Russel Posts

Sometimes you just can't make this shit up.  Here's your Voter Fraud - involving false registration by an OC Republican elected official.

The Chair of the California State Senate Committee on Legislative Ethics is Orange County State Senator Mimi Walters.

After legislative redistricting, State Senator Walters chose to run in a neighboring district, and registered to vote at a 570 square foot studio apartment in Irvine.

One problem. Mimi, her husband and their four kids continue to live in their 14,000 square foot home in Laguna Niguel in a gated community that is not in her new district

And there's a pesky law that you must actually live in the district. Mimi swore that she did, under penalty of perjury.

Today her opponent, Democrat Steve Young, filed suit with Secretary of State Deborah Bowen to have Mimi's name removed from the ballot.

You can read about it at the local blog Orange Juice or at the right-wing OC Register.

The lawsuit asks that Walters' name be removed from the ballot. Under the new jungle primary rules in California, there is no provision for replacing her by the local Republican party.

If the law is successful, it could prove pivotal in the effort to get a 2/3 vote in the State Senate, a move that could eliminate the ability for Republicans to obstruct certain votes where a super majority is required.

Below the squiggle, you can see the aerial shot of her home at 3 Inspiration Point in Laguna Niguel.

Sometimes you just can't make this shit up.  Here's your Voter Fraud - involving false registration by an OC Republican elected official.

The Chair of the California State Senate Committee on Legislative Ethics is Orange County State Senator Mimi Walters.

After legislative redistricting, State Senator Walters chose to run in a neighboring district, and registered to vote at a 570 square foot studio apartment in Irvine.

One problem. Mimi, her husband and their four kids continue to live in their 14,000 square foot home in Laguna Niguel in a gated community that is not in her new district

And there's a pesky law that you must actually live in the district. Mimi swore that she did, under penalty of perjury.

Today her opponent, Democrat Steve Young, filed suit with Secretary of State Deborah Bowen to have Mimi's name removed from the ballot.

You can read about it at the local blog Orange Juice or at the right-wing OC Register.

The lawsuit asks that Walters' name be removed from the ballot. Under the new jungle primary rules in California, there is no provision for replacing her by the local Republican party.

If the law is successful, it could prove pivotal in the effort to get a 2/3 vote in the State Senate, a move that could eliminate the ability for Republicans to obstruct certain votes where a super majority is required.

Below the squiggle, you can see the aerial shot of her home at 3 Inspiration Point in Laguna Niguel.

The two major political parties have a lock on power in the United States.  The election laws, the media and family voting patterns all collude to make the election of a third party candidate to the Presidency a near impossibility.  The closest in the lifetime of anyone reading this happened in 1992 when Ross Perot garnered 18.91% of the vote and not one electoral vote.  He has long been blamed for causing the defeat of Bush the Elder and the election of Clinton the Last.  Whether Mr. Perot did have such a dramatic effect on the presidential election is still debated.  Just as in most theological debates both sides offer well-constructed arguments supported by what they consider irrefutable scripture references or in this case, the life's blood of political statements: statistics.

One certainty that cannot be debated is that Perot did not have an honest man's chance in Washington to be elected.

Consequently either Barak Obama will continue as America's president or he will be unseated and Mitt Romney will replace him.  There may be others running.  There may be better qualified people.  There may be someone who could inspire and lead us all into a second century of American ascendance; however, despite whomever else there may be it will be either the Democrat Obama or the Republican Romney.  Life may not be fair but it usually is predictable, and this is as predictable as the sun rising in the East and setting in the West.  One of the two parties of power will win.

Given this preordained outcome is there really any hope of change?  Or will we continue to watch helplessly as the perpetually re-elected parties continue to spend us into oblivion?

With Mr. Obama's second term there is no doubt that all we can expect is more of the same, on steroids.  Mr. Obama has said, "I think that after this election, we'll be in a position to once again reach out to Republicans and say that the American people have rendered a judgment, and the positions we're taking are well within what used to be considered bipartisan centrist approaches."

A divided government, if the Republicans maintain control of the House, might slow things down, however Mr. Obama has shown he is ready, willing and with the silence of Congress able to rule by decree.  If Congress won't pass the Dream Act he imposes it.  If Congress won't pass Cap-N-Trade he regulates it into being.  So we know that if he wins a second term it will be his way or the highway.   His agenda will continue to be the national agenda and four more years might be enough to sink the ship of state in a Cloward-Piven Strategy overwhelming the system scenario.

