Sung to the tune of the Oscar Meyer jingle:
Oh, I'm glad that I'm not Anthony Wei – ner,
That is what I'm really glad to say - ay - ayyy.
'Cause if I were Anthony Wei – ner,
I'd be a Commie, pinko, liberal dumbass, loudmouth,
Latte-sipping, limousine-riding, overpaid, undersmart,
Arrogant, disingenuous, fool with a Nepoleonic complex.
I just love poetry. Don't you?
Work with me here while I pretend to be an actual reporter. Not a self-important, politically-incorrect pundit. Nope. An actual reporter such as they puke forth from "J" schools like the University of Missouri, from whence I emanated. I'm going to try to play against type from my normal nasty, snarky, snide, sarcastic, opinionated little self and do what my good friend the Pot Stirrer suggested and report on the facts as I witnessed them recently. So, fair citizen, sit back, open up a Bud, or the adult beverage equivalent of your choice, and let's consider the situation together…
For those of you who don't know, the Chuckmeister has been a happy, loyal and productive resident of the wonderful little city of Costa Mesa, California, for more than 35 years. Mrs. Chuckmeister, too, and all the little Chuckmeisters we've produced along the way. It suits me and my family just fine. Along with another 117,000 or so residents, it appears. Of late, Costa Mesa has found itself embroiled in a monumental controversy that threatens to tear our tight-knit little town apart. Some background for the unanointed out there in Digitalville…
Over the past few years the City has suffered diminished revenues due to a painful recession, which reduced sales tax receipts, and increased expenditures due to ever-escalating costs of operation. The biggest of those costs has been and will be employee labor and healthcare benefits, and the pension contributions that go along with it. Our city budget is down about 20% from its high a few years back and our costs for people is now consuming nearly 85% of all revenues. Data published by the City indicates that over 90% of our public employees earn more than $100,000 per year. A side effect has been a serious reduction in infrastructure expenditures such as for parks, curbs, gutters and street repair. We've burned through more than $30 million of our savings during the past five years and are now $1.5 million short in balancing the 2011- 2012 budget. The Bottom Line: Something had to be done.
The new City Council majority chose to attack the problem this past March 17th by giving layoff notices to nearly half of Costa Mesa's 472 employees. This did not make those who received the pink slips happy. It made their union bosses even less happy. And, sadly, one of those employees chose to take his own life in the aftermath. It also angered a fair percentage of our citizenry, who believe that this action was taken precipitously and without sufficient prior discussion and planning. Since then there's been an ongoing war between the Orange County Employee's Association (OCEA), the union representing the laid-off workers, and the Council majority and City management, who are attempting to outsource the services these folks have been providing. The Union has since sponsored numerous events to try and change the Council's mind, which have on occasion resulted in picketing, yelling, name-calling, personal attacks and threats, as well as a very negative advertising campaign. A group has been formed to try and stop the layoffs, and another has been created to show support for the Council majority's decision. In short, it's a colossal mess and one not likely to be resolved anytime soon.
With this background now provided, let me tell you about a phone call I received last week.
A woman identifying herself as "Monica" was on the phone. She said she was calling from "California Opinion Research" and asked if I would answer a few important questions about a subject that may appear on the ballot during a special election this November. I agreed to participate. I was not expecting what then ensued.
It became immediately apparent that the questions the lady was asking me were clearly of a type known as "push polling." For those not familiar with this term, push poll questions are phrased in such a way as to elicit the desired response. The questions are designed to educate (or indoctrinate) the respondent so that the desired answer to the various questions will be given. An example of such a technique could be, "If you were told that your next door neighbor had stopped beating his wife, would you be a) very happy, b) happy, c) sad, or d) neutral in your feelings." The questions coming at me from Ms. Monica were nearly that transparent. And, by the way, I spent 35 years as a marketing, sales, advertising and P.R. exec, so I'm pretty well versed on the subject.
