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Bankruptcy, Thy Name Is Democrat

What do these U.S. locations have in common: Central Falls, RI; Detroit, MI; San Bernardino, CA; Mammoth Lakes, CA; Stockton, CA; Jefferson County, AL; Harrisburg, PA; and Boise County, ID? Well, each has filed for Chapter 9 Bankruptcy since 2010.

However, there is something else, shared with the financially troubled cities of Baltimore, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Miami; also with Atlantic City and Camden, NJ, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

It is also common to the following states: California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, and Massachusetts.

What these cities and states share, along with their financial challenges, is that the Democrat Party controls nearly every one of them; sometimes, it has for decades.

Consider Detroit, which on July 18, 2013, became the largest U.S. city ever to seek bankruptcy protection. No Republican has been mayor since January, 1962; the City Council has not had a Republican majority or plurality since the 1950’s. Democrats have run Detroit for more than a half century…into the ground.

As for the last Republican mayors in the other bankrupt locations:

    • Central Falls – 1930,
    • San Bernardino – 1993,
    • Stockton – only one since 1990,
    Birmingham, Alabama, Jefferson County’s seat – 1975,
    Harrisburg – 1982, and
    • Boise County, Idaho’s Commission appears majority Republican of late, bucking the trend.

Among the troubled, but not (yet?) bankrupt cities:

    Baltimore last elected a Republican mayor in 1963,
    Philadelphia – no GOP mayor in more than 60 years,
    Pittsburgh was last run by a Republican in 1934, and
    Miami has never had a Republican mayor.

Additionally:

    • Atlantic City’s last Republican mayor was black; James Usry ended his term in 1990,
    • A Republican last served as mayor of Camden, NJ from 1935 to 1936,
    Chicago’s last Republican mayor served in 1931, and for 43 of the last 82 years, the Democrat running the city was named Richard Daley, and
    Los Angeles boasts one Republican mayor since 1961.

There is more. In a report that identified 20 U.S cities that could go bankrupt after Detroit, at least 15 of them are Democrat-run. Of the 10 US cities with the highest percentages of residents living in poverty, Democrats have run them for decades. The point is hard to miss.

Turning attention to states with financial challenges:

    • California: 4 Democrat and 4 Republican governors since 1959. However, since 1992, Democrats have run the State Assembly for all but 4 years, and the State Senate for all but 2,

    • New York: Since 1958, 5 of 8 governors were Democrats. Since 1992, Republicans ran the Senate all but 4 years, but Democrats controlled the Assembly each year,

    • Illinois: Since 1991, 2 Democrat and 2 Republican governors; and Democrats controlled the State Senate for 12 of 22 years, and the House of Representatives for 20 of 22 years,

    • New Jersey: Since 1990 – 4 Democrat and 3 Republican, administrations. Since 1992, Republicans ran the Senate for 10 years, there were 2 years of shared control, and Democrats ran it for 10 years…the last 10 years; in the State House, Republican control for 10 years, followed by Democrat Control for the last 12, and

    • Massachusetts: Since Michael Dukakis’ 1991 retirement, there has been 1 Democrat governor, but Democrats kept majorities in both the Senate and the House.

To be “fair”, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan are troubled states under Republican control. Ohio has 24 governments and 6 school districts plagued by pension funding issues and an unwillingness to cut spending despite declining revenues. Pennsylvania has $47 Billion in unfunded pension liabilities and no political will to address the problem. Michigan halts between dealing with rising healthcare costs, or kicking that can down the road.

However, the political scales may not balance as much as some might believe; the policies at the root of these financial ills have a decidedly liberal Democrat aroma.

The problem of unfunded pension liabilities traces back to President Kennedy’s desire to grab union votes for Democrats. Both Franklin Delano Roosevelt and former AFL-CIO president George Meaney considered collective bargaining for public employees bad for taxpayers. However, when Kennedy saw that New York City Mayor Robert Wagner built a reliable Democrat voting bloc by granting collective-bargaining rights to the city’s public employees, he put his party’s good ahead of taxpayer benefit and issued an Executive Order in 1962, granting those rights to unionized federal employees. The practice spread across the nation. Now, governments have collectively bargained themselves into more than $4.5 Trillion in unfunded pension liabilities.

Problems with healthcare costs trace back to the 1965 origination of Medicare and Medicaid under President Lyndon Johnson. Government socialization of medical costs is now a financial disaster, with Medicare facing $38.6 Trillion in unfunded liabilities, according to its Board of Trustees. Also, Medicare heads for bankruptcy in 2016 or 2024, depending upon what is true about Obamacare.

It took 17 years for all 50 states to “voluntarily” participate in Medicaid, and 11 more for President Clinton to announce Medicaid was bankrupting them. Add the fact Obamacare makes Medicaid more costly for states, and that uninsured patients often have better medical outcomes than those using Medicaid, and one wonders how Medicare, Medicaid, or Obamacare benefit the nation. However, despite poorer health care and worsened state balance sheets, liberal Democrats use the programs to show themselves as “caring”.

More often than not in the U.S., when governments have financial trouble, Democrats are at the helm of government and, even when not in charge, policies originated and associated with Democrats cause the problems. For example, Democrats portray Social Security as an effective and successful program.

However, it is hard to imagine how a program, short nearly $10 Trillion over the next 75 years, and facing massive growth in the number of beneficiaries, meets any reasonable success criteria…until you consider how it delivers the senior vote to Democrats.

To their credit, Democrats convinced the nation that they care about the people, even as they devastate them financially. By the time Democrats finish showing their concern for people, no government anywhere is likely to have a dime to spend on them.

Perhaps it is time for a real change?

