May 28, 2013

Tuesday's Number: $327,570


Tuesday is the day my local paper, the Syracuse Post-Standard, publishes the weekly business section. In addition to special features, tips from stock experts, budgeting advice and the like, we get the judgment and bankruptcy listings. 

As I did for much of last year, I will be tracking health care related filings. I include anything that is clearly a debt owed to a hospital, nursing home, physician or physician group, medical supplier, and so on; I do not include filings by insurance companies, many of which are so diversified it would not be a fair assumption that the filing is related to medical care or health insurance. 

This week, there were 16 people listed with new judgments to hospitals, doctors, or other medical providers totaling $251,400.  

This week, there were five satisfied judgments totaling $52,434 to a hospital, doctor, or other medical provider.   

And, there was one health-care related bankruptcy, totaling $23,736.  

The paper publishes only those accounts of at least $5,000.

May 21, 2013

Tuesday's Number: $389,831

Tuesday is the day my local paper, the Syracuse Post-Standard, publishes the weekly business section. In addition to special features, tips from stock experts, budgeting advice and the like, we get the judgment and bankruptcy listings. 

As I did for much of last year, I will be tracking health care related filings. I include anything that is clearly a debt owed to a hospital, nursing home, physician or physician group, medical supplier, and so on; I do not include filings by insurance companies, many of which are so diversified it would not be a fair assumption that the filing is related to medical care or health insurance.

This week, there were 21 people listed with new judgments to hospitals, doctors, or other medical providers totaling $278,778.  

This week, there were six satisfied judgments totaling $91,159 to a hospital, doctor, or other medical provider.  

And, there were two health-care related bankruptcies listed, totaling $19,894.

The paper publishes only those accounts of at least $5,000.

May 20, 2013

Sidebar: Changes in Medical Debt Reporting

Elsewhere in the business section of last Tuesday's Post Standard was an article, courtesy of the New York Times New Service, on how old medical bills are causing people problems with their credit reports.

One of the people mentioned in the article had presented her dental insurance card instead of her medical card; the doctor didn't contact the woman timely, leading to the bill going to collection. She paid the $742 bill, but in the end, when she got a mortgage, it ended up being 1/2 a percentage point higher than it otherwise would have been without the old medical bill.  That half a point will cost the woman $33,000 over the life of the mortgage.

According to the article, over half of the collection actions that appear on credit reports are related to medical debts.  Now one credit score company, VantageScore Solutions, has decided to ignore these collection actions, as long as the debt has been paid.  According to Sarah Davies, SVP of analytics, research and product management at VantageScore,
There was no intentional decision to exclude a piece of behavior. It was just about what was most predictive.
Apparently some folks in the credit rating business understand that an anomaly - one unpaid bill that eventually gets settled or is paid in full - in a lifetime of payments made on time - does not make a person a bad credit risk.
 
And while VantageScore Solutions (a joint venture of the big three credit reporting agencies) is making this change, there are no changes proposed for FICO, the  more commonly used credit score.  A spokesman indicated that, while they ignore all collections under $100, all other types of reported collections are considered as 'derogatory' blemishes on a person's credit record.
To ignore data that has proven to be highly predictive a person's ability to repay a debt would not be in the best interest of consumers or lenders.
Politicians are starting to take notice.  In their usual, disjointed way, but taking notice none-the-less.  California's Maxine Waters (D), the leading Dem on the House Financial Services Committee, has introduced a bill called the Medical Debt Responsibility Act of 2013.  Among the findings by Congress?
  • medical debt collection issues affect both insured and uninsured consumers
  • medical debt collections are more likely to be in dispute and inconsistently reported
  • healthcare providers increasingly turn to outside collection agencies to help secure payment
  • medical bills account for more than half of all reported non-credit related collection actions
  • in 2010, 30,000,000 working-age American adults were contacted by a collection agency for unpaid medical bills
The Chairman and Vice-chairman of the Committee,  Republicans Jeb Hensaling of Texas and Californian Gary Miller, are said to be working on their own version of legislation to do the same thing.  I expect that will include at least a couple paragraphs referencing Obamacare, because as we all know there was no medical debt before the Affordable Care Act became law. 