The poll in my opinion had been bought and paid for by the OCEA. I was even asked if I'd seen the Repair Costa Mesa ads appearing in the paper and on the Internet that they were proudly sponsoring, so I'm comfortable in drawing this conclusion. I answered in the affirmative, commenting that these Internet and newspaper ads were so ubiquitous they would be hard to avoid. Paraphrasing, I was asked questions such as, "If you were told that the top five executives in Costa Mesa paid themselves more than $1.5 million last year and were given more than $50,000 in car allowances, would you approve or disapprove?" A little research tells me that this salary number is inflated by about 300%. And, "If you were told your City's executives had spent $10,000 for carpeting in its executive offices, how would you feel?" We know, and the Union knows, that the carpet and other improvement to the CEO's office cost at most a few hundred dollars and were donated by some of our citizens who wished to make the new CEO feel welcome. And also, "If you were told that 18 city services were being outsourced and half the City's employees were being fired, but that the City's management continues to pay themselves lush salaries and perks, would you be okay with that?" Oh well, you get the idea.
Several questions later I was asked whether I approved or disapproved of the Council majority who voted for the outsourcing plan. I was asked to evaluate and approve or disapprove of each of the four Councilpersons in the majority, one at a time, and then asked if I would vote to recall any or all. I asked the caller if there was a question as to whether I would vote to recall the lone Council person who chose to vote against this plan, as inclusion of this question would tend to make the poll more balanced. I was told that wasn't part of the survey. I was then asked a series of questions about my age and educational level. Surprisingly, I was then asked to state my race. I inquired as to why she needed to know the answer to this question. The caller would not answer and continued to ask the question in a variety of ways until she became convinced I had no intention of answering it.
I then asked the caller where California Opinion Research was located. She said, "California." Cute. She would not supply the address or the city, nor would she tell me who paid for the survey to be conducted, although it was glaringly apparent which organization was behind this very misleading exercise.
I would warn my fellow Costa Mesa residents to be wary of the results of this survey if and when they're made public. By the push polled questions I was asked, they will most assuredly be found uniformly favorable to the employees' union and to their efforts to overturn the Council's outsourcing plans, and uniformly unfavorable to the Council majority's efforts, whether or not those efforts are misguided, to put our City on firm financial footing. They will likely use these suspect results in an effort to underpin a fall recall election geared toward the two members of the Council majority the survey indicates are most vulnerable. Push polling of this type is dishonest and should not be conducted by either side in this controversy. I recommend that the City immediately seek to conduct its own poll in an effort to accurately gauge the residents' actual opinions about this important topic in advance of the Union's possible advertising, marketing and public relations onslaught.
Four points in closing: First, Mrs. Chuckmeister received the very same call the next day, indicating that these folks are dedicated to reaching as many as possible with this little campaign. Second, those who have a negative opinion of union bosses and their tactics will have no reason to change their minds following this little exercise. Third, both sides of this food fight should be held accountable by the electorate and urged not to engage in this type of conduct. Fourth, I did a Google and Bing search on "California Opinion Research." My computer tells me it does not exist. Makes one wonder where those calls are coming from, doesn't it? The Union's offices, perhaps?
I don't know about you, but I'll make it a point to vote come November.
There may be some of you out there in Digitalville who remain unaware that the Chuckmeister is an ordained minister. Yep, it's true. It took lots of reading and study and living a good clean, moral life (uh, well, sometimes) to achieve this milestone, but I did it. In fact, I've been a Reverend for most of the past 25 years. I obtained this honor with the idea in mind that I might have to start my own church in order to avoid the nasty realities that President Jimmuh Carter was foisting on me and those of you who happened to be alive during his divisive, destructive and demoralizing turn in the White House. You know, like an energy crisis and interminable gas lines and 21% interest and 24% inflation and Iranian hostages and feckless incompetence. Like that.
But, as it turned out I didn't have to. I bought a piece of the Oakland Convention Center and some unreleased Willie Nelson records and a share of a Jojoba bean farm instead to lessen the unrelenting tax bite. Great tax shelters, those. It's an old truism that if you tax those who produce enough, they'll figure a way to keep some of that which they've earned, even if they have to get creative to do it. True then. True now.
