The Bloated Donkey

Censored In Stockton

2010-11-13T14:39:00.000-08:00

For those of you that read my articles in the Pacifican(UOPs campus newspaper)
you may have noticed that last weeks bloated donkey article was lacking in
intensity and its usual sarcasm. That was entirely out of my control; it
was the workings of censorship. My article was manipulated and twisted
from my opinion of current events to an incoherent “debate”. In my
opinion (notice this is my opinion) the tampering of last week’s article is
illegal. What happened to freedom of the press? Needless to saythis
official second article of The Bloated Donkey will focus on censorship and the
rights to express one’s own opinion be it through press, media, blogs, term
papers, etc. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the definition of
censorship is: to
examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable.
Now you may think that I might be overreacting and that the article is
relatively similar to the original (for those of you that have read the
original). However, the parts that were deleted and published without my
consent were the introduction, the title, and the general meaning of my article
which was hijacked and used as a debate piece. And according to Merriam-Webster
Dictionary anything that is deleted or suppressed because it is deemed
objectionable is the definition of censorship. So even though only my
introduction and title were deleted and my article that was turned into a
debate piece, that falls under the dictionary definition of censorship.
Supposedly the United States has freedom from censorship especially in
the areas of the press, and freedom of speech. For those of you that are
savvy with your court case history you may reference the cases of Hazelwood
School District v. Kuhlmeier (1988), and Hosty vs. Carter (2005), these court
cases essentially gave school administrators the right to censor university and
public school newspapers. However there has been a recent overturn in the
previous decisions of Hazelwood and Hosty. The ruling for the Chicago State
University tempo court case was for the states to extend the protections of the
first amendment (freedom of speech, press, etc.) to University and collegiate
press. So the rights of the first amendment should be extended to me as
well. My opinion no matter how intense should not be tampered with, I am
entitled to my opinions and to publish those opinions if I so choose. Now that
I am done venting, let us segue into a more salient issue, the “end” of the
recession. The National Bureau of Economic Research recently came
out claiming that the recession that has plagued this nation for 18
months is over. In my opinion this doesn’t make sense. Who is this
recession over for? The recession is certainly not over for those who remain
unemployed, or for those that continue to lose their homes and money due to a
recession that supposedly has ended. How can these economistsmake such claims? What
statistics are they analyzing? According to the Bureau of labor Statistics as
of June 2010 California unemployment is higher than ever reaching historically
high levels of 12.3%. In every state according to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics unemployment has reached historically high levels. How can you
tell the 12.3% of unemployed Californians struggling to make ends meet and
provide for their families that the recession is technically over. So far
I have not found one tangible piece of information that tells me that this
recession is over, there is actually more information telling me that this
recession has a just begun. My prediction is that while government
officials and economists claim that this recession is over a second more
damaging recession is imminent. I believe that the banks are sitting on
thousands of foreclosed homes that have not been released and once they are
released this will once again devastate the real estate market. The banks
are accumulating mass amounts of foreclosed homes that they have not yet put on
the market. According to RealtyTrac as of 2009 the number of foreclosures
reached 250,054 in California alone. With this trend the banks will be
sitting on millions of foreclosed homes by then end of 2010, most of which are
not being put on the market. Think about it, the banks cannot hold onto
this homes forever or make them disappear, after a while they will need to
release these homes on the market. When the mass amounts of foreclosed homes
are finally released the market will suddenly be flooded with thousands if not
millions of these homes which in turn will devastate the real estate market
creating a second deeper recession. Having the knowledge that the banks are
sitting on these foreclosures makes me confident in saying that a deeper more

serious recession is looming. The claim about the recession being over is
just the false calm before the storm; the worst is yet to come. The
recession may be over for the government officials and the white house elites
however, it is not over for 12.3% of Californians and from my perspective of
how things are going and how banks are running things this is just the tip of
the iceberg.

