Let’s imitate Kansas—Missouri Legislators think your boss needs a BIG tax cut

I have been hearing reports that our esteemed yet completely idiotic governor, Sam Brownback, is being promoted as a model for other state’s Tea Party Republican morons to emulate. Here is just one example from our state next-door Missouri.

-Otto  

From Blue Collar View;

  The Missouri Senate has passed a massive tax cut, (don't get excited, it's not for you), and the legislation will now go to the Governor. So who gets a big tax cut? Your boss! If your boss owns the company and  is paid directly though profits he'll get a 50% tax cut  on his income taxes. If you boss doesn't get paid that way, don't worry, he can cook the books so he qualifies. Also the company you work for will have their tax rate go from 6.25% to 3.25.% That's close to a 50% cut, who hoo! So what do you get? If you a working stiff your income tax rate will go from 6% to.... 5.5%.  That's something like an 8% tax cut.  If that doesn't seem like much, don't worry, you will get something else: crappier roads, underfunded schools, longer waits at the DMV. You see, this plan will pretty much bankrupt the state, costing it $700 million every year once the plan is in full effect.

     Why are we doing this? Because we have to keep up with Kansas. You see, Kansas enacted an even more radical tax cut plan last year, so we have to do the same (I can hear my mother saying "If Billy jumped into the lake, would you too?"). So far, all the Kansas plan has done is throw that state into a budgetary crisis as funding for schools, roads and everything else dries up. The Kansas tax plan was supposed to bring businesses and jobs  to the state, but that hasn't exactly happened. The resulting budget mess has gotten so bad that the architect of the plan, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback's approval rating has fallen to 19 point in the last year, to 36%.  For a republican governor in a hard core republican state like Kansas, that's pitiful. The same poll showed President Obama getting a higher approval rating of 38%, IN KANSAS! 

     I was raised in Wichita, Kansas, so I hear from relatives how thing are going there. One of my brothers is a teacher there, and he tells me that as a cost saving measure, Kansas has closed down schools for children with behavioral problems, and dumped those kids into the regular class rooms, making it nearly impossible to teach. I hope all those businesses that aren't actually coming to Kansas don't expect educated workers.

     Missouri legislators say it will be different here, in part because the tax cuts will be fazed in over a five year period. So don't go making any plans for spending that two or three dollar a week tax cut you might be getting just yet. 

     So to sum up the tax cut plan. A BIG tax cut for your boss, a tiny one for you, crappier state government, and we get to be more like Kansas. 

No job opportunities here! -We’re discouraged

From 

 Wichita Peace and Freedom Party Examiner;

Here in the USA, the so called “land of opportunity” is letting a lot of us down these days. And that is not just my opinion.
Yahoo News has reported that many people in this country are getting discouraged and dropping out of the work force. According to the article; “Older Americans have retired early. Younger ones have enrolled in school. Others have suspended their job hunt until the employment landscape brightens. Some…. are collecting disability checks.”
Of course that is happening right here in Kansas our Governor Sam Brownback is making sure we are one of the first to cut government jobs and do other things to add to the unemployment rate. I have a friend who is now on disabilities. He is in his late 50s. He has very high blood pressure and although he has always held a job and worked, he now realizes that he can’t compete with the 20 and 30 year olds who want the same jobs he is looking for. Not as young, healthy or energetic, he just doesn’t stand a chance.
I am in my late 50s myself and I have given up looking for a teaching position, years after I got my teachers license. For the last several years, Gov. Brownback kept cutting the education budget, which caused a layoff of teachers the local school system already had. That made it almost impossible to get a teaching job. Now I’m a lot older and I would have to compete with a flood of young 20 something year olds who also have teaching licenses. I have grown tired of finding that my applications to other school systems are piled up along with dozens of others, by younger applicants. So I plan to keep working somewhere, but am looking to retire early, to get out of a work force that simply offers no real opportunity.
I know plenty of younger people who are taking classes at our local universities. Ironically I know of two women in the 30s who are taking classes to get the same type of teaching license I have been trudging along with. They are young and haven’t had the experience of competing for limited jobs yet. I hope them the best of luck.
Part of the problem is the conservative Republicans cutting lots of government jobs to save money on the budget. Those people they throw out of the work force are competing with the already unemployed workers. My own experiences in job hunting have been discouraging. Each summer I have had to get a summer job as I am a substitute teacher. But the last few years the jobs are fewer and the competition greater. It gets so discouraging the job search just seems an outright waste of time.
Neither the Republicans nor Democrats have done anything to encourage job growth. The Republicans just take do whatever business wants and President Barak Obama seems too busygiving more money to Syrian Rebels. He seems to care more about people in foreign countries than people who live here. He is even cutting social security, but in a way so those of us, who will be new to it when we get there, will get less than those getting it now. He has done absolutely nothing to aid the working man here at home. His presidency has been a dismal failure for those who need job opportunities.
Last Friday the Labor Department released the unemployment rate that dropped to a four-year low of 7.6 percent in March from 7.7 in February. But while that looks good on paper, it doesn’t reflect those who have just given up.
Republicans like to claim we are just too lazy to find a job. The reality is they just like to work the few who can get a job to death while just starving out those of us who can’t keep up with an ultra-competitive job market.
So when I retire, I will continue to write and say “good riddance” to the working world of a system that just doesn’t care.