But I've been a Reverend in good standing ever since. So, in addition to being a world-class salesman and marketeer, public relations wonderkind, advertising genius, star strategist, classy dresser and stellar professional pool player, as well as possessing a near encyclopedic memory for all things useless and a sense of humor second to none, I am authorized by whichever Democrat Weenie who happens to running California into the ground at the time to conduct weddings. In fact, I've done so more than 300 times over the years, including one of my own daughters, and as far as I know every single couple I've joined in Holy Matrimony are still married. That would be "as far as I know," which isn't terribly far. But I'm also permitted to conduct funerals and Bar Mitzvahs and the Blessing of the Harvest and Druid-style equinox celebrations Roman Bacchanalian soirees and other religious gatherings at will. It turns out that may finally prove helpful.
You may also be as yet unaware that certain religious orders are exempted from having to participate in our boy President's signature new legislation, the "Affordable Care and Screw America to the Wall Forever Healthcare Act of 2009." I'm not sure that's the exact title, but it's close. This little 2,700 page wonder (drop it on your foot and bones will be breaking, trust me) has come to be known as "Obamacare." It basically subsumes one-sixth of our great nation's economy, guarantees European-style socialist healthcare rationing, robs hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare and dumbs down healthcare service delivery to all Americans. All except the D.C. ruling class, don't you know. And the Health and Human Services Department, that bloated Federal organization that Barry has tapped to oversee this behemoth legislation, has thus far granted more than 1,200 waivers to nice folks wishing to opt out of it. Waiver recipients thus far include companies such as McDonalds, unions such as A.C.O.R.N., the AARP and even a couple of our United States. It truly makes one wonder why, if this piece of legislation is so damn good, why would be those who would wish not to participate? Good question. But that's for another discussion.
It turns out also that Obamacare exempts a couple of religious organizations from having to participate. Those would be the Church of Christ (Scientist) and the Amish Order. Why, you might ask? Well, the legislation doesn't state exactly, but we all know that the Church of Christ (Scientist) believes that you can heal whatever ails you with only the power of prayer. No doctors or hospitals needed, thank you. And the Amish don't cotton much to those newfangled things like electricity and cars and doctors. Good for them. Sounds to me like we have the makings here of the perfect way to give the finger to the Administration, HHS and the Government as a whole in one swell foop. So here's my plan…
Ta Da! I am hereby launching the Chuckmeister Church of Christ with Scientific and Amish Leanings (CCCSAL). This new church will have as its charter the belief that medical care obtained as a result of legislation stuffed down our collective throats by Commie Pinko Liberal Dumbass Weenies (CPLDW) is against God and all that is Holy. It also specifies that we should consider praying for the things we both want and need, and we should try getting around via horse and buggy and eschewing electricity whenever possible. BTW, with gas prices through the roof and no new power plants having been built in the past 30 years, we all may have to.
So, by way of this posting I'm formally notifying the Federal Government that my Church and all its members are hereby exempt from participating in Obamacare and anything like it that Barry and the Boys might up with subsequently come (remember, never end a sentence with a preposition!).
"So how do I join, Mr. Chuckmeister?" you might be asking yourself at this very moment. Very simply, just send me a check for $5.00 and I'll add your name to the Church roster and email you with proof so you can give the Feds the bird. Or, if you'd care to be a Minister in my holy quest to right all the world's wrongs, including the wrongs coming our way out of Washington on a daily basis, make it $10.00 and a self-addressed and stamped envelope and you'll be ordained. Poof! You'll receive a very nice (well, not terribly nice) certificate of your ordination by return mail. That's all there is to it. No regular Church services. No regular Church! No meetings, no requirements, no nothing. Just live a good, clean and moral life and obey at least 7 of the 10 Commandments routinely and you'll remain an adherent in good standing.
