BUMBLING BUREAUCRATS
By
Betty Freauf
April 3, 2012
NewsWithViews.com
The world is falling apart. Our city, county, state and federal governments are all bankrupt. The only presidential candidate who proves he can cut a trillion dollars from the federal budget in one year is Congressman Ron Paul and he’s criticized as being unelectable by the conservative talk show and T.V. pundits. He warns unless America makes a hard course correction our future is uncertain. The G-20 wants a $1 trillion –plus bailout fund for the IMF/EU that is also bankrupt. And then up pops a March 23, 2012 article in our local fish wrapper stating the certifiable nincompoops in Oregon’s Public Retirement System (PERS) had another oops moment. It seems from April 2000 and April 2004, 28,042 public retirees were overpaid and now PERS wants it back via a reduction in their monthly checks or repayment plans if they don’t have the cash readily available. A rant in our paper asked, “After many years of hearing through TV and reading in newspapers (from PERS staff) how inaccurate the PERS data system was for calculating PERS retirements, why should we now accept the payback calculations?”
But there’s more. PERS is going to approach the State Legislature’s emergency board in May with a request for more than $2 million. The money will pay for temporary employees to oversee collection efforts and some staff overtime in addition to possibly hiring “private” collection firms to pursue payment from retirees who have moved outside the State of Oregon and who refuse to pay back the money. So, once again, the taxpayers must pay to recoup the money that these unaccountable lickspittles were paid to mismanage. In addition, PERS guarantees an 8% profit each year and if the investments fail to produce that amount, the Oregon taxpayers get to make up the difference. The retirees receive medical insurance and pay no state tax on their retirement. If they move out of state, their retirement income does nothing for the state of Oregon’s economy. While the nation is in decline, and slowly cracking up, they are probably spending it in sunny Arizona.
A 3/11/2012 Statesman Journal article said Oregon’s former Governor Ted Kulongski nets PERS times 3 in his retirement. He served in all three branches of government during his 25-year career in public service. His combined monthly pension of $4,876.12 – about $58,513 per year – ranks 111,292 out of more than 105,000 PERS retirees listed in the benefit database. But his pension is one-eighth of that received by PERS’ top beneficiary, retired University of Oregon football coach Mike Bellotti, who receives $496,100 per year in pension checks and no longer lives in Oregon and currently pays no Oregon income tax on his retirement. Craig Robinson, Oregon State basketball coach, is brother of first lady, Michelle Obama, who has been invited to give the graduation address at Oregon State University. It was reported in August 2010 that OSU received $17 million in “stimulus” money and helped save Craig’s job.
A 2/21/2011 Statesman Journal article said Oregon adopted its first version of the Public Employees Collective Bargaining Act in 1963 and a young lawyer for the Oregon legislature named Ted Kulongoski helped draft a 1973 refinement of the act. That young lawyer was elected Democrat governor in 2003 and served until 2010 when divorced Democrat governor John Kitzhaber was elected again and now has a live-in “first lady” in the governor’s mansion. Kitz served originally from January 1995 to January 2003 when Ted was elected. In Oregon, it’s been Democrat musical chairs since 1987. To further complicate matters, if a public employee is elected to the State Legislature they will receive a second benefit check based solely on their legislative service, on top of the pension they earned from their original government job. Now we hear that Kulongoski is teaching at some college. Is he volunteering or setting himself up for yet another PERS check?
Ted Bundy was sentenced to die for the kidnap, rape and murder of Kimberly Leach, 12, of Lake City, Florida and murdering two Florida sorority sisters. On the eve of his execution in January 1989 he admitted he deserved the most extreme punishment society had but said he didn’t want to die. Now Oregon’s governor Kitzhaber, a doctor, is wasting millions of dollars on Gary Haugen who wants to be put to death for his crime. Oregon passed a death penalty law in 1984; however, Kitzhaber has consistently opposed capital punishment because he’s been haunted by allowing two executions to proceed during his first tenure as Oregon chief executive and says he simply cannot participate once again in something he believes is morally wrong. Kitzhaber is pro-choice. He apparently has no qualms of killing innocent babies in the womb. What an oxy”moron”!
In the meantime, public employee retirement costs are cutting into agency budgets. The commie environmentalists have tied up thousands of acres in Oregon to logging so they can grow their marijuana crops unimpeded by pesky loggers discovering their stash in the woods. Timber counties have been getting a subsidy from the federal government since 2000 to make up for timber revenues that plummeted when logging on federal lands was cut more than 80% claiming to protect habitat for the northern spotted owl and salmon. But those subsidies have run out. Now we have ghost towns as loggers move to find employment elsewhere. The Constitution stipulates that “public safety” is first and foremost in any budget but police and firemen are the first things these sycophants cut. Economic decay is a breeding ground for chaos and violence. Is it any wonder gun sales for the first quarter of 2012 are already equal to all gun sales in 2011 and there are rumors of shortages.
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I could go on for many more pages about Oregon’s oops moments for there are many. Most of these bureaucrats in high salaried jobs have college diplomas but are unable to do an accurate accounting of the money and I can’t recall a time when they were held accountable. In the private sector, they’d go to jail. Up until recently, they’d just tap the taxpayer but that well has run dry. Soon many of these folks will be on the unemployment line too.