Four more years of the Obama led Democrat Progressives and we may be fundamentally transformed beyond recognition.  The heritage of our Founding Fathers may become the lost cause of a failed experiment in individual liberty and economic freedom as America descends into the morass of a welfare state based on re-distribution and political correctness.  In other words, the dream of Obama's father.

That is one side of the coin.  What about the other?

If we get Tweedledee instead of Tweedledum will it be morning in America again?  Will the ghost of the Gipper lead us from the government's shovel-never-ready Great Recession into a new era where things are made in America again and everything's coming up roses?

There is no way from where we are: 16 trillion in debt, a decimated industrial base and a large proportion of our population addicted to government handouts, back to being the largest creditor in the world, the largest manufacturer, a land of self-reliant patriots without major dislocations, and dare I say it, austerity.

Mr. Romney's fifty nine point plan to save the economy is a well-crafted and well-presented plan to revitalize America's economy through a pro-capitalist free market approach.   It is however not as easy to explain or present as tax the rich and give everyone else free stuff.  Since it is better known and has been more widely and perhaps more eloquently presented the Republicans appear to be fronting with Paul Ryan's plan to save America.  Both the Romney and the Ryan plan are a clear step away from the plunder policies of Mr. Obama and his Progressive shock troops.

However, neither Republican plans adequately addresses the entitlement time bomb.  Neither projects a balanced budget in any timely fashion and neither proposes any way to ensure that future Congresses live by any restraints imposed.  Both promise to preserve our imperial defense spending needed to support two wars and more than 100 foreign bases.  Both rattle sabers in the direction of Syria and Iran.  What we have is an effort to slow the growth of the debt by reducing the yearly deficits.

Slowing the growth is decidedly better than accelerating but the debt keeps growing and the abyss that looms ahead of us is the unsustainability of the debt.  A future rise in interest rates will sink the ship as the service on the debt wipes out the government's ability to keep its promises or meet its obligations.  This is the very scenario the Progressives have been progressing towards.  The people who tell us never to let a crisis go to waste have long worked incrementally to lead us to the crisis at the end of the Constitution.  A final crisis when limited government will be completely unshackled and the central planners will triumph.

If Romney wins he and his administration may put a speed bump on the expressway to the poor house, but unless they are ready to shut down the gravy train and turn off the spigot of re-distribution we will merely postpone the day of reckoning.  Slower is better than faster when it comes to assuming room temperature; however, unless we turn this ship around we're headed for the shoals of bankruptcy and the reefs of insolvency either way.

Even though Mr. Obama makes the Carter Administration look like the good old days don't count out the machines ability to pull an election out of their hat.  From no voter IDs and Black Panthers patrolling the polls, from polling places in cemeteries, to every obstacle imaginable in the way of people in our armed forces voting this will be a no-holds-barred Chicago-style campaign by the Democrats.  The Progressives know this is the one they need.  This is the election that will seal the deal and finally transform America into a re-distribution center with them picking all the winners and losers.  They win...America loses.

As one example of how the institutions the Progressives have built over the years will line up to re-elect Barack Obama, look at the recent moves of the Federal Reserve.

The Federal Reserve is moving to inject massive amounts of money into the economy, while keeping interest rates near zero, before the election in a clear move to help re-elect President Obama.  How are they going to do this?  Will they just print more money?  No, they wouldn't do anything so crude or easy to see as that.  Instead, they will announce an open ended mandate to purchase Treasury Bonds and mortgage backed securities.  This is QE (Quantitative Easing) 3 in all but name.  In QE1 the Fed bought $2.3 trillion of securities and in QE2 $600 billion of Treasuries.  How big will this round of pump priming be?  According to San Francisco Fed President John Williams, since this is an open ended authorization it  could eventually be, "at least as large as QE2 or arguably even larger again."  The casino stock market will soar, and the Fed, through its Chairman, will continue to assure us inflation is small, negligible, and nothing we won't be able to handle.  Then again, what's a little inflation if it helps re-elect a president whose goal is to swamp the system.

Expect an October surprise such as action against Iran or Syria.  Expect an encouraging jobs report right before the election that will be revised lower later.  Expect the Obama Administration to do whatever it takes to win.

