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Saturday, June 21, 2014
Green Bag, excellent
Green Bag is a great journal of law that is written by some of the best. http://www.greenbag.org. Journal articles are freely downloadable.
Excellent
humor, fantastic insights, and some good integrity that makes you
admire the system when it works like it should, and sometimes when it
works like it shouldn't.
Another
good site is Simple Justice, a blog by a federal judge and he is
amazing, going through chemo while carrying his case load. The man has
empathy and is not reticent in writing about where the system is weak,
and where judges are humanly weak.
Dwight
BUDGETING 101
BUDGETING 101
I did not made the Tuesday
night’s Town Council meeting because I did not realize there was a time change
but I did make a great deal of the workshop.
The workshop dealt with the Municipal Budget. Councilor Lunt tried to make a point but was
immediately cut off by Chairwoman Ward who changed the subject. Councilor Pesce tried to make a point but
Chairwoman Ward cut him off and changed the subject. Both councilors had idea’s to reduce the
current proposed budget but were denied the right to be heard by the
Chair. Chairwoman Ward’s main mission is
to protect Chief Brook’s police department budget.
When a normal person is
looking to reduce their spending or to establish a budget in which they can
live; the first place to look is what you are spending the most of your money
on. As in every year past, this town has
been dumping their hard earned tax dollars into the Police Department because
Chief Brooks has always controlled the Town Council.
The cost to operate our
police department continues to grow every year:
2012-$1,335,545.00;
2013-$1,368,038.00 and finally
2014-$1,387,595.00. If you want to know
where we need to make cuts; look at the police
department. Chief Brooks has an
Administrative Assistant ($40,657.88) which is paid $10,000.00 more than any
other Administrative Assistance in town and has TWO part-time Secretaries
(Salaries unknown). These two part-time
Secretaries work 20hrs per week to make one whole person. The Communication Center is growing in cost
and this year the Wages are going up 5.47%.
This town pays for TWO Detectives ($70,813.75 & $64,076.73); one who
has already retired once like Chief Brooks ($72,159.70) and was rehired at the
same salary like Chief Brooks the same day.
Towns normally have one detective and cities have more than one depending
on the rate of crime. Lisbon is a sleepy
community and does not have a great deal of crime to warrant two detectives.
As you can see there is
plenty of savings in just what is obvious.
So why is it the Council cannot see the same thing? I personally believe it is because Chief
Brooks controls the Town Council. Anyone
can tell what is going on by watching Chairwoman Ward’s action when it comes to
the Police Department; watch the way Councilors Bickford, Lunt and Garrison
vote on police issues. Chief Brooks has
always been given everything he asks for by the council. Chief Brooks has been building an empire at
the taxpayers’ expense.
Chief Brooks’ years of service have cost this town way
too much and it needs to stop.
Larry Fillmore
Thursday, June 19, 2014
GWTHG: She Said What? Hillary Clinton, Second Amendment Supporters
She Said What? Hillary Clinton, Second Amendment Supporters are ‘Terrorizing the Majority of People’
Really, Hillary? Second amendment supporters are terrorizing Americans? I didn’t know practicing your constitutional rights was a form of terror. Is bad fashion sense and baggy eyes also a form of terror? If it is, Mrs. Clinton, you are one major offender.
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
The Maine Wire: The Robinson Report: Eliot Cutler
The Robinson Report: Eliot Cutler
Read more here: http://www.themainewire.com/2014/06/robinson-report-eliot-cutler/
Eagle Rising: If Possible - The VA Scandal Just Got Worse
I’m not sure it’s possible that a scandal where the government allows our heroes to die without ever receiving care, then covers up those deaths as if they never happened… can get any worse. But if it can, it just did.
The New York Times is reporting that corruption, backlog and heartlessness at the VA go back much longer than the government first let on.
Staff members at dozens of Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals across the country have objected for years to falsified patient appointment schedules and other improper practices, only to be rebuffed, disciplined or even fired after speaking up, according to interviews with current and former staff members and internal documents.
The growing V.A. scandal over long patient wait times and fake scheduling books is emboldening hundreds of employees to go to federal watchdogs, unions, lawmakers and outside whistle-blower groups to report continuing problems, officials for those various groups said.
In interviews with The New York Times, a half-dozen current and former staff members — four doctors, a nurse and an office manager in Delaware, Pennsylvania and Alaska — said they faced retaliation for reporting systemic problems. Their accounts, some corroborated by internal documents, portray a culture of silence and intimidation within the department and echo experiences detailed by other V.A. personnel in court filings, government investigations and congressional testimony, much of it largely unnoticed until now.
The department has a history of retaliating against whistle-blowers, which Sloan D. Gibson, the acting V.A. secretary, acknowledged this month at a news conference in San Antonio. “I understand that we’ve got a cultural issue there, and we’re going to deal with that cultural issue,” said Mr. Gibson, who replaced Eric K. Shinseki after Mr. Shinseki resigned over the scandal last month. Punishing whistle-blowers is “absolutely unacceptable,” Mr. Gibson said.
The federal Office of Special Counsel, which investigates whistle-blower complaints, is examining 37 claims of retaliation by V.A. employees in 19 states, and recently persuaded the V.A. to drop the disciplining of three staff members who had spoken out.
The Times article also says that thus far, the pogrom against whistleblowers goes back at least 7 years!
This is simply more proof of how the government works.
Whether it’s the IRS, the NSA, the Justice Department, the EPA, the BLM, or the VA, government agencies are heavy-handed and often without oversight. The government is just too BIG. There is no way to monitor all of the horrible mismanagement and malfeasance that happens among these agencies – which is a prime example of why socialism/communism is always full of corruption and waste. It is inefficient, and when dealing with people, simple and unmeant inefficiency very quickly becomes destructive evil.
So, the VA has known about these problems for years and done nothing to solve them. In fact, instead of dealing with the issues, they’ve instead persecuted the people trying to fix things, and just swept the mess under the rug.
Sounds just like our government.
The folks at Reason have put together a brilliant music video that succinctly explains the entire VA scandal and throws in a little Bowe Bergdahl just for fun.
When we heard the wait times on our list
were so long that patients died
We said "This is government-run healthcare"
"So we're gonna do what's right"
We're gonna grab a piece of paper
and we'll make a second list
We'll just say that wait times aren't that long
and that no deadlines were missed
and when people die we'll cross them off
and pretend they don't exist
cuz there ain't no doubt we can't be fired
God bless the government
Our government sucks. Let’s get to work on getting a new one.
Read more at http://eaglerising.com/6812/possible-va-scandal-just-got-worse/
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