Here’s the deal …

Different arts groups are having financial problems as ticket sales and charitable contributions are down. In other words, they are not being supported by customers, or customers in difficult times have other priorities for their money.

The arrogant solution: steal the money if customers don’t want to pay for the arts.

According to Kim Klein of Klein and Roth Consulting in Berkeley “There is a lot of money in California; the question is how can it be so be taxed so (that) more if it is available.”

She suggests a whopping state income tax increase on the rich from 9.3% to an incredible 16.3 percent, and also taxing services with a sales tax so money could be directed to the arts.

If customers won’t pay the money then just steal it from others.

To people like Kim Klein, if you make money you should not have a say in what you spend it on. They will decide what is a good use for your money and take (tax) it from you to support their pet project.

Anyone who knows me and my family know we are a huge supporter of the arts, whether it is attending or creating. But we will decide what we do with our money and who we support.

On Kim Klein’s website she has an intentionally misleading claim that there is more economic growth and employment when the top tax rate is 90 percent or more. Basically, the Kim Kleins of the world want ALL of your money.

The courts say they need to obtain this information due to a bill passed by, big surprise, a Democrat from the San Francisco Bay Area.

This type of invasion of privacy and forced ‘gay agenda’ is the type of activity the extreme left has promised will eventually permeate California, and which was warned about by those opposing gay marriage. Because it was never ‘just’ about gay marriage.

The next likely step will be the government requiring that more people disclose their private preferences, even if they not want to, to ensure there is no discrimination in some other area of society. Maybe to make sure there are enough gay firefighters.

Do I need to mention his affair, and then after his wife was diagnosed with a disease his request for a divorce, at the same time he was pilloring Bill Clinton for the Monica Lewinsky fiasco?

One funny statement I saw online – Newt had asked why people instantly dislike him, and he was told because it saves them time.

Which is too bad. He has a sharp tongue, quick wit, and insightful understanding of many complex issues. If only the good could be isolated.

Hearing the unbelievable attacks against Mitt Romney personally this week in Florida, it seems nothing has been learned. Time has blunted the mistakes of the past, so they are to be repeated. We will see what happens. It could be a long campaign. But is there a point in destroying Romney to try and be such a tainted nominee yourself there is no hope of defeating Obama?

I was reading that Gingrich said he could not debate against someone who answered questions dishonestly in a debate. But it was Gingrich recently caught lying about hi marriage and offering witnesses to ABC News in response to questions at a CNN debate. Gingrich flat lied. (Not even a political exaggeration, just a flat lie.) Then with a straight face criticizes anyone who does that.

That is apparently what the Republican Party faces. No wonder Democrats are running ads in Florida against Romney in an attempt to help Gingrich! (If the parties were reversed the Republicans would be doing the same

This is something I have been sure of for some time. Today, I saw an early attack on Yahoo news.

Out of the blue, an article about a Mormon teenager’s emotional problems, and a wild claim about womens use of anti-depressants in Utah.

Nothing newsworthy at all about this. A story could be made out of an emotionally troubled teenager for any religion, or non-religion for that matter.

This is to be expected of Bay area based Yahoo, where any and every pro-gay article is fit to run. (Today the story was gays make better parents than heterosexual couples!) And, by implication of the LDS Church’s opposition to Proposition 8 in California, attacks on the Church are welcome.

But assuming Romney is the candidate, I expect to see a class action lawsuit alleging sexual abuse akin to that seen against the Catholic Church. Look for attacks against the Boy Scouts, an organization heavily supported by the Church. Look for more media “stories” about the Church which are not positive.

In this hypersensitive political landscape, in depth revelations about Mormonism, critiques of religious beliefs, and ridiculous (because they are not newsworthy) stories relating to private details told to Church elders (of which Romney was one) will soon be all over the place.

Updates:

February 24th – Yahoo runs major story that a Mormon in the Dominican Republic allegedly baptized by proxy Anne Frank. The claim is from an excommunicated LDS member with an axe to grind. The story starts by saying Mormons engage in a controversial practice of baptizing Christians, Jews, and others to the faith. Not to be missed was the claim Mormons are not Christian. What’s next? Someone in Bangladesh ‘baptizes’ a Muslim and the Arab world goes nuts Oh yes. A major part of the story is that Mitt Romney is Mormon.

The goal is to discredit the tea party as a bunch of racists. Better to discredit than to address the issues.

Obama is currently running a $1.5 trillion deficit PER YEAR – over a trillion dollars worse than the worst deficit under Bush.

Obama’s debt is, simply, out of control.

And yes, it is appropriate to call it Obama’s debt. Out of control spending and a stimulus seemingly almost entirely wasted on pork instead of making an effort to create jobs and induce businesses to create jobs.

The debt proposals talk about reducing the deficit by a trillion dollars over TEN YEARS.

Please. They are still just kicking the can down the road. Like everything else from Washington, in a decade the savings will not be seen. It’s always phony and fraudulent.

I’m getting old, as I’ve seen this over and over and over. It’s ALWAYS a solution that happens to be right after the next election or after someone else will be President.

Is a balanced budget amendment a solution?

Yes, but I’m not in favor of it because you never know what emergencies and crisis will occur in the future – which may require an unbalanced budget. I am thinking of WWII. Not that it will be repeated, hopefully, but the point is you never know what will happen in the future and what you’re straight jacketed into.

On the other hand, maybe it is necessary to force irresponsible “leaders” in Washington from continuing to promise things to get elected – without paying for them.

So you “resist” and say no, get out of my house. You don’t have a warrant so you cannot come into my castle.

For the last 800 years legal systems based on English Common Law, including the US, would agree: No warrant. No emergency. Means no government entry into a private home.