Time to topple Brownback! Let’s start now!

From now until we vote him out, this site will focus on Governor Sam Brownback and his merry band of idiots in the Kansas state-house. Brownback seems to be part of the new conservative movement based on lies, false ideology, and constant attacks on the state’s educational system and the poor.

Brownback and his Ilk have waged an extensive war against the poor. I have not used this site for some time. But I have decided to revive it and post and repost articles that expose the corruption and folly of our major Brownback and other Kansas politicians. It all starts with Brownback.

Allies of Brownback, in the state-house, will also come under scrutiny on this site.

-Otto

Education is more than just “getting a job”

More and more we hear about educational institutions working with business to make sure that high school students are properly trained for the business world. What they overlook is that education is more than just getting a job. It is about learning to survive in the society in which students live. They need to understand their own culture, their rights under the law and how their political system works.

But those ideas are lost on our educators and the business community. As an example The Wichita Eagle reported that nearly120 business and education leaders planned an event Oct. 30-31 to work toward addressing the technical skills that employers need and workers must have for today's jobs.

"We can no longer afford just to send every kid to college to discover themselves and expect them to come out in the end prepared for today's job market," Bill Hagerman, the director of innovation and improvement for the state's Department of Education told The Wichita Eagle.

Subjects such as music and art are constantly being targeted by those who want to cut on education costs. History is also taught on a shoe string budget. Spanish is the only foreign language taught at many high schools today. This is a time a history when we are more connected to the world than any other in a long time and the idea that no one needs foreign language, except maybe Spanish, is ridiculously short sited.

If people want to learn a foreign language, later in life, they need to learn at least one foreign language at an early age. It becomes a lost cause later in life. We are short changing our students by denying them the cultural experiences of foreign language.

I Once showed “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” to students who thought none of it was funny. Later I had to show the same movie in a class I was substituting for and only the accelerated students laughed at it. Without a decent knowledge of history of the middle ages students don’t understand the humor.  We are raising a generation of culturally illiterate people because we spend too much time listening to what businesses want out of our students and have forgotten that education has many facets besides just getting a job.

Knowledge of our music and art history is another example of areas that businesses, students and parents may not see as important. But they are part of our culture and we are developing a hollow phony culture of commercial crap. Advertizing is everywhere and on everything. Very little of our artwork is for the sake of artistic inspiration. It is all developed to sell us cheap crap we really don’t need. How many of our high school students really need athletic shoes that cost a thousand dollars and up because they have a designer’s name?

Unless someone speaks out against these trends we are destined to become a superficial society of culturally illiterate tech-nerds.

-Otto’s War Room (毛派)

-Also in Examiner: Wichita Peace and Freedom Party.

Koch brothers Americans For Prosperity site gets hacked

By Wichita Peace and Freedom Party Examiner;

A man has been caught hacking the Koch Brothers-Backed Americans For Prosperity Website. This all started in late February with Anonymous announcing plans to hack into such sites as acts of sabotage.

Charles and David Koch are headquartered here in Wichita even though they participate in political activities nation-wide. As reported in The Wichita Eagle;

“A Wisconsin man recruited by the computer hacking group Anonymous faces charges in a cyberattack on Koch Industries in Wichita, a federal prosecutor announced Tuesday.
Eric J. Rosol, of Black Creek Wis., is accused of one count of conspiracy to damage a protected computer and a single count of damaging a protected computer, U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said in a news release.”

If convicted Rosol could face a possible five years in federal prison and a maximum fine of $250,000 on each count.

The Huffington Post reported on the intentions of Anonymous back on February. The article reported that anonymous would target Americans for Prosperity’s website. At least one such hacker succeeded. But he may face prison time for his actions.
We can’t justify people breaking the law, but corporate rulers need to realize they can’t just buy the political system and then start voting away people’s rights. Not only that, they have become experts at cutting off the voices of protest to the mainstream media, or vastly marginalizing them.

Anonymous made their intentions known to RT Television. Anonymous said they are looking for vulnerabilities of the Koch brothers, since they got involved with Gov. Scott Walker’s union busting campaign.

As of today, the website is up and running.

How can they expect people to just put up with being silenced? There is a price to pay for suppressing people’s rights. The Koch brothers need to learn this. If they didn’t already know, people will find their vulnerabilities. They have manipulated the press and this society’s political system and they should expect retribution.