The Chuckmeister thanks you for your interest in this Public Service Announcement. Go with God, my child…
I begin this posting on April 18th, Tax Day 2011, with a simple economic fact: Unless you operate a Ponzi scheme, or engage in armed robbery or some other form of actionable illegal behavior, you do not get rich by making others poor. Simple, huh? In fact, Sir Winston Churchill had a famous quote on the subject. He said, "Trying to make oneself rich by making a rich man poor is like standing in a bucket and trying to pull yourself up by the handles." An Englishman said that! It would be reasonable to assume that everybody, and I mean everybody, recognizes this pronouncement as fact. Reasonable, yes. Unfortunately, such is not the case.
As we learned from our Campaigner-in-Chief on April 13th, during his most recent "Major Policy Speech of the Week," the wealthy in this country aren't paying their fair share. They need to pay more so that Obama can redistribute it according to his progressive agenda. After all, he said, they can afford it. No matter that the top 1% of wage earners in America pays nearly 40% of all income taxes. And the top 5% pay more than 70%. And the bottom 53% pay only 3% of all income taxes collected. Pay attention Mr. and Mrs. and Ms. America, 47% of Americans pay no income tax at all! In fact, many get a redistribution check from the Feds due to "Earned Income Tax Credits" and other exemptions and deferments. No, the "rich" aren't paying enough according to Obama, and he intends to almost (actually, not almost…not even close) balance our Federal budget in the next 12 years by imposing on millionaires and billionaires increased taxes while simultaneously reducing or eliminating altogether their onerous, unearned and unfair deductions which they should never have been granted in the first place by those evil Republicans. And by "millionaires and billionaires" he means individuals making $200k a year and married couples pulling down $250k per annum. That oughta' fix them. Oh, and by the way, talk about the "marriage penalty." Two people living together and pooling their incomes could earn $399,999 per year in total before being hit with Obama's new tax sledgehammer. Yet, two folks who are married can only earn up to $249,999. Is anybody out there paying attention but me?
So, in summation, those slimy capitalists are trying to keep too much of the money they've earned, and they need to be punished! Class Warfare! Those of you who believe this would be a good idea, consider the following:
80% of those earning $200,000 per year, the threshold at which one becomes "rich" according to Obama, operate small businesses incorporated under sub-chapter S of the income tax code. That means what they earn via their company passes directly through to them personally, and then they are taxed on that profit. If we as a country take more of the money through taxation these entrepreneurs earn, that will necessarily leave them with less to reinvest in their businesses, and less to pay those they might hire. In other words, the less they're left with the less they have to plow back into their businesses and, indirectly, into our Country. If that extra money is confiscated by the Government so that it may be redistributed according to some leftist ideology, it cannot be used to create the jobs we sorely need to get us out of this recession. Of course, those running things in D.C. who have never created a job, managed a business, signed a check on its face or struggled to meet a payroll, including our brilliant young President and 93% of the very nice folks in his Cabinet, seem to be ignorant of this fact. One should consider that if 100% of the incomes of all Americans earning over $250k were confiscated by Obama and Company, it would still not be enough to erase our 2010 – 2011 Federal deficit of $1.65 Trillion. In fact, it would take 134% of the incomes of those in the top tax rate to bring $1 Trillion Dollars into the Treasury,(1) still leaving us with a $650 Billion deficit. The tax burden of the top 1% of taxpayers now exceeds that paid by the bottom 95%.(2) Enlightening?
Oh, and by the way, 75% of all the jobs in America come from small business. A small business is defined as those with up to 250 employees. Three quarters, folks. 3 out of 4. Does raping the earnings of the creators and maintainers of these jobs make a little less sense now?
Bill Gates did not become a multi-billionaire by taking those billions from others. He became rich by creating something others want and are willing to pay for. Steve Jobs did the very same thing. He created wealth by creating value. And in the process he created jobs (Jobs creates jobs, get it?). Thousands of them. Don't want an iPad? Don't buy one. The guy who invented microchips got rich, and as a result, many, many tens of thousands of others did the same using that basic technology to create a myriad of other products and services. And our lives were improved in the process. And newly-created taxes gushed into the Treasury as a result. They still do. Snoop Doggy Doo earns millions by making a fool of himself. But he does not earn those millions off the labor of others. He makes it by uttering unintelligible (c)rap. When he makes money others don't lose it. So should Gates and Jobs and Doggy Doo pay more taxes even though they're already bearing the lion's share of all taxes paid? Obama says an emphatic "Yes." And those in his little downstream redistribution club agree with him.