May 14, 2013

Knock Knock. Who's There? A Racist Democrat

A racist Democrat who? A racist Democrat who called a fellow politician an "arrogant N-word" and tried to apologize her way out of it.

I'm a little late with this post, as it all came to light back in the last few days of April. I don't want anyone to think that I was protecting Dems, or acting like the 'lamestream media' and failing to call out bad behavior on the left with as much joy as when calling out bad behavior on the right.

This one's a doozy, for sure.  Meet Gloria Platko, the white, 69 year old Buena Vista Township (Michigan) Clerk.  Platko was recorded by Dexter Mitchell, a fellow Dem, who happens to be black, talking about Dwayne Parker, a third Dem, who also happens to be black.  On the recording, she advises Mitchell that he's not going to like what she's about to say about Parker, and then she goes ahead and says it anyway.  Here's an audio of the phone call, with the comments coming at about the 6-minute mark.

Naturally, Ms. Platko decided that an apology was necessary.

Because that's what politicians and athletes and sportscasters and Hollywood superstars do -- they try and apologize their way out of a mess, and typically that makes it worse.  Here's Gloria's first stab at it, in comments that came out shortly after the tape was made public: 
Gloria Platko news photo
I’m sorry to my five other board members, and I’m entirely sorry to this entire community. I’ve eaten Thanksgiving dinner with black friends at their house. So I’m far from prejudiced. You need to go interview some of the black people who have supported me for the last four or five years. 
After the recording, which was made in January, was played at a meeting in April, Platko continued to defend herself. Here's more from her comments after the meeting:
Every race of people have (N-words), every culture has (N-words). Look up the definition. I learned that way back in grade school. I learned that at St. Joe’s and Holy Rosary. They're blowing this up and trying to make it a racial thing and it’s not. I will defend any black person in this township except Dwayne Parker — he’s a lowlife.
Platko wrote a letter of apology (on township stationery, natch), in which she noted
To all of you, please know that I am sorry for using a derogatory word during my telephone conversation with Dexter Mitchell in January (2013) of this year. I am a public official and should have used better judgment. I have nothing but respect for the Buena Vista Charter Township Community and I offer everyone my sincerest apology.
To those of you who know me, you know that I don’t have a discriminatory bone in my body. I spoke out of frustration following a long history of difficulties with the Supervisor. That is not an excuse for my language but I hope it relieves any hurt feelings my remark may have caused anyone.
Although I had a lapse in judgment, I want to reassure the residents of Buena Vista that I am still capable and committed to serving everyone in this community.
This is better than her initial comment when the story was picked up back in April, in which she noted that her remark was a "slip of the tongue." 

Sorry. One's tongue can slip and spit out 'shit' instead of 'shoot', or 'damn' instead of 'darn', or things like that.  But one's tongue does not slip and spit out the N-word.  

Tuesday's Number: $1,045,841

Tuesday is the day my local paper, the Syracuse Post-Standard, publishes the weekly business section. In addition to special features, tips from stock experts, budgeting advice and the like, we get the judgment and bankruptcy listings. 

As I did for much of last year, I will be tracking health care related filings. I include anything that is clearly a debt owed to a hospital, nursing home, physician or physician group, medical supplier, and so on; I do not include filings by insurance companies, many of which are so diversified it would not be a fair assumption that the filing is related to medical care or health insurance. 

There must have been more room in the paper today; the listings were a lot longer than last Tuesday. This week, there were 33 people listed with new judgments to hospitals, doctors, or other medical providers totaling $926,022.  

This week, there were three satisfied judgments totaling $34,726 to a hospital, doctor, or other medical provider.   

And, there were two health-care related bankruptcies listed, totaling $85,093.  

The paper publishes only those accounts of at least $5,000.

