Reinke Faces Life

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/03/19/union-lobbyist-who-worked-one-day-as-teacher-suing-illinois-over-30000-pension/

CONTROVERSIES
Union lobbyist who worked one day as a teacher suing Illinois for $30,000 pension
By Eric BoehmPublished March 19, 2015watchdog.org

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After working one day as a substitute teacher in Illinois, David Piccioli could be entitled to an annual pension of more than $30,000.

And he’s suing the state to make sure he gets paid.

Piccioli is a retired union political activist who’s already pulling down a pair of state pensions from Illinois’ beleaguered public retirement system. But he’s taking the Teachers Retirement System to court to squeeze more money out of the state.

The Chicago Tribune reported Thursday that Piccioli is already collecting $31,000 annually from the Teacher Retirement System, but he could get an additional $36,000 annually if he wins his case. He’s also collecting a $30,000-pension from a different state retirement system for his time as a legislative aide in Springfield, according to the Tribune.

Piccioli is a retired lobbyist for the Illinois Federation of Teachers and never worked in a classroom, but he took advantage of a loophole in Illinois pension law to score his teaching pension.

In 2007, he worked one day as a substitute teacher at a Springfield school. Under Illinois pension law, that one day in the classroom allowed him to qualify for a pension that would pay him for all of his years of work as a member of the union.

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Time to END “public” pensions, PERIOD!

401k 403b IRA

Just like the mundane peons!

No need to worry about “loopholes”, “double dipping” or any other form of corruption!

Sorry, that Taxpayer is broke and the politicians and bureaucrats have hocked the “family jewels”, “seed corn”, and “mortgaged the farm to the hilt”.

Argh!

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2015-Mar-23

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/03/23/my-three-part-plan-for-post-obamacare-era/

HEALTH CARE
My three part plan for the post-ObamaCare era
By Sen. Marco Rubio
Published March 23, 2015
FoxNews.com

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First, we should provide an advanceable, refundable tax credit that all Americans can use to purchase health insurance. The value of these credits should increase every year, and we should set the tax preference for employer-sponsored insurance on a glide path to ensure that it will equal the level of the credits at the end of the decade. This will prevent large-scale disruptions and reform one of the most significant distortions in our tax system.

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Sounds like a great idea!

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http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/03/11/open-letter-to-members-congress-about-authorization-to-use-military-force/?intcmp=ob_homepage_opinion&intcmp=obnetwork

Ten reasons to vote against the use of military force
By Rep. Dennis Kucinich
Published March 11, 2015 FoxNews.com

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7. A Solution: Follow ISIS’ money, and shut it down.Where is ISIS getting its money? Up to 100,000 ISIS fighters are funded by Gulf State donors, identified in the past as being from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait. Fully equipping and providing for one modern combat-ready soldier can cost $850,000 to $1,000,000 a year. ISIS’ army could be gaining $85 billion to $100 billion a year from various sources. We can either commit the U.S. military to another war, and the U.S. to further risk of impending attacks through the genesis of a new crusade, or we can fight this threat with intelligent power and high technology.

The administration must identify the specific sources of ISIS’ money, the individuals, the nations and the means of transfer, and shut them all down. It must sanction countries and individuals, tie up their bank accounts and commercial activities, freeze their assets and cancel their credit cards. Send platoons of accountants from the Treasury Department and the IRS into the fray, not platoons of U.S. soldiers. The U.S. must track oil sales, sales of antiquities and other valuables. Anyone involved in any transactions of any kind with ISIS must be identified and sanctioned. 

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I don’t often agree with a Liberal Leftie, but in this case, I think he’s correct.

“Not my monkey; not my circus.”

The fact that our alledged ally, Saudi Arabia, is funding this to keep their own power is crazy.

Bring the girls and boys home. Tell the “bad guys”, you “mess with us and we’ll nuke ya”!

Argh!

Dona Nobis Pacem

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http://www.cato.org/blog/after-eight-years-losses-end-governments-postal-monopoly

MARCH 2, 2015 4:34PM
After Eight Years of Losses, End the Government’s Postal Monopoly
By DOUG BANDOW

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The United States Postal Service lost $5.5 billion last year. That is the eighth annual loss in a row and the third highest ever. The only good news is that it remains below the red ink tsunami of $15.9 billion in 2012.

