as we are told by our masters in DC. The FBI’s blatantly unconstitutional behavior does require some political pushback, by someone.

Dear GOPe, it is not about the economy, stupids. Rather, our present situation is about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the very core of being an American, all of which constitutional rights are under direct violent assault by the Biden administration and its taxpayer-paid henchmen at the FBI/DOJ/ US Postal Service/ BATFE etc. Could you Republicans please lend a hand, and help us citizens out of this un-American situation? Or are you guys all in such serious avoidance about the giant alligator that is not yet eating you, but which Sir Winston Churchill once warned will eventually get to you, too?

Months later the actual facts with this FBI-inspired violence remain unknown. Given that the Biden Administration is aggressively facilitating border crossing by criminals and child traffickers, why would the Biden FBI suddenly go after them inside America? This victim was probably a pro America patriot, defending himself against a lawless, politicized FBI assault.

Harrisburg City makes legal mistake after legal mistake

I am a plaintiff in a lawsuit against Mayor Eric Papenfuse and Harrisburg City, over his unwillingness to comply with longstanding state law and remove anti-gun ordinances from the city laws.

Papenfuse is a 1960s-1970s-style liberal, for whom ignoring the law, subverting the law, abandoning the law, undermining the law all represent some vague “Yeah, man!” hippie stand against laws he personally believes are wrong.

The problem with this approach is that once elected to office, a mayor cannot pick and choose which laws to follow or ignore.  The rule of law requires that all laws be upheld equally, or changed through the political process.

Being an elected leader means that you accept the legal and law-making process.  But then again, Papenfuse is an adoring fan of Obama, who also believes that he is a Government of One, able to do whatever he wants, rule by fiat, contrary to democratic norms.

Under Papenfuse’s hippie-fist-in-the-air don’t-have-a-care approach, Harrisburg City is making huge legal mistakes right and left in this lawsuit.

Two days ago, our attorney, Josh Prince, scored a default judgment against the city for $21,000 plus additional costs.  The city lawyers failed to file the correct paper work, failed to correctly fill out the paper work they did file, and missed key deadlines, and so the city failed on many counts to respond in court to legal documents presented to them.

While Papenfuse struts and preens to prove some undemocratic point, the city taxpayers are on the hook for ever increasing amounts of legal fees and judgments.  Eric fails, and the taxpayers here pay for his arrogant attitude.

If this is not failed government, then nothing is.

Voter Access, Public Funding of Private Elections…

I so totally agree with the gist of this opinion piece by our local newspaper of record, the Patriot News:

By Matt Zencey, May 15, 2014

Tuesday is Primary Election Day, and every year when it rolls around, I’m reminded of this unpleasant fact: Tax-paying Pennsylvanians who don’t belong to a political party are forced to help pay for an election in which they are not allowed vote.

You can’t vote for candidates Tuesday unless you are a registered member of a political party that has candidates on the ballot.

I wrote a column last year complaining about this injustice that is inflicted on politically independent Pennsylvanians. It’s a system that isn’t going to change anytime soon, because the power-brokers who make the rules are the same people who benefit from taxpayer subsidies of their party’s candidate selection process.

In last year’s column, I wondered whether this arrangement violates Pennsylvania constitution’s requirement of “free and equal” elections. What’s “equal” about an election, funded by tax dollars, where a duly registered voter has no say in which candidate wins?

Now it’s true, as I wrote back then, that the U.S. Supreme Court clearly says political parties have a First Amendment right to determine who may vote in “their” political primaries.

The question is whether political parties [THAT ARE PRIVATE ENTITIES] have a First Amendment right to force you [THE PUBLIC] to pay for their candidate selection process.

I don’t think so.

If you are going to participate in a primary election that you help pay for, you are forced to affiliate with a political party. That violates your First Amendment rights.

Pennsylvania’s closed primary election delivers a tax-subsidized government benefit to two preferred political organizations – the Democratic and Republican parties.

All of us are paying so they can pick their candidate who will enjoy a huge government privilege – one of two guaranteed spots on the general election ballot. (Pennsylvania law also makes it extraordinarily difficult for a third-party to get its candidates on the ballot.)

It doesn’t have to be this way.

California recently adopted a much fairer primary election system by voter initiative.

All candidates of all parties appear on a ballot available to all registered voters within the relevant district. The top two vote getters move on to the general election in the fall. The winners could be two Republicans, or two Democrats, one of each party. A so-called minor party candidate might even win a spot on the fall ballot.

This way, taxpayers are not forced to subsidize a process that’s stacked in favor of two political parties. And it’s clearly constitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court has explicitly saidthat a non-partisan primary that is open to all voters and allocates spots on the general election ballot falls squarely within the First Amendment.