Romney's road may still lead to the poor house but Obama's is a bullet train to nowhere.  Is there any hope for change?  Not with what we've heard so far.  Maybe there is a chance to switch from the certainty of near term collapse to the promise of at least a few more stations and a few more track changes before we hit the wall.  Who knows with enough time maybe enough people will get up off the couch, turn off the game, and pay attention to make a difference.  At least that would be a change we could all hope for.

Now that both conventions are completed and we have passed the magical date of Labor Day, the campaign for President begins in earnest with the next big dates coming in October with the debates. Before looking ahead, we should look at the recent past, specifically these conventions. One is left with the impression that when all is said and done despite the spin from both sides- pro and con- nothing has really changed.

For the Democrats, the big talk is the speech last night by Barack Obama. It was not the knock-out speech that our Orator-in-Chief is capable of provided the teleprompter is running. Absent that little technological marvel, Obama is quite a blubberer. For my money, Tammy Duckworth gave perhaps the best speech for the Democrats, not Obama, not Biden, and not anyone else. Despite the allegations thrown at Paul Ryan, he gave a speech that was red meat with a smile while focusing on leadership and a vision of the future. Quite frankly, I lost interest in Romney's speech about three-quarters of the way through and failed to watch Obama's speech at all. Although I did not watch Clinton's speech, I read the transcript. If anything, the Democratic convention proves that Bill Clinton is still the heart and soul of the Democratic Party, not Obama. That simply underscores the Ryan speech. If Obama as President cannot be the "leader" of their own party, are we to accept him as leader of the free world?

Of course, both cities had their logistical problems although Tampa handled a passing hurricane much better than Charlotte handled the threat of afternoon thunderstorms. Because of Hurricane Isaac, some pundits questioned Florida as a site for future conventions ignorant of the fact that Tampa itself has not been hit by a hurricane in about 100 years. They also ignore the fact that moving a convention from the end of August to July does not guarantee the lack of hurricane activity. And likewise, North Carolina is not immune to hurricanes. Put another way, the weather was as big a story for both conventions as the some of the news coming out of the actual conventions.

Both party conventions had some interesting floor action. For the GOP, it was the appearance of Ron Paul on the convention floor and some rules wrangling. But that was about it for the Republicans. For the Democrats, however, there was an ugly floor scene when the party's platform was changed allegedly by a two-thirds vote, although the amount of "NO's" and boos heard suggested otherwise. Specifically, this was in response to the removal of that nasty word "God" from the platform and, for the first time, the removal of Jerusalem as the recognized capital of Israel. That latter issue led to some interesting spin from the likes of former DNC Chair and Presidential candidate ranter, Howard Dean, who explained that it was not specifically mentioned because it was an understood given. You know things are bad when Anderson Cooper of CNN stated that DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz was living in an alternate universe regarding her spin on the issue. Most importantly, we now find that Obama had signed off on the original platform.

From the list of speakers at the Democratic convention, it would appear that they intend to take advantage of the so-called gender gap between female acceptance of Obama versus Romney. In effect, their convention turned into, at times, a pro-choice rally by parading the likes of the leaders of NARAL, Planned Parenthood and Sandra Fluke before the cameras. Fluke stated that the GOP would have women dying in emergency rooms if they are denied contraceptive services in their health care plans. Of course, the Republicans and specifically Romney are apparently just out to kill lots of people by denying them certain health care options. But, this is simply keeping in line with the scare tactics of the Democrats in the hopes of garnering votes. Despite this "illustrious" group of female speakers, it is interesting to note that although they focused on reproductive rights, they said little about kitchen table economics. We did have Eva Longoria telling us that she did not need a tax cut. Of course, she could always direct her accountant not to take any of the tax breaks she is afforded so that she can then "pay her fair share."

There is good news and bad news for the GOP. The bad news is that the Democrats, ironically, did a better job on the foreign policy front than the Republicans. Despite the speech by Kerry that, incidentally, had some factual errors (Tina Fey playing the role of Palin said she could see Alaska from her house; Palin never said it) that are actually rather old, stale jokes now, trotting out dinosaurs like John McCain to make the Republican case for foreign policy is looking backwards, not forwards. Thankfully, Condi Rice refocused the discussion although she started talking about domestic issues like education reform. But, unlike the Democratic rants, Rice's speech was intelligent. The good news for the GOP is that foreign policy is not the major issue in this year's campaign, unlike 2004. All Romney needs to do in the debates is look competent as most people will vote based on economic issues. Also, it is suggested that he adopt an international populist stance and talk tough about our relations with China as that would be a winning foreign policy argument.

