It's Friday! Time To Be Happy

And ~ saving the best for last . . .

 

It Will Never Be Enough - Part III

On November 1st I posted a follow up piece predicting that when the State Supreme Court finally got around to analyzing the legislature's last session budgetary increase for public schools as an answer to the McCleary decision, it would never be enough, and explained why in my reply to a legislator's boastings. Now that the court has announced it's decision, I've been vindicated!

If you go back to that post titled, "It Will Never Be Enough - Part II" and read it, you'll learn the reasons I told this legislator in the State House. I thought it was interesting that he never replied with any kind of retort or defense. With this news coming out this week, I was very tempted a few times over the last two days to send him either an email, or text message, saying, "I told you so!", but resisted that temptation to wag my finger in his face about it. I suspect that most likely he knew that what I said was correct and realized this would only piss him off all the more. Now that it's been validated, AND with the outcome of our recent election which has turned control of the State Senate over to the Democrats - thereby giving the whole government, Senate, House & Governor's office, control by liberals in the state - he's all too aware of how much of a fix he's now in as a Republican, come the next legislative session in 2018.

Having listened to the talk show host Todd Herman on one of the local radio channels explain why he believes the stage is now being set for a state income tax - something the voters have soundly rejected multiple times on state referendums - I tend to believe he's making sense that odds are now in favor of it happening within the next few years. The key to whether this will happen will be the test case in the State Supreme Court which will come from the City of Seattle. It is now considering a proposal of a city only income tax. However, the state's constitution clearly does not allow this unless such a tax is applied state wide. 

Herman believes that, based on the Supreme Courts' more recent decisions such as the "Hirst" issue having to do with rejecting an old 1945 water rights law protecting property owners in rural areas of the state as outdated, and the McCleary decision which tells the legislature how to conduct their funding for education - something which is clearly NOT within the powers of the State's Supreme Court - and fining the legislature on top of it to the tune of $100,000/day until they're satisfied they've "adequately funded" education, they will more than likely choose to regard any case which will eventually come before them to be acceptable and decide in favor of the heavily liberal dominated urban center of the state; Seattle.

I would be delighted if this turns out to be wrong, but I'm not holding my breath. Can you imagine how oppressive it will be to live in this state if we not only have a massive tax increase from the recently passed initiative called Prop. 1 - a.k.a. ST3 (Sound Transit 3) to pay for a boondoggle of a rapid transit expansion, on top of a state income tax? In my retirement on a fixed income I will, at that point be forced to take Billy Joel's advice from the lyrics of his hit song, "I'm movin' out!"

Is It Really Body Art, or Something Else?

Great examples of the mentality of millennials today which is screaming; "Look, look, look at me! I'm so wonderful and so unique! Yes, see just how different I am because I've been told by my parents while growing up just how special and wonderful I am!" 

Every time I pass someone on the street who looks like this, I can't help but notice their eyes are betraying their inner thoughts... that they're saying this to themself. It's also revealing where their priorities are... outward appearance is more important than inward character.

While it's true that not all millennials do this to themselves, it's obvious that these are dealing with a case of serious narcissism to compensate for whatever issue they're dealing with in their life.

Today's Employee Pool

...Westside, all around the town

S.N.A.P card redirect

"Wrongfully Convicted"

The system sucks!

And they…

Your Tax Dollars Pay Sexual Harassment Claims?

The following letter is what I sent to my state Senators and Congressman:

I am writing out of outrage to have learned that you, your Congressional colleagues and senior staffers, have been granted immunity by legislation passed in 1995 for having to pay any settlement costs out your own pocket for sexual harassment allegations by others working for, or under you. But the even more egregious revelation is that my tax dollars are being used to make settlement payments from a special fund in the Treasury Dept! And you wonder why your popularity rating is so low! News has divulged that over 350 claims have been paid totaling $15.2 million.

What's even more disturbing is the rules require the accuser to go through a period of mediation and counseling before the claim can be adjudicated. It should be the harasser, not the victim, who should be required to go through this process! It should be the guilty Congressman, or senior staffer, who should pay for their inappropriate action.

Tonight, I watched a female testify on television who had gone to work in Congress on a Fellows program about her experience of resisting a Congressman's suggestive advances. After changing offices, she was not only terminated, but was "blackballed" from any future employment because she refused to submit to his advances. This only deters many who are subjected to such treatment to remain silent, or comply. This abuse of power is not right!

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D) of New York has the solution, though! She's going to have all Congresspersons take sexual harassment sensitivity training. How typical! Oh, this will certainly deter members of Congress from using their positions of power to leave interns and young workers alone. It does NOTHING to hold members of Congress and senior staff accountable!

I want to know what you are doing, or intend to do, to change this situation which is totally unacceptable. You need to remember that you are there to work for us, not we work for you so that you can claim immunity from the consequences of inappropriate actions.

I look forward to hearing what you intend to do to rectify this injustice. If I don't, then I will be forced to conclude that you're just as guilty as those who engage in such abuse. This must stop!

Examining Generational Theory: The Fourth Turning

It's no secret that my view of the so-called mainstream media is one of loathing and healthy skepticism when it comes to what, and how, it communicates information in the form of "news". Journalism over my lifetime has morphed from the more traditional "who, what, when, where, how and why", to a blurring of the facts mixed with obvious bias and commentary interspersed in almost every article today.

A friend of mine shared another blog's post which commented on a generational theory by two authors, Strauss and Howe, and their book titled, The Fourth Turning". This theory was an introduction for me to a concept which seemed interesting, plausible, but had some potential flaws, or short-comings, as any theory of science does. What made it interesting to me as I was compelled to research further into this theory is that some journalists in the media have written a few articles (February and May) about how this concept influenced Steve Bannon of Brietbart and his being a close advisor of Pres. Trump during the first several months of his early administration.

