Taking back our country

Tonight I listened to the speeches from the GOP convention. I liked what I
heard there too. No I didn't listen to the talking heads as I can figure
out for myself what it means to me.

Everyone talked about the problems of the day with the economy and the like.
The message for entrepreneurs is that you did build that. Obama thinks you
didn't and claims that line was taken out of context but it wasn't and is
much worse when heard in full context.

Ann Romney was gracious and classy yet firm in her convictions. She talked
of what it was like when they were young and what realities families face
today. She spoke to the women of the country while speaking to the whole
country. She spoke about rising prices, women struggling to keep their
families together and thriving and what it's been like in these economic
times. She spoke simple truths and spoke about Mitt as a man who has been
there for her and will be there to lead the country

Chris Christie followed that with the keynote address and spoke of wanting
respect rather than love. He spoke about the ballooning debt, the
ballooning size of government and an education system that is in need of
reform. We need to deal with our problems now so that our children and
grandchildren will have a future. He spoke of supporting teachers,not
teachers' unions. He cid things in New Jerseyt hat people said couldn't
be done and said now that the country needs this to happen at the national
level..

What does this mean in practical terms for the disability community? It
means that as the GOP looks to cut spending, rehabilitation needs to be
looked at. We will have to accept some reforms and some outcomes that are
expected of this program. We need to think in terms of equality of
opportunity, not equality of outcomes. We need to think in terms of working
hard for what we want or need and not expecting that the government will
hand us everything. Is there a role for government? Yes there is and that
role is to provide opportunities for us to better ourselves. If that's done
through a public-private partnership then so be it as long as we have the
opportunity to succeed. Do standards need to be set for those who provide
service? Yes they do and that is a role for government. Is it proper for
government to deal with someone who provides bad service? Yes as this might
be a result of violations of the law.

I could go on but won't as I think you get the idea.

All I can say is this truth-loving American is waiting to hear more from the
GOP about how they will take back our country.

It makes no sense

I came home from a great weekend only to find out about yet another mass
shooting, this one in Oak Creek WI at a Sikh Temple in that community.
Right now we know that there are 7 dead including the gunman and 3 or 4
injured including an Oak Creek Police officer. More will be known tomorrow
but this one is especially nasty because a local incident meets the world
stage; and for that reason is being investigated as a possible domestic
terrorism incident. We'll know more on that tomorrow.
All I have to say is that it makes no sense at all. Why must people express
their anger or hatred at the point of a gun? Why can't people just live
together in peace? That's a difficult one and I surely don't have all the
answers. But it's getting to the point of unreal to hear these stories all
the time.

There were warning signs in the Aurora CO incident that likely were ignored.
More will come out on that for sure. Was the same true here? Only time
will tell. People may not like to confront the fact that there is evil out
there but it is there and needs to be confronted when it rears its ugly
face. Is today such an incident? It looks like it to me but only time and
a thorough investigation will tell.

Meanwhile my prayers to the families and the community. May you have peace
and healing from God above. May all religious and civilian leaders speak as
one in condemning this outrageous violence against a peaceful community.

Now the penalty has been administered: Thoughts after the fact

Well now the penalty has been administered. It is in part as follows:
Loss of revenue for this year equaling $60 million which will be paid as a
fine and go into a trust fund for victims of child sex abuse.
Vacating of wins from 1998 thru 2011 which means the loss of 111 wins which
takes disgraced coach Joe Paterno out of the record books as winningest
coach in NCAA history.
Bowl ineligibility for 4 years.
Reduction from 25 to 15 scholarships a year for the next 4 years.
Further possible individual sanctions on individuals after the criminal
investigations are over.
5 year probation for the entire athletic department with Academic Integrity
Monitor of NCAA's choosing appointed.
Players allowed to immediately transfer without losing a year of eligibility
if they do so.
Mention of compliance with Section 5.0 of the Free Report but not sure what
this means.

What do I think? This will definitely hurt them for years to come and I
don't think they'll recover real quick after the 4 years are up on bowl
ineligibility and scholarship loss; but the death penalty would have been
fitting for a program as corrupt as this football program was under Paterno.
Yes some innocent athletes would have gotten hurt but they knew something
could happen when they chose to go there, especially within the last year.

This school should not even have a football program until it can prove that
it has cleaned up its act and that will be a tall order for them to do that
to everyone's satisfaction. It took SMU about 20 years to recover from the
death penalty and hopefully it will take Penn State as long to recover from
this one post penalty. We'll just have to see though.

Suffice it to say, the only way to root out corruption of this kind is to
demolish and rebuild from the ground up and this was not done here. Only
time will tell if the penalties administered were harsh enough. I wonder if
it was even though some of this stuff was severe.

My thoughts before the bombshell that is Penn State

I won't speculate here about what will happen to Penn State and its badly
tarnished, irreparable football program. We'll find out about that tomorrow
morning early. What I would like to talk about are my thoughts headed into
this huge announcement.

I think whatever Penn State gets they will deserve. Whatever they get in
the way of punishment will be Joe Paterno's legacy. From what I am hearing,
he died at the right time because he might have ended up in prison as well.
E-mails can get you into trouble years after they are written even if you
think they are gone permanently. Let that be a lesson to us all to be
careful what we say in cyber space.