Politico stated that both parties played to their base. Quite frankly, this writer did not see that too much from the Republicans. Interestingly, it was the GOP keynote speaker, Chris Christie, who stressed bipartisanship. We did not hear that phrase very much from the Democrats as speakers like Pelosi, Longoria and Warren played more to the class warfare tactics evident from the Democratic side. And one Democratic base constituency we did not hear too much from was Al Gore and the environmentalists. In fact, where is Al Gore? Prior to the GOP convention, news outlets were reporting that the Republican platform had removed exceptions for rape and incest for abortion. This they claimed was a play for the social conservative faction. However, the abortion language in the 2012 platform was actually largely unchanged from the 2008 platform. However, removing references to God and Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is clearly a more glaring appeal to the Democratic base than anything the Republicans did.

It was also interesting to note that while Rahm Emanuel can sum up the Obama presidency as "Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive," we heard very little about TARP, the Obama stimulus and climate change. This is strange for a candidate who was going to cease the rise of the oceans four years ago and who saved the country from the brink of financial collapse. Of course, being accustomed to plagiarism, Biden then stole that line from Rahm Emanuel on the campaign trail. They also failed to mention that General Motors is hardly a healthy comoany and represents a $26 billion loss and counting to the taxpayers at this point and that most of their growth has been from sales in China. One guesses it can be called collective outsourcing of jobs at taxpayer expense which I argue is ten times worse than anything Bain Capital ever did.

As I mentioned earlier, I turned off Romney's speech and never watched Obama's speech. However, on some replays of the Obama speech, I did catch some of the yawns from the audience- and these are his people. Most news outlets said more people were talking about Clinton's and Biden's speech than they were about Obama's speech. Things must be bad when a person recognized and adored by the media as a great speaker elicits yawns and guffaws from the very adoring media. It did not help Democrats either as a brand when some delegates talked about "eliminating" certain Republicans or comparing them to Nazis. Off course, the media saw no "code words" in these statements because, after all, it is only that racist Tea Party that uses code words.

The bottom line is that neither candidate, quite frankly, deserves a bump from their convention performance. But, there was greater expectations for Obama and he fell flat. Everyone was saying that Romney needed to deliver the speech of his life. He didn't and it doesn't matter. Because both candidates performed to a draw with maybe a slight advantage for the Republicans, the status of this race will remain unchanged. Either the debates or actions and statements on the campaign trail will have a greater impact. If anything, the Democratic convention showed that Democrats are hypocrites with no vision of the future other than the status quo. Their ideas are stale and rooted in the past era of the New Deal and the Great Society. Republican ideals and ideas are more forward looking that keep the current social safety nets solvent until real, sustainable fundamental reforms can be enacted.

In the final analysis, the Democratic convention can best be met with a shrug of the shoulders and a "ho-hum" attitude. In effect, they wasted three days of valuable air time on television.

It has been said that the U.S. Congress only gets serious about tackling a controversial issue when there is a crisis.  Whether this crisis is real or manufactured, our national representatives usually need some sort of fire to get legislation moving.

But our leaders are currently dealing with a unique situation.  If Congress fails to act and extend the Bush-era tax rates before they expire in January 2013, American taxpayers will be hit with heavy tax increases.  Yet, a realistic solution seems distant and many leaders, including our president, are perfectly fine with letting some of them expire.

Even if Congress decides to listen to President Obama and only extend the current tax rates for individuals making less than $250,000, working middle class families are certain to feel the pinch with a smaller job pool.  Under this scenario, accounting firm Ernst and Young estimates that wages would decrease and the economy would shed more than 700,000 jobs.  This is not an economic formula that works for everyone.

Failure to act comes with a heavy cost. According to a study from the American Action Forum, the failure to extend the current rates for everyone would cause a 6 percentage drop in GDP (meaning our entire economy would shrink, not grow) and an additional 2.8 million people would be unemployed, sending the unemployment rate to more than 10 percent.

To make matters worse, the failure of the congressional super committee prompted across-the-board automatic spending cuts to take effect in January 2013.  These $1.2 trillion cuts will impact federal domestic and defense discretionary spending, but they will be especially damaging to the millions of people whose employment is connected to the U.S. Department of Defense. A report by the Aerospace Industries Association found that these cuts would cost the economy 2.14 million jobs.  The U.S. military does have a considerable budget, but the recent Chinese military build-up and ongoing battle against terrorism make it precarious for us to grow weary on our defenses.