May 13, 2013

Return of the Trifecta

A trifecta is generally described as a type of bet where, in order to win, the bettor must pick the top three finishers in the correct order. Here are the top three from the past couple of days:

According to a published report, New Gingrich is 'really puzzled'.  Honest: he's not sure what to call a cell phone.
Think about it. If it is taking pictures, it’s not a cell phone. If it has a McDonald’s app to tell you where McDonald’s is based on your GPS location — that’s not a cellphone. If you can get Wikipedia or go to Google — that’s not a cell phone. If you can watch YouTube — that’s not a cell phone. Or Netflix. This device is something new and different. I have been calling it a handheld computer.
I kid you not. Apparently the lights might go out in Georgia if we don't get a better name for the thing that most of us call a smart phone.  Newt's team doesn't think that's the right term, because it places too much emphasis on 'phone' and they're  not used all that much as phones.  I'll give a dollar to the person who comes up with the next great name for the little time-sucking, occasionally-ringing, picture-taking, web-searching, pocket-vibrating distracto machine. 

Yesterday, Tiger Woods won The Player's Championship, his fourth victory of the year. I think it's pretty clear that he's back in the swing of things, if you know what I mean (wink wink nod nod).  Woods didn't win much in the immediate aftermath of his Thanksgiving 2009 flame out but now that he's got a steady girlfriend, and is at least apparently settling in to co-parenting his children with his ex, things seem to be on the upswing. I still don't think much of him as a person, but when he's playing well, he sure is fun to watch.

And last but not least, today Barbara Walters announced that she's retiring. Next year. Yep, she's leaving TV. Except for when she's going to be on TV, doing specials or whatever she wants to do. Because I doubt that any network would turn her down if she felt like asking some famous person what kind of tree they'd be, if they were a tree.  

She's had an amazing career, but do we really need to take a year to say goodbye to her?  And was it Oprah who started this whole goodbye tour for talk show hosts?  I'm thinking we need to have these folks sit down with Dr. Phil and figure out why they feel the need to put us through this long goodbye.

May 8, 2013

Close, But No Cigar

My State Senator, David Valesky (D-53rd district) introduced some legislation earlier this week, geared towards cleaning up some of the ethical mess we're in with our elected officials.  Valesky noted in his press release that
The recent scandals in Albany provide us with an opportunity to examine the way business is done, and to rebuild the public’s trust in their government. Building a firewall between political work and public service makes good sense—we can and should avoid this kind of conflict of interest.
I think he's taking a step in the right direction, but the bills don't go far enough. Here's one example, S.5009.  This bill "prohibits certain lobbyists from engaging in political consulting for state public officials or candidates for office, and prohibits political consultants or anyone they're affiliated with from lobbying state officers; requires election financial disclosure statements to include a listing of all political consulting services provided to a campaign" according to its description.  

However, I think it can be improved, with courage. In all of the sections below, I have marked with a strikethrough the parts that I think should come out of the bill.  The capital letters are the changes suggested by Valesky.

Here's a for-instance, in a section regarding gifts to public officials, their spouses, or their unemancipated children.  
S1-m. Prohibition of gifts AND POLITICAL CONSULTING. A) No individual or entity required to be listed on a statement of registration pursuant to this article shall offer or give a gift to any public official as defined within this article. unless under the circumstances it is not reasonable to infer that the gift was intended to influence such public official. No individual or entity required to be listed on a statement of registration pursuant to this article shall offer or give a gift to the spouse or unemancipated child of any public official as defined within this article. under circumstances where it is reasonable to infer that the gift was intended to influence such public official.
No spouse or unemancipated child of an individual required to be listed on a statement of registration pursuant to this article shall offer or give a gift to a public official. under circumstances where it is reasonable to infer that the gift was intended to influence such public official. This section shall not apply to gifts to officers, members or directors of boards, commissions, councils, public authorities or public benefit corporations who receive no compensation or are compensated on a per diem basis, unless the person listed on the statement of registration appears or has matters pending before the board, commission or council on which the recipient sits.
As far as I am concerned, there is no reason for a politician to accept a gift of any kind from a lobbyist or political consultant, for any reason. Period. And when the laws are written as convoluted as the sections above, they are ripe for abuse.  And don't you love the part that says you can offer a gift to a person who's not paid or only gets a measly per diem? Because certainly they're not ripe for unethical picking, right?  Come on!

Or look at this section, which apparently would only prevent crossover of lobbying and political consulting at the state level, but continue to allow it at the municipal level. If this kind of crossover is bad at the state level, why would they assume it would be OK at any other level?
 
