How lifers make a living in Congress—Bernie Sanders

Some of my regular readers are old enough to remember the Jimmy Carter years; he was ousted by Ronald Reagan because people were so upset by the economy. It was a terrible recession, and I didn't have a job in my regular field, library science, but found one being alert to gossip in my aerobic class.

Through my aerobics instructor, Corey, I got a temporary government contract job through JTPA (formerly CETA)  This is where the federal government takes your tax money, filters it through all the DC bureaucrats, then sends it to the states which employ a lot of people to fill out the forms to get it, where it is filtered through the state (Ohio) bureaucracy, then smaller programs are developed, where it is further spread out among local agencies and non-profits.

I worked for STEPS, Senior Training and Employment Program. Senior workers (over 50) had been hit particularly hard by that recession, so our little group of 5 or 6 went around the state putting on workshops and developing publications. It was a dream job for me, and I was employed. I even was able to write speeches for the head of the Bureau of Employment.

That's what most of these employment programs do--they employ the people who work in them. I don't know if a single person over 50 ever found a job due to our efforts, but probably thousands of government workers, either civil service, or grant temporary like me, or Area Agency on Aging employees, or the many training centers set up for teaching and skill development (private), the landlords who rented the space, or the small caterers who provided the lunches we served at the workshops managed to get through that recession. Plus, I met great people (state employees are fantastic) and had a good time--learned so much about how government works and why so many people sat alone in offices with nothing to do while we temporary workers were very busy.

This is a tiny picture of what Bernie and others in Congress have been doing for a living for their entire lives. They live well, but not much changes for the people who really need help.

PBS and NPR funding events

Although I don't contribute to the fund raisers, it is my understanding the locals have done very well this spring. People fear loss of funding under Trump.  I think that's great. Sort of like the huge increase in gun sales under Obama. The issue of NPR PBS funding has never been about the paltry amount, but about the amount of bias in the coverage of the culture from news, to arts, to literature to politics. If it’s funded in part by taxes, then there should either be better representation of the whole population, or no funding. On the other hand, if most of the support is from left of center (don’t know which comes first, the coverage or the consumers), then that should be their direction, but without our funding it. I have certain shows I watch like the British dramas and comedies (now mostly reruns) and Antiques Roadshow, but never the news coverage. I can get that on broadcast.

Obama's transgender power play

"Title IX is the 1972 law banning sex discrimination in schools. It has always allowed schools to provide “separate toilet, locker rooms, and shower facilities on the basis of sex.” The Obama administration has unilaterally rewritten Title IX’s core premise. One’s “sex,” says the administration, is no longer defined by biology, but rather reflects one’s “gender identity.” And gender identity is “an individual’s internal sense of gender,” which “may be different from or the same as the person’s sex assigned at birth.”

Not only has the Education Department redefined the word “sex” in Title IX’s prohibition on “discrimination on the basis of sex,” it has also reimagined the meaning of “discrimination.”

 http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-were-suing-over-obamas-transgender-power-play-1464734185

Every day I see something new on normalizing pedophilia which will be the next "rights" push. What is wrong with these people? They are obsessed with sex.

The same day the Obama administration also announced that all hospitals who receive federal funds of any kind (including Medicare) must accommodate transgender folks and provide sex change operations and abortions or face legal action from the Justice Department.

“As bad as the ACA is, it’s laughable to suggest that when Congress referred to ‘sex’ in Section 1557 it was referring to anything other than biological sex,” stated Ken Klukowski, attorney with First Liberty Institute and Breitbart News legal editor.

“This is Orwellian,” Klukowski wrote at Breitbart. “But beyond that, it is an unconstitutional assault on the First Amendment that the Obama administration is forcing their rejection of biological fact onto people whose faith teaches that ‘man’ and ‘woman’ refer to what they have meant for thousands of years, and that God purposefully created them that way.”

 https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/obama-tells-hospitals-do-abortions-and-sex-changes-or-youll-lose-federal-fu