Board has a duty to protect owners from disruptive tenant

ASSOCIATIONS

Board has a duty to protect owners from disruptive tenant

Republished with permission from copyright holder

By Donie Vanitzian

June 14, 2013

QUESTION: I am very concerned about who's really running my gated community's association. A tenant next door suffers from severe problems. For the last year, three nights a week, he is either throwing furniture around, banging on the walls and screaming, or on his adjoining balcony endlessly talking to himself, then starts banging on patio furniture sometimes more than eight hours a day. He constantly threatens to kill himself and others. At night he brings home street people who scare the neighbors.

Many of us have called security and the police. Security writes him up, and police make reports. I've been providing all police reports to our manager for a year, and I keep track of all calls to security, but it seems no one wants to get involved.

The manager encourages the board's inaction, saying the board can only "fine" the owners, which it has done, and the owners continue to pay the fines. At a recent board meeting I learned directors knew nothing of this ongoing problem.

The manager says this is a neighbor-to-neighbor dispute and not the board's problem, so she kept it from them. I gave the board copies of all police and security reports and asked that they be entered into minutes — but when minutes were distributed, nothing was mentioned, instead I was branded a "complainer" and "troublemaker." What are the implications of this situation, and how long do I have to live under these conditions?

ANSWER: Some power-hungry property managers think it is their job to insulate board directors from everything that happens in the association, a very serious error in judgment as it could end up getting board directors and the association sued for the manager's inaction. When something goes wrong and creates liability, the property manager, as the board's agent, may escape personal liability if he or she is indemnified by the association's insurance policies, leaving instead the directors and the association liable for acts about which they knew nothing.

To ensure that directors have notice and that there is a record of it, titleholders who are being ignored should send their complaints to the board president via U.S. Postal Service, certified mail, return receipt requi

ring a signature. The complaints should also be sent by regular mail to all directors.

When directors do have notice about potentially volatile situations such as you describe, they have a duty to take precautions or direct action to protect the residents from harm; otherwise they and the association may also become responsible for injuries or other costly outcomes. When seeking coverage from an association insurance policy, a board that "knew or should have known" of such situations but failed to take appropriate action, may find that insurer denying coverage because of their willful failure.

As an owner whose quiet enjoyment of your property is affected, in the absence of board action your alternatives include bringing a lawsuit against the tenant and the unit's owners for interfering with your rights. You and other affected owners would benefit by joining together in such a suit.

Legal action could include a request for restraining orders and claims against the board for breach of their duties to curtail the situation. Whether the lawsuit will force the unit owners to evict the disruptive tenant, you may still be entitled to damages, which could be substantial. Consult an attorney to learn and understand what remedies may be available from filing suit and from out of court.

The late Stephen Glassman, an attorney specializing in corporate and business law, co-wrote this column. Vanitzian is an arbitrator and mediator. Send questions to P.O. Box 10490, Marina del Rey, CA 90295 or noexit@mindspring.com.

Is Obama about to Pull a Wag the Dog on Syria?

 WAG THE SYRIAN DOG

By Chirss Street

“Wag the Dog” is the political strategy for a national leader to start a military operation to divert negative attention away from him.  In 1997, Hollywood produced a Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman movie 

by the same name about an American President caught up in a sex scandal that decides to start a war in the Balkans to distract the public.  Eighteen months later with President Bill Clinton facing a sex scandal, he started a war in the Balkans.  With embattled President Barack Obama facing a scandal about electronic spying on the private lives of almost every voter in America, it should not be surprising that he would make “A decision to provide lethal assistance,” including weapons, ammunition and air support to the Syrian rebels.  Using the Wag the Dog strategy might have worked in the past, but the mushrooming privacy scandal seems destined to continue to grow.

The White House announced that because the Syrian government had used chemical weapons against rebel forces, who are mainly composed of foreign fighters, Syria crossed a “red line” that morally requires the United States to intervene to protect the rebels.  In reality, despite substantial U.S. covert military aid, the rebels’ main northern bastion of Aleppo is now cut off from resupply and in the rebels are in danger of being defeated by the Syrian government.  The situation is very reminiscent of the U.S. military intervention to institute a no-fly zone to stop loyalist forces of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi from capturing Benghazi and ending the Libyan rebellion.

The real White House crisis is taking place in Hong Kong, where defector Edward Snowden is slowly and artfully revealing the breadth and intrusiveness of the U.S. government’s top secret foreign and domestic surveillance programs.  After exposing the National Security Agency’s PRISM program to the British Guardian and Washington Post newspapers that gave U.S. government officials easy access to all data held by Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Skype, Snowden revealed National Security Agency documents to Honk Kong’s liberal South China Morning Press proving NSA is hacking 61,000 computer systems around the world.  The NSA is also active hacking companies, public officials, individuals and the Chinese University in Hong Kong.

