Government workers who are paid less than minimum wage

The 2014 budget requested $1.061 billion for the Corporation for National and Community Service, an increase of $12.2 million over the 2012 funding level. This is our tax money used for "unpaid volunteers." That means they work below minimum wage, but all the government workers in the agency above them get paid nice salaries with benefits. In true government double speak it is supposed to expand ...opportunity and embrace competition. ???? This is not to say people haven't had wonderful experiences in AmeriCorp or benefitted from being farmed out to a church organization that helps immigrants, but somewhere we need to let these organizations stand on their own and actually hire people to take their place in the work force.

I was in Brethren Volunteer Service as were my sisters in the 1950s. It can be done without your tax dollars. This is me showing off a pair of shoes after we went shopping in downtown Fresno. The washing machine (wringer) was in the shed. It was a great experience—many churches now offer volunteer opportunities at no cost to the taxpayer, except from her own pocket.

The Job Corps is a “Great Society” program, which offers job-training services to disadvantaged youths age 16–24 in 125 sites across the nation. The Department of Labor Office of Inspector General estimates each Job Corps participant who is successfully placed into any job costs taxpayers $76,574 (I don't know what the unsuccessful cost us). They are less likely to finish high school than those disadvantaged who don't participate, and when employed, make 22 cents more per hour than a control group. I'll bet McDonald's or Wendy's could have trained them and at least taken them to assistant manager, beginning at minimum wage.

I'm fine with internships and volunteerism; I'm fine with the minimum wage for entry level jobs for people who need to learn job skills, team work, and dealing with the public. It's the Democrats who scream about minimum wage not being high enough, and then pay their political lackeys at the Obama campaign (OFA) or fancy non-profits nothing. They have options: full time for nothing, or half time for nothing. I wonder if they get Obamacare?

Three years ago the Labor Department said it was going to do something about this—but in the for-profit sector only. Non-profits like the President's campaign arm is free to abuse employees, I mean interns and unpaid volunteers, any way they choose.

True the Vote—you can help

Last night I attended a True the Vote webinar. Very exciting, challenging, but also depressing to see so much fraud and dishonesty taking place, stealing one of our most basic rights--the right to vote. The good news is that 80% of the polling places are fine. The bad news is the other 20% can steal your election and put the wrong people in the state houses, Congress or White House. There will be another training webinar on May 23; go to the website and register. If you are an honest, patriotic Democrat, consider this volunteer opportunity to help your country. This is bipartisan and national, but it has to be by state because that's how we vote. http://truethevote.org/about/

One of the best ways to create voter distrust, anger, confusion and fraud is to bring in outside organizations to register thousands and turn the registrations in the last week or day (in Ohio that will be the end of September) and overwhelm the county offices. This is a common tactic. Another is to have minimal penalties. We saw both methods here in Ohio in 2008—and about 6 months after the election a few “students” who had moved here from the N.E. and Europe to register voters received a hand slap and fine. By then they had left the state, so I don’t know if they ever paid the “penalty.” It only takes 50 votes per polling place to create a national “mandate” of 10 million votes.

Voter fraud in Ohio is just like voter fraud in your state—although it’s probably on a much bigger scale in Illinois because of Chicago. Our "two" reported cases this year (in the Columbus Dispatch) involved counties where there are thousands more registered voters than there are people of voting age. Liberals are fighting the clean up and saying it can be resolved locally. Our last Sec. of State, Brunner (D), did virtually nothing about the voter fraud in 2008, and our current guy, Husted (R) is being overly cautious turning it over to Eric Holder who will do nothing when it’s reported to him (every state is required by national law to have clean records) if the voters aren’t minorities (these are basically white counties).

The best way to clean up registration honest mistakes, careless errors and actual fraud is to make sure the county officials know that citizens are watching them, either as poll workers, poll watchers, or registration researchers. In Texas, when it became known that registrations were being checked for phony addresses and out of district voters by volunteers, they dropped from 1,000 a day to 50 during a campaign by an outside group brought in to register new voters. In Wisconsin’s “Verify the Recall” thousands of false signatures were discovered, but there were still enough to get the recall on the ballot. However, it sent a message to the unions that their days of intimidation were over.

Volunteers cannot remove any potential registration or voter -- that's the county officials' job. They can only report that there are 200 people living in empty lots, or 150 at the golf course, or 52 outside the district, things like that. It's up to the county to see to it that they legally do reside on a golf course, or an empty lot. At least 46 states are investigating voter fraud, but the departments are small, resources limited, and fines minimal. "If the elections are not truly fair. . . we are not truly free."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMBnTwQvjtc&feature=player_embedded#!

Working for the candidates

Yesterday I volunteered at a printing facility for the McCain-Palin ticket. I met some interesting people and got a little taste of how "boots on the ground" works during campaigns. You can have tons of money for the TV ads, billboards and appearances on Letterman and SNL, but if you don't have the loyal, organized volunteers, you probably won't get elected--at any level.

