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Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the outspoken and controversial black evangelist of Democratic candidate Barack Obama’s preferred institution of social and religious indoctrination is an invention of the news media.  The sensationalistic press, like skilled paleontologists, carefully extricated him from the layered sediment of everything associated with Obama’s past, and whether or not they were tipped off to his existence by their own diligent muckraking, or their search was directed by conveniently coordinated leaks coming from the Clinton campaign headquarters is, at this point, still a matter of speculation.  The fact remains, the news media’s radar picks out sensationalism with unerring accuracy and it locked in on Reverend Jeremiah Wright like a Stinger missile locks in on the hot exhaust gases of a helicopter.  Nobody can say that the American news media doesn’t know what it takes to increase their ratings.  Good journalism, by modern standards is not about honing the ability to objectively relate the current events, carefully noting the “who, what, why, when and where” of the topic being discussed.  Good journalism by modern standards is the ability to create sensationalism from the boring and the mundane past, present or predicted future events that would otherwise escape the public’s attention.  By these modern standards, Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s association with Barack Obama, is great journalism.  It meets every requirement for great journalism because it is essentially a nothing event pumped up to its threatened bursting point with hot journalistic air.   

Realistically speaking, Reverend Jeremiah Wright is nobody in particular.  Prior to being elevated into the public eye by the news media, Reverend Wright was just another faceless black preacher struggling to make ends meet in the curious profession of shaking down the gullibly superstitious believers frequenting his place of business.  In comparison to the thousands of similar “Reverends,” “Pastors,” “Preachers,” “Ministers,” and “Doctors” with a theological bent practicing out of store fronts, strip malls, residential garages and church buildings constructed and subsidized by the parishioners in black communities across America, Reverend Wright bears no particularly defining characteristic to warrant a second glance.  While a few of Reverend Wright’s statements can be written off as little more than expressions of the racial paranoia common in African American communities, most of his over-publicized controversial statements are, in all honesty statements of factual merit communicated without first being heavily shrouded in politically correct euphemism.  The journalistic sources for the breaking news of Wright’s latest embarrassment present every syllable uttered as further proof of the atrocious beliefs Wright shares with his flock, and particularly with the Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama.  The possibility that Obama, like millions of other Americans attends church for more social than religious reasons warrants no speculation.  He has been seen in attendance at Wright’s church, therefore it is logical to assume that Obama’s personal character, his willpower and his innermost thoughts have been vacuumed up by the Reverend Wright who then carefully sterilized the empty container before refilling it with a tasteful arrangement of Reverend Wright’s snippets of wisdom, hysterical racial nonsense and meaningful bible verses.  Where there was once a Democratic presidential candidate, the press has worked their magic and we now see a mindless religious zombie incapable of independent thought or action.  This remarkable transformation is very cool stuff, however, the thin connection to reality and the obvious glee seen in the public acceptance of this trash as fact, speaks ill of America’s intellectual prowess. 
  
I am not a fan of Reverend Jeremiah Wright and I have never been a supporter of Barack Obama’s campaign to become president.  Despite not wanting to see Barack in the White House and my unwillingness to vote for someone I consider as being entirely unqualified, I believe that the news media’s character assassination of Obama through Jeremiah Wright is morally repugnant and every participating media outlet should be condemned for their dissemination of this continuing fantasy.        

The Reverend Jeremiah Wright is a professional blabbermouth; he has not said anything that has not been expressed by similar blabbermouths such as the Reverend Al Sharpton, Minister Jackson, or for that matter by Jimmy Swaggart.  Intelligent individuals do not accept as fact what professional blabbermouth’s rant and rave about from the pulpit.  Some of it is fact, much of it is fiction and all of it is purposely slanted but no evidence has been shown to warrant the belief that Obama is overly influenced by his preference of blabbermouths.

The furor over Reverend Jeremiah Wright will eventually die down, the man will shut his mouth and return to the obscurity he deserves and Obama may survive the damage done in this embarrassing incident.  I find it difficult to be concerned about any of this.  In truth I expect that this is merely a prelude of things to come for Obama and I suspect that his association with Reverend Wright is merely round one in what may turn out to be a very prolonged battle.  Future rounds seem inevitable, and for a candidate who has surrounded himself with characters like Bishop Thomas Wesley Weeks III, Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, Louis Farrakhan and Rashid Khalidi it might even be appropriate, but if condemnation comes to Barack Obama is should be based on his thoughts, his words and his actions and not on the controversial nature of his associations.

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House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-SC, the highest-ranking African-American in the Congress, speculated during an interview with Reuter’s news service that Hillary Clinton is purposely attempting to destroy Barack Obama’s chances at winning the election so that John McCain can win and Hillary can come back in 2012 and take the White House.  Furthermore, Representative Clyburn stated that many African Americans have reached the conclusion that the Clintons know that there is no way for them to win the White House in 2008, but they are doing everything possible to ensure that Obama doesn’t win either.

In a separate interview with the New York Times Clyburn stated that Black Americans are nearly unanimous in the belief that Bill and Hillary Clinton are “committed to doing everything they possibly can to damage Obama to a point that he could never win.”  Clyburn, speaking of Bill Clinton, went on to say, “When he was going through his impeachment problems, it was the black community that bellied up to the bar,” Clyburn said. “I think black folks feel strongly that that this is a strange way for President Clinton to show his appreciation.”