The timing of the Snowden’s releases of American spying on China happening during the summit with Chinese Premier Xi Jinping has been an unmitigated disaster for the Obama Administration.  The Chinese were shocked two weeks ago when the Administration leaked to the U.S. press that the agenda for the summit would be an attempt to restrict China from corporate espionage and theft of intellectual property in America.  The hypocrisy of Snowden’s disclosures of intrusive spying on China by the U.S. generated an explosion of anti-American anger in Hong Kong.  The city now expects a mass parade this Saturday in support of granting Snowden political asylum.

Bloomberg just reported that thousands of U.S. technology, finance and manufacturing companies are working closely the with U.S. security agencies to provide sensitive information and in return for access to classified intelligence.  As an example, Microsoft provides intelligence agencies with prior information about bugs in its popular software.

Although Larry Page, chief executive officer of Google Inc., said he had never heard of a program called Prism until after Edward Snowden’s disclosures.  Although Page swore he would never grant the U.S. government direct access to its servers, Bloomberg sources describe Google as a “trusted partners” of the NSA.  In fact the agency’s main surveillance program called Accumulo is built on Google’s proprietary BigTable data-base platform. Accumulo has “fine-grained” access controls and a server-side programming mechanisms that can modify data that is written to disk on a target data servers.  This provides Prism with “cell-level access labels,” that allows their agents to plant a “Trojan-horse” on the machines of almost any computer users

Google has agreements with CIA, the FBI and branches of the U.S. military that gather data useful for intelligence or cyber-warfare units.  Company executives are motivated not only to help national defense, but to also gain access to espionage on their foreign competition.  Following an attack on his company by Chinese hackers in 2010, Google co-founder and native Russian, Sergey Brin, was provided with highly sensitive government intelligence linking the attack to People’s Liberation Army of China.

The Obama 2012 re-election campaign relied on Google Chairman Eric Schmidt to recruit talent, choose technology, and coach the campaign on strategy to unify the “Big –Data” from vast commercial and political databases which micro-targeted which individual voters were likely to support Obama or be open to his message.  They tried to then convert individuals into supporters through personalized contact via Facebook, e-mail, or a knock on the door.  Schmidt described the analytics team as “people scientists” who used Big Data to predict “how people will behave when confronted with a choice or a question.”  After the election, the analytics team was hired by Google.

The overt intervention of the United States in the Syrian civil war will undoubtedly result in a big spike up in the 93,000 dead and over 1.5 million refugees.  I have not found anyone who can justify why such military intervention is in America’s our national interest.  But after eight days of Edward Snowden’s daily revelations of how the Obama Administration’s eviscerated American’s personal privacy caused the current Newsweek Magazine cover to be titled: “Hit the Road Barack”, a war in Syria may not be enough to distract an unhappy public from the Obama scandals.

CHRISS STREET & PAUL PRESTON
Present: “The Agenda 21 Radio Talk Show”
Streaming Live Monday through Friday at 10 to Noon http://www.kcnr1460.com/
Follow Blogs: www.chrissstreetandcompany.com & www.agenda21radio.com

Thank you America - Pilsen, Czech Republic

EUROPEAN CITY THAT THANKS AMERICA

By Chriss Street

Each year the citizens of Pilsen in the Czech Republic celebrate Liberation Festival to commemorate and say thank you to America who liberated the city in World War II.  

After eight brutal years, the town of Pilsen revolted against the Nazis on May 5, 1945 and cleared the way for General George Patton and his United States Third Army to charge into Pilsen’s Republic Square on May 6, 1945. Before the Second World War, the nation of Czechoslovakia had been an independent and economically successful nation in Central Europe.  But in the 1930s, Germany and Russia threatened to take over the nation.  In 1938, Great Britain and France signed the Munich Treaty.  Pilsen and all of northwest Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland was transferred to the Nazis.  British Prime Minister,

Neville Chamberlain and German Chancellor Adolph Hitler were nominated for the Nobel Peace prize.  As the thousands of residents of Pilsen fell under military control, Chamberlain told Europeans, “I believe it is peace for our time … Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.”

In 1948, Czech attempts to join the U.S.-sponsored Marshall Plan postwar rebuilding were crushed by a coup d’état backed by the Soviet Union.  For the next 41 years, Pilsen would again be subjugated until the fall of the Fall of Communism in 1989.

Pilsen city fathers make tremendous efforts to impress upon today’s young people the meaning of the liberation has for them and what it means to their future to be free Czech citizens.  The festival has music, food and a grand parade to Republic Square, but the stars and stripes of the American flags blanket the city to remind the young of the sacrifices that American World War II veterans made to save their freedom.

“It’s been over 60 years and still they honor the American forces, and have a wonderful celebration,” said Charles Noble, Jr., son of a World War II commander who led troops into Pilsen in May 1945.  The biggest show of community support happens during the convoy of liberty. Thousands literally line the streets here to check out the World War II veterans and the military vehicles.

CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF THE PILSEN LIBERATION FESTIVAL PARADE   

Marion Kirkham is one of a handful of the American veterans who made it to this year’s festival.  He served in World War II and has returned to Pilsen for several years in a row in honor of his brother who died fighting to help the Czech people.  He is always amazed at the ongoing outpouring of love and support he and the others receive.

“They lost their freedom so they know what’s it’s like without freedom and now they want to preserve that freedom and they want their children to remember what freedom means.  It’s amazing to me.“  Kirkham and the others rode in World War II Jeeps and tanks restored to full combat functionality by the local Pilsen car clubs.

Crash site and gravestone of Lt. Virgil P. Kirkham, shot down after volunteering to fly his 82nd mission.  Lt. Kirkham was 20-years-old when his P-47 Thunderbolt plane was shot down.  Lt. Kirkham volunteered for the mission over Pilsen that cost him his life.

Zdenka Sladkova at 14 years-old was over whelmed by his heroic  sacrifice for her town and family that she made a vow to care for him and his memory.  For 65 straight years, Zdenka, who is now 79-years-old, has taken on the honor and responsibility for the loving care of Virgil Kirkham’s crash site and his memorial near her home in a forest just outside of Pilsen.

                              CHRISS STREET & PAUL PRESTON Present:
                                    “The Agenda 21 Radio Talk Show
”Streaming Live Monday  through Friday at 10 to Noon http://www.kcnr1460.com/
Follow Blogs: www.chrissstreetandcompany.com  & www.agenda21radio.com 

Snoop Like its 1984 - The NSA's Big Data Meltdown

BIG UNCLE SAM IS WATCHING

By Chriss Street

 Eric Arthur Blair is the new hot selling British author.  Better known by his “pen name” as George Orwell, sales of his 64 year old novel Nineteen Eighty-Four have jumped by 6,000% on Amazon, following the revelations of ubiquitous federal government spying on all American electronic communications.

BThe book follows the failed attempt by a young couple to rebel against policies of omnipresent surveillance and public mind control by a charismatic leader named “Big Brother” in the futuristic American empire named Oceania.  There was a scramble in Hollywood for the movie rights to adapt the book into a scathing rejection of the U.S. military-intelligence-complex.   But the rights were sold in March to a group of President Obama strongest supporters; including Shepard Fairey (artist who created the Obama “Hope” poster), and movie moguls Brian Grazer and Ron Howard.

The United States National Security Agency’s super-secret “Q Group” counter-intelligence unit has been desperately trying to find Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old former Army soldier and CIA employee holding top-secret security clearances, since he disappeared in May.  Mr. Snowden’s revelations last week to the British newspaper The Guardian of omnipresent surveillance of all the private phone calls, texts, e-mails, VOIP and “snail” mail of Americans is described by one intelligence officer as driving the NSA into “complete freakout mode.  The U.S. Justice Department and Q Group are working with the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) in France to issue a Red Notice that requiring law enforcement in 190 countries to seek to identify, locate and arrest Mr. Snowden and extradite him back to the United States for prosecution.

Despite a worldwide law enforcement dragnet Nineteen Eighty-Four’s Big Brother would envy, Mr. Snowden seems to have completed his mission as the greatest whistleblower since Daniel Ellsberg published the Pentagon Papers in 1971, then disappeared.

The Oceania government of Nineteen Eighty-Four had convinced their citizens to suspend private civil rights in a period of “perpetual war;” similar to our Patriot Act for twelve years of the “War on Terror.”  Big Brother’s propaganda, surveillance, mind control and cult of personality magnified the paranoia in mythical state of Oceania.

Somewhat like Edward Snowden, who was a contractor for our National Security Agency, Winston Smith worked for the Oceania government’s Ministry of Truth, where he altered facts and histories to add credibility to Big Brother’s propaganda narrative.  Like Snowden, Smith secretly harbored anti-government views and eventually rebelled against the narrative.  But after a short period of bliss and freedom, he was betrayed by friends, psychologically tortured into submission, and then betrays his co-conspirator.

As Alistair Heath said: 

“the ancient Greeks and Romans got there before us; they couldn’t conceivably have dreamt of the internet, of the cloud or of National Security Agency super-computers in Fort Meade, Maryland, in an as yet undiscovered continent, combing through trillions of phone calls, emails and Facebook pages, but they’d already nailed the gist of the issue.  One of the most fundamental questions in political philosophy is as the Roman poet Juvenal first put it, “Who will guard the guardians themselves?”