Do I think a lot of football programs will be mad at Penn State? Yes I do,
especially in the big 10 as they may not be able to have a conference
championship due to possibly only 4 teams being eligible in the leaders
division. This would mean they would have to go back to the old format.
Since everything in college sports seems to be about the money, there are
programs that might lose some money and they won't be happy.

There's speculation that Penn state will be kicked out of the Big 10. It
would serve them right if this were to happen and quite frankly I hope it
does. They deserve it as that program has ruined so many lives. At least
some of the kids in the program now are being allowed to transfer out with
eligibility prohibitions being waived by the NCAA. That's a good thing
because at least they will be able to salvage something from this mess that
they did not create.

I will have more thoughts in about 8.5 hours when the announcement comes
out.

The $16 million temper tantrum

Well part one of the $16 million temper tantrum in Wisconsin is under way.
How did we get here? Well it's simple.

The Democrats and their union supporters did not like the reforms that Gov.
Scott Walker put into place. These reforms curbed the power of the public
unions and gave local government tools they could use to save money; and
many local units of government used these tools to their advantage. They
were able to save money, lower health insurance costs and lower property
taxes for their taxpayers. Walker did not cave to the unionistas and the
whiny brats who call themselves Democratic party officials.

For putting these reforms in place, bringing certainty to the economy and
business Walker is faced with a temper tantrum from the unionistas in the
form of a recall, one which is being held for all the wrong reasons. The
little children known as Democrats want a redo because they didn't like how
the 2010 election turned out. Well the children need to learn that
electiosnhave consequences.

Well they need to learn to live with the results and I think this tantrum
will show them that. Barrett's craptastic record will lose him and the
whiny children this recall election. Wisconsin needs to decide between two
futures. One is the path of prosperity, lower taxes, job growth and
certainty for business. The other choice is one of higher taxes, job loss
and over regulation of business. In other words do they want to move
forward or go back to the bad old days of Doyle?

Barrett's craptastic record includes high unemployment, high crime and high
infant mortality including a high number of infant murders called
co-sleeping by the liberal establishment in Milwaukee. As Barrett is the
likely winner of the primary, does Wisconsin want someone who will lead or
do they want someone who is an empty suit? His idea of creating jobs is the
green economy and we've seen where that's gotten us. Then there's the
environmental disaster known as MMSD's dumping of shit into the lake.
Barrett has failed miserably to stopthe the dumping of shit into the lake;
and we're talking about millions of gallons of shit too.

Once this is over, the bill ought to be sent to the national Democratic
Party and the public unions, giving them 30 days to pay the bill prior to it
going to collection. Maybe that will teach the children that temper
tantrums have consequences.

What future will they choose? I can sure say one thing. I wish we had a
leader like Scott Walker here in Illinois. Maybe our taxes would be lower
than they currently are and we would have pension reform. One can hope and
pray.

Milwaukee: call it what it is, murder!

As many of you know I do listen to some radio out of Milwaukee WI. As a
result of this, I hear about some of the issues that are going on in that
area and one of them is what they are calling co-sleeping. As the title
indicates, it's not what I call it. This behavior is defined as aninfant
sleeping with an adult in an adult bed or worse, on a couch. They seem to
have a lot of these incidents, far more than we hear about in northern
Illinois.There's got to be a reason for that and I have a theory as to what
one of those reasons might be. They're not calling it what it really is,
murder.

Murder is defined as the killing of someone by another person. While this
is likely not the strict legal definition, it will suffice for this
discussion. There were two more of these "co-sleeping" or what I call
murders, this past weekend; and they were about five hours apart.

What's the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and
expecting a different result. Well in this case, not calling something for
what it really is means you will get more of it. I truly believe that not
calling this murder diminishes the seriousness of the crime so that they get
more of it. Besides that, leaders in the community don't speak out against
it either, especially in the African-American community where most of these
seem to happen.

This community has some serious issues and this is but one of them and it
points to larger issues such as drug abuse, alcoholism and children
havingchildren. It also points to lack of leadership when no one speaks out
and says,"hey this is wrong."

How many infants must die before theMilwaukee community calls so-called
co-sleeping for what it really is, murder?

Come up with a candidate GOP

As the title indicates, the GOP needs to come up with a candidate; one who
can beat Obama. This country can't afford another four years of Obama and
Stewart Barney from Fox Business News said tonight on, I believe, the Hanidy
Show that if Obama gets another four years, this country will be bankrupt.
Is that a future the GOP wants to see for our country? I know it's not a
future this Republican wants to see. We don't need to be more like Europe
in that regard.

Several candidates have come and gone. Herman Cain was once the flavor of
the day and has thankfully exited the scene. Rick Perry has taken a dive
after showing that he is not ready for prime time. Bockman and Paul both
need to exit as they're too extreme. What we're left with is Romni,
Gingrich, Santorum and Huntsman. For these last four, Gingrich has what I
believe are insurmountable problems and would do the party and the country a
favor by exiting the race now.

As for the other three, I have problems with Romni on health care. I need
to find out more about the other two but Santorum is a conservative who I
wish would catch fire. Huntsman is one who Obama will have trouble
attacking as Obama appointed him Ambassador to China. That says something
for how they get along. It also gives Huntsman some credible foreign policy
experience.

It comes down to electability and Romni is probably the most electable but
stranger things have happened. I urge all who read this to do as I plan to
do and explore the issues and look at the candidates you are interested in.
become an educated voter. The future of the country is at stake.