Sheriff Joe Arpaio is at it Again!

You all remember Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona , who painted the jail

cells pink and made the inmates wear pink prison garb. Well……….

SHERIFF JOE IS AT IT AGAIN!

Oh, there’s MUCH more to know about Sheriff Joe!

Maricopa County was spending approx. $18 million dollars a year on stray animals, like cats and dogs. Sheriff Joe offered to take the department over, and the County Supervisors said okay.

The animal shelters are now all staffed and operated by prisoners. They feed and care for the strays. Every animal in his care is taken out and walked twice daily. He now has prisoners who are experts in animal nutrition and behavior. They give great classes for anyone who’d like to adopt an animal. He has literally taken stray dogs off the street, given them to the care of prisoners, and had them place in dog shows.

The best part? His budget for the entire department is now under $3 million. Teresa and I adopted a Weimaraner from a Maricopa County shelter two years ago. He was neutered, and current on all shots, in great health, and even had a microchip inserted the day we got him. Cost us $78.

The prisoners get the benefit of about $0.28 an hour for working, but most would work for free, just to be out of their cells for the day. Most of his budget is for utilities, building maintenance, etc. He pays the prisoners out of the fees collected for adopted animals.

I have long wondered when the rest of the country would take a look at the way he runs the jail system, and copy some of his ideas. He has a huge farm, donated to the county years ago, where inmates can work, and they grow most of their own fresh vegetables and food, doing all the work and harvesting by hand.

He has a pretty good sized hog farm, which provides meat, and fertilizer. It fertilizes the Christmas tree nursery, where prisoners work, and you can buy a living Christmas tree for $6 – $8 for the Holidays, and plant it later. We have six trees in our yard from the Prison.

Yup, he was reelected last year with 83% of the vote.

Now he’s in trouble with the ACLU again. He painted all his buses and vehicles with a mural, that has a special hotline phone number painted on it, where you can call and report suspected illegal aliens. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement wasn’t doing enough in his eyes, so he had 40 deputies trained specifically for enforcing immigration laws, started up his hotline, and bought 4 new buses just for hauling folks back to the border.. He’s kind of a ‘Git-R Dun’ kind of Sheriff.

TO THOSE OF YOU NOT FAMILIAR WITH JOE ARPAIO

HE IS THE MARICOPA ARIZONA COUNTY SHERIFF

AND HE KEEPS GETTING ELECTED OVER AND OVER

THIS IS ONE OF THE REASONS WHY:

Sheriff Joe Arpaio (In Arizona ) who created the ‘ Tent City Jail’:

He has jail meals down to 40 cents a serving and charges the inmates for them.

He stopped smoking and porno magazines in the jails… Took away their weights Cut off all but ‘G’ movies.

He started chain gangs so the inmates could do free work on county and city projects.

He Wouldn’t Get

Then He Started Chain Gangs For Women So

Sued For Discrimination.

He took away cable TV Until he found out there was A Federal Court Order that Required Cable TV For Jails So He Hooked Up The Cable TV Again Only Let In The Disney Channel And The Weather Channel.

When asked why the weather channel He Replied, So They Will Know How Hot It’s Gonna Be While They Are Working

ON My Chain Gangs..

He Cut Off Coffee Since It Has Zero Nutritional Value.

When the inmates complained, he told them, ‘This Isn’t The Ritz/Carlton……If You Don’t Like It, Don’t Come Back.’

Los Angeles on the Verge of Collapse

I grew up in this city. Nothing speaks more to Los Angeles than the beautiful architecture of many of our buildings. Above is a photo of the Bonaventure Hotel in the downtown area. I have lived in many communities from Westchester to Canoga Park. Los Angeles has been decimated by poor governance.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Average (DWP) employee pay rose 15% over the last five years to $101,237 in 2012, according to records obtained by The Times.

The median household income for Los Angeles residents – the public utility’s customers – fell over roughly the same period, from $48,882 in 2008 to $46,148 in 2011, the latest year for which U.S. Census numbers are available.

The conundrum in voting for the next city mayor is that both candidates, Wendy Gruel and Eric Garcetti, are liberal Democrats that have voted for every DWP labor union contract and every city employee union contract.

Worse is that in their TV debates neither has addressed the question of labor contracts, high pension costs, high medical insurance costs, or the gross revenue tax that is imposed on every business in the city.

In my view the gross revenue tax is the most harmful of these issues to the city. After all adjoining cities do not have that kind of tax. So Pasadena, Glendale, and Burbank are all in the central part of the metropolitan area but provide far lower costs of doing business.

