Somehow I missed the news that former Kent County Commissioner and former State Representative Mike Sak was running for Grand Rapids Comptroller. I received a post card in the mail from him today and I just had to shake my head. It’s so sad that I don’t know where to begin.

Let’s start at the beginning. First, Mike Sak is relatively well-known as a do-nothing state rep. No one I speak with remembers anything he did in the six years he was in office. Oh wait, everyone remembers one thing Sak did:

According to a state police memorandum, Sak’s demand for a ride came during the convention and was part of an evening of bizarre behavior by the western Michigan legislator.

The memo indicated that Sak left the Grand Traverse Hotel July 20, carrying a glass of what appeared to be beer, walked to a sport utility vehicle, opened the front passenger door, then asked a trooper if it was all right to get into the vehicle.

When the trooper told Sak he was not leaving his assigned post, Sak laughed, got into the vehicle and left the area, the memo said.

Later, Sak approached the trooper again, “obviously very intoxicated,” and demanded a ride, the memo stated.

After the trooper declined the request, Sak identified himself as a “Democratic state representative in charge of appropriations” and claimed he was responsible for saving the jobs of state troopers who were facing possible layoffs.

And this guy wants to be in charge of our City’s finances?

Politicians are, by their very nature, power-hungry ego-maniacs. But demanding a free ride from a state trooper while intoxicated is a perfect metaphor for the corrupt politician. Drunk with power and disdain for the public purse, Sak had no problem demanding the use of public resources while threatening a government employee with budget cuts if he wasn’t pandered to!

The only other candidate is Donijo DeJonge, the city’s current comptroller, according to the Kent County elections web site. DeJonge has a web site, available here.

If Sak wins, I will have lost all faith in my fellow Grand Rapidians.

I hate to say I told you so, but… As I wrote in January of 2009, the stimulus did absolutely nothing to help the economy, and I’ll prove it. (In fact, it’s likely that the stimulus has made the situation worse).

Just some quick facts:

• National Debt in January 2009: $10.632 trillion
• National Debt as of today (June 30, 2011): $14.025 trillion (a 32% increase in 30 months).

I HOPE YOU LOVE DEBT

• Number of employed Americans in January of 2009: 140,436,000
• Number of employed Americans in June of 2011: 139,334,000

UTTER GOVERNMENT FAILURE

So the federal government spent (borrowed) $3.4 trillion in the last two and a half years and nothing was accomplished. Just remember, that $3.4 trillion now needs to be serviced with interest payments and eventual repayment (theoretically).

We have the politicians in Washington posturing about raising the debt ceiling and President Obama beating senior citizens over the head with the threat that he’s can’t guarantee Social Security payments if the debt ceiling isn’t raised. But wait, I thought there was a trust fund that would last decades into the future to pay Social Security? Not. The President just admitted that the Social Security trust fund is a sham and scam.

Whether or not the debt limit is increased is irrelevant at this point. The federal ponzi scheme will fail, it’s just a matter of when, not if. Are you ready for the result of an immediate 50% drop in federal spending when the Treasury suddenly can’t borrow any more because the world has had enough or our failed monetary policies?

Just for the fun of reading material that is poorly written and poorly reasoned, I’ve put myself on the mailing list of Gary Glenn, who is the Michigan arm of the misnamed American Family Association. Today was quite a day for his usual blathering buffoonery, not because I received another press release full of his usual logical fallacies and dimwitted argumentation, but because the Grand Rapids Press seems to be giving him a significant amount of face time to him on its web site. The top article for much of today was in regards to Glenn’s contention that businesses shouldn’t hire gays because gays are a health risk (in his myopic, insular world). He was criticizing Herman Miller for that company’s real-world position that an open and tolerant workplace is best for attracting high quality talent (duh). You can read more of Glenn’s bilious droll here.

Truth Wins Out’s blog had an excellent response to Glenn’s failure of brain power, which I would like to quote, because I couldn’t say it any better:

Part of wingnut hatred of gay people. . . comes from their very real jealousy at the idea that millions of people around this country live more interesting lives than they do, are happier than they are, and are smarter, more productive and more creative than they are. . . Indeed, it makes them seethe that absolutely no corporation is trying to find ways to attract more fundamentalist Christians under the headline of “best and brightest.” They just hate it.