With the impending tax rate increase and the military budget cuts, the American economy is facing a loss of 4.94 million jobs in just a few months!  This is a crisis - and if Congress does not wake up, the U.S. economy will be in another recession and millions will be in a depression.

Unfortunately, President Obama and the Democratically-controlled U.S. Senate are unwilling to avert this disaster.  Our only hope is to elect leaders in November that know how jobs are created, not eliminated.

It has been said that the U.S. Congress only gets serious about tackling a controversial issue when there is a crisis.  Whether this crisis is real or manufactured, our national representatives usually need some sort of fire to get legislation moving.

But our leaders are currently dealing with a unique situation.  If Congress fails to act and extend the Bush-era tax rates before they expire in January 2013, American taxpayers will be hit with heavy tax increases.  Yet, a realistic solution seems distant and many leaders, including our president, are perfectly fine with letting some of them expire.

Even if Congress decides to listen to President Obama and only extend the current tax rates for individuals making less than $250,000, working middle class families are certain to feel the pinch with a smaller job pool.  Under this scenario, accounting firm Ernst and Young estimates that wages would decrease and the economy would shed more than 700,000 jobs.  This is not an economic formula that works for everyone.

Failure to act comes with a heavy cost. According to a study from the American Action Forum, the failure to extend the current rates for everyone would cause a 6 percentage drop in GDP (meaning our entire economy would shrink, not grow) and an additional 2.8 million people would be unemployed, sending the unemployment rate to more than 10 percent.

To make matters worse, the failure of the congressional super committee prompted across-the-board automatic spending cuts to take effect in January 2013.  These $1.2 trillion cuts will impact federal domestic and defense discretionary spending, but they will be especially damaging to the millions of people whose employment is connected to the U.S. Department of Defense. A report by the Aerospace Industries Association found that these cuts would cost the economy 2.14 million jobs.  The U.S. military does have a considerable budget, but the recent Chinese military build-up and ongoing battle against terrorism make it precarious for us to grow weary on our defenses.

With the impending tax rate increase and the military budget cuts, the American economy is facing a loss of 4.94 million jobs in just a few months!  This is a crisis - and if Congress does not wake up, the U.S. economy will be in another recession and millions will be in a depression.

Unfortunately, President Obama and the Democratically-controlled U.S. Senate are unwilling to avert this disaster.  Our only hope is to elect leaders in November that know how jobs are created, not eliminated.

It has been said that the U.S. Congress only gets serious about tackling a controversial issue when there is a crisis.  Whether this crisis is real or manufactured, our national representatives usually need some sort of fire to get legislation moving.

But our leaders are currently dealing with a unique situation.  If Congress fails to act and extend the Bush-era tax rates before they expire in January 2013, American taxpayers will be hit with heavy tax increases.  Yet, a realistic solution seems distant and many leaders, including our president, are perfectly fine with letting some of them expire.

Even if Congress decides to listen to President Obama and only extend the current tax rates for individuals making less than $250,000, working middle class families are certain to feel the pinch with a smaller job pool.  Under this scenario, accounting firm Ernst and Young estimates that wages would decrease and the economy would shed more than 700,000 jobs.  This is not an economic formula that works for everyone.

Failure to act comes with a heavy cost. According to a study from the American Action Forum, the failure to extend the current rates for everyone would cause a 6 percentage drop in GDP (meaning our entire economy would shrink, not grow) and an additional 2.8 million people would be unemployed, sending the unemployment rate to more than 10 percent.

To make matters worse, the failure of the congressional super committee prompted across-the-board automatic spending cuts to take effect in January 2013.  These $1.2 trillion cuts will impact federal domestic and defense discretionary spending, but they will be especially damaging to the millions of people whose employment is connected to the U.S. Department of Defense. A report by the Aerospace Industries Association found that these cuts would cost the economy 2.14 million jobs.  The U.S. military does have a considerable budget, but the recent Chinese military build-up and ongoing battle against terrorism make it precarious for us to grow weary on our defenses.

With the impending tax rate increase and the military budget cuts, the American economy is facing a loss of 4.94 million jobs in just a few months!  This is a crisis - and if Congress does not wake up, the U.S. economy will be in another recession and millions will be in a depression.

Unfortunately, President Obama and the Democratically-controlled U.S. Senate are unwilling to avert this disaster.  Our only hope is to elect leaders in November that know how jobs are created, not eliminated.