The Gentrification of Maize Kansas

From Wichita Peace and Freedom Party Examiner;

The town of Maize was a small hamlet located north of Wichita. For many years it was a quiet small town catering to area farmers and some Wichitans who liked to small town atmosphere. Yet today it is overcrowded with urban sprawl and new mega marts that pop up like mushrooms after a storm.
Ten years ago, Maize Road was the main street to get to the town. It had a down-town area that died out and what little business there was left ended up on the two-lane paved Maize Road. Then a few years ago, wealthy land developers moved in and started to build on the eastern side of Maize Road. At first they built large houses for upper middle class people.
Several years ago Wichita went on a growing spree and by the year 2000, the City of Maize and the City of Wichita were competing for land. Now Wichita boarders Maize. Today Maize is really just a “burb” of Wichita. It is hard to tell where Wichita ends and Maize begins as Maize has lost all of its small town charm.
Developers have focused on building Expensive two-story “Mcmansions” or houses that all look like a cookie cutter mold and are painted similar colors. They look almost identical.
There are some small working class homes build on far out on the eastern edge, right next to the highways, where there is a lot of noise and the dangers of children walking into traffic. They have link fences around the back yards but that doesn’t always stop little kids.
It doesn’t take long to see that the town has been “gentrified” or built up for the benefit of the wealthy. This trend is going on through out this country in states where growth is not well regulated. Recently the city decided to widen the main street to four lanes instead of two. Wichita had already widened their part of the road to four lanes and that created a bottle neck of traffic for Maize. But when Maize started their work on their part of that road they also decided to move all the telephone poles and the street lights across the street. They only reasonable explanation for this move is that the homes on the west side of the street are the small lower-income homes. The other side, that used to have the lights and polls, has newer homes and they are two story expensive homes for upper-middle class people.
Another move by the city is to change the methods of sending out water bills. The city recently sent out a letter explaining that city is doing away with water bill extensions. The extensions were given for people who have trouble paying their bills on time.
“We try to work with people if there is a layoff or serious financial problems,” said Sue Villarreal, Maize City Treasurer. “We just had too many people making a partial payment on-line or just constantly getting behind on their water bills.”
There may be some people who just took advantage of the system, but on the other hand it seems as if the city council decided to show less tolerance of those with smaller incomes.
There is no doubt that Maize, as with Wichita, will continue to grow. The City of Maize put this statement on the city web site;

“It is projected that, based on the anticipated population growth, Maize should expect between 230,000 to 250,000 square feet of commercial development timeframe. Similarly, based on the anticipated population growth, 80,000 to 90,000 square feet of industrial development should be planned for Maize. The current land use plan for maize provides sufficient land area to accommodate anticipated future commercial and industrial development.”

The real problem here is for fair growth for those lower income people who have lived in the town a long time. Maize is not unique to this gentrification problem. It is state-wide problem as well as for other towns in other US states. Since I live in Maize I have been able to observe the town’s gentrification first hand.

Wichita--the rat hole

Living in Wichita is like living in hell. Here are some simple facts about the assholes that make up Wichita.
1. Most are petty-self-absorbed selfish people who are narrow-minded and want everyone to conform to their twisted way of life. The thinking is “I have what I need—fuck you if you don’t have your’s.”
2. The people who run this town are stupid.
3. The people who run this town are greedy and will do anything for a dollar.
4. Most people think you are mentally ill if you don’t believe in God or Jesus.
5. Most people belong to a religious cults where fascism is seen as normal.
6. Education means math and science. Understanding of culture, especially someone else’s, is frowned upon as useless.
7. Anyone with imagination that doesn’t focus on starting businesses is scene as a useless kook.
8. Most of the ass holes living here wouldn’t know art, music or philosophy if it bit them in the ass.
9. There are jobs in this rat-hole, but they are not worth having.
10. And YES, I am seriously looking for a job somewhere else and I REALLY want to move.

Wichita developers want land owners to put up with a landfill

From

Steve otto, Wichita Peace and Freedom Party Examiner

John Schlegel and his staff found they had received 100 percent opposition to a rezoning request a construction and demolition landfill, according to The Wichita Eagle. The proposed area is at 55th Street South and Ridge Road.
Most of the landowners near by are farmers. There are a few businesses in the area. It’s not hard to see why landowners would oppose this. Besides the ugliness of piles of trash near by, there are also concerns about drainage, pollution, reduced groundwater contamination and property values. One of the main concerns is groundwater contamination. Board members of the Greenwood Cemetery District have opposed the zoning request. They are afraid the noise from the plant will interfere with those who visit the cemetery.
Because of the opposition, four out of five commissioners must vote in support of the landfill for it to be approved.
The Wichita Area Metropolitan Planning Commission recently approved the plan, and planning staff has recommended approval. In the past the city has rarely cared what citizens want when the Planning Commission gives an approval. Such an approval was granted by the county a few years ago for a sand digging operation north of Maize, even though local property owners came out in droves to oppose it. Those property owners were ignored and the planners have gone ahead. Rarely has the Planning Commission ever been turned down. They are backed by local developers so the city and county listen to them. The city often does what it wants and ignores common people’s feelings or opinions on many of its plans.
Since this is the first time they have 100 percent opposition, they may actually have to listen to the people for a change and not just rubber stamp what developers want.