(B) NO PERSON OR ORGANIZATION THAT IS ENGAGED IN LOBBYING OR LOBBYING ACTIVITIES SHALL ENGAGE IN POLITICAL CONSULTING FOR ANY STATE PUBLIC OFFICIAL, CANDIDATE OR  PROSPECTIVE  CANDIDATE  FOR  AN  ELECTED STATE OFFICE. PROVIDED, HOWEVER THAT A PERSON OR ORGANIZATION THAT IS ENGAGED SOLELY IN THE LOBBYING OF OR LOBBYING ACTIVITIES RELATED TO MUNICIPAL AGENCIES, LOCAL LEGISLATIVE BODIES AND MUNICIPAL  PUBLIC OFFICERS, AND DOES NOT ENGAGE IN THE LOBBYING OF OR LOBBYING ACTIVITIES RELATED TO STATE AGENCIES AND STATE PUBLIC OFFICIALS, MAY ENGAGE IN SUCH POLITICAL CONSULTING FOR MUNICIPAL PUBLIC OFFICIALS.
Here's another section where there's some fudging allowed under the legislation, which again seems unnecessary. I don't know what's in subdivision (B) but there should be no affiliation between a political consultant and the candidate or prospective candidate: 
(C)NO PERSON OR ORGANIZATION THAT IS ENGAGED IN POLITICAL CONSULTING FOR ANY STATE PUBLIC OFFICIAL, CANDIDATE OR PROSPECTIVE CANDIDATE FOR AN ELECTED STATE OFFICE SHALL BE EMPLOYED BY, BE AFFILIATED WITH OR BE UNDER COMMON OWNERSHIP WITH ANY PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ENGAGED IN LOBBYING OR LOBBYING ACTIVITIES, EXCEPT AS OTHERWISE AUTHORIZED BY SUBDIVISION (B) OF THIS SECTION.
And last, there are a couple places in the proposed legislation referencing a class A misdemeanor, which I think should be a felony.  Why? Because if you allow a politician to cheat a little, they'll be tempted to cheat a lot. Period. 
1. The treasurer of every political committee which, or any officer, member or  agent of any such committee who, in connection with any election, receives or expends any money or other valuable thing or incurs any liability to pay money or its equivalent shall file statements sworn, or subscribed and bearing a form notice that false statements made therein are punishable as a class A felony misdemeanor pursuant to section 210.45 of the penal law, at the times prescribed by this article setting forth all the receipts, contributions to and the expenditures by and liabilities of the committee, and of its officers, members and agents in its behalf.
If you want my trust, make it harder for bad politicians to violate that trust. Prove to me that you are serious about reforming the law, and get rid of these little word games that are so prevalent in the laws of New York.

And think about it -- if all the sudden a political consultant can no longer be a lobbyist, and vice versa, think of all the growth opportunities these changes will create for new businesses....or employment opportunities for former legislators... the ones that are not being arrested, anyway. 

Two other bills also introduced by Valesky this week will have lesser effect on Albany ethics.  S.2156 will have the Attorney General issue a 'certificate of ethics course completion' to fundraisers, which may help them understand the laws but won't provide any additional penalty if they break them. 

And S.4622 makes it a misdemeanor (again, not a felony) if a person knowing fails to file their required campaign reports within 30 days of the due date - three separate times.  I have to ask, if these folks can't be trusted or relied upon to file their paperwork telling us who their campaign contributors are - on time, every time - why are we trusting them with the business of New York? 

Thanks, Senator Valesky, for trying. But think of your constituents, not yourself or you fellow legislators, and make these law tougher.
 

May 7, 2013

Tuesday's Number: $116,827

Tuesday is the day my local paper, the Syracuse Post-Standard, publishes the weekly business section. In addition to special features, tips from stock experts, budgeting advice and the like, we get the judgment and bankruptcy listings. 

As I did for much of last year, I will be tracking health care related filings. I include anything that is clearly a debt owed to a hospital, nursing home, physician or physician group, medical supplier, and so on; I do not include filings by insurance companies, many of which are so diversified it would not be a fair assumption that the filing is related to medical care or health insurance. 