I don’t know if there is any truth to what Representative Clyburn has said, but given the current state of American politics and Hillary Clinton’s deplorable lack of character, I suppose it could be true. However, true or not, it does nothing to alter the already low opinion I have for Barack Obama, or for that matter, any of the other candidates running for president.

Personally, I could give a hairy rat’s ass about who wins the Democratic nomination because I honestly don’t believe that either of the Democratic candidates is even remotely qualified for the job and the lone Republican candidate is no better.  With that being said, I admit to the belief that there is a lot more to Barack Obama that what the man is showing to the public, and I do not see him as someone who will unite the nation, but as someone who is essentially running on the fact that he is a black man, and regardless of his lack of character or qualifications, it is time for Americans to show the world that they are not a bunch of racist peckerwoods and vote for a black president.  I am not buying into it.  If he were qualified to do the job and had enough personal character to win the trust of the people then he would get elected and I would probably vote for him myself.  To state it very simply, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain do not have what it takes to measure up to these standards.

For the record, I will say that any African American who votes for Barack Obama simply because he is an African American is as much a racist as someone who would not vote for Obama simply because he is an African American.  Race has nothing to do with being qualified to lead the country.

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From the back pages of the this morning’s newspaper comes an article about the 33 year old Colorado woman that authorities now suspect to be the mystery girl who made the 911 phone call and touched off the raid on the Yearning for Zion Ranch run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints near San Angelo, Texas.  As it now turns out, Rozita Swinton of Colorado Springs, Colorado has a long history of calling in false reports of abuse.  In April, Swinton was arrested and charged with misdemeanor false reporting in an incident unrelated to the Texas religious group.  She was later released.  In 2005 she pled guilty to charges of false reporting after claiming to be a sixteen year old girl who was suicidal after giving birth.  She has made similar calls claiming to be a young woman being abused by her pastor in Colorado Springs and in another incident she claimed to be a thirteen year old girl being drugged and sexually abused by her father.  The authorities are fairly certain that Rozita Swinton is the person who sparked the April 3rd raid near San Angelo after she claimed to be a sixteen year old girl whose 50 year old husband beat and raped her.  

The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services is marginalizing the news that the entire raid and the draconian measures taken against the 437 children and their mothers subsequent to their apprehension, was perpetrated on the basis of a phony allegations phoned in by an obviously very disturbed woman nearly 700 miles from the scene of the “Crime.”  The state Child Protective Services (CPS) views the indoctrination of young children with fundamentalist religious ideas while raising them in an isolated community without access to television, purple and green hair dye, nipple rings, ear studs, or junk food as being potentially abusive and they have described the children’s situation as being “a throwback to the 19th century.”  They have expressed their deep concern over that fact that the children were all wearing pioneer-style dress, the young girls keep their hair pinned up in braids and behave in a very modest fashion, they have little knowledge of pop culture, pray twice a day, and they have demonstrated a preference for fresh vegetables, fruit, chicken and rice.  The most alarming characteristic shared by these children seems to be that they are exceedingly polite and the words “please” and “thank you” seems to roll off their lips with apparent ease.         

At this point the Child Protective Agency intends to place the 437 children in foster homes across the state and take legal steps to remove the parent’s rights to raise their children as they see fit.  On Tuesday, 111 of the children, ages 5 and older, left the San Angelo Coliseum and Pavilion, where they have been forcibly detained, for foster homes across the state, said CPS spokeswoman Shari Pulliam. The remaining children are expected to be moved to foster homes around the state very soon.       

State child-welfare authorities have claimed that they have developed some evidence of physical and sexual abuse at the ranch, however, nothing that would substantiate the Child Protective Agencies wild accusations has been released to the courts and the campaign of oppressive persecution launched by CPS against the parents seems to be running fine on innuendo and the thin threads of circumstantial evidence that appear to manufactured as needed. 

With every passing day, the putrid stench emanating from San Angelo, Texas seems to get a bit worse.  Admittedly, the federal and state laws prohibiting the practice of polygamy should not be ignored.  There must be some reasoning behind those laws even if that reason is somewhat vague.  Personally, it seems to me that one wife should be more than sufficient for anyone, but I am not sure that monogamy needs to be enforced by federal law because it seems to me that any man who would marry multiple women, keep them all in the same house and proceed to have kids by all of them would welcome the opportunity to spend an extended period of time in the relative solitude offered by federal prisons.  A more fitting punishment would be to force that man to stay home, tend to his many wives and raise his passel of children.  How much peace could a man who was tyrannically dominated by a committee of multiple wives really have? 

At any rate, given the simple fact that this atrocity was perpetrated on the basis of one sick woman’s obviously false allegations, the Texas court system should review their justifications for meddling in the affairs of these people.  The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services is similar in many aspects to the child protective agencies of other states.  They are all well known for their propensity to stretch the truth, misquote statements made to them, badger and confuse witnesses, and when all else fails, fabricate evidence from fantasy in the effort to “prove” the existence of child abuse in situations where it does not exist.  Their ability to maintain and expand the budgetary concerns of these agencies is predicated on their ability to demonstrate that child abuse is far more prevalent than it actually is, and the Yearning for Zion Ranch represents a budgetary coup for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services that will keep them on the crest of the Texas state budget wave for many years to come.     