Is there a Seperation of Church and State

2010-11-13T14:05:00.000-08:00

In todays Bloated Donkey Article I will be writing about Muslims and the supposed separation of church and state, it is sure to be explosive(no pun intended). I will begin by covering some of the basic methods that are employed todetermine the boundaries between church and state. The first is the Lemon Test which wasestablished and defined in a Supreme Court ruling in 1971 to be constitutional, a law must: have a secular purpose, andbe neutral towards religion - neither hindering nor advancing it, and notresult in excessive entanglements between the government and religion. The Endorsement test was created by JusticeO’Connor which states a law is unconstitutional if it favors one religion over another in a way that makes some people feel like outsiders and others feel like insiders. Throughout United States history we see laws that are geared to ensure that the U.S. government neither promotes nor hinders religion and to ensure that religion does not interfere or tamper with government happenings. However, in the past decade or so we see these institutions being trampled on by the donkeys of this nation regarding the Muslim religion. Muslim prayer rooms, Muslim foot-bathing areas, Muslim sensitivity training, a taxpayer-funded trip for Imam Abdul Rauf to the Middle East to discuss Muslim life in America and religious tolerance, and a taxpayer funded Islamic center at a Marine base are being established throughout the United States. According to World Net Daily (WND), Kansas City International Airport (KCI) built accommodations for Muslim cabdrivers and other Muslims that include special prayer areas and special bathrooms that were constructed especially for those of the Muslim faith to wash their feet and prepare for prayer. A myth that many liberals would argue is that the building of foot-bathing areas (totaling more than 200-300 dollars per area) and prayer rooms are funded privately by the airports. This is wrong, funding for such areas are taken directly from airline fees. So funding is far from private. Why doesn’t the airport accommodate Christians, Catholics, Jewish, Buddhists, or other religions? Why doesn’t every religion get a special place to wash and a quiet place to pray? Why is the government promoting the muslim faith? Another stunning issue is the Muslim sensitivity training. According to WND, Muslim sensitivity training is also done at KCI which ensured training of 45,000 workers on how to avoid offending Muslims and what to expect during their annual trip to Mecca. An organization called CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) works with the FBI, airports, the military and other such Government institutions to implement this Muslim sensitivity training. Another wrongdoing of the liberal elites is the establishment of a taxpayer funded Muslim centers at our Marine bases. This is a building that was revamped to accommodate the Muslim marines so that they could hold religious services. This is rampant reverse discrimination and the liberal donkeys refuse to see this because they are participating in a race to the tolerant top to see which liberal can be the most tolerant and accepting of the Muslim faith so that they might get some sort of award or pat on the back. The new Muslim center at Quantico, VA military base was dedicated with a ceremony complete with a plaque and a recitation from part of the Quran. Governments (state, federal, or local) supposedly do not promote or hinder faith then why are they rampantly favoring the Muslims? If the liberal government continues to allow this sort of promotion of the Muslim faith then all groups equally should have prayer rooms, and special areas designated for the practice of their faith, they should not be limited to only those of Muslim faith. And on an ending note I have one begging question that I would greatly appreciate an answer for: Why do liberals love so much to promote a religion that opposes their core beliefs? Muslims are against homosexuals (gay rights), abortion, and women’s rights. Women and homosexuals are persecuted in the Middle East. Why then do the donkeys of this nation fund and promote a religious group that contradicts their own beliefs? And “tolerance” is not the answer I am looking for.

P.S. my views and opinions are not against the Muslim
religion my views are against the governments promotion of the Muslim religion
and the fact that the government bends over backwards to accommodate this one
particular religion.