We have another slow news week – there were only five people listed with new judgments to hospitals, doctors, or other medical providers totaling $79,692.  

This week, there was one satisfied judgment totaling $37,135 to a hospital, doctor, or other medical provider.   

And, as typically is the case, there were no health-care related bankruptcies listed.  

The paper publishes only those accounts of at least $5,000.

May 6, 2013

All Our Problems Solved (in One Post)

Politicians make things so much harder than they need to be.

Instead of spending so much time flying back and forth between Washington and their home districts, they should spend more time on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. If they did, they'd have answers to all of our problems.

I mean, check this out.  In only a few minutes, I was able to sketch out the plan below, using information I've seen passed around on the web. Of course, I had to use a little creative thinking to get it all pulled together. But it was really quite easy to go from what's out there to what's in here.

Watch me solve all of our problems, including unemployment; welfare and disability cheating; illegal immigration; money-sucking retired teachers, cops and firefighters; our lousy educational system; increased revenue and lower taxes; and gun control, in one fell swoop:

First, take all of the unemployed government workers (including the union members who destroyed our country) that are now sucking the life out of us on unemployment, and get them whipped back into shape.  After they are re-energized, they will be responsible for rounding up anyone receiving any welfare-type benefit including subsidized housing, WIC, food stamps, Medicaid, or similar benefit.

The former government workers go out and round up everyone on welfare, and we immediately confiscate the all of the creature comforts those scumbags got with our tax dollars. Cars, smart phones, clothes, gold jewelry, gold teeth, guns. giant TVs -- the whole nine. Take the steak and lobster right out of their refrigerators, dammit!

Everyone rounded up will undergo a physical and mental health exam to determine any limitation to them working. If they truly can't work, they get put on disability.

Those with no limitations other than laziness go to a medium security 'shock camp', (high walls and razor wire required) with a bunch of crazy retired military drill sergeants running the show, who will teach the deadbeats the skills they need so they can to work. You know, things like how to get up on time each morning; do simple chores; how to listen to and respect authority; how to dress like a normal human being; and how to speak basic English. They will take daily drug tests too. This will help grow medical labs and makers of little plastic cups, which will then become vital businesses for our growing global economy. 

The growth in privately owned and operated medium-security shock camps (for a second there, I almost said 'prisons') will also be good for our growing global economy.  It may put some government prisons out of business, but that's also good, because we want smaller, non-unionized government and lower taxes. It will also cut hundreds and hundreds of pages of now unnecessary federal and state regulations, because we don't need the government sticking their nose in our private businesses or making it harder for businesses to be successful.

The welfare women will be sterilized and the men vasectomized, so there's no chance for them to have more babies to get more benefits. This growth in anti-reproductive procedures is good for our gynecologists and surgeons, and our medical records business, and it will wipe out the need for abortion and those complicated vaginal ultrasound procedures that are so costly to administer. The intrusive ultrasound business will take a hit, but that's OK. I'm sure there's other stuff for them to probe buried somewhere in the 3,000,000 regulations that are included in President Obama's health care reform legislation.

The benefits these lazy bastards were getting will now go directly to the shock camp folks, for administrative costs including feeding everyone three square meals of nutritious grains, vegetables, and fruit each day. No soda allowed. No fried food allowed. No candy allowed. No cable TV, alcohol, tobacco, firearms or lottery tickets allowed. Certainly no drugs for Low-T, which if used could make people aggressive. We don't want aggressive, we just want people who know how to get out of bed and go to work.

If the welfare folks have kids, we'll put them to work doing age-appropriate tasks. These kids won't go to school, won't get anything other than skills training, because formal schooling is only allowed for the children of tax-paying people.

We'll need a boatload of accountants and investigators to keep track of all the government money flowing into the new growth businesses, so we'll be able to re-employ all of the skilled, over-50 workers who can't find jobs, and make them productive again. Which will raise revenue; and when that happens, we can lower taxes for the rich people, like the prison owners and the little plastic cup makers, and that will also be good for our economy and our American psyche. 

