2022 Midterm Elections Are Coming: Vote Like Your Life Depends On It

 

The midterm elections are coming!  The midterm elections are coming!  The midterm elections are coming!  

We saw it happening in 2010 when the IRS became involved in stifling tea party 501C-3 applications.  Not just stifling them, but flat out targeting them by asking for names of members and wanting to 'pre-approve' flyers that were handed out at rallies.  They also wanted website domain information and a whole host of other information aimed at discriminating against those who they saw as enemies of the state.  I wish I was kidding.  I was part of one of the tea party groups that was targeted and I was asked to go to the hearing that investigated those said discriminatory practices and I watched Lois Lerner plead the fifth amendment at said hearing.  I also wrote about that hearing here.  Really, Lois?  

I know that 2010 is NOT the first time that the government has 'come after' law-abiding, tax paying citizens, nor will it be the last.  What's the saying, 'absolute power corrupts absolutely.'?  Exactly.  Fast forward to today.  Read the headlines.  The far-left Democrats want to dispose of the Republican party.  Hell, I've wanted to dispose of the Republican party at one time or another, but not so far as wanting to actually kill them.  That's what the Democrats want right now, and they're  not even trying to hide it anymore.

Sure, if they're called out on it, they try to walk it back as in, 'that's not really what I meant'.  Or, 'that comment was taken out of context' or any other attempt to soften the original comments they made.  Folks, words matter and the Bible says that, "For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks."-Luke 6:45.  I'll give you a few examples of what I'm talking about, but there are more.  

First, Democrat Congressman Tim Ryan ordered that, "we must kill and confront the MAGA movement." 

    “The Democrats aren’t right on everything. And I’m willing to sit down and have conversations about how we can move out of this age of stupidity,” Ryan said during an appearance Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “Some of those answers will come from Republicans, not the extremists that we are dealing with every single day, we’ve got to kill and confront that movement, but working with normal mainstream Republicans, that’s going to be really, really important.”

I may be asking for trouble here, but I don't recall ever hearing a Republican Congressman or Senator or any other nationally elected official calling for the murder of their opponent.  My goodness.  It doesn't stop there, though.  Another Democrat, a  Senator this time said that the abortion ban is literally a 'call to arms'.  I'm not sure about you, but a call to arms is a call to WAR.  

Even the POTUS, Joe Biden is vilifying the MAGA movement; 

    "MAGA Republicans do not respect the constitution,” Biden said. “They do not believe in the rule     of law, they do not believe in the rule of law, they do not recognize the will of the people.”

    “MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards,” he added. “Backwards to an             America where there is no right to choose. No right to privacy. No right to contraception. No right     to marry who you love. They promote authoritarian leaders and they fan the flames of political        violence.”

That, folks, is called 'gaslighting'.  

Let's also not forget that concerned parents are targets of the left.  Democrat Georgia Representative Hank Johnson brings himself into the fold of those who want to target those who disagree with him as he compares parents to those who descended on the capitol building on January 6th as one in the same.  He's quoted as saying in this Daily Caller article, 

        "People on the local level at effected school board meetings, they won’t forget the MAGA                     Republicans descending on their school board meetings after January 6, like January 6,                     disrupting meetings,” Johnson continued.

Are you seeing a theme here?  So, what can we do about it?  First and easiest thing to do is vote!  Vote like your life depends on it November 8th.  Vote Republican up and down the ballot, especially on those judicial races because those are some of the most important races on the ballot.  We've got rampant crime, inflation, increasing gas prices and a divider in chief and lots of his little minions at the federal level just itching to do his bidding.  Don't let them do it.

Texas vs. Florida in Limiting and Eliminating Tenure for College Professors

If you know me, you'll know that I'm not one to champion incumbents for the sake of incumbency.  Nor am I one to champion what Lt. Governor of the state of Texas Dan Patrick does; no offense, Dan.  We come down on different sides of different issues and I feel personally that some of what he does is more zealous than need be.  However, I find myself mostly in agreement with what he and Governor Abbott are in the process of doing when it comes to college professor tenure.  Check it out:

I love Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) and what they do.  I subscribe to their emails and one that they sent out this morning had me clicking the link to read the articles on the issues they cited. One such article was about how Texas AND Florida (wtg DeSantis!) are attempting to put an end to college professor tenure to depoliticize the college classroom.  Bravo.  The reason I say that is because there is absolutely nothing wrong with a system of checks and balances.  Plus, I don't love the fact that college students sometimes become indoctrinated while going to college.  That's not entirely the professors' faults, but they will definitely take credit, I imagine, if one of their students leaves college in agreement with their liberal ideology.

Now, there's a difference between the legislation being introduced by Texas and Florida, and to be honest, I like the sound of Florida's bill a little better.  Texas' version is a little bit heavy handed to say that Texas will flat out end tenure where Florida's bill puts them in a position to review teacher performances every five years, including tenured faculty.  

    "Under the bill, teachers will be evaluated along several metrics, including accomplishments and productivity, and performance metrics, evaluations, and ratings. The evaluations will also address recognition and compensation considerations, as well as improvement plans and consequences for underperformance."  