So instead they spew their usual litany of lies — because they’re liars, of course — partially to make their sheep feel better, but partially also to make themselves feel better. Being gay is not the cause of mental illness or substance abuse or AIDS. All sane, intelligent people know that. Only the truly brainwashed and stupid are susceptible to such silly notions. The only offensive thing here is that the actual scientific study on the subject has shown that it’s precisely people like Linda and Gary, and their accompanying spiteful, pig ignorant worldview, that leads to higher rates of depression in gay youth. There’s even a good bit of data that has shown that people are more likely to put themselves in dangerous situations with drugs and unsafe sex when they don’t have the support of friends, family, church and society. And who keeps that cycle going? Again, people like Gary [Glenn]. . . .

I read with interest today a GR Press article on the opening of a new vegetarian restaurant that is attempting to create its own microcosm of a socialist workers’ paradise. This restaurant, called Bartertown Diner, will be opening on June 4 in the former Discussions Coffee Shop location at 6 Jefferson SE. Bartertown made previous headlines when they unveiled a mural which includes communist revolutionary and murderous thug Che Guevara on the wall.

It seems as though the owners of Bartertown are serious about their commitment to socialist ideals. They intend to make the restaurant employee-owned and enforce “equal pay and equal say.” The specifics of how they intend to do so aren’t outlined in the article.

The owners will also force all employees to be members of the Industrial Workers of the World union, which advocates for the abolition of the wage system. IWW is a has-been union which declined dramatically in membership in the 1920s after an internal split. Once able to claim 100,000 members, it claims about 900 members today. IWW is far hard-left communist/socialist and way out of the mainstream of unions today.

I’m going to reserve judgment on this plan, but my instinct and understanding of both economics and human nature tell me it won’t last very long. Equal pay and equal say may sound nice on the surface, but they are completely unsustainable concepts in the long term. In a business environment, there are at times competing interests. While employees naturally want higher wages and fewer work hours, owners/managers must ensure that such demands are kept within a framework of cash flow and profitability. Is it possible that collective decision-making can maintain a well-run business establishment? Well, maybe. I’m not going to discount it on a very small scale, such as in a restaurant, but my inclination is that it won’t work long term.

With all of the talk of communist revolutionaries and international communist unions, we can see, at the local level, how communism and socialism really are tyrannical at their very roots. As mentioned, all employees of Bartertown will be forced to join one, pre-determined union. This is the nature of communism – the abolition of choice. Groups like IWW would impose such a restriction on all workers, if they could. I often hear people say “well, communism is a good idea on paper…” No, it’s not. It necessitates subjugation of the individual to the will of the collective. This concept has almost universally evolved into a brutal dictatorship and oligarchy, enforced through violence, suppression, and at the point of a gun. Dissenting opinion is simply not allowed.

Will Bartertown become a brutal dictatorship? Of course not. But the historical narrative is that in order for the concept of a worker-owned, wage-free “paradise” to work, it must be enforced with force.

That’s why Bartertown won’t last.

Well, after a second vote where the entire political/bureaucratic elite establishment of six cities was mobilized (and hauling Vern Ehlers out of retirement, “weekend at Bernie’s” style), the Silver Line millage passed. With a whopping margin of success of 136 votes out of more than 34,000 cast, the voters of Grandville, Walker, Wyoming, and Kentwood once again learn that their money is happily sucked up by Grand Rapids when the issue was overwhelmingly defeated in those cities.

What’s next? The Rapid will add a bunch more buses to existing routes and not expand service one bit. The Silver Line will clog Division, Monroe, and Michigan streets with double-long accordion style buses at the price tag of $700,000 each. Lanes will be shut down so only these boondoggle buses will be able to use them, congesting traffic and pissing people off.

But hey, it’ll make young professionals want to live here!!

To my readers: I apologize for not posting much in the last year – life’s circumstances have kept me busy (you know, paying bills and all that stuff). But, I have been watching the debate heat up between the people in favor of The Rapid’s 31% tax hike and the people against it. I’ve been really surprised by the number of videos showing up on youtube by people who are against the tax hike. When voters said NO to the Silver Line in 2009, it seemed like a clear message. But, the politicians down at the Rapid didn’t get the message, so they doubled the tax increase and hoped that you wouldn’t notice that the Silver Line was part of it. Well, anyways, below are some of my favorite videos that I found online:

Vote Yes for Communism on May 3rd!

Does anyone else find it odd the The Rapid bus system is using a communist-inspired logo to advertise the free concert they are holding on April 16th? This concert, called the “Rapid Revolution,” is allegedly aimed at inspiring people to vote yes on the May 3rd millage increase for the Rapid Fail Line, oops, I mean the Rapid Silver Line. It’s a rather strange tactic to get out the vote. Frankly, it’s a little jarring and I can’t imagine that this type of imagery would inspire confidence or excitement in the average voter.