Next, we need to round up everyone collecting disability; they'll have a physical to find out of there's any kind of work they can do. If they are able to work they go to the shock camp for daily training up to their capacity. For example, 50% disabled, then 50% of their time is in the shock camp. The rest of time, and 100% of the time for those who are totally disabled, they spend in specially designed group homes. These folks will also take a daily drug test, get three square welfare-style meals a day, and only have amenities (cable, alcohol, tobacco, firearms, lottery tickets, fried food, soda, candy and sex) available equal to their percentage of non-disability. Benefit payments continue, but they all go to the group home.

The group home industry now becomes a large and growing part of our new global economy. They'll need some low-paid employees to do menial tasks, of course, but more than that they'll need team leaders and counselors and therapists and stuff like that. There are thousands of new college grads living in basements all across the country, most with tens of thousands of dollars of debt who would probably jump at the chance to work at one of these homes. I'm thinking especially those with worthless liberal arts or education degrees. So, not only do we get control of the disabled, but we put all those snot-nosed college brats to work, and get them paying taxes and paying off their debt to the rest of us. 

Now, we need to take all of the retired police officers and firefighters, who usually start grabbing their taxpayer-funded pensions around the ripe old age of 45, get them off their lazy asses and have them go out and round up all of the people who look like immigrants.  Well, not all immigrants, just the ones who look Muslim or Hispanic. 

(No need to worry about the Asians, Indians, or Pakistanis, as they're all smarter than the rest of immigrants, and we need them to become doctors, engineers, etc. because regular Americans aren't smart enough because our education system sucks. And we also need the nail salons, Chinese restaurants, Arab corner markets and cheap hotels, Chinese laundries and so on which are run by the second-tier Asian, Indian and Pakistanis. They're not smart enough to become doctors and engineers, but they're really industrious running small businesses. And we all know now that small businesses are the backbone of our new global economy.)

After we round up everyone who's not like us, who doesn't make us look nice, or who doesn't sell us Big Gulps, we send the welfare and partially disabled out into the workforce, replacing the immigrants. Planting and picking food. Cleaning bathrooms at state fairs, office buildings, and hotels. Gardening and landscaping. Washing dishes. Working in laundries. Being day laborers.  Yes, the invisible jobs that were done by invisible people will now be done by our welfare scumbags and disability cheaters. Which is as it should be. And, all the trouble employers used to have to go through to make sure they were not employing illegals will be a thing of the past, because low-life Americans will be doing those jobs.  And once that happens, we slowly wean them off their welfare benefits. Say, in 24 hours or so.  That seems fair, right? We stop paying, and they start paying!

So all Muslims and Hispanic looking folks we rounded up, we put them into the shock camp, where they will wander along the path to citizenship for years and years.  And where did that path to citizenship come from, you ask?  We had the welfare people build it when they were in the shock camps.  Pretty neat, huh?

And when the Muslims and Hispanics write home to family -- we will make them do that, in between drug tests and Bible-reading-- they'll be able to tell everyone that they're on the path to citizenship, but that it's a winding path inside prison walls with razor wire on top, and clearly that will discourage folks from coming here illegally (or otherwise).

We still have millions of retirees to deal with - the ones just sitting around collecting their pensions and Social Security. Since many of them are retired teachers, who sucked us dry when they were working their part-time jobs for full time pay and now they have these exorbitant pensions and benefits, we should put these folks to work teaching skills to the welfare kids (that's a great thing for the retired art teachers to do), or teaching basic English to folks in the shock camps. Simple things that will make them feel better, and keep their minds sharp.

OK, so who's left? Oh, that's right. The good immigrants, the smart immigrants. The ones who get those coveted American diplomas where we staple their green cards.

Once the good immigrants are officially doctors, engineers, scientists, etc. and have their green cards, they will be required to spend five hours a week administering the citizenship test to current US citizens - starting with federal politicians, then rich idiots like Donald Trump, then everyone in state elected office, then all of the local elected officials, then government appointees, then regular government workers, and then eventually the regular folks like minimum wage earners and bloggers.  This'll certainly separate the wheat from the chaff, don't you think?

The test is essential; we need to make sure that those of us who are already taking part in the American dream are actually qualified to receive our God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And gun ownership and abortion and free contraception and marriage between one man and one woman -- all of which fall in the LLATPOH buckets. And because of course, mandatory testing is a critical component of our new global economy. Just ask any school-aged child.