As I read through the February article by Linette Lopez for Business Insider, it portrayed Bannon as something akin to Rasputin controlling the Czar of Russia. 

Bannon has never been secretive about his desire to use Trump to bring about his vision of America. He told Vanity Fair last summer that Trump was a "blunt instrument for us ... I don’t know whether he really gets it or not."

In the May article on this same topic, by Tim Fernholz - a writer for Quartz - reveals his willingness to "toe the line" for the elites who want the public to buy the story that they want us to believe by saying:

When the financial crisis hit in 2008, Strauss and Howe quickly bumped up the start date of their Fourth Turning to this far more catastrophic and widely shared experience. This is also the date that Bannon uses in his film. And yet this crisis, too, didn’t quite live up to expectations: Policymakers acted far more wisely than they did during the Great Depression. Catastrophe was avoided, and though the resulting recession hurt millennials’ financial hopes in ways we are still understanding, it did not have the same impact as the crisis of the 1930s.

Perhaps the defining experience of the millennial generation is relative economic stagnation and inequality. But even that oft-heard word, inequality, is a reminder of how heterogenous millennials are: The experience of a college-educated 25-year-old is very different from one with a high-school education. Not surprisingly, this most racially diverse of American cohorts is likely to have the most diversity of experiences.

What is even more revealing is the section revealing this author's biography as a journalist when it says, "Tim began covering politics and policy in Washington, D.C. at the American Prospect in the uneventful year of 2008, before joining National Journal in 2011 to write about fiscal policy." Excuse me? 2008 was hardly an "uneventful" year!

Having studied multiple sources on the background causes which lead to the 2008 economic crisis, I wonder what Fernholz means by "...didn't quite live up to expectations." and "Catastrophe was avoided,..." As someone who had worked for almost thirty years at the time of this event, my catastrophe was seeing personal investments for retirement shrink by 33%. That's hardly "uneventful"! Were our expectations supposed to be worse results than that of the Great Depression? What about the addition of 10 trillion dollars by Pres. Obama to the national debt? He does not even mention this. But, that's not surprising given that most liberals view the national debt as nothing to be concerned about. Gee... I wonder how the millennials feel about that?

Then Fernholtz goes into gear with focusing on the Obama Administration's economic stagnation and the narrative both Pres. Obama and the press love to tout; inequality! Yes, millennials are heterogenous and racially diverse with a broad range of experiences. How many times did we hear Pres. Obama lament that minorities were struggling with inequality? Yet, what did he do as far as his policies to reduce this claim? Bail out Wall Street, nationalize Chrysler, and payback with our tax dollars millions to the unions who got him elected! Yea, that sure helped reduce inequality!

Later on in Fernholtz's article, as an example of the kind of commentary revealing the author's personal bias toward Bannon and Trump, he says, "For his part, Bannon stresses that he does not seek a crisis; he is merely prepared for one. Perhaps he sees the prediction of crumbling institutions as a way to justify his efforts to tear them down."

What seems more blatantly obvious is his generalization of millennials as a particular generation. He speaks of the majority, who voted for Hillary in the election, by citing research to explain them.

Yet there is one unique factor about the millions of Americans dubbed millennials.
“[Millennials] have been the most written about generation of any generation, in terms of media and culture and their impact,” Tucker, the Ogilvy president, says. In his view, however, all this attention hasn’t resulted in the empowerment, energy or heroism predicted by the generational theorists.

Instead, he says it made them anxious—which is supposed to be Gen X’s problem. Ogilvy hired psychoanalysts and ethnographic researchers in an effort to understand young people and the perception that millennials seek an “amazing set of life experiences.” However, their researchers found that millennials’ search was “fueled by high degrees of anxiety and a bit of insecurity…because they’ve grown up with social media, they feel high degrees of pressure to compete against their peers.”

Well,when this coddled generation of "snowflakes" are so easily offended by someone else's view which differs from what they believe, (a.k.a. indoctrinated by their college/university professors) and the more radical ones who join antifa to enforce fascistic censorship of those differing view, rather than engaging in discussion to understand those views or defend their own, then it's no wonder they can't handle competition from their peers.

The Digital Identity Phenomon

To illustrate just how dependent the younger generations are when it comes to interpersonal relationships - a.k.a. dating, as the old term was, or, "hooked up" as the new term goes - on technology, I offer the following video which is obviously a parody, but accurate in many respects. I hate to think what this may turn into in another ten years!

The Truth About the First Thanksgiving

Today's trend for liberals who have no interest in preserving our traditions related with anything to do regarding Christianity seems to be focused on how they can give a bad impression out of ignorance and bias. That ignorance is due, in part, to the fact that accurate and detailed history is no longer taught in public education. Instead, the emphasis has shifted to reading, writing and mathematics; albeit a very different method of learning that math via Common Core that emphasizes the process, rather than the more direct method of achieving the answer correctly. History, Science and Art are no longer consider important because students are no longer assessed on those subjects.

Instead, the push in public education is to prepare all students to go to colleges and universities. Never mind the vocations which provide the underpinning for producing goods; no, the Chinese are taking care of that! But I digress...

This most recent Prager University video, narrated by Michael Medved who is a historian with impeccable credentials and accuracy, explains the true motives and reasons why the first event known today as Thanksgiving, dissolves the myth perpetrated by liberals who want us to believe the white Christians from England came to the New World to slaughter and take advantage of the Native Americans and take over their land. While there is some truth to this claim, it is far from the case when it comes to this first occurrence of gratitude for God's divine providence.