Why does the federal government deliver the mail? Why does it have a monopoly over delivering the mail?

The Postal Service one of the few government programs with actual constitutional warrant. Alas, America’s revolutionaries turned the system into a fount of federal patronage.  Local postmasters became perhaps the president’s most important appointments. The Postmaster General was a member of the Cabinet from 1829 to 1971.

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Obviously, it’s a patronage boondoggle.

End the monopoly now.

Interesting that the PO is using FedEx and UPS to deliver to the PO’s and FedEx and UPS are using UPS to deliver to end Users.

Stop it all now.

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http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/03/who-should-select-senators/386489/

Who Should Select Senators?
A century after the Seventeenth Amendment transferred that power to the voters, legislatures and governors are devising new ways to retain it for themselves.
GARRETT EPPSMAR 1 2015, 9:18 AM ET

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There are a lot of reasons that I love the Seventeenth Amendment, which transferred the power to elect senators from state legislatures to ordinary voters.

Its passage was one of the most sweeping progressive victories in American history—public fury so intimidated reactionary lawmakers in the Senate that, by approving the Amendment, they in effect voted their own body out of existence.

A second reason is that in the past two decades, new redistricting techniques have allowed state legislatures to create unshakably safe House districts for their members. (Because Republicans controlled a majority of legislatures after the 2010 census, most Republican seats are as safe as Brezhnev’s old spot on the Politburo.) But those techniques are useless when elections must take in the entire state; as a result, a small group of Senate candidates must at least pretend to represent both red and blue voters.

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I OTOH would like to repeal the Seventeenth completely.

Why?

Unintended Consequences!

By removing the State Legislatures from the “State’s Senate choice”, it eliminated a critical feedback loop in the Federalism design of the Dead Old White Guys.

And, as is true with most “improvements” to the Dead Old White Guys’ design, this too is flawed.

Remember, the Dead Old White Guys wanted government as close as possible.

(That movie quote caught the spirit: “Would you tell me please, Mr. Howard, why should I trade one tyrant three thousand miles away for three thousand tyrants one mile away? An elected legislature can trample a man’s rights as easily as a king can.” Mel Gibson as the character Benjamin Martin in the movie The Patriot http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0187393/quotes)

So, the Seventeenth permitted unfunded mandates on the States.

And, basically turned the USA from “these United States” into “the United State”.

Argh!

In addition, the conduct of Senators was closely monitored by the the States. Do something undignified and you were recalled. Do something criminal and you were recalled. Do vote for something that hurt your State and you were recalled.

And, guess what? Hillary becomes the Senator from Pepuls Republik of Nu Jerk. Corzine pays of the D party bosses and becomes the Senator from the Pepuls Republik of Nu Jerzee. Carpet bagging par excellence. All of course voted for by the pee-pull.

Give me a break.

The Seventeenth, like most “progressive” legislation, has given us tyranny!

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http://cafehayek.com/2015/02/quotation-of-the-day-1277.html

Quotation of the Day…
by DON BOUDREAUX on FEBRUARY 28, 2015
in DINNER TABLE ECONOMICS, NANNY STATE, SEEN AND UNSEEN

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… is from page 16 of Jeffrey Miron’s excellent 2004 monograph, Drug War Crimes:

Under legalization, the incidence of accidental poisonings or overdoses would not be zero, just as it is not zero for currently legal goods such as alcohol. But the rate of such incidents would decline significantly, since consumers would know the potency of the drugs they consume and have far greater confidence that the drugs contained the desired ingredients rather than unknown contaminants.

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What is imho the biggest Unintended Consequence of the “(pseudo) War on (some) Drugs” is that “children” die.

Yeah, I know they are sort of “young adults”, but in so many ways they are like “children”.

They have been denied the “experiences of life” by our over-protective infantilization of their “life’s non-experiences”. 

Think about what life was like for the American “youth” from the Dead Old White Guys to say 1980’s.