Those Americans who pass the test are free to continue on their merry way. And they get some of the spoils from the welfare round-up -- jewelry, cars, gold teeth, smart phones, guns, all that yummy steak and lobster, the large-screen TVs...

But if you fail the test, well, things are going to change for you really quick. Because the last thing we need is a bunch of idiots wandering around who think they know what America stands for, but who can't prove it. We need to keep America safe from those people.  We surely can't have them holding jobs and guns and Viagra and cigarettes and beers and Bibles and having sex with only one man and one woman for the purposes of procreating and furthering our American values. And voting, for cripes' sake. We sure as hell can't have them vote.

Since so many of the people who will fail the citizenship test come from families that have been here for generations, we can't send them back to their country of origin. Well, except the African-Americans. They can all go back to Africa. 

That larger population of white, non-Hispanic origin, the ones who have come up through the sucky American education system?  Well, since we can't send them back, off to the shock camps they go. 

See? All our problems solved.

May 2, 2013

The Update Desk 5/2/13

One local, one bigger picture.  Let's do the local one first.

I had mentioned a couple of times (here and here) that there was a chance I could have an umbrella factory around the corner from our home.  Minutes were finally posted from the Board of Zoning Appeals meeting (one of Syracuse's moves in the right government transparency direction), and my neighbor's request was approved.  I'm hoping that his venture is successful and that he has the chance to expand further, as he intends.

Now, on to that bigger picture thing.  Sunday, I did a post on an Iowa legislator who was supportive of a move to reduce the salary of several Iowa Supreme Court justices by over 80% because he was unhappy that the Court had determined that the state's 'marriage-is-between-one-man-and-one-woman' law was unconstitutional and violated the equal protection laws.  

Tom Shaw
To me, this is a very scary road to be on, not only because the legislator, Republican Tom Shaw, pretends that this will help restore the balance of powers between the three branches of government, but because it does exactly the opposite of that. To pretend that penalizing judges that put forth decisions you don't like is 'balancing' is nothing short of bizarre.

Now, to his credit, Mr Shaw favors a constitutional amendment for Iowa declaring that a marriage is only between one man and one woman; as I pointed out in the earlier post, that's a reasonable response to the Court's decision. 


I looked at some of the other pieces of legislation Mr. Shaw supports.  In another government transparency step, Iowa lets me look at what's going on out there.  Here are a few of the bills that are on the agenda for Shaw. 

These first few are straight out of the GOP's national platform:
A bill for an act to prohibit the state and all political subdivisions from supporting or participating in any action relating to the United Nations Agenda 21 proposal to impose sustainable development principles and practices and state and local governments.
A bill for an act declaring the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act invalid, null and void, and of no effect in this state, providing penalties, and including effective date provisions.
Here's one sure to get support from veterans and their families:
A bill for an act prohibiting cities from enforcing certain parking-related ordinances against the owner of a vehicle bearing purple heart plates.  
And of course, as a good first-term Republican, he's got to get the NRA score up:
A bill for an act relating to the carrying of weapons on school grounds (in favor).
A bill for an act relating to firearms, including the ownership and manufacture of firearms, firearm accessories, and ammunition, providing for a penalty, and including effective date and applicability provisions. (This one includes a misdemeanor charge against anyone trying to enforce a federal gun law against a good Iowan, whether person or business)
He also offered this:
A resolution opposing the decision of the International Olympic Committee to end wrestling as an Olympic event. (This is Iowa, after all.)  
But my favorite one of all is this:
A bill for an act relating to the state individual income tax by modifying the personal exemption credit for dependents to include certain unborn children, increasing the amount of the credit and including effective date and retroactive applicability provisions. 
Yes, you read that right.

Mr. Shaw is proposing that certain unborn Iowans should count as dependents for tax purposes, provided that the unborn dependent is of at least 12-weeks' gestation at the end of the tax year and has been under a physician's care since reaching the 12-week threshold. 

Can't you just picture this reality show? The Unborn Dependents, airing right after the Real Housewives of Cedar Rapids?  It'll be must-see TV for sure!