What I really can’t understand is why they would use a logo that has been used by communist and socialist groups for so long. Some examples are below. Do they really want to associate a bus system with governments which have murdered tens of millions of people through forced labor, starvation, war, and mass murder?

Well, if you’re inspired, I’m sure they’d love to have you at Rosa Parks Circle in downtown Grand Rapids on April 16th, between 2:00pm and 7:00pm. If you’re not inspired, maybe you’d want to contact The Rapid and ask why they’re associating with a communist symbol.

The Rapid Silver Line, the boondoggle bus system that failed at the ballot in 2009, is back. Voters in Grand Rapids, East Grand Rapids, Grandville, Kentwood, Walker, and Wyoming will be asked for a 31% millage increase.

I did some extensive reporting on this mess in 2009. Please check those posts out for some detail on the proposed system. For more up to date information, my friends over at ITP Watch are doing a great job of keeping The Rapid on their toes.

• Rapid Silver Line – Another waste of money
• The Rapid Silver Line – More Concealment and Deceit
• Rapid Silver Line – Bus “Slow” Transit
• Rapid Silver Line Goes Down
• Rapid Silver Line: They Almost Got to Take Credit

Rapid FAIL Line

Are Americans finally waking up to the explosive growth of the surveillance superstate that America is becoming?

Groups are popping up and challenging the new full-body naked scanners that are being implemented in airports across the nation (including in Grand Rapids). One such group, donstscan.us, has an excellent example of what these naked scans look like and an explanation of your right to “opt out.”

If you do happen to opt out, however, you’ll be subjected to a very intimate patdown of your entire body, including your genitals. There have been horror stories about what these patdowns involve. See here, here (an example of a three year old child getting felt up by the TSA), and here.

But I think an important question is when does this patdown cross the line and become criminal sexual conduct?

Michigan’s Criminal Sexual Conduct statute has four degrees of criminal sexual conduct. The second and fourth degree crimes involve inappropriate touching of the genitals, even through clothing. For instance:

(1) A person is guilty of criminal sexual conduct in the second degree if the person engages in sexual contact with another person and if any of the following circumstances exists:
(a) That other person is under 13 years of age.
(b) That other person is at least 13 but less than 16 years of age and any of the following:
…
(iii) The actor is in a position of authority over the victim and the actor used this authority to coerce the victim to submit. (MCLA 750.520c)

CSC in the fourth degree is defined as follows:

(1) A person is guilty of criminal sexual conduct in the fourth degree if he or she engages in sexual contact with another person and if any of the following circumstances exist:
(a) That other person is at least 13 years of age but less than 16 years of age, and the actor is 5 or more years older than that other person.
(b) Force or coercion is used to accomplish the sexual contact. Force or coercion includes, but is not limited to, any of the following circumstances:
…
(ii) When the actor coerces the victim to submit by threatening to use force or violence on the victim, and the victim believes that the actor has the present ability to execute that threat.
(iii) When the actor coerces the victim to submit by threatening to retaliate in the future against the victim, or any other person, and the victim believes that the actor has the ability to execute that threat. As used in this subparagraph, “to retaliate” includes threats of physical punishment, kidnapping, or extortion.
…
(c) The actor knows or has reason to know that the victim is mentally incapable, mentally incapacitated, or physically helpless. (MCLA 750.520e)

Finally, how is “sexual contact” defined in the statue?

(q) “Sexual contact” includes the intentional touching of the victim’s or actor’s intimate parts or the intentional touching of the clothing covering the immediate area of the victim’s or actor’s intimate parts, if that intentional touching can reasonably be construed as being for the purpose of sexual arousal or gratification, done for a sexual purpose, or in a sexual manner for:
(i) Revenge.
(ii) To inflict humiliation.
(iii) Out of anger.  (MCLA 750.520a)

Keep in mind that if you believe you have been sexually assaulted by a TSA bureaucrat, it is fully within your rights to seek out a local police officer (the Grand Rapids airport has its own police force) and file a criminal complaint. If the airport police won’t take your complaint, go to the Sheriff’s department or another local police station.

It’s time to end the expansion of the police state. Say “I opt out” every time you’re asked to go through these scanners. Make sure the TSA agent is aware that you know about Michigan’s Criminal Sexual Conduct statute.

PS: Don’t forget that the very guy who was in charge of the TSA and placed the orders for these radiation naked body scanners now works for the company that manufactures them. It’s corruption to the core.