Edward Snowden was one of approximately 10,000 contractors that have top-secret security clearances and the online computer rights to select and conduct surveillance against any foe of the United States of America, or any foe of Edward Snowden.  As he so eloquently said:

 “Any analyst at any time can target anyone. Any selector, anywhere… I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President…”

Mr. Snowden is obviously better trained and more sophisticated at evading Uncle Sam than the Winton Smith was at evading Big Brother.  Snowden freely traveled to communist Hong Kong, checked into a luxury hotel down the street from the CIA, then deliver hundreds of documents and sat for many days of interviews with the multiple staff from the Guardian newspaper.

Mr. Edward Snowden justified his actions with a warning: 

“Even if you’re not doing anything wrong, you’re being watched and recorded. …it’s getting to the point where you don’t have to have done anything wrong, you simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody, even by a wrong call, and then they can use this system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you’ve ever made, every friend you’ve ever discussed something with, and attack you on that basis, to sort of derive suspicion from an innocent life.” 

 If Edward Snowden is caught, he will spend decades in prison.    

CHRISS STREET & PAUL PRESTON Present:
“The Agenda 21 Radio Talk Show”
Streaming Live Monday through Friday at 10 to Noon http://www.kcnr1460.com/
Follow Blogs: www.chrissstreetandcompany.com & www.agenda21radio.com

Big Data, the NSA’s Metadata, the IRS and Paranoia

Big Data, the NSA’s Metadata, the IRS and Paranoia

Posted By CotoBlogzz

Rancho Santa Margarita, CA – the recent Washington scandals from Benghazi to the attacks on the press, to the IRS’ bullying of conservatives and Christians and most recently the NSA’s Big Data leaks have managed to unite liberals and conservatives alike.  Not to say that everyone is in agreement, but both sides are debating the balance between individual freedom and security and what happens when Big Government runs amok.

President Obama has come on the side of the NSA’s Big Data program, claming that no-one is listening to individual conversations.  On the other hand, others such as Senator Rand Paul are considering filing a class action lawsuit against  the federal government for invasion of privacy.

Whatever side of the issue you are on, I suggest you suspend your disbelief and listen to politician and Data Activist Malte Spitz’s talk on Your phone company is watching, then decide.

Malte Spitz is a German Green politician  who was not too worried when he asked his operator in Germany to share information stored about him. Multiple unanswered requests and a lawsuit later, Spitz received 35,830 lines of code -- a detailed, nearly minute-by-minute account of half a year of his life.

Over the course of six months, they had tracked his geographical location and what he was doing with his phone more than 35,000 times. Working with the German newspaper Die Zeit, an infographic was created that shows Spitz's activity across an interactive timeline, combined DT's geolocation data with information relating to his life as a politician, such as Twitter feeds, blog entries and website.

WHO IS BARNEY FRANK AND HOW WAS HE ABLE TO PASS THE DODD-FRANK LAW & THE BARNEY FRANK SAFE ACT...& CALIFORNIA SB 36?

 

 

By William Kirkendale

And just who was the architect of this outrageous SAFE ACT with hunt against all the Nation’s loan officers? None other than Mr. Barney Frank…. A paragon of virtue if there ever was one. Here’s what the Congressional Ethics committee said about him….Mr. Frank has a male prostitute lover living with him who was convicted of using cocaine, oral sodomy and producing child pornography…

Representative Barney Frank - Association with male prostitute Last Updated : Jun 02, 2011 Summary of Events In September of 1989, the House Ethics Committee agreed to investigate Congressman Barney Frank concerning his relationship with a male prostitute.  On April 1, 1985 Steve Gobie met Congressman Barney Frank after Congressman Frank answered a classified ad in the Washington Blade which read as follows:

 

“Exceptionally good-looking, personable, muscular athlete is available. Hot bottom plus large endowment equals a good time”.

 

The facts surrounding the next 18 months are listed here:

In their initial encounter, Congressman Frank paid Mr. Gobie (then 28) $80 dollars for sex

 

Steve Gobie had felony convictions for possession of cocaine, oral sodomy and production of obscene items involving a juvenile

 

Congressman Frank assisted Mr. Gobie by paying his attorney and court-ordered psychiatrist stemming from his previous convictions.

 

Congressman Frank hired Gobie as his personal aide, housekeeper, and driver

 

Congressman Frank paid Mr. Gobie $20,000 from his personal funds without withholding and taxes

 

Congressman Frank used his office to dismiss 33 parking tickets that Mr. Gobie had acquired

 

Congressman Frank wrote a letter on congressional letterhead attempting to alleviate Mr. Gobie's probation to allow him to leave the state as his personal aide, and stating that he was indeed employing Mr Gobie (a condition of his probation)

 

Steve Gobie ran a prostitution ring out of Congressman Frank's apartment and when the landlord brought it to the Representative's attention in 1987, Congressman Frank ended his relationship with Mr. Gobie

 

Congressman Frank publicly stated at this time that he was gay; in part to prevent possible blackmail from Mr. Gobie (according to Congressman Frank) Mr. Gobie sought to sell his story in 1989 and this prompted Congressman Frank to ask for the investigation into his relationship with Mr. Gobie both to prove that he had no involvement in the prostitution ring, and to remove the incentive for Mr. Gobie to sell his story.