The concept of religious freedom has been seriously abrogated by American courts along with every other formerly inalienable right once acknowledged by the United States constitution as being given to all men by their creator.  If the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services can remove the parental rights from the mothers and fathers of these 437 children on the basis of flimsy and entirely circumstantial evidence manufactured by self-serving CPS agents, what is to stop them from snatching up the children of any other community where there is a high predominance of Baptists, Pentecostals, Jehovah’s Witnesses or Catholics?  If they can take children away from their parents on the basis of what might, or might not, be happening in their religious group then they should be able to use the same justification to seize the children of every Catholic family in America.  

The vast majority of American citizens may not share the belief system endorsed by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, but are we willing to deny them the constitutionally guaranteed right to practice the religion of their choice with the knowledge that any fundamentalist Christian group, or for that matter, any religious group, fundamentalist or not, may attract similar scrutiny by agencies of the state into our affairs and the way we chose to raise our children?  We may not approve of what this religious group practices, but on the other hand, we have to acknowledge that there are many people in this nation who believe that any religious training of children constitutes child abuse.  Before we take off down this path it might be prudent to consider exactly where it will lead us in the end.    

This is the United States of America; the abolition of parental rights should be something that is seriously weighed by an impartial court before action is taken.  Substantial proof of actual crimes committed by specific individuals must exist before any action is taken.  Criminal charges must be filed, individuals must be allowed to defend themselves in a courtroom before a jury of their peers and overwhelming evidence of abuse and parental neglect must be convincing enough to convince a jury that the individual charged is, in fact guilty of the crimes they have been charged with.   The removal of one’s parental rights on the basis of anything less than conclusive and irrefutable proof is a complete travesty.  Allowing these cases to be tried by the overly sensational American press conveniently receiving carefully and strategically timed information leaking out of Child Protective Agency files should be a major embarrassment for the entire state of Texas. 

Punishing an entire community for the crimes committed by individuals living within that community is some distance short of where American justice should be standing in a case where the guiltiest party of all may be Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.  Just my opinion

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The Associated Press reported this morning the federal government is dumping a $20 million prototype virtual fence along the Arizona-Mexico border because the system is virtually ignoring the multitude of illegal aliens trampling into the country right underneath its virtual nose.

The decision to trash the virtual fence came just two short months following the announcement by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that he had approved the work and bought off on the $20 million dollar Boeing Company boondoggle. 

One glaring deficiency in the project was the time lag between the electronic detection of movement along the border and the transmission of a camera image to agents patrolling the area.  Some reports have it that by the time the Border Patrol Agents were notified of a possible illegal crossing, the illegal alien that triggered the sensors had already made it to Los Angeles, raped three women and a dog, been apprehended, released,  signed up for welfare, and was kicking back on his front porch with a bottle of cheap tequila while he tried to figure out if he was voting for Hillary or Obama.

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Dear Department of Homeland Security;

It has been pointed out to me that you recently received communications from the honorable mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa.  Furthermore, I have learned through the media reports of this notable event that the purpose of Mayor Villaraigosa’s communication was to lodge a complaint with respect to the immigration sweeps conducted recently within the boundaries of Los Angeles County by your Immigration and Citizenship Enforcement agency.  

Despite not having sufficient cause to directly address the Department of Homeland Security regarding Mayor Villaraigosa in the past, his latest communication to you has motivated me to do so at this time because he contacted your agency as the Mayor of Los Angeles, because in his communication he presumed to speak for the entire Southern California Region, and because I live in Los Angeles and can state factually for the record that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is a racist political hack whose actions are detrimental to the people he allegedly serves – the registered voters and legal residents of this area.

In Mayor Villaraigosa’s address to your agency he stated, “When they [ICE agents] go out to them even though there’s no indication that these people are knowingly hiring undocumented immigrants, they ought to find out that these businesses contribute to the economic vitality of this city,” and while I am fairly certain that the DHS is not engaged in the random harassment of L.A. County business establishments without prior knowledge of their hiring practices, I should also point out that the illegal drug trade, prostitution and strong arm robbery also contribute to the economic vitality of this city because they keep the money flowing just like legitimate businesses do.  A virtual cornucopia of world-class prostitutes and the easy availability of illicit drugs serve this area by attracting individuals from other states and countries to come here and spend their money.  If, by chance, these normally less than street-wise individuals end up getting mugged in the shadows of Los Angeles, the money they have lost enhances the economic vitality of this city even as the unfortunate victim makes his or her way home.  Despite the obvious economic benefit of so many well-endowed prostitutes, the depth of the local illicit drug trade and the skill of our local thieves, few would suggest that law enforcement curtail their efforts to reduce prostitution, illegal drug sales and the rampant thievery that goes on around Los Angeles.  Those of us with any degree of common sense acknowledge the fact that immigration violators are also criminals, and that they must be dealt with appropriately or the stability of our social structures will suffer accordingly. 
 