Should Obama be successful in raising taxes on the highest income earners in our country, I predict that no additional revenue will be raised. In fact, less money should be coming over the transom than is presently being collected. Why, Mr. Chuckmeister, you might ask? The top earners among us didn't get that way by being stupid. Tax them too much and they'll do exactly the same thing they did while Jimmuh Carter was screwing up America. They'll involve themselves in tax avoidance schemes to minimize the tax bite. They'll invest in pieces of Jojoba bean farms, unreleased Willie Nelson records, wind and solar generation plants, art investment/depreciation programs and sale/leasebacks of government buildings, etc. Or they'll engage in bartering, trading something they have or make for something else they need or want, taking that transaction off the IRS radar. It worked then and, with the help of some able accountants, it'll work again. The Bottom Line is, lower tax rates and increase tax revenues. Reagan and Bush's 1 and 2 proved it. I hope the next president is smart enough to prove it again. And hopefully, soon.
I say Obama's position on this issue proves one thing for sure: Having an Occidental and Columbia and Harvard education and having worked hard for several weeks as a Community Organizer for A.C.O.R.N. signing up folks to vote Democrat does not make one a qualified economist. In fact, I believe it proves that this fellow doesn't even know what he doesn't know. But he has been given the keys to our lives and our Treasury by a bare majority of our citizenry. They will all feel better if some extra taxation is extracted from the productive in our society, just because the "rich" can afford it. And they want it. And they're going to get it. And just because they seem to believe that these folks got "rich" by luck or thievery rather than hard work and the willingness to take risks. Keep it up, all you lefties, and watch as those who are growing weary of being picked clean by our society's Professional Leaches vote with their feet and take their money and their jobs (no, not Steve) to Costa Rica, the Panama Canal or the Cayman Islands, leaving no one here in Astlan to create jobs and pay the bills but sign twirlers and Starbucks' Baristas.
Somebody ought to tell Obama that he's making a bigger fool of himself than Doggy Doo. Given that he's surrounded himself with ideologues even less qualified than he is, if that's at all possible, I somehow doubt that's going to happen any time soon.
Oh, and by the way, yes, the Chuckmeister is a graduate economist.
NASA's website states its "…mission is to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautic research."
It used to be anyway. I think that its website should be updated a bit following revelations revealed in Charles Bolden's June, 2010 speech in Egypt. Mr. Bolden is NASA's Administrator and he was being interviewed by Al Jazeera TV on the one year anniversary of President Obama's Cairo speech. Mr. Bolden had some very interesting things to say about NASA's new mission. Bolden stated that he had been called in by Obama and told that "…NASA's foremost duty is to make Muslims feel good about themselves." He was told to help them boost their self-esteem. He was told to reach out to the Muslim world and honor their historic contributions in science, math and engineering. Bolden went on to state that "NASA is not only a space exploration agency. It's also an earth improvement agency." Well isn't that special.
It's good that NASA has this new task on its plate, because the Obama Administration has drastically cut its budget, which has resulted in the cancellation of virtually all manned space flights. That includes the development of the next rocket which was supposed to take mankind back to the moon. And now with the end of the Space Shuttle program in view, it seems NASA will now morph into a Muslim outreach program. I wonder how that makes the engineers and scientists working for NASA feel? I wonder how it negatively impacts the hundreds of thousands of jobs dependent on space exploration, many of them in California. I wonder if NASA now stands for National Arab Sensitivity Association.
And considering that the International Space Station was built using mostly American money and manufacturing, one has to wonder how we're going to send our astronauts back and forth? Fear not, good friends, we have the answer. Russia, that paragon of virtue, has offered to help. At a price, of course.