 

Congressman Frank's Explanation In his initial letter to ask the committee to investigate him, Congressman Frank stated the following:

 

 

Questions have been raised about my employment of a personal assistant during a period between 1985 and 1987. I have publicly responded to these questions and I have expressed regret for the mistaken judgment involved. In order to ensure that the public record is clear, I hereby request that the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct [CSOC, commonly known as the ethics committee] conduct an investigation into these matters.

 

 

 Congressman Frank claimed that he tried to lift the younger man out of drugs and prostitution by hiring him to run errands.  He allowed Gobie the use of a car and sometimes his apartment when he was out of town.

 

I thought I was going to be a liberal who got involved directly with an individual who needed help, that I had an individual who was going to get help and he took me

When further pressed on the matter, Congressman Frank claimed that he saw himself as a Henry Higgins in "My Fair Lady."

 

Thinking I was going to be Henry Higgins and trying to turn him into Pygmalion was the biggest mistake I've made. It turns out that I was being suckered. He was, among other things, a very good con man.

 

Congressman Frank then explained that what he had done was done in part to refute criticism that liberals ...

...are interested in helping humanity at large, maybe with a vote or a check, but that we don't show a willingness to get involved in particular situations, or particular individuals that might need help.

 

 As the House Committee on ethics began their investigation, Congressman Frank stated that he would consider resigning if the causes he was championed would be damaged by the investigation.

Do other people who share my values pay a price if I am here?  If that's so, then I would not run for office.'

 In December of 2007, Congressman Frank gave "15 Questions" style interview with the Harvard Crimson and the issue of Steve Gobie cam up again (FM is the floor moderator for the event and BF is Barney Frank's response) :

 

Steve Gobie's Response Mr. Gobie has consistently maintained that Congressman Frank was aware of his prostitution activities within Congressman Frank's house, and that the aide position was a cover for probation purposes.  He has stated that Congressman Frank would sometimes call before heading home to ensure that nothing illicit was taking place prior to returning home.

 

He knew exactly what I was doing.  It was pretty obvious.  If he had to come home early {from work}, he would call home to be sure the coast was clear . . . . He was living vicariously through me. He said it was kind of a thrill, and if he had been 20 years younger he might be doing the same thing."

 

Mr. Gobie initially tried to sale his story to several newspapers, but initially "gave" the story to the Washington Post, hoping to eventually receive a book deal.  Mr. Gobie never wrote his "tell all" book.

 

Congressional Response After a 10 month investigation, the committee found the following (as reported by the Boston Globe) (Note that the misleading memo was the one written to the probation board claiming that Mr. Gobie was working for Congressman Frank and may need to leave the state as a requirement of that job….that Frank had violated House rules by writing a misleading memo that was used in an effort to end prostitute Stephen Gobie's probation on felony charges and by allowing his House privileges to be used to waive 33 parking tickets that Gobie might have received while driving Frank's car.

 

The recommendation was that Congressman Frank be reprimanded for his actions. The house voted to do just that on July 26, 1990, stating that Congressman Frank for reflecting "discredit upon the House."

 

The reaction from other Congressional members was mixed with most Democrats still supporting Congressman Frank and most Republicans calling for him to resign. Congressman Thomas Foglietta (D-PA) believed that Congressman Frank had simply been duped and stated:

Barney Frank is accused of being stupid and, my friend, if being stupid were grounds for expulsion, there'd be very few of us left here.

 

Most Republicans found Congressman Frank's claims that he knew nothing of the activities in his house as incredulous as his statements that his acknowledged illegal and immoral behavior surrounding the parking tickets and letter to the probation department were done for noble reasons.  Several papers called on congressman Frank to resign, but he has been consistently re-elected with favorable margins despite acknowledging behavior that is worse than that which has caused several Senators and Congressman to resign since that time.

Dave Koz Makes Surprise Appearance at KSBR Birthday Bash Jazz Festival

More than 30 musicians helped local college station raise money on

Memorial Day Weekend

Posted By CotoBuzz

 Rancho Santa Margarita, CA –Grammy-nominated saxophonist Dave Koz, along with six other surprise all-stars, graced the stage at the 2013 KSBR Birthday Bash Jazz Festival and Taste of the Bash.  Koz, a six time Grammy-nominated contemporary jazz saxophonist surprised roughly 3,000 jazz fans gathered Sunday, May 26 on the Village Green of Oso Viejo Park in Mission Viejo. .