The simple truth of the matter is that Mayor Villaraigosa, like most other adults in this nation realizes that illegal aliens actually vote in federal, state and local elections.  It is not a rare occurrence by a few, or even a few dozen individuals, it is a commonplace event in every election, and thousands upon thousands of foreign nationals routinely participate as if they had a legal right.  Without these illegal voters, Mayor Villaraigosa doesn’t stand much of a chance getting re-elected as L.A.’s mayor and without the illegal alien voters, he stands even less chance of becoming California’s governor.  Be that as it may, the good and rightful citizens of Los Angeles County also realize that with approximately 30% (or more) of the county’s inhabitants being illegal aliens, and that activist groups are working day and night to register them as voters, the individuals who legally reside here and legally vote would like to see their legitimately cast ballots count towards reversing the tide of this particular cesspool instead of encouraging the growth of the parasitic life forms that favor the current environment.  Mayor Villaraigosa speaks for those parasitic life forms because, as he stated in his communication to you, “If he doesn’t speak out, no one will.”  Those of us who must suffer the burden of Antonio’s (hopefully) last year as Mayor are sick to death of the illegal aliens that have made Los Angeles their home, and only the most brain-dead of socialistically inclined liberals would argue this point. 

The Caucasian citizens of Los Angeles, the African American citizens of Los Angeles, the Oriental citizens of Los Angeles and even the Hispanic citizens of Los Angeles are overwhelmingly nauseated by the thought of this city and county suffering under an increased number of illegal aliens.  As you are well aware, the only way they can be credibly viewed as a benefit to our society is if you are blind to the economic adversity they bring to their host.  The people of Los Angeles have had their fill of innocent children wantonly slain by violent illegal alien predators released from our jails under Special Order 40.  We are tired of the drive by shooters, the identity thieves, the rapists, the murders and the pedophiles flocking into our city and county from different countries.  We have enough of our own to deal with.  We certainly don’t need to import somebody else’s scum to add to the pile.

Please, for the benefit of every legal resident and U.S. citizen left remaining in Los Angeles county, ignore the pompous buffoon calling himself the Mayor of Los Angeles, and send in the U.S. Marines, the Army, The Green Berets, or somebody to clean this godforsaken dump out so that the American citizens who live here can come out of the shadows, find a job and work to return some sense of normalcy to the place we call home.

Respectfully Yours,

An American Citizen

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Occasionally I stumble onto something that really sets me off and I want to write about it, but then I find out that it is old news, pretty much irrelevant with the passage of time so I let it pass.  This is an exception to the case.  While this story began more than eight years ago, the dust is just now beginning to settle, but settled or not, it still has the capacity to raise the blood pressure to dangerous levels.  Besides that, it’s about everybody’s favorite evil corporation, Wal-Mart, and I personally believe that no matter how many times Wal-Mart gets kicked in the teeth, it just isn’t enough.

This tragedy began in 1999 ago when Deborah Shank took a job stocking shelves at the Wal-Mart store in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.  As soon as she was able she moved to the 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift so she could spend more time with her three sons, and when she completed the company’s new employee probationary requirement in February 2000, she applied for and received benefits under the Wal-Mart health plan.  

Approximately three months after she became covered under the Wal-Mart employees health care plan, Deborah Shank and a girlfriend were using Deborah’s minivan to drive from one garage sale to another when a semi-trailer truck plowed into the driver’s side of her automobile.  Deborah’s friend escaped with minor injuries, but Mrs. Shank suffered severe brain trauma as a result of the accident and spent several weeks in intensive care as she drifted in and out of a coma. Despite one of her doctors giving her almost no chance for survival, Deborah Shank lived. A year after rotating in and out of the hospital and rehabilitation programs Mrs. Shank could no longer use her right arm or three fingers on her left hand because of neurological damage. She couldn’t feed or dress herself and conversations with her family were limited to all but simple questions.  She was severely and permanently brain damaged, she has practically no short term memory, she will be confined to a wheelchair for the remainder of her life.  Deborah Shank’s health care needs became so great that her husband was forced to move her into a nursing home where she can be continuously monitored and receive the constant medical care she needs to exist. 

Lawsuits were filed against G.E.M. Transportation Inc., which owned the truck that struck Deborah Shank’s minivan.  Mr. Shank, a maintenance worker at Southeast Missouri State University, received a $200,000 settlement, of which $81,000 went to legal fees.  Mr. Shank used the money to purchase a one story house with wheelchair ramps and wider doors to accommodate his wife’s situation in the event she eventually returns home.  In addition to Mr. Shank’s settlement, Deborah Shank received a settlement from the trucking company for $700,000.  After the lawyer skimmed $282,523 off the top, Mrs. Shank was left with $417,477 which the court placed in a special trust designed specifically to finance her future health care needs.   

Nearly three years after the Shanks received the settlement from the trucking company Wal-Mart filed a lawsuit against them to recover the $470,000 they had spent on Deborah Shank’s medical care.  Like many company subsidized health care plans, the Wal-Mart employee medical plan contains a provision that allows them to recover the cost of medical expenses paid out if the employee collects damages from a personal injury lawsuit related to the injuries suffered.  In the terminology of insurance companies this practice is called “subrogation,” and it shouldn’t be that big of a surprise to discover that subrogation clauses can be found in the fine print of most employer’s health care plans.  Despite the existence of these provisions in their health care plans, most companies wouldn’t touch something like this with a ten foot pole.  Many company plans have adopted the routine policy of having a claimant sign a reimbursement form prior to paying claims or allowing any settlement discussions to proceed, but even in these cases most companies would shy away from any attempt to snatch a trust fund established by the courts for the long term care of an seriously injured and permanently brain damaged employee.  Admittedly, corporations are all about the bottom line and profit may be the only God in their universe, but most corporations are also well aware of the role that public perception plays in their continued profitability and they budget huge amounts of money annually to carefully construct and maintain their corporate image through internal and external public relations efforts.  While most corporations would be sorely tempted to jump at the chance to save a few million dollars on their health insurance expenses, sacrificing the hard work and expense of building a good corporate image by dumping all over a seriously disabled employee would be unthinkable.  Wal-Mart is, however, not quite like most corporations.  They had no qualms about leaping on the brain-damaged woman with both feet and demanding the money.   