But good luck getting such a system here in Pennsylvania. Unlike in California, the poo-bahs who hold political power in Pennsylvania have denied voters the power to pass their own laws by statewide initiative.

On this one, we have to try to persuade legislators and the governor to do the right thing and reform a system that has put them in power and keeps them there.

I’m not holding my breath.

Matt Zencey is Deputy Opinion Editor of Pennlive and The Patriot-News. Email mzencey@pennlive.com and on Twitter @MattZencey.

http://www.pennlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/05/is_pennsylvania_closed_primary.html

NPR Goes for Broke on “Palestine”

National Public Radio Goes for Broke on “Palestine”

October 3rd, 2011

by Josh First

American tax dollars continue to fund National Public Radio’s left-wing agenda, one aspect of which is NPR’s aggressively anti-Israel, pro-Arab imperialism messaging.

April 22nd, 2011, saw NPR’s reporters across the board go for broke on the upcoming application for the creation of a second “Palestinian” state, this one planned for Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. The original and primary state that is 78% of the original Palestine Mandate is the current Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, ruled by the carpetbagging family of King Abdullah. In the 1920s, his family was chased out of the Arabian Peninsula by the al-Saud clan, now known as the Saudis. Approximately 80% of the Arabs living in Jordan identify as “Palestinians.”

NPR is no stranger to controversy over the issue of Arab imperialism and colonialism in the Holy Land. Last year Harrisburg’s local NPR affiliate, WITF, interviewed NPR’s ombudsman, who disclaimed any anti-Israel agenda.

“Critics call NPR ‘National Palestine Radio’, and we reject that, it’s ridiculous,” the ombudsman said in that 2010 interview.

Just months later, NPR’s president Mr. Ron Schiller was filmed making a pitch to supposed Arab donors, during which he bragged that NPR is known for its Leftist bias and known as “National Palestine Radio.” His fundraising ploy was that Arabs should naturally donate to NPR because it is a mouthpiece for their views. He was believable because his assertions about NPR’s Leftist activism have been widely observed and documented for decades.

Schiller promptly resigned from NPR after that film went public, and NPR promptly dropped heavy Israel reporting. Israel had been enormously disproportionately featured in NPR’s reporting for decades, and none of it was positive. After Schiller’s resignation, and the subsequent firing of the NPR vice president (Vivian Schiller, said to be no relation to Ron Schiller) who had been behind much of NPR’s political strong-arming of its reporters, NPR laid low and hid from scrutiny, knowing that it had finally been outed, all on the heels of NPR’s Ellen Weiss being dismissed for firing reporter Juan Williams in 2009. NPR is no stranger to political correctness, well, actually NPR is in the vanguard of it, but with so many firings and scandalous resignations associated with PC, the opinion service quieted down for a while.

Now, months later, NPR sees a unique opportunity to create pressure for the advancement of Islamic imperialism and Arab colonialism through the creation of another “Palestinian” state outside of Jordan, both of which NPR has long, long supported in the Holy Land.

In a September 22nd interview with Susan Rice, the Obama Administration’s United Nations representative, NPR’s interviewer asked question after question that revealed her support for Islamic imperialism and her anti-Israel bias. Even NPR’s late report on finance and the economy that same day featured a story on the supposed “Palestinian” economy.

That fawning report highlighted Arab business people supposedly working in quiet but successful obscurity, and failed to mention any of the enormous challenges facing Arabs in Judea and Samaria who wish to create a new Arab state there. In other words, it was just one more NPR propaganda piece, the kind that NPR executives used for fundraising among anti-Israel donors.

On October 3rd, 2011, incoming NPR CEO Gary Knell called for NPR to be fully funded by U.S. taxpayers and for elected officials to “depoliticize” NPR.

So, according to Knell, NPR is supposed to continue with business as usual, where every single molecule of the daily news is heavily politicized to the Left by NPR staff, but the American taxpayers who subsidize it are supposed to now ignore that and let NPR off the hook. Politicization-as-usual by NPR, but Heaven forefend that Americans raise that lack of balance to a political level where their tax money can be accounted for.

Like his predecessors, Knell either does not understand the problem, or, more likely, he wants to pretend the issues facing NPR are some sort of hoax. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, folks, is the message.

If there was ever a time to apply the Fairness Doctrine, this would be it. It’s a deeply flawed policy that undermines free speech, but when it comes to public money used to spread messages and promote policies that are directly opposed to American interests and policies, NPR is the poster child for its implementation.

Or better yet, disband NPR and return the savings to the taxpayers. There’s no compelling need or reason for NPR to exist any longer. Its inability to maintain journalistic balance is the constant proof of that.