Dave Koz, Paul Brown, Elan Trotman and Boney James: Photographer: Steve Wylie

This year’s Bash was the 25th edition of what has become the largest fundraising event for Saddleback College Radio Station KSBR (88.5 FM), and it also celebrated the 35th anniversary of the station’s jazz programming Other surprise performers included Peter White, Rick Braun, Boney James, Nick Colionne, Michael Lington, and Eric Darius. Altogether, more than 30 artists appeared at this year’s event, including guitarists Paul Brown and Chris Standring; sax players Jackiem Joyner, Jeff Kashiwa, Elan Trotman, and Grace Kelly; trumpeter Greg Adams; vocalists

Spencer Day and Sara Gazarek; bass players Brian Bromberg and Max Bennett; and keyboardists Keiko Matsui and Brian Simpson. Trumpeter Tony Guerrero once again served as the event’s Music Director.

“What makes the KSBR Birthday Bash unique is that many of the performers are bandleaders in their own right, but on this day, everyone plays on each other's songs in various all-star configurations, making each Bash a once-in-a-lifetime experience for both the artists and the audience,” according to Saddleback College Director of Broadcasting Terry Wedel.  The concert is co-sponsored by the City of Mission Viejo.

The second annual Taste of the Bash, a wildly successful element introduced last year, featured restaurants showing off their finest creations. Guests of the event were treated to tastes from restaurants from all over Orange County.  From Mission Viejo, California Pizza Kitchen, Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlor, butcher/grocer The Meat House, Rubios and Einstein Bros Bagels; from the City of Orange, Acapulco Restaurant; from Laguna Niguel Bistro K and Powell’s Sweet Shoppe; from Lake Forest Slater’s 50/50;  Huntington Beach’s 2^nd Floor Restaurant; from San Juan Capistrano A’s Burgers and Sundried Tomato; Citrus Fresh Grill at the Renaissance Sports Club in Aliso Viejo; Something Special Catering and Southern California Snowie from Rancho Santa Margarita, and from Ladera Ranch Casa Ranchero and Ollie and Jax Restaurants.  Wineries on hand were San Juan Capistrano’s Hamilton Oaks Vineyards and Trinchero Family Estates from Napa Valley.  The crowd also enjoyed beers from Hangar 24 and Cismontane.

Bringing a more artistic touch to the event this year was Tom Clark, a visual artist who paints live at events across the US and a few other countries. He painted two 8'x10' paintings from inspiration received from the music at the event.  Those pieces were then donated to a silent auction to help raise money for the nonprofit  radio station.

Memorable musical moments of the 2013 Bash included an 8-piece all-star horn section on the opening number “Put It Where You Want It”; Tony Guerrero and Greg Vail teaming up for the song, "Land of Make Believe", a Chuck Mangione favorite that transitioned into “America the Beautiful,”  (a fitting tribute celebrating Memorial Day); Dave Koz hitting the stage with his song "Anything's Possible" as Keiko Matsui and Brian Simpson traded off solos using the same keyboard;  Paul Brown's song “24/7” had Boney James, Dave Koz and Élan Trotman on sax and Brian Bromberg on bass; Peter White and Boney James playing anamazing version of Burt Bacharach's "Walk On By," which Peter and Boney recorded years ago; Boney James had his pal Rick Braun join him along with Tony Guerrero, Keiko Matsui and others for a rousing rendition of his latest release "Batacuda"; first time Basher Eric Darius had the crowd on their feet with his "Goin' All Out"; and the whole band came on stage to close the show with a memorable performance of James Brown's "I Feel Good" with Aubrey Logan and Bill Cantos on vocals. 

The event included a special tribute to Veterans.  The march of the colors was presented by the Headquarters Battalion, 1st Marine Division Color Guard.  Headquarters Battalion is the adopted unit of the City of Mission Viejo and has approximately 1600 Marines and Sailors that deploy around the world in support of our nation.  The National Anthem was sung by recent NBC’s “The Voice” contestant Luke Edgemon.

Platinum and Premium Gold VIP guests were treated to a fine dining experience by Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen in Anaheim, Vintage Steak House in San Juan Capistrano, Savannah Chop House in Laguna Niguel, Delizie’s Restaurante in Mission Viejo, and The Ranch Sports Grill in Ladera Ranch with desserts provided by Tommy Bahama in Newport Beach, Pinkiwi Culinary Production and MegaLoad Chocolates. It’s a Grind Coffee in Mission Viejo served up coffee for the crowd and VIP’s.  La Pan’s Catering, Ricardo’s Mexican Restaurant and Two Guys Grilling provided a culinary experience for the Bash All-Stars and their families backstage.   The artists were also treated to “thank you” gift bags with items generously donated by Tommy Bahamas.

Other major sponsors of the event were The City of Mission Viejo, Kaiser Permanente, Norm Reeves Acura, CLI-Worldwide (formerly Blue Moon Limo), Ainsworth Design, Ben’s Professional Electrical Services, Rancho Mission Viejo, Jim’s Music Center, Bennett Productions Unlimited, Omega Events, Cox Communications, Signs Plus, Laguna Beach Festival of Arts, Firebrand Media, Brian and Jean Thompson, Steven and Nancy Dixon and OC Buzz.