Garcetti and Gruel’s unwillingness to address those big issues sends me one message. They are not prepared to confront the city’s major problems. Instead they talk about improving the schools (they do not have any direct authority over the schools), transportation (limited authority), and street paving (they have authority but there is no money available). Are we heading down the Detroit path to bankruptcy and desolation? We may not be near there now but the road signs are obvious.

Links

http://www.dailynews.com/ci_21366902/editorial-easing-gross-receipts-tax-will-improve-business

http://www.scpr.org/blogs/politics/2012/09/18/10032/las-business-tax-holiday-extended-2015/

photo taken from 5th Street and Figueroa Street using a Panasonic DMC-FZ150

Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Exist

When the Federal government rescued the banking industry in 2008 there were 734 banks involved according to CNN. The list is here. You may recall that the idea of bailing out the banks was based upon a proposal submitted by then Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson near the end of the Bush administration. Initially the proposal was rejected by the congress. After the stock market took a significant drop the proposal was passed. Many people, primarily Republicans, opposed the bail out. Many condemned the idea of “too big to fail.”

This past April 9 Congressman Brad Sherman (CA – D) and Senator Bernie Sanders (VT – I) introduced bills in both houses to define too big to fail financial institutions with the purpose of breaking them into smaller units that could fail without impacting the country.

There are no cosponsors to these bills. According to govtrack.us there is a 2% chance the proposal will get past a committee review and a 0% chance of enactment.

So where are all the indignant people who voiced their dismay in government bailouts?

I am not a reporter and I do not have the resources to walk through the offices of senators and congressional members.

This lack of concern does tell us that on camera pronouncements mean nothing.

What will happen when the next bank failure occurs?

U.S. Federal Government Honesty

Kim Jong-Un, leader of North Korea, has threatened to shoot a missile at the United States. If he can’t manage that could he be responsible for the bombing in Boston? If the United States wanted to avoid a war with North Korea, would our government hide the fact that North Korea was the source of the bombing from the American people? I am just asking.

American Preparation for a Nuclear Attack

America does not appear to be prepared for a nuclear attack!

Associated Press report, “The Pentagon announced Friday it will spend $1 billion to add 14 interceptors to an Alaska-based missile defense system, responding to what it called faster-than-anticipated North Korean progress on nuclear weapons and missiles.”

“We will strengthen our homeland defense, maintain our commitments to our allies and partners, and make clear to the world that the United States stands firm against aggression,” Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Defense, told a Pentagon news conference.

I take issue with this plan. Are we waiting for North Korea to shoot missiles at the United States before we would attack them? If we saw North Korea preparing to attack, why wouldn’t we take a pre-emptive strike against a facility that is being prepped to shoot a rocket at the United States? News reports say that America’s anti-missile system is flawed and may not work at all. I wonder why we are not using Israel’s Iron Dome system.

Furthermore, where have our leaders been all of these past years when we knew that their objective has been to obtain nuclear missiles for war?

Today we are trying to dissuade Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. When will we determine that they cannot be persuaded to stop the development efforts? What are the signals that tell the United States that we must take military action to stop the Iranian nuclear development?

I am disappointed with our government’s lack of plans.

Perhaps moving to Mexico or Canada now might be something to consider.

We Are Too Big to Fail!

The Senate passed the $700 billion bank bailout bill on October 3 2008. The guts of the bill was the same as the three-page document submitted on September 21 2008, by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Paulson had asked Congress to approve a $700 billion bailout to buy mortgage-backed securities that were in danger of defaulting. By doing so, Paulson wanted to take these debts off the books of the banks, hedge funds and pension funds that held them. The goal was to instill confidence in the functioning of the global banking system, which had narrowly avoided collapse.

Then came the annual bank stress tests. The official name is Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review, or CCAR. The results of these tests would be to identify those banks and associated companies that were adequately capitalized. Those not having sufficient funds would be required to take action to resolve the issue. The test is required for all banking institutions with $50 billion in total capital assets.

No banks were split apart and nothing was done to confront the fact that the four largest banking organizations overwhelmingly impact the entire nation.

Largest banks and thrifts in US by total assets

Total Total

Company City, State assets deposits

JPMorgan Chase & Co. New York, NY 2,250.8 1,127.8

Bank of America Corp. Charlotte, NC 2,129.0 1,033.0

Citigroup Inc. New York, NY 1,873.9 865.9

Wells Fargo & Co. San Francisco, CA 1,313.9 920.1

If any of these banks failed the United States would step in to protect their well being.

Federal Reserve press release dated March 14, 2013. “The Federal Reserve on Thursday announced it has approved the capital plans of 14 financial institutions in the Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR). Two other institutions received conditional approval, while the Federal Reserve objected to the plans of two firms.”

As to breaking apart the behemoths, not a word.