In August 2005, Wal-Mart hit Deborah and Jim Shank with a lawsuit demanding repayment for $469,216 in medical costs out of their settlement.  The lawsuit also demanded that the Shanks pay all of Wal-Mart’s legal fees associated with the lawsuit as well as any accrued interest the overall sum might have earned for the corporation.  The family’s attorney, Maurice Graham, contacted Wal-Mart about the possibility of negotiating a compromise and was bluntly advised that the corporation intended to proceed with the lawsuit.  Neither he nor the Shanks contested the fact that Wal-Mart was entitled to some compensation from the settlement.  Their argument is that the settlement money they received was far less than what would be considered full compensation for the injuries suffered by Mrs. Shank.   The Shank’s attorney argued that the settlement money was for more than the injuries Mrs. Shank suffered; it was also to cover the pain she has, and will continue to suffer.  It was to cover the losses she suffered as a direct result of the accident.  She will never work again, she will never be able return to her former life, she will never be able to have the relationship she had with her husband and children.  The family’s attorney didn’t deny that Wal-Mart had a right to some compensation, but he did contend that the amount of Wal-Mart’s compensation should be determined in an equitable manner that would allow Deborah Shank to continue getting the care that she needed.  Wal-Mart’s representatives admitted that the case was sad, but under the provisions of their health care agreement, they had the right to be compensated for Mrs. Shank’s medical expenses, which they had paid.  Furthermore, they had an obligation to control health plan costs and considered their course of action as the fair thing to do with respect to the other participants in the plan.  If that meant Wal-Mart had to seize every penny of the settlement money and leave a destitute Deborah Shank sitting on a street corner in her wheelchair then that was exactly what they intended to do.      

In August 2006, U.S. district judge Lewis Blanton sided with Wal-Mart, ruling that when Mrs. Shank signed on to Wal-Mart’s health plan she was obligated to abide by its terms.  Six days after the judge released his decision, Deborah and Jim Shank were notified that their 18-year-old son, Jeremy, was killed while serving with the 25th Infantry Division in Iraq.  Despite their pain, the Shanks had no choice but to file an appeal before a three-judge panel in the 8th Circuit Court.  They lost that appeal and were denied a request for a hearing before the entire court.  By this time there was only $277,000 left in the trust fund set aside for Mrs. Shank’s future health care.  Jim Shank had used some of the money to hire a private aide to care for his wife while she remained in the nursing home.  He had accumulated more than $130,000 in bills for Mrs. Shank’s continuing rehabilitation and a return hospital visit after her health insurance coverage expired.  Jim Shank was forced to divorce his wife Deborah so that she would become eligible for the Medicare and Medicaid coverage that would enable her to remain in the nursing home and get the care she needed.  He was working two jobs and struggling to recover from prostate cancer.  Refusing to give up the fight, the Shanks appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but last week, the high court refused to hear the case.  Deborah and Jim Shank have now exhausted all their resources and there is no place for them to turn.  They are beaten; Wal-Mart has been declared the unquestionable victor in this case.  Wal-Mart beat Deborah and Jim Shank and their attorney from one end of the court system to the other.  Deborah and Jim Shank have nothing left, they are broke and so far in debt that they will never recover, they have lost their son, their family has been destroyed, their dreams crushed, their hopes destroyed. 

It is an irrefutable fact that the mighty Wal-Mart effectively put Deborah and Jim Shank in their proper place, and if the story ended here it would be bad enough, but it doesn’t end just yet because on April 1, 2008, Jim Shank received a letter from Wal-Mart Executive Vice President Pat Curran stating that Wal-Mart, the monolithic retail giant that reported $90 billion dollars in net sales in the third quarter of 2007, had benevolently decided to allow the thoroughly beaten and dispirited Shanks to keep the paltry remains of the trust fund set aside for Deborah’s ongoing care.  After three years of non-stop legal pummeling, unimaginable emotional suffering and the intentional infliction of extreme stress resulting in Wal-Mart’s smug victory, the company comes back and tells the effectively crushed and devastated couple that they can keep whatever few dollars they have remaining in the trust fund.        

What does this say about Wal-Mart?  Does it mean that the corporation saw the error of their evil ways and decided to do the right thing, or is it that the retail giant never really needed the meager sum set aside for Mrs. Shank’s medical care but couldn’t resist the joyful urge to crush everything the woman ever held dear to her life before letting her off the hook?  Before leaping up in celebration of Wal-Mart’s benevolent gesture, it should be remembered that Deborah Shank’s life has been destroyed.  She will remain in nursing home, wheelchair bound, brain damaged and welfare dependent until she is no more.  She has lost everything she loved, everything that gave her life meaning and purpose has been methodically stripped away from her in the process of Wal-Mart’s legal victory.  Wal-Mart sucks up more money in one tenth of a second than Deborah and Jim Shank will have in their entire lifetime, including all of their past combined earnings and both of the settlements they received. 