We have a contract with the Russians to rocket our folks to the ISS for only $56,000,000.00 per chair. And starting in 2014, the price goes to $63,000,000.00 per ride. I guess when you have a monopoly you can charge whatever you want. And we have a Government which, in a short-sighted decision, has given them that monopoly. I guess it costs less to improve Muslim self-esteem than it does to fire rockets into space. I don't know about you, but I'd prefer our continued investment in space exploration, even if it means that our Muslim friends have a little less self-esteem.
I think everyone who's been paying attention knows President Barack Hussein Obama is against the private ownership of weapons of any kind, and especially handguns. He's from Chicago, after all, a town which has effectively banned almost all guns for nearly 40 years. And so is Attorney General Eric Holder, ex-White House Advisor David Axelrod and ex-Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, all from Chicago. And although not from Chicago, so is State Department Secretary Hillary Clinton. And let's not forget the two newest Supreme Court Justices, Sonja Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Both opined during their Senate confirmation hearings the identical, and presumably coordinated, notion that private ownership of handguns is "settled law," and then voted against the private ownership of handguns at their very first opportunity.
Clearly, the folks running things in D.C. are anti-gun in the first degree. Sadly. And just last week Obama stated that we had to find "…some new way to verify at the point of sale that those who shouldn't be permitted…" to buy a weapon were kept from doing so. Some new way. I guess this law professor isn't aware there are literally hundreds of local, county, state and Federal laws which insure just that. Billy Jeff Clinton did his best to gut the 2nd Amendment when he was POTUS, without success. But, unlike Obama, he didn't have virtually every Chicago pol working with him in D.C. helping him to do so. And as this is written Hillary is actively working with the U.N to enact a worldwide treaty to outlaw virtually all small arms. If passed, this treaty would, for the very first time in history, render our Constitution subservient to the United Nations and effectively erase our 2nd Amendment guarantees. So what's Obama willing to do to try to do to steal even more of our liberties? You just won't believe it. Read on…
Hillary Rodham Clinton has repeatedly stated her belief that guns were being bought in the U.S. from complicit gun stores and smuggled into Mexico, helping to fuel drug cartel violence there. Mexico's President Calderon has agreed with her. So have Obama and Holder. So the question must have been, how do they validate this theory? Simple. In order to make sure this so-called "iron pipeline" really exists, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) allowed nearly 2,000 firearms over a 15 month period to go from gun dealers in the border states to straw buyers that were the accomplices of a gun runner ring set up by the ATF. In other words, in order to prove that guns were making their way from the U.S. into Mexico, they set up a program to make sure that guns were making their way from the U.S. into Mexico! They called it "Operation Fast and Furious." It was known internally as "Operation Gun Walker," because ATF agents were calmly watching the guns "walk" across the border.
Gun store owners repeatedly contacted ATF with fears that purchasers of multiple weapons, especially so-called "assault" weapons, were being transshipped into Mexico. They were told not to worry and continue selling these weapons. These straw buyers were under surveillance, they were told. And they were…by ATF, who watched as at least 1,759 guns, and as many as 3,000, made their way south. The ATF's plan, I surmise, and presumably the Administration, was to bust a drug ring or two and find loads of black rifles which would then be traced back to the U.S. gun dealers. This would provide "proof" that our laws were lax and should be seriously stiffened, unfairly harming honest gun dealers, perhaps putting them out of business, and further gutting the 2nd Amendment. What they weren't counting on, I'm sure, was that two of these assault rifles were found at the scene of U.S. Border Agent Brian Terry's death on December 14, 2010. They were subsequently traced back to ATF Gun Walker sales. Others were found near the murdered body of Border Agent Jaime Zapata this past February. ATF has acknowledged that 195 weapons sold in Arizona under their surveillance have turned up in Mexico. Mexican authorities have said they believe that at least 150 Mexicans have died due to these guns.