Zimmerman Trial Shows Trayvon Martin May Not Be Only Black Fatality

George Zimmerman is guilty.

George Zimmerman is guilty of profiling Trayvon Martin while acting as a neighborhood watchman.

George Zimmerman is guilty of saying Trayvon Martin “looks black”, when asked about Martin’s ethnicity.

George Zimmerman is guilty of following Trayvon Martin, leading to a confrontation.

George Zimmerman is guilty of shooting an unarmed Trayvon Martin to death…..

And none of these things are crimes in the State of Florida, unless prosecutors can refute Zimmerman’s self-defense assertion. That appears unlikely after the trial’s first five days.

The prosecution put on: a star witness who struggles with the truth; an eyewitness who said Martin did an MMA-style “ground-and-pound” on Zimmerman, and that Zimmerman screamed for help; and a witness who photographed Zimmerman’s injuries, and heard Zimmerman claim self-defense. At some point, the prosecution might wish to start eliminating reasonable doubt, instead of creating absolute doubt that Zimmerman is guilty of anything apart from weight gain.

However, the real story of the trial is the black reaction to it, for that may signal the decline of blacks as an American political demographic. Simply put, blacks are losing political and social respect – not because of what comes upon them, but for what emerges from them, which is clearly demonstrated by the Trayvon Martin ordeal.

Blacks, who owe their political standing to overcoming race-based injustice, are showing themselves racist. From the outset, blacks called the shooting a white-on-black crime, and, apparently, many still do, though Zimmerman’s parents are Jewish (father) and Cuban (mother).

(According to Jewish tradition dating to the 2nd century, and US Census bureau policy, maternity determines a child’s race. George Zimmerman is Cuban, not white. The same tradition and policy makes Barack Obama just another white man in the White House.)

The New Black Panther Party wanted whites killed in response to Martin’s death and placed a bounty on Zimmerman. The Martin family said they did not “condone those people”…which differs from the condemnation that should have (but did not) come from them and all people of good faith.

Spike Lee tweeted what he thought was Zimmerman’s address, telling followers, “feel free to reach out and touch him”. Lee later apologized and paid the couple he put at risk. Again, blacks were silent.

Had the Ku Klux Klan advocated killing blacks or placed a bounty on anyone, or had a minor white celebrity threatened an elderly black couple, black outrage, and that of most other Americans, would have come swiftly…because such things are wrong.

The black non-reaction to these things, including ignoring and excusing racist comments from Trayvon Martin the night he died, shows that blacks, who once rose in opposition to slurs and injustices cast upon them, now sit in acceptance of their own casting slurs and committing injustices…and the nation notices this.

Trayvon Martin died during an election year, which likely prompted the incumbent president to seek connection with blacks during the re-elect campaign:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yt_g5JPdP8Y[/youtube]

Now, blacks supporting Obama at 96% in 2008 is understandable. But, since then, world economists recognize America’s decline under Obama, and the American middle class, for which Obama claims to fight, lead the downward spiral. Yet hardest hit are America’s blacks. High unemployment, diminished net worth, a worsening racial climate, etc. make being black in America tougher under Obama.

However, instead of punishing Obama in 2012, blacks gave him 93% of their votes. Obama also got a pass for showing greater concern for issues affecting hispanic and homosexual communities than for those impacting blacks. Indeed, blacks scarcely criticize Obama, and quickly label anyone who does.

So, blacks look like an abused woman who, despite her split lip and blackened eyes, defends the guy who beats her as “good”. Thoughtful people will conclude there is no reasoning with the woman, leaving her to the insanity. They are reaching a similar conclusion about black political and social reasoning.

Non-blacks see Detroit and other cities under long-term Democrat Party rule, so financially corrupt as to have emergency managers or be in receivership. They see Chicago, where Democrat rule contributes to “open season” on blacks, despite the nation’s toughest gun laws. They see Los Angeles, where long-term Democrat control brought that city near bankruptcy with schools that graduate only 2/3 of students. They see a welfare state, begun in 1965, that has lowered black marriage rates, sent illegitimacy rates soaring, and helped blacks, though under 13% of the US population, account for 30% of US abortions.

Despite this and more, they see the self-destructive thoughtlessness of blacks continuing to vote for liberals and their policies. When they seek to engage blacks on this, they are labeled racists or sell-outs, which ends meaningful dialogue.

Blacks once boasted the “moral leader” of the nation. But now: they support a president who fails them, is disrespected abroad and is a scandal factory at home; they elect blacks to Congress who are impotent; they elect a disproportionate number of corrupt black officeholders. And blacks, who once excoriated all racists everywhere, now excuse blacks offering racist testimony in court.

If the nation sees blacks as unable or unwilling to look after black interests, then why should they seek to work with blacks on national interests?

When blacks fought injustices by being on the side of right, countless others, of all races, creeds, and colors joined them. Not because they were race issues, but because they were issues of right and wrong. For example, trafficking in men is not racist; it is wrong. Jim Crow segregation is not racist; it is wrong. Arbitrarily denying the vote is not racist; it is wrong. When blacks led such fights, pursuing what is right, they prevailed and gained political and social respect.

However, now, no black leadership pursues what is right, but rather what is “black”. It focuses on what is wanted, on laying guilt, on what others have that can be taken. Fortunately, that is not the view of all, or even most, blacks.

However, unless and until the desire for right returns as the premier aim of black political and social discussion, those who sang “We Shall Overcome” will be overcome by the perception that they are too self-centered and bigoted to be taken seriously in national debates. Political and social respect for America’s blacks is dying; all one need do is watch the Zimmerman trial, and how blacks react to it, to understand why it ebbs away.

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