Was this really about the saving the money or treating all paticipants of their health care plan fairly, or was it about an incredible big and incredibly powerful corporation’s overpowering desire to crush the life out of a small opponent they viewed as being essentially meaningless?  I am too biased to be the impartial judge of that question.

As a final side note; I think it is extremely interesting that over the course of many years I have observed that the vast majority of Wal-Mart customers appear to be registered Democrats.  This fact seems to be acknowledged by the professional signature gatherers who frequent the parking lots of Wal-Mart stores while soliciting signatures in support of whatever liberal proposition the local Democrats happen to be pushing.  This doesn’t have anything at all to do with the content of the posting above, but I find it intriguing nonetheless. 

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The residents of Los Angeles experience misery and death at the hands of violent illegal alien predators, and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, in a manner that would make any true liberal swell with pride, turns the innocent dead and his constituent’s feelings of abject misery into talking points for his proposal to raise taxes. 

As Mayor Villaraigosa begins the final year of his first term of office, the city of Los Angeles is facing a $406 million dollar deficit, and is scheduled to begin eliminating more than 767 city jobs by June 30.  Villaraigosa’s already shallow image took a beating last year after his illicit affair with former television reporter Mirthala Salinas became public and his wife Corina filed for a divorce the second time in the couple’s 20 year marriage.  Corina Villaraigosa filed for divorce in 1994 after learning that her husband was having an affair while she battled thyroid cancer, but after a two year separation, she believed they had reconciled their problems and dropped the petition.  Obviously, she was as mistaken about the character of her spouse as the people of Los Angeles were about their choice of mayorial candidates.

Mayor Villaraigosa managed curbed his sexual appetite Monday afternoon, at least long enough to deliver his third State of the City address, and for the second (possibly third) consecutive year, the mayor focused on making more sorry excuses while discussing the prevention and reduction of gang crime in the city of Los Angeles.  Additionally, the somewhat promiscuous mayor laid out his plan to soak the residents of Los Angeles with a 38% increase in trash fees.  Residents of the city are not so brain dead as to not remember that in 2006 Villaraigosa implemented a four year plan to increase the trash fees from $11 to $28 per month, and in 2007 he came back and accelerated the increase.  Those increases were sold to the residents of the city as a way to fund the expansion of the Los Angeles Police Department.   The current increase proposal is allegedly to fund more anti-gang programs in the city.        

Contrary to popular belief, the average citizen of Los Angeles is not exactly rolling in money.  The median household income for L.S. is around $43,518 and nearly 18% of the residents are below the poverty level.  The citizens in six of the ten most impoverished neighborhoods in Los Angeles are predominantly African American.  These are the folks who will suffer the greatest degree of impact from Mayor Villaraigosa’s proposed increase. 

Ironically enough, while Villaraigosa acknowledged that “Public safety is the first obligation of government,” he artfully sidestepped the role that illegal aliens are playing in the surging gang violence that plagues city residents.  His trash hike funded $24 million gang-fighting strategy may sound like the sort of decisive move a potential gubernatorial candidate would make, but as long as “Special Order 40″ is in effect and illegal alien gang members keep getting a free ticket back to the city’s streets instead of being deported like they should be, the streets of Los Angeles will continue to flow with the blood of their innocent victims, the Latino gangs will escalate their ethnic cleansing, and the reign of terror in African American neighborhoods will continue unchecked despite the increased trash rate.  

Granted, Mayor Villaraigosa has a burning desire to be re-elected to a second term as the Mayor of Los Angeles.  It is no secret that Antonio “The Magnificent” has visions of becoming the governor of California in 2010.  The biggest problem he faces is how to shape the public’s perception of his advese impact, as mayor, on the city of Los Angeles.  He does not want the citizens of California to see him as being responsible for the wholesale slaughter of innocent black kids by illegal alien gang bangers, but at the same time he does not want to upset half the population of Los Angeles by enforcing the immigration laws and significantly depleting his constituency.  He would like to reduce the homicide rate in the city and erase the racial motivated homicides from memory, but not so it upsets the Latino community and the violent illegal alien gang members spawning in those areas.  Obviously, Mayor Villaraigosa is conflicted and his personal conflict will soon become another meaningless tax increase for city residents.  It is ludicrous to believe that this increase trash rates will benefit the people of Los Angeles.  The violence will continue to escalate, the homicide rate will increase, the blood will still run in the streets of Los Angeles and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will continue to deny that the root cause of the city’s biggest problem is the incredible number of poor, uneducated and criminally inclined illegal aliens he continues to welcome to our city. Nearly one quarter of the nation’s illegal aliens now reside in and around Los Angeles County.