Located in Mission Viejo, Saddleback College provides quality higher education and training to the greater south Orange County community. Having served more than 500,00 students since 1968, Saddleback College offers over 300 degree and certificate programs to help students reach their personal, career, and educational goals.  For more information, please visit www.saddleback.edu and for Fine Arts information, please visit www.saddleback.edu/arts.

The Build in America Comeback Diversion

MADE IN AMERICA RENAISSANCE BEGINS

By Chriss Street

 When Presidents Nixon and Clinton got embroiled in serious scandals they both politically triangulated in favor of legislation considered vital by their opponents.  

Nixon passed the Clean Air Act and founded the Environmental Protection Agency.  Clinton ended “Welfare as we know it” by passing the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act.  With President Obama facing a blizzard of expanding scandals, I expect he is prepared to support conservative legislation that would positively reform America’s corporate income tax and to spur a renaissance in American manufacturing. The average global corporate income tax rate is 25%.

But since President Reagan cut tax rates and eliminated deductions to simplify the tax code in 1984, multi-national corporations’ lobbying of Congress resulted in much higher tax rates and new loopholes and deductions that expanded U.S. Tax Code from 26,300 to 73,608 pages.  Companies whose business is solely in the U.S. — food chains, retailers, railroads, and truckers — are exposed to the full 35% corporate income tax rate (5% more counting state and local taxes), whereas companies with extensive foreign operations or transferrable intellectual property such as pharmaceutical patents and software limit the U.S. corporate taxes they actually pay to an average rate of 26%.

In January of 2011, I published a scathing expose in Breitbart’s Big Government blog: “President Obama Empowers Jeffrey Immelt as the Ultimate Crony Capitalist,” about the hypocrisy of appointing the Chairman and CEO of General Electric to head the new President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.  Mr. Immelt had been bragging about the advantages of outsourcing U.S. jobs to China: “The interaction between government and business will change forever.  In a reset economy, the government will be a regulator; and also, an industry policy champion, a financier, and a key partner.”

Just the year before, G.E.’s Tax Department deployed an army of 975 staff and consultants to arrange that G.E. booked its profits outside the U.S. and its losses inside the U.S.  After out-sourcing the bulk of their operations, with worldwide profits of $14.2 billion in 2010, G.E. paid no U.S. corporate income taxes.  From 2010 through 2012, the company only paid U.S. tax at a 3.6% average rate.  With 4,663 stores and 1.3 million American employees, Wal-Mart paid at the average of 33.6% rate over the same period.

Corporations understand that competition drives average profit margins down to about 3.5% of sales.  Manufacturers traditionally have not had much bargaining power with suppliers or vendors in competitive markets.  Consequently, they tended to compete on the net cost of labor, which averaged about 8.5% of sales in the U.S.  Fifteen years ago, Chinese labor costs averaged 5.5%, including transportation to U.S.  With energy costs for OPEC oil about the same at 13.5% of sales, out-sourcing U.S. manufacturing jobs to China enriched profitability from 3.5% to 5.5%, a 60% improvement.

Fifteen years later, the boom in China manufacturing labor demand has driven up Chinese worker wages and driven down U.S. worker wages.  Today labor costs are approximately equal after import costs.  But over that same period, the energy costs for natural gas in the U.S., due to fracking, have plummeted by 75% versus only a 20% decline in China.  This huge U.S. energy cost advantage makes U.S. manufacturing costs substantially cheaper than China and explains why Ford, Michelin Tire Company and Apple are “re-shoring” manufacturing jobs back to the United States.

Last year U.S. Manufacturing jobs rose for the first time in 10 years, due to the combination of labor and energy cost competitiveness.  This trend would be a tsunami, except much of the competitive advantage is wiped out by ludicrously high corporate income tax rates.  If those jobs returned, unemployed workers receiving government benefits would turn into taxpayers and our dual trade and budget deficits would vanish.

President Obama needs to show that he can still lead the country.  I expect him to propose  cutting the top corporate income tax rate from 35% to 28%, in return for Congress eliminating many loopholes.  Such a tax cut would be revenue neutral on the amount of corporate income tax collected, but it would launch the manufacturing tsunami by dramatically improving the competitiveness of “Made in America”

 CHRISS STREET & PAUL PRESTON
Present: “The Agenda 21 Radio Talk Show”
Streaming Live Monday through Friday at 10 to Noon http://www.kcnr1460.com/
Follow Blogs: www.chrissstreetandcompany.com & www.agenda21radio.com

A Vast Far Left Conspiracy & the IRS Scandal

By Chriss Street

 The Internal Revenue Service scandal has metastasized from “low level” staff in Cincinnati being too thorough auditing a few Tea Parties into a major investigation ensnaring 88 IRS employees as “persons of interest.”  