So how do we know all this is true? It was reported on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric. A CBS investigative journalism unit videoed gun sales taking place while ATF watched. They then observed these same guns being transferred from one car trunk to another, and then on across the Border. This evidence has caused an international furor, sparking investigations in both Mexico and the U.S. Mexico is more than miffed, considering they were not told in advance this action was to occur. Sen. Grassley and Rep. Darrell Issa have launched investigations in their respective bodies, as have their counterparts in Mexico. Atty. General Holder has commented that this activity is simply "unacceptable." I would tend to agree. However, I'm fairly sure this whole fiasco wouldn't have happened without his – and likely the President's - direct authorization and knowledge.
Put simply, this activity was criminal, and those responsible should be indicted, tried and convicted. But worse is the fact that this action was a clear-cut Act of War on our neighbor to the south. Having this astoundingly stupid and illegal activity see the light of day, it makes one wonder what else our Government is doing to erode our civil rights. Considering those in charge in D.C. were schooled in doing things "The Chicago Way," I'm pretty sure there's nothing they wouldn't do to remake America according to their warped leftist sensibilities. Those of us who believe what the 2nd Amendment's 27 little words have to say know we're in for a rough couple of years until we get a chance to rid ourselves of these ideologues. I fear for our Country. You should as well.
I just had an epiphany. I conjured up a possible solution to the current impasse between the Republican-held governorships, Assemblies and Senates in Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana, and to an extent New Jersey and Florida, and no doubt others to come, and the public-sector unions in those states.
It seems that the majority of our states are constitutionally required to balance their budgets each and every year. And the recession has made it inordinately difficult to do so of late. We in California know all about that. Since Arnie the Governator promised to "blow up the boxes," California has somehow (mis)managed to go in the toilet to the tune of more than $150 Billion Dollars. That, by the way, is a reeeaaalllllllyyyy big number. But unlike in California, the new governors in the states above listed have begun making the tough choices necessary to save the billions they're upside down. In Wisconsin's case, Governor Scott Walker needs to find $3.7 Billion to balance his budget. And to do so, he's dead set on forcing the public sector union members, with the exception of cops and firefighters (one has to wonder why that exception), to cough up slightly more in individual contributions to help pay for their pensions and their health care benefits. But more than that, just like President Carter with Federal employees, he's planning to eliminate their ability to collectively bargain on anything but wages above any annual cost of living increase. The other states are taking similar measures to rid themselves of red ink. All three states have new laws in the hopper which will accomplish these objectives. The unions are not pleased. In fact, they've been picketing and chanting and singing and sloganeering all day, every day since this tussle began. They've turned the stately old WI Capitol Building into a trash heap, resulting in damages exceeding $8,000,000. It kind of makes one wonder just what these irreplaceable, hard-working, middle-class public-sector Americans do for a living which permits them to take two or three weeks off to protest. It seems to me there has to be an answer to this perplexing problem. And I think I've found it.
The public employee union members should simply convert to Islam. Voila! Instantly they would become sacrosanct and off limits. They would be beyond controversy. We would not be able to judge their actions or motivations, or criticize them in any way, because to do so would be hate speech. They would become a protected class, not to be besmirched in the slightest by the media or leftist zealots or those who revere political correctness. And even if they took that conversion to the maximum, embracing polygamy and stoning and wife beating and honor killings, we still wouldn't be able to complain, because that would be racist. If you doubt that, consider what's happening on Capitol Hill. Rep. Pete King, Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, is conducting an inquiry into the growing radicalization of young Muslims. His critics consider this inquiry to be racist. He is being called a bigot and an Islamophobe. His life has been threatened. He's under 24-hour guard. And the dinosaur media is excoriating him for his "McCarthy-style" witch hunt against those nice young Muslims. U. S. Rep. Shiela Jackson Lee, D-TX, has even gone so far as to demand that the KKK be investigated right alongside the Muslims, because, once again, to do otherwise would be racist. How many acts of terror has the KKK carried out recently? Oh, never mind.
So all you public-sector union members out there, the answer couldn't be simpler. Convert to Islam and you'll be forever free to live high on the hog, scrutiny free, especially after you retire, at your neighbors' expense. You're welcome.