Until the carpetbaggers came to Ohio (about a dozen Obama staffers have now cancelled their registration and ballots--they must have cut a deal to avoid felony charges), I thought the involvement of some of my Democrat friends 24/7 was admirable, even though I disagreed with their politics. It takes a lot of gumption, guts and glorification to pick up and move to another state even for a week or two. I don't see it that way anymore.

Not that my friends of 50 years would register and vote multiple times or encourage anyone else to, but they've helped with the plan--whether setting up the headquarters, filling in for the locals, making the coffee or hosting an event. The 20-30 year olds they admire so much do not have our grounding in ethics and morality. They are of the ends justifies the means crowd. They're schooled in Obamanomics. As Michelle said this week in Bexley, "Barack gets it" (and I think she means your money).

Seeing the vans pull up to voter sites (during golden week in Ohio you could register and vote the same day and our Secretary of State and Courts have said it is legal even though she can't verify them) and disgorge the homeless from God knows where with ACORN drivers and counselors telling them how to vote makes me see political volunteering outside your own city and state in a whole new light.

The houseful of 13 out of towners who came here were taking time out of their busy schedules in Europe and elite Ivy League schools as honor scholars with wealthy parents to fund their fun to tell us poor schmucks how we should vote. Good riddance, and I hope they can't find another sandbox to litter and just go back to studying peace, justice and marxism until they grow up.

Lakeside 2008, Raccoon Run

Today was the 28th Annual Raccon Run with the one mile fun run at 8 a.m. and the 5K at 8:30. I took a few photos as we walked to the church service on the lakefront.

Here we have the Kete Family of Bay Village, Ohio.
Runners and spectators are important, but it couldn't be done with out the Lakeside volunteers.
Barbara and Marilyn match runners with their sizes.

2332 Life's little imperfections

Most of the time being me is just wonderful; today it wasn't so great. Libraries. Sigh. I know too much.

I went to the public library to return some material and check out additional items. Like a Buck (I've got a tiger by the tail) Owens CD. While browsing the Friends' Book Sale, I noticed a current journal, barcoded, stamped and labeled, lying on a "for sale" book truck. I took it to the gentleman volunteer and told him someone had accidentally placed a library magazine on the "for sale" cart. "No," he said. "It IS for sale--I found it and took it over to Circulation and they checked it." He was hard of hearing, so I didn't try to argue with him, but I was pretty sure the current issue of American Scholar wouldn't have been put up for sale for $.25. He was probably told it wasn't checked out to anyone. So I urged him to go ask someone else. I should have just picked it up and taken it to the periodical room myself. Grumble, mumble.

Then I was browsing the new book shelves. A young woman was reshelving recently returned books from a cart. I don't know if she was a volunteer or paid staff. I hope we aren't paying her to do such a bad job. I don't think she understands decimals. She'd pause a moment and if she didn't see a spot, she just put the volume at the end of the shelf. I followed her discreetly for a bit, reshelving as I went, but then moved on over to another area, because I think she noticed me.

In the other area I saw a large, oversize book with a sticker on the front stating that it's value was $50.00 and that's what I'd be charged if I lost it. I opened it up and saw it was just photos. Something about saving the planet or we're going to hell in a handbasket with global warming, etc. Anyway, it was only photos. If there was text, I missed it. Definitely coffee table stuff. The reason I mention this is that recently my request was denied for a rather large volume, Wealth of ideas, published by the Hoover Institute Museum and Archives showing a portion of its valuable collection of the history of the 20th century. . .

"The subject matter is epic in scale, covering the great wars, revolutions, political and intellectual movements, and personalities of the twentieth century. The author, Bertrand Patenaude, has assembled an impressive cast of characters, including many of the most influential figures of the age, among them Woodrow Wilson and Leon Trotsky, Friedrich von Hayek and Henry Ford, Karl R. Popper and Joseph Goebbels, Chiang Kai-shek and Boris Pasternak, and Bertrand Russell and John Maynard Keynes. The book contains nearly 300 illustrations, including political posters, photographs, film stills, original artwork, typed and holograph public and private manuscripts, letters, and diaries."

When I got home I checked this title on-line at Ohio State, but it was on order and I couldn't place a save. I was told to check OhioLINK, and there was only one other non-circulating copy in the whole state. So apparently it doesn't fit university or college guidelines either. Interesting.

Something drew my eye to the Cartoon library so I stopped to look at the 2007 Cartoon Festival page, and found a bad link to the catalog, so I stopped what I was doing to send an e-mail to the staff supplying the URL, because from experience I know that if you report a bad link, webmasters can't find it and you end up in a convoluted e-mail back-and-forth.

I feel like I put in a day's work. I know too much.