How many more innocent children have to be slaughtered on the streets of Los Angeles before the legal residents wake up to the fact that this clown is selling them a bill of goods?    In January of this year the L.A. County Department of Social Services disclosed that illegal aliens collected more than $37 million dollars in welfare and food stamp allocations during the month of November, 2007, and L.A. County officials projected the annual cost of supplying their illegal aliens with welfare assistance and food stamp allocations for 2007 at $444 million dollars.  This is not free money that the city just happened to have laying around gathering dust in some forgotten bank account, this is money that was snatched out of the threadbare pockets of the city’s residents who could ill-afford the loss.  $444 million dollars could fund a lot of police activity and quite a bit of that activity could be directed towards the elimination of the city’s gang problem.  The residents of Los Angeles are required to pay taxes to fund city services like trash collection.  They are taking a second hit by having to pay the monthly trash pick up fees, and now Villaraigosa has the audacity to say that they aren’t doing enough to solve the gang problem that his sanctuary policy has exacerbated to the point that some L.A. neighborhoods are little more than full blown war zones.      

I am beginning to suspect that the places in Los Angeles that Antonio Villaraigosa really wants to see more cultural diversity are its graveyards, and he intends to solve that disparity by filling them up with inner-city kids shot to death by the marauding illegal alien gang members who are caught and released repeatedly until they finally do something so serious that they end up in a state prison or they achieve enough notoriety to attract the attention of the federal immigration authorities who then deport them.  

Until common sense becomes common practice, the legal residents of Los Angeles will continue to bankroll the collective idiocy now passing for city government in the “City of Angels.”  It doesn’t have to be this way, but obviously, we are an ignorant lot, because this nasty infected heap of soiled rags is the bed we prefer to sleep in.  As long as we are content to put a thousand dollar suit of clothes on a man with the morals of a goat and call him our Mayor we deserve exacatly what we get.  Progress requires the ability to learn from past mistakes, and so for the time being, the City of Angels will continue to slide – backwards.

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Antonio Villaraigosa, Los Angeles, Special Order 40, illegal aliens, sanctuary

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The state of Arizona, the nation’s foremost leader in the struggle against illegal aliens, is providing tangible proof to the rest of the country that strong immigration enforcement measures, enacted by state legislators, effectively reverse the criminal negligence of federal government officials who have long ignored the serious problem.

Laws implemented by the Arizona State legislators concerned with the economic and criminal impact illegal aliens were having on their communities now prohibit the illegal aliens in the state from receiving government services. Illegal aliens are no longer allowed to post bail for serious crimes in Arizona nor are they allowed to win punitive damages in lawsuits. This year a new Arizona law makes it illegal for businesses to hire illegal aliens, and companies found to be in violation risk the loss of their business license.  The residents of the state have already witnessed the undeniably positive results of their legislator’s efforts.  The public schools have experienced a reduction in class size, teachers have more time to focus on teaching and the overall quality of the state’s public school educational system is beginning to increase.  The roads, highways, jails and hospital emergency rooms around the state are noticeably less crowded because many of the state’s resident illegal aliens have packed up and moved to states like California where there are 29 sanctuary cities that have rolled out the welcome mat to illegal aliens regardless of the economic burden placed on tax payers. 

To date, the main source of criticism for Arizona’s strong immigration enforcement measures is the Mexican government which is becoming increasingly alarmed by the high number of Mexican citizens that have either fled the U.S. voluntarily or have been recently deported back to Mexico and are now demanding the Mexican government provide them with the free housing, medical care, schooling and income they grew accustomed to while living in the United States.  Furthermore, the Mexican government is wailing about the loss of remittances sent from the U.S. by by immigration violators illegally employed by American businesses.  They are also complaining that the families returning are causing an increase in the class size of their local schools, the teachers have less time to spend with each student and the overall quality of the education they can provide to their students is quickly plummeting. 

At a breakfast meeting held with Arizona’s Hispanic legislators held in Phoenix last January Leticia Amparano Gamez, a Mexican legislator representing Nogales in the Mexican state of Sonora, cluelessly demanded “how can they pass a law like this”?  She went on to say that Mexico is not prepared for the “tremendous problems” associated with the increasing influx of repatriated Mexican citizens, and the loss of income in the form of remittances.  Another Mexican legislator, Florencio Diaz Armenta who represents the rich agricultural San Luis, Rio Colorado, area south of Yuma asked the same question many American citizens have been asking for years about the growing number of illegal aliens, “What are we supposed to do with them”? 

Apparently, the Mexican government believes that the American people should simply tolerate the economic burden, the significant increase in crime, the overcrowding and the disruption of our society that more than 30 million illegal aliens have brought to us.  It is even more apparent that the Mexican government is extremely unwilling to accept responsibility for their own citizens, especially if they can shirk that burden off on the gullible gringos north of the Rio Grande.  While they don’t mind shoving their problems off on the American citizens, their outrage clearly indicates their unwillingness to deal with the incredible mess that they have created within their own nation.

The American people need to take action to ensure that our nation begins to correct the grievous errors that have divided us so completely and the legislative actions of Arizona provide an effective model that should be duplicated by all state legislators in the United States.  Illegal aliens are adversely impacting the American economy, their illegal presence in our nation is threatening to destroy our educational system; they are straining our health care system, overcrowding our cities, our streets and highways and they are exacerbating the already serious shortages of water and energy.  Illegal aliens are a problem that the American citizens desperately need to take care of because if we do not address the problem now, our children will be forced to address it at some later point and it will be much more difficult for them to resolve the issue at that time than it will be for us to resolve it right now.  The American people have always liked to believe that they plan for the future of their children and grandchildren, regardless of whether or not we really do it.  We no longer have the luxury of believing one thing and doing something else.  If we do not want to condemn the future generations of America to lives that will be very similar to what the Mexican citizens have been facing for years, we need to act now.