NewsWithViews.com frequent contributor Chuck Baldwin nailed it beautifully when he said the left-right paradigm is a hoax. Baldwin says both liberals and conservatives are selling out America. He says our system turns friends into adversaries and adversaries into friends. I saw that when I was a GOP activist in the 80s. Nepotism is prevalent in government like the generational welfare system.
Dick Cheney in his 2011 book IN MY TIME said the 1994 midterm elections were historic, with Republicans taking control of both houses of Congress for the first time in forty years but Baldwin reminds us little changed. We are no closer to overturning the Supreme Court Roe abortion provision that legalized abortion-on-demand after almost forty years of electing “pro-life conservatives” and Clinton later said he was pleased with the bipartisan support he was given. Cheney also said he saved for his honeymoon but got sick from food poisoning and had to be hospitalized for a week so the honeymoon money paid the medical bills because he had no health insurance. The wedding was August 29, 1964.
“Democracy” elected Barack Obama in 2008. If the Supreme Court deems Obamacare unconstitutional, will MOBOCRACY be coming to our cities? The “social justice” crowd, labor unions, the Occupy Wall Street crowd and others use intimidation. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) paid protesters to stand outside the Supreme Court building during the recent oral arguments on Obamacare where not even the Supreme Court Justices plan to read the 2,700 page bill.
Oregon’s Constitution says every Act shall embrace but one subject…and be plainly worded avoiding as far as practicable the use of technical terms. (Oregon legislators ignore it). If these same restrictions apply in Washington, D.C. (and they should) this would automatically disqualify Obamacare as unconstitutional. Newly appointed Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan during the oral arguments said she couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. Former Speaker of the House Democrat Nancy Pelosi cocked her head to the side, smiled and asked, “Are you serious?” when a reporter asked her if she thought the Obamacare would be overturned? These folks don’t have a clue – common sense is nowhere to be found. They seem to think that Obamacare is simply going to send a boat load of money to the states to take care of those who can’t afford insurance which everyone will be required to have.
We see the civil rights agitators, “The” Reverend Jesse Jackson and “The” Reverend Al Sharpton back in front of the T.V. cameras over the unfortunate shooting of Trayvon Martin, the black boy shot to death in Florida by the “white” Hispanic neighborhood watch volunteer. Because Martin was black and Zimmerman has a white father and a Hispanic mother, the case has become yet another racial flashpoint. WhileTrayvon’s parents and friends try to portray him as an innocent victim that may prove not to be so true. As the days go by, more and more will be exposed. Will there be riots in the streets if the outcome isn’t favorable? Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, and family attorneys blame police for leaking the information about his suspension by Miami-Dade County Schools for traces of marijuana found in a plastic baggie in his book bag. He was serving his suspension when he was shot.
In the meantime George Zimmerman, 28, hasn’t been charged but had to go into hiding because the Black Panthers are offering a reward for his capture. Film maker Spike Lee put a wrong address on the Internet for Zimmerman causing an elderly retired couple to receive hate mail and death threats and ended up having to leave their home and check in at a hotel. Lee apologized but the damage had been done. The Black Panthers seem to escape any prosecution for their numerous crimes.
One of the first race-related hoaxes was the Tawana Brawley incident in November 1987. The February 26, 1991 NEW AMERICAN reported a 15-year old black teenage claimed she had been abducted, raped, and subjected to racial humiliation by six white men in a New York City suburb. Once again, the case attracted national attention for many months. Black activists rallied to Brawley’s defense, and financial assistance was promised by, among others, actor Bill Cosby and then heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson. Brawley’s lawyers and minister eventually accused a white policeman of having participated in the “crime.” A state grand jury investigated and, after examining the evidence for seven months, concluded on October 6, 1988 that Brawley had lied about the entire episode. The jury, which completely cleared the accused policeman, said that she had most likely concocted the story to escape punishment for staying away from home for several days. Even after the grand jury reported its findings, Brawley’s lawyers and a family advisor continued to insist that her story was true and that state officials were guilty of a cover up and stories continued for months.
But better late than never, in March 1993 SIXTY MINUTES T.V. reported on the Brawley incident and said it had been proven to be a falsehood and that Al Sharpton was behind the story. They said he’d been the mouth for blacks in New York but to others he’d only been a mouth! The T.V. show said that “boy wonder” was from Brooklyn. His father walked out when he was 10. His mother went on welfare. He later became an ordained Pentecostal preacher and that he and the “Reverend” Jackson had been friends since their teens. Jackson admitted “sometimes you do things to get to the center stage.”
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Copy cat Azalea Cooley, who is black and disabled, in October 1992 in Portland, Oregon was claiming racial intolerance and bigotry. The OREGONIAN newspaper said she made phony reports of bias, alleged hate crimes and lied to the FBI. Her lies were discovered when the authorities placed cameras nearby and caught her engaging in the staged hate crimes on her own property. Her punishment: The judge placed Cooley on probation and confined her at home for four months of her two-year sentence. In November 1992 the alleged hate-crime figure attempted to commit suicide.
On March 27th our local newspaper reported on the Florida shooting of the teenager and there was a front page story with pictures of the another black mother and aunt of a young man, age 21, who was shot and two other lads being wounded in 2009. The shooter, Garcia-Ceja allegedly fled to Mexico, where he was captured in June 2010. He was extradited to Oregon and “coincidentally” arraigned the day before. Was this another form of race baiting?
On November 27, 2009 I wrote I felt God was pulling twigs from our comfortable, materialistic nests. I believe it even more so today.
� 2012 Betty Freauf - All Rights Reserved
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