Until now, in Indiana, where the Supreme Court has ruled there is NO RIGHT to resist an unlawful entry by a police officer into your home.

You cannot resist entry and you cannot resist being arrested and sent off to jail to be fingerprinted, have your mug shot taken for TMZ, being tossed into a cell with Bruno, trying to scrape enough cash together to post bail, etc.

Story and PDF copy of the court’s ruling can be found here.

Although the case arose out of a domestic violence situation, the Supreme Court said there is no right to resist government entry into your home. Period.

Why? Because resistance can escalate into violence (no kidding).

And there are remedies. When you get out of jail you can later hire a lawyer and sue – and in the process be subjected to in terrorem depositions and a mauling of your personal life, psychiatric and medical history to determine if your claimed emotional distress actually arises from being Bruno’s buddy.

Or since there is a “police department internal review and disciplinary procedure” there is no reason for you to protect your home, family, and person from invading police.

I’m not kidding about this. Bin Laden didn’t get to resist, and neither do you.

- eBay not a plus because not like eBay the company. eBay the website and concept is great. But anyone selling much on eBay has stories of being ripped, fees always going up and up, and how bad eBay is. Thousands have abandoned the company. So her one selling point, being the leader of eBay, did not sell here. She’s worth a billion dollars? Lot of money unnecessarily paid by auction sellers went into her pocket.

- Spending about $150,000,000 of her own money to be elected. Wow. A ridiculous amount. Looks like a rich person trying to buy the election. How does one legitimately claim they can be responsible with government spending when their wild spending is out of control? Instead of responsibly spending money Whitman spent money on virtually everything to try and be everywhere. Unfocused, mainly a waste of money. 150 freakin’ MILLION dollars.

- No charitable contributions. Think what good $150M could have done? Checking on Whitman’s charitable history, looks like almost all of her “donations” were to a conservation group in Colorado working on a project that would benefit property she owns there. That’s not charity. That’s sneaky self interest.

- Not voting for decades. Unlike Schwarzenegger who has many years of an interest in politics and making the country better, Whitman didn’t care. At least not until it was of personal interest to her. Frankly, I don’t think she even cares about California now, but saw the governorship as a stepping stone to more power nationally.

- The housekeeper situation. She’s innocent on this issue. The problem is during the second debate she turned to Jerry Brown and hammered him because the disclosure of the housekeeper’s immigration status would subject the housekeeper to being deported. Whoa. So what? This housekeeper lied, forged documents, and committed crimes. But Whitman is there trying to hammer Brown on something he didn’t do, claiming what a travesty it would be to deport the criminal. That’s not being tough on illegal immigration. Brown rightly said Whitman needs to take responsibility and stop blaming other people.

- Robo call after robo call after robo call. She was the first to rob call the house, more than a year ago. Then she didn’t let up. Not saying anything important. Just being a pest.

- Overall, not a likable person.

No word on how much car owners could sue the police for based on a trespassing claim.

Or, better yet, would be thieves could just follow the police around. When they see a car get a ticket they know which cars are unlocked and easily stolen.

But maybe the police would lock the car doors for the owners? Possibly locking someone out of their car and needing to call a locksmith?

How many car alarms will the police set off going through parking lots trying to open car doors?

With police in many cities not even bothering to investigate petty thefts out of cars, maybe this city should donate their police force to a city with more important things to do besides checking car doors.

The FBI claimed that federal law prohibits anyone from possessing any insignia of the agency.

As quickly pointed out by Wikipedia’s lawyers, there is no such federal law. The statute at issue prevents anyone from displaying a fake badge to fraudulently deceive someone into believing that they are an FBI agent.

No one would believe that the Wikipedia website is an FBI agent. I’m not either. In fact, I would be insulted if someone believed that I was one of the inept and incompetent attorneys working for the FBI who sent the threat to Wikipedia.

The letter from the FBI also claimed that the purpose of the seal is to “authenticate the official communications and actions of the FBI.” So? Where does that preclude anyone from displaying the seal so that we know what it looks like. So we in fact know what the official FBI seal looks like?

To help educate the public, posted below is what the official FBI seal looks like. If you see something else from someone claiming to be the FBI, be suspicious.

Here is a high resolution image of the FBI seal that the FBI has had posted on their website since 2005:

FBI Seal

Source: http://www.fbi.gov/publications/financial/fcs_report052005/fcs_report052005.htm

Here is another one, also posted by the FBI on its public domain website. Conveniently, the FBI titled the image “fbiseal.gif”.

FBI Seal

Source: http://norfolk.fbi.gov/images/fbiseal.gif

According to a image search on Google for ‘FBI seal’ – there are at least 228,000 pictures of the FBI seal floating around.

And new ones are being posted all the time. Such as the one just posted by the New York Times.

Enough to give the FBI lawyers a lifetime job filing lawsuits!

Dear FBI, after you get your butts kicked by Wikipedia, feel free to sue me too (and don’t forget to sue the New York Times, Encyclopedia Britannica, Yahoo, and hundreds of thousands of others). Just make sure you’re prepared for the inevitable malicious prosecution lawsuit and result from seeking to prohibit my First Amendment rights.

– Update – November 2010:

The Smoking Gun has published an article with the FBI seal prominently shown:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/internet/fbi-targets-young-russian-spam-kingpin

Still waiting for the FBI to sue Wikipedia. But here ya go feds, you can also sue The Smoking Gun.

Because if the US FBI didn’t have enough to do, uselessly investigating a RUSSIAN 23-year old (living in Russia and not coming to the US anytime soon) for spam, they can get busy filing FBI seal lawsuits.

But since this is my tax money – hello, FBI, go find some terrorists.