Overspending and New Stimulus:

2010-09-18T12:59:00.000-07:00

Obama, health care, oil spills, overspending, debt, tax hikes, Zsa Zsa all of these topics are pervasive themes in news today and for me all of them are quite frightening. Which is why I have created The Bloated Donkey in an attempt to tackle the ever growing list of Democrat wrong doings, a sort of Donkey watch if you will. In my articles I offer a conservative viewpoint. I know what some of you are thinking, I am probably a “close-minded” rich white elderly male that is probably from a typically red state such as Utah or Texas because I am conservative right? Wrong, I am middle class, part Native American (and yes the term Indian offends me) part Dutch, and I am a woman from the typically blue state of California. With introductions out of the way I will begin by introducing the pilot topic of The Bloated Donkey: Overspending and the Obama Administrations new proposed stimulus package.

The Democratic spending is out of control, they have acquired an insatiable appetite for taxpayer’s dollars. To the Democrats more is never enough, taxes can never be too high, and there are always more programs to fund and more spending to be done. The Democrat Party is bloated by over-indulging themselves on taxpayer dollars. The Obama Administration came out this week proposing a $50 billion Infrastructure plan that is supposed to create jobs. In my opinion this is just another stimulus plan that adds to the deficit and throws money at the problem instead of trying to fix it. This infrastructure plan mirrors the last stimulus plan proposed Obama Administration. That particular plan took $240 billion of taxpayer’s money to stop unemployment from rising. According to Obama implementation of the previous stimulus plan would stop unemployment from rising. He went as far as to say that unemployment wouldn’t rise above 8 percent. However, that program failed miserably and unemployment is now at 9.6 percent with 14.9 million people unemployed. Democrats refuse to call this new plan a stimulus package, they call it a $50 billion dollar infrastructure plan as if changing the name is going to make it unlike every other failed stimulus package. Democrats justify this over-spending as necessary to resuscitate the economy and again stop unemployment from rising. This leaves the American public with the begging question, how is this program different than all of the other failed stimulus packages? The answer: it’s not. This is just another example of Democrats gorging themselves on taxpayer’s money convinced that increasing debt and throwing our money at problems will somehow magically solve them. How many billions of taxpayers’ dollars must be sacrificed to make the Democrats understand that more spending and more programs are not the answer to fixing the economy and reversing the National Debt. According to the U.S. National Debt clock as of September 06, 2010 the public debt of the United States is $13,458,822,654,744.05 and growing. This debt is rapidly increasing at a rate of $4.14 billion every day. With the United States population at approximately 309,065,826 meaning that our individual share of the Public Debt is approximately $43,546.78. Now you may ask what could we possibly be spending that much of our money on and why has the public debt increased at such an alarming rate. The answer: Besides countless failing stimulus packages that waste billions, the Democrats are overspending and creating too many new programs which require government funding (leading to an increase in taxes), essentially government waste of taxpayer dollars. Government expenditures include: $715 billion which will pay for defense and security-related international activities; $708 billion which will pay for Social Security; Medicare, Medicaid consists of $753 billion of the budget. Safety Net Programs are about $482 billion; Interest on National Debt is $209 billion of the budget. Those are just a few of the programs that consume taxpayer’s money. The spending doesn’t stop there next year there are proposals for at least 729 additional new programs that “require” government funding. Can we honestly afford any more programs and any additional squandering of taxpayer dollars? The bloated Democrat theory of spending our way out of a recession to justify their craving to acquire and spend people’s money is a twisted socialist solution that only creates higher taxes, and a higher deficit in the end.

I suggest that the Obama Administration cut down on spending and reduce taxes, and stop coming up with stimulus packages that cost taxpayers billions when they clearly don’t work; just give up on the stimulus packages they didn’t work before they aren’t going to work now. They need to save money by cutting down on frivolous programs, and instead focus on reducing the public debt. Simply put: no more programs, no more stimulus programs, reduce existing programs, limit spending, increase oversight on funding, give tax cuts, and stop outsourcing. So before the Democrats start their socialist programs such as universal health care they need to pause and have one ounce of compassion for the taxpayers funding all of their programs. And might I add, if this health care remains in effect, every politician including the president should be on the government plan not their own private plans.