Life was tough. Hard work. Discipline — either self or externally imposed. Dirty work for any wages was valued. 

Now think about since then — undereducated in Gooferment Skrules where feelings count more than results. Virtually unlimited food for just being there. Entertainment to the exclusion of any “earnings”.

So why are we surprised when they die of overdoses and “rat poison” in “kool illegal drugs”?

Ending the war on drug, just as when (Alcohol) Prohibition ended, makes what was “illegal and kool” not so much any more.

Going to buy your “drugs” at Walmart, Walgreens, or RiteAid does quite feel the same. It’s equivalent to in the 50’s going to a strange drug store where no one knew you to buy condoms. (Not that I ever had to do that.) 

But think about “safety”. Do you think that your local Walmart pharmacy will give you “hot shots” or a drug cut with strychnine?

And imagine that it would come with a “health safety warning” that list where you can go for free help to get clean?

And, imaging that it will cost about as much as aspirin. You can have a “habit” and keep a job, just like the pre-drug war days.

Of course, it does bring about the unemployment question — drug lords, drug gangs, police, prison guards, politicians, and bureaucrats will all have to find new lines of work. 

But what’s wrong with that?

Argh!

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Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton made the following statement regarding potential criminal violations of law in Hillary Clinton’s conducting official State Department business using a private email account:

“The latest news that Hillary Clinton, while serving as Secretary of State, conducted all of her official business on a private account may impact nearly a dozen of our Freedom of Information Act lawsuits now active in federal courts as well as dozens of pending FOIA requests. As with what happened when Judicial Watch forced the disclosure of the ‘missing’ IRS emails, I am convinced that these emails would never have been disclosed but for our FOIA lawsuits that broke open the Benghazi scandal and first exposed the scandal of her and Bill Clinton raising money illicitly while she was Secretary of State.

“We are concerned that the Obama administration may have withheld material information and may have purposely misled and lied to Judicial Watch, as well as at least one federal court about these emails.

“One key concern is that these emails must be immediately secured so that they can be searched in response to our lawful FOIA requests. In addition to violations of the Freedom of Information Act, laws governing the preservation of federal records and the handling of classified information also may be implicated in this latest Clinton scandal.”

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Interesting that these emails are not “public records”?

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Obama Vetoes Keystone XL Pipeline Bill

President Barack Obama Tuesday vetoed legislation that would have approved the Keystone XL pipeline, a project that is a top priority for congressional Republicans and a touchstone issue for environmentalists and the nation’s booming energy industry.

The bill would have authorized Canadian company TransCanada Corp. to construct the 1,179-mile pipeline, which has been under review by the Obama administration for more than six years. The bill, which declared the pipeline to have satisfied environmental laws, passed the GOP-controlled Congress earlier this year.

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Not unexpected.

Too bad since not only is it jobs and energy. It’s a safer way to transport the stuff.

Dumb!

Now the battle lines are drawn.

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http://thehill.com/policy/finance/232688-rand-paul-scrap-the-tax-code

Rand Paul: Scrap the tax code
By Kevin Cirilli – 02/12/15 04:52 PM EST

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“The IRS is too big, too powerful, and we absolutely should scrap the code,” Paul, a prospective 2016 presidential candidate, answered. “Look for my tax plan later this spring.”

Paul was touting his “Audit the Fed” proposal, which has 30 co-sponsors and would allow the comptroller general to audit the Federal Reserve. Fed officials oppose the policy, saying that it’d politicize monetary policy.

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First thing is to change the incentives from “taxing work” to “taxing consumption”. On the way to not taxing at all.

All Gooferment “services” should be on a take it / pay for it or leave it / don’t pay for it basis.

Education is a classic example of a corrupt boondoggle.

Teachers are represented by “unions” who “bargain” with politicians and bureaucrats. The “unions” contribute money and labor to the politicians. And, everyone, except the taxpayer, gets rich.

First step to disassembling this is to END Gooferment defined benefit plans. Can’t find one in industry any more. Why are they in the “public sector”?

Argh!

We need a “Hercules” to clean the Aegean Stable!

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