    “Florida’s students deserve a quality, affordable education and don’t need ideological activists and political organizations determining what they should learn,” DeSantis said in a statement. “By ushering in strong curriculum transparency requirements and providing accountability for tenured faculty, Florida is standing with students and parents across our state.” 

Conversely, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick's bill as I mentioned before would eliminate tenured employees AND it would go a step further to fire any professor who taught Critical Race Theory.  This has some with their hackles up about free speech and that the firing would infringe on first amendment rights.  

"Free speech advocate Jeremy Young is concerned that initiatives like Patrick’s pose a serious threat to academia. Young, senior manager of free expression and education at PEN America, said in a February statement that Patrick’s plan represents a “mortal threat to academic freedom.”  

“Patrick’s proposal is a craven attempt to score political points. It will create a climate of fear among teachers and students alike. It should be rejected,” Young said."

This sounds a bit like term limits for college professors, which I don't have a problem with.  As I stated before, Florida's bill seems a bit better.  Take a look at both and you decide.  And, as always, if you like what you see, call and let your representative know that you want them to support the efforts made by the Lt. Governor and conversely, if you don't like it, tell them that, too.

Trolling Isn't Just for the Left

Trolling.  You've heard that word before, no doubt and before the internet came along trolling was a word used mostly in fishing.  Trailing a baited line behind a boat, etc.  Now according to the Urban Dictionary, it's defined as, "the art of deliberately, cleverly, and secretly pissing people off, usually via the internet, using dialogue. Trolling does not mean just making rude remarks: 

The most essential part of trolling is convincing your victim that either a) truly believe in what you are saying, no matter how outrageous, or b) give your victim malicious instructions, under the guise of help."

Under that particular definition, I do believe that Ted Cruz has mastered the art of trolling in his latest bill he's introduced to send illegal immigrants to Democrat led cities such as Martha's Vineyard.  IMHO, troll level: expert.  I won't get into all of the details of the bill, but just the thought of what he's trying to do makes me giddy.  It's absolutely perfect and hilarious, but it does have merit beyond the shadenfruede that it makes me feel.  You can check it out for yourself here on the Daily Caller website.

A quote from the article on the Daily Caller says this: "For the past ten months, President Biden and his administration have willingly surrendered the United States’ southern border to dangerous criminal cartels, with no thought given to the South Texas border communities like McAllen and Del Rio, which are running low on resources from dealing with this massive influx of illegal immigrants,” Cruz said in a statement before introducing the legislation.

“That’s why today I am introducing this crucial legislation to alleviate the massive overload at the southern border by establishing new ports of entry in Democrat-led communities such as North Hero, Vermont, where Bernie Sanders spends his summers, and Martha’s Vineyard, where Democrat elites host their cocktail parties,” Cruz added.

I'm personally looking forward to hearing the left screeching and howling about protecting the borders to their fancy cocktail parties meanwhile they are the ones who have left kids in cages on the Texas/Mexico border.  What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Private Projects Deserve Your Attention....Here's Why

You can take the girl out of politics, but you can't take the politics out of the girl.  Or something like that.  I have almost always been one to focus on local government like school boards and MUD boards, etc..  It should come as no surprise that I served on the local government committee for the local GOP affiliate.  While in service to the Local Government Committee, we were approached by a group of folks to 'pitch' us on the idea of a high speed rail project to run service from Houston to Dallas out of what used to be the Northwest Mall parking lot.  Hmmmm..

I got involved in politics when the first TARP was passed and when Obama got elected.  I had and still have a heart for voter education and protection of the tax payer dollar.  That hasn't changed.  When the folks that were 'for' the project came and presented to our group, I was more than skeptical.  I asked them about seeking a hand out for the government to finance the project and they promised that wouldn't happen.  They said that our state government, aka Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick were far too conservative to ever award a bail out.  They didn't mention the feds, however.

I am also not a fan of imminent domain.  Again, the pro-rail folks promised they weren't doing that.  They said they were offering the people who lived in the path of the railway fair market value for their homes.  That may not have been a lie, but now as the news has surfaced that they're looking for a hand out from the feds, they managed to find a workaround in the courts. 

According the article that I linked to above, which was published on KTRH,  the rail people finally got one of their wishes, was to be qualified as a railway so that they could do land grabs.  I stood against the project from the beginning.  My only wish is that we had taken a hard line stance against this as a committee.  Moral of the story is, you can't take your eye off of government.  Not even for a second.

WORLD Magazine: Education Results vs Spending...By The Numbers

Ronald Reagan once said, “If you serve a child a rotten hamburger in America, federal, state, and local agencies will investigate you, summon you, close you down, whatever. But if you provide a child with a rotten education, nothing happens, except that you're liable to be given more money to do it with. Well, we've discovered that money alone isn't the answer.”    



He couldn't have been more correct.  WORLD Magazine wrote a post they titled By The Numbers. in which they discuss this very issue.  Here are the stats they shared to drive Reagan's quote home:

10.3

"The percentage increase in the number of students in U.S. public schools between 1970 and 2016, according to a September study by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). The increase was from 45.9 million to 50.6 million."