The Mexican people, those who have remained in Mexico as well as those who have entered the U.S. illegally should put a little backbone in their sense of pride and patriotism to Mexico.  We have all seen the public displays of pride in their Mexican heritage as well as their Mexican flag waving patriotic demonstrations in many American cities.  It is time for them to realize that their nation is suffering from devastating institutionalized government corruption.  Despite the wealth of Mexico’s natural resources, their fellow countrymen are being forced to violate the laws of neighboring nations to make ends meet, their people are being needlessly forced to live in poverty while Mexico’s political elitists are raking in huge sums of cash and living lives of luxury.  The people of Mexico have the power to reverse the deplorable situation now existing in their nation, but they cannot do it from inside the United States.  If they really cherish their homeland, if the future of their nation, their children and their grandchildren means anything at all to them, they need to return home, they need to become engaged in the struggle to make Mexico everything that it should be, and can be if they choose to make it happen.  The illegal aliens from Mexico may be a major problem for the American tax payer but they have the potential to solve the problem of government corruption in Mexico.  By solving their own nation’s problems they can create the free and prosperous nation that Mexico obviously has the potential to become, but they certainly can’t do anything for their nation if they are sitting around in the United States violating American laws and causing innumerable problems for us.

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The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) announced Thursday that they have decided to implement a new tax on the citizens of California to fund the creation of the California Institute for Climate Solutions (CICS).  The tax is being characterized by the CPUC as an “energy surcharge,” and is expected to rake in more than $600 million in the next ten years. 

The California Institute for Climate Solutions will twitter away this astronomical sum money by creating yet another over bloated state political bureaucracy mismanaged by nauseating liberal lard-ass elitists, providing offices and meeting spaces for the aforementioned nauseating liberal lard-ass elitists, and bankrolling an infinite number of lavishly catered, non-productive meetings between the state’s nauseating liberal lard-ass elitists and the energy corporation’s over paid lard-ass management members who will undoubtedly travel to and from the specified meeting place in the first class section of large polluting jet airplanes at the expense of the California tax payer.     

CPUC President Michael R. Peevey, who made the announcement on Thursday, was quoted by the state’s news media as saying, “Today we have embarked on another groundbreaking path to find solutions to the most pressing problem of our time. Innovation – technological and otherwise – is the key to alleviating the adverse consequences of climate change.”

Not surprisingly, Mr. Peevey is the former President of Edison International and Southern California Edison Company; he has a Master of Arts degree from the University of California at Berkeley and is married to the former Democratic State Assembly member for California’s 44th District. He was appointed by former Governor Gray Davis to the position of CPUC President in March 2002.     

The Governing Board of this California Institute for Climate Solutions will be co-chaired by the CPUC President (Peevy) and the University of California President, other seats will be reserved for State Senators and Assembly members, the Director of the CPUC’s Division of Ratepayer Advocates, select individuals from other state agencies, universities, utilities, private firms, consumer and environmental advocacy groups and the final category of elitist membership that is confusingly described as representing something called “underserved communities.” 

The CPUC is claiming that their authority to impose this new tax (aka “surcharge”) on the the citizens of California stems from Assembly Bill 32, The Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, and Senate Bill 1368, all of which are related to the regulation of greenhouse gases emitted during the generation of electricity.  

The State of California, which currently has a budget deficit of more than $16 billion, employs more than 400,000 people in various capacities.  These 400,000 state employees spend an inordinate amount of time every year in various meetings at the tax payers expense and the end result of those meetings is more state employees, more expense to state tax payers and less real solutions to state problems.  It would seems that having 400,000 state employees traveling around the state on their way to meet with other state employees in the futile attempt to solve state problems would substantially increase the amount of greenhouse gases, which in turn adversely affect the state’s climate.  Adding to the number of meetings our state bureaucrats already attend can only increase the amount of greenhouse gases within the confines of our state.  Given the simple fact that every historical precedent available indicates the unlikely development of anything even remotely beneficial from this new endeavor it would certainly seems that, given the serious nature of this so-called “problem,” the reduction of greenhouse gases could be better accomplished by having less meetings than more. Furthermore, if the state was really serious about solving this alleged problem they might consider cutting back some of the uselessly redundant positions to say nothing of the numerous tax payer funded positions that are entirely and irrefutably of no benefit to the citizens of the state.  Unfortunately, this is not the way problems are solved in the People’s Republic of California where the only answer our government officials seem to understand is to take more income away from those who work for a living and use it to fund the irresponsible lifestyles of those too lazy to get a real job, which includes many of the “Golden State’s” political hacks.

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The Washington Times reported Wednesday that the in-depth analysis of 15 federal departments with respect to the fiscal impact of immigration, both legal and illegal, indicates that the overall cost to the federal government was more than $346 billion last year.  This is nearly twice as much as the country’s fiscal deficit and the cost to the U.S. tax payer comes out to more than $9000.00 per year for each immigrant in the nation. 

This report puts a major dent in the argument that immigration is good for the American economy, and as far as illegal aliens are concerned, it certainly destroys the phony claim that they somehow benefit the nation’s economy. Obviously the American tax payers would come out way ahead by deporting the illegal aliens. For that matter, we could give each illegal alien in the country $10,000 to leave and we would still be money ahead.

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illegal aliens

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