But the scandal has the potential to evolve into a vast left-wing conspiracy to access the federal government’s confidential “Big Data” to swing the election in favor of the President. Barack Obama applied lessons he learned as a community organizer about the value of building up trust through long listening sessions when he went to law school.  After being chosen one of 80 editors of the prestigious Harvard Law Review, he was elected the first black President by continually reassuring the minority of conservative editors he would protect their interests if they voted for him

After graduating, he returned to Chicago and politically worked his way up to the U.S. Senate by building coalitions of white, black and brown voters who felt politically snubbed by established candidates.

In February 2007, Obama recruited Marc Andreessen, a founder of Netscape and a Board Member of Facebook, to develop a national database as a platform for Obama to launch the first Presidential social networking campaign strategy.  Democratic National ChairmanHoward Dean had successfully pioneered using the internet to raise small contributions in 2006, but Obama understood that he could use the Web to lower the cost of building a political brand, create a sense of connection and engagement that would allow people to self-organize around his narrative.

His main opponent, Hillary Clinton, had already committed to spending $23 million on a strategy to replicate the perceived state-of-the-art voter lists, phone banks and direct mail fund-raising deployed by Karl Rove for President George W. Bush’s successful 2000 and 2004 election campaigns.  The Obama campaign merged commercial and political data bases to command “Big-Data” knowledge of the electorate.  Social media at a cost of virtually nothing, allowed the candidate to paint himself as the brilliant “No drama Obama” and paint Hillary as shrill, strident, and with a witch’s cackle for a laugh.

At a cost of approximately $.75 to produce and send a mail piece, Clinton’s early financial advantage quickly evaporated as she tried to defend herself from the “negative buzz” that started out on social media and then migrated into main-stream newspapers and television.  Although Obama failed to win as many primary votes as Clinton, he won the nomination by building social media connections and engagement that motivated tens of thousands of his followers to personally show up and dominate caucus voting.

Rather than a traditional political base, Barack Obama assembled a database composed of the names and personal attributes of millions of supporters he could almost instantly engage in a virtual two-way conversation.  This on-line intimacy translated into the off-line behavior that sprouted distributed networks of supporters who set up phone banks, created their own YouTube media clips and helped Obama raise a record-breaking $700 million.  He buried John McCain as a feeble old man to win the Presidency and take control of the U.S. Senate.   After the election, the President elect’s Tuesday night e-mail message to supporters included: “We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I’ll be in touch soon about what comes next.”

Once in office, the White House and other federal agencies hired large numbers of former campaign staff.  These data professionals would have had statistical analysis access to the massive amount of personal Big Data held by the Departments of Health and Human Services, Education, Treasury and IRS.  The new Administration’s first piece of legislation, the $831 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, contained $400 million for the IRS “to accelerate the development and dissemination of research assessing the comparative effectiveness of health care treatments and strategies” in anticipation of the Obamacare roll out.  By nationalizing student loans the Administration expanded lending by 50% and could socially engage college students and young graduates about the “risk” that conservatives wanted to raise interest rates.  By issuing millions of “Obama phones” to low income citizens, the government could track and communicate with this Obama affinity group by text messaging.

The Administration’s “Race to the Top” education competition required the 48 participating states “to provide sign-on portals that allow authorized educators, students (grades 6 through 12), and their families (all grade levels) to log in and view student educational data through data dashboards.”  For the first time the federal government gained access to each student’s name, birth date, parent phone numbers and email addresses, economic status, social security number, race, gender, attendance, special education records, attendance, conduct, grades, and assessment scores.

The Obama 2012 reelection campaign relied on Google Chairman Eric Schmidt to recruit talent, choose technology, and coach the campaign on strategy to unify Big Data from the vast commercial and political databases to micro-target which individual voters were likely to support Obama or be open to his message.  They tried to convert these individuals into supporters through personalized contact via Facebook, e-mail, or a knock on the door.  Schmidt described the analytics team as “people scientists” who used Big Data to predict “how people will behave when confronted with a choice or a question.”  After the election, the entire analytics team was hired by Google.

As the scandal grows, it appears that the IRS staff across the country broadly discriminating against conservatives and may have retaliated against Obama opponents.  Although the national polls had Mitt Romney tied or slightly ahead on election night, the President was reelected by a statistically improbable 5 million vote margin.  It is my belief that investigators should search the Obama campaign’s Big Data to determine if a vast left wing conspiracy acquired huge amounts of personal data from multiple government agencies to swing the 2012 election in favor of the President Obama.    

                  

CHRISS STREET & PAUL PRESTON
Present: “The Agenda 21 Radio Talk Show”
Streaming Live Monday through Friday at 10 to Noon http://www.kcnr1460.com/
Follow Blogs: www.chrissstreetandcompany.com & www.agenda21radio.com