57

"The percentage increase in the ­number of teachers in U.S. public schools between 1970 and 2016—from about 2 million to 3.17 million—according to the AEI study."

147

"The percentage increase in nonteaching staffers in U.S. public schools between 1970 and 2016—from 1.4 million to 3.3 million—according to AEI."

150

"The percentage increase, adjusted for inflation, in per-pupil spending in U.S. public schools between 1970 and 2016—from $4,934 to $12,220—according to AEI."

And finally,

287

"The reading score for 17-year-old Americans on the National Assessment of Educational Progress in 2015. This was virtually unchanged from the score of 286 in 1975. Scores on both reading and math have been essentially flat since the early 1970s, despite the more than doubling of spending per student and a sharp increase in the number of teachers per student. A Department of Education report concluded: “Average reading and mathematics achievement for 17-year-olds did not change significantly between the early 1970s and 2012 or between 2008 and 2012.”

So the next time your local school district comes to you with their hand out looking for a billion plus dollar bond, remember this and tell them to go take a hike, and not a tax hike.  




 

Who Are You?

Soooooo, who are you?  No, I'm not quoting the famous The Who song of the same title, I'm actually asking!  This question popped into my head about myself this morning while I was getting dressed.  Who am I?  I guess I could answer that question in any number of ways.  I'm a woman.  I'm a wife.  I'm a mom.  I'm a teacher.  More importantly, though, I'm a Christian.

I was reminded of that fact this morning when I put on my cross necklace.  The cross on this particular necklace is special to me because it belonged to my dad's mother.  She died when I was only ten months old, so I didn't get to know her.  The cross necklace makes me feel close to her.  I was reminded of something with even more significance than my grandmother's memory, though.  I was reminded of who I am.  I am His and He is mine.

I think we forget that from time to time.  We forget that other people are His.  No matter whether you're a Republican or a Democrat or whatever political party you align yourself with, you are a creation of God, and THAT is what defines who you are.  I guess this is technically a message we could have used during the election what with the mudslinging and all.  Now that the mud has ceased to fly and we're headed into the holiday season, I think it's a great reminder for all of us.

Yes, I am The Political Chicken.  No, I am not the Religious Chicken, although I do tend to veer towards stories from the Bible in hopes to encourage you in your faith.  I know I've been encouraged just by writing this.  Have a great rest of your holiday weekend and go into the holiday season with this reminder, "I am His and He is mine, and so are other people."

Nike or New Balance? And why?

Oh, hello out there in internet, social media world!  It's me, TPC!   There's been lots going on lately, but I haven't forgotten about you!  From Kaepernick and Nike to now New Balance and President Trump, there's always something brewing.

Colin Kaepernick.  His name has become synonymous with protest of the National Anthem sung before National Football League (NFL) football games.  He took a knee during the playing and singing of the National Anthem beginning last football season.  Has it really been two years since he started that?  I have by and large stayed out of it, and I really wasn't even going to 'go there', but here I go.

There has been a whirlwind of controversy ever since he decided to protest the National Anthem.  Many regular football fans have decided to boycott the NFL because of Kaepernick's decision to sit out during the National Anthem.  It has incited rage in some.  He's been called a myriad of names because of the protest.  Thing is, guys, IT'S ACTUALLY HIS RIGHT TO SIT IT OUT.

The NFL even supported his decision by saying that, "Players are encouraged but not required to stand during the playing of the national anthem."  Alrighty.  It's also YOUR RIGHT to not watch football because of the stance of the NFL. Since then, Nike has come out as making Kaepernick their spokesperson.  Conservatives lost their collective minds; burning their Nike shoes in the streets, y'all.  People went post apocalyptic.  SRSLY.

Now comes New Balance, not to be outdone by Nike, I guess, throwing their support behind President Trump.  The VP of Public Affairs, Sara Germano, tweeted last night that, "The Obama administration turned a deaf ear to us, and frankly w/President-Elect Trump we feel things are going to move in the right direction."  This is from a Forbe's magazine article published this morning.  And I know what my conservative peeps are all thinking: support New Balance because they support our president!  Not so fast, friends.

The article goes on to say that, "For what it’s worth, New Balance would likely have backed rival candidate Hillary Clinton, too, who reversed her stance on TPP after endorsing it three years ago as President Obama’s Secretary of State. On the campaign trail she, like Trump, opposed the deal, but her so-called flip-flop made some voters nervous that she’d change her position yet again if she made it to the White House." 


As they used to say on Sesame Street, "One of these things is not like the other."  Okay, so what's the difference?  One could say that Nike put their support behind Kaepernick for a publicity stunt.  Love or hate, it worked.  I mean, have you SEEN all of the anti-Nike memes out there?  Free advertising, hello!  So will we now see liberals burning their New Balance shoes in the streets?

One could also say that New Balance's decision was based on a business decision as to what was good for the company.  Which one of these reasons will cause my conservative friends to support which company more and why?  Will we continue down the road of emotions and knee jerks, or will we have a more steady hand going forward?  Remember, "Feelings are much like waves, we can't stop them from coming but we can choose which one to surf."