"Waiting for Superman"

The other night I watched this film on DVD. At the end it asks you to help spread the word...so I am doing exactly that.

"Waiting for Superman" is a documentary that is a searing indictment of our failed educational policies here in America. Some of the statistics they throw out at you give you a foreboding sense of doom about our country and its future. We cannot be a successful country if our kids can't read and write. The term "dropout factories" should never have been invented, but yet it is accurate.

The destruction that Teachers Unions have delivered is unreal. Education is no longer about success or about the kids. It is now about union contracts and sky high benefits that are undeserved. One stunning fact that jumps out is that a teacher in America only has a 1 in 2,500 chance of being fired. (If you think that is realistic, then you are crazy.) They mention in the film how 1 in every 100 lawyers and doctors gets fired for not doing their job.

The last 20 minutes of the film is one of the most difficult things I've ever had to watch. Parents attending these education "lotteries" where their kids have a slim chance of getting into the "good" schools in their area. Most of them do not get in. Most of their kids will go to failing public schools, with union teachers who are not interested in doing their jobs.

This is why I support the complete privatization of schools. It would lead to an economic burst of growth in parochial schools, and an increase in our nations talent years down the road.

Anti-Semite? I don't think so.....

Normally I don't respond to criticism, but I do occasionally like to set the record straight.

Someone on the internet was making the ridiculous accusation that I was criticizing Congressman Paul Ryan for being Jewish. This is dumb on several levels. First, Congressman Ryan is not Jewish, he is Roman Catholic just like me and just like the vast majority of the people from our home State of Wisconsin. (I do criticize Ryan for being a RINO and a horrible compromiser in Congress, but these are only ideological and professional differences of opinion.)

Two, I don't criticize people for being Jewish. I might criticize people for being dumb, or Communists...but religion usually doesn't play a role in any of that.

Three, I am one of the strongest defenders of Israel that there is.

Take a look at this photo. This is me back in 2005, before I had ever run for any type of elected office. On my trip to Israel, I even volunteered to go fight in the Israeli Army in order to protect the historical home of Christianity. Strangely enough, the Israelis said they could not accept me because I was not an Israeli.

OK, fine, I said.... but I have plenty of reason to believe the call will go out someday, and that I will be rushing back to Israel to help fight and defend the Holy Land. With Obama in power, the enemies of Israel can only grow emboldened.

I have extremely deep respect for Judaism and its culture. Without Judaism, there would be no Christianity and no modern world as we know it. Jesus was Jewish. So were the 12 Apostles. The Bible and the Torah share a common core. I love Jewish people and I love Israel.

You know who doesn't? Muslims.

Fanatical worshippers of Islam have been trying to massacre Jewish people for hundreds of years.

Those are the real anti-semites.

My comments to the Redistricting Commission

The following are, more or less, my comments made last night to the California Redistricting Commission.

______________________________

Good Evening Commissioners. My name is Phil Jennerjahn, and in the interest of fairness I should disclose that I actually ran for U.S. Congress in the 33rd Congressional District. I lost in the primary in June 2010.

I have to say that I am a little bit ashamed and embarrassed of my fellow Americans who are coming before you tonight. I'm hearing a lot of complaining. A lot of whining. People saying "I want...I want...I want.."

I'm going to be a little bit different from all of them.

I am going to ask you to ignore every single person who has spoken before me tonight.

There is no possible way, even if your brain was a supercomputer, that you could remember the more than 6,000 pieces of information that have been delivered to you tonight by those seeking favors.

You are being entrusted with making sure that Freedom and Democracy continue as healthy, viable options here in America.... and that is one hell of a responsibility. I don't envy you at this time.

I have serious concerns about Freedom and Democracy continuing in this country.

We have a horrible situation here in California.We have low voter turnout because of unfair elections.

We have districts here that are 85 or 90 percent one political party, and they end up sending the worst possible ideologues to Congress.

I went to an event last night with my Congressman...I won't mention his name, in order to be fair, but he agreed to take written questions last night. Oh, he took questions alright...after his staff had sorted through the unpleasant ones and thrown them away.

Why did he act that way? Because his district is 85 percent one party and he can never lose an election there.

And when you send people like this to the U.S. Congress, they start to make bad decisions.

Just recently the U.S. Government decided that free American citizens no longer have the right to choose what type of healthcare they want. There can be no greater example of tyranny than this.

I want you to all listen very closely right now. I'm going to tell you something that I think you will remember for the rest of you life.

I call it "The Federal Prisoner". It's a logic question and an ethics question.

Now, when you are re-drawing these district lines, I want you to think about this....

I want you to look at the person currently sitting in that seat. I want you to imagine that this person has been convicted of a crime and is currently sitting in a Federal prison.

Now, for some strange reason, this person decides to run for re-election from their prison cell.

If this person would win their election in that district...well...then those are the districts you don't need to worry about protecting, because they don't care about freedom or democracy.

These voters do harm and violence to our Constitution.

They are only concerned with what they want.

I don't give a damn about what they want.

You are being entrusted with protecting the U.S. Constitution. That is far more important.

I don't expect you to be perfect. You are human beings.

I just ask you to draw these districts fairly so that anyone can win an election.

Thank You.

Xavier Becerra: Communist

Last night I had the misfortune to attend a neighborhood gathering of citizens to address our local Congressman, Xavier Becerra. When I moved into CD 4 with the intent to challenge Tom La Bonge, one of the unfortunate side effects was that by crossing a district line, I ended up with a new Congressman. No longer under the dominion and control of Socialist Karen Bass, I was not thrilled to find out that I had ended up in the district of a real Communist, Xavier Becerra.

Becerra was pure nonsense last night at the meeting, finding elaborate spin moves to try and talk his way out of trouble. The voters that were present? Yikes. I think most of them were there for the free food. These were all people who received goodies from the government.... welfare...housing...etc. They had no concept that big government was a bad idea. In fact, some of them sounded like they thought the government wasn't involved enough in our lives. It was a house of horrors for me.

Becerra had a long list of the usual culprits to point his fingers at...it was all Wall Streets fault...it was all the banks....etc, etc.....

Never, not once, during his speech did he take any responsibility for anything. And with the crowd assembled, it was about what they liked to hear. It was always somebody else's fault.

One bright spot was that I saw Stephen Smith there...a Conservative figure in L.A. politics who actually ran against Becerra in the last election. Smith said he didn't get to ask a question ...and that didn't surprise me. Becerra, like all good little Communists, does not allow dissent, and his staff had screened through all written questions beforehand. I obviously did not get to ask my question, which had correlations between Obamacare and the medical care in Fidel Castros Cuba.

Smith made several good points in our conversation and expressed interest in running against Becerra again. I told him the district was unwinnable, but he said "our voice needs to be heard". I liked that.

Smith is a good man, but if he runs again, he can't be making any more videos like this.

Just my personal opinion. Voters don't care for goofiness when they are losing their homes and savings.

Becerra, to his credit, did welcome a line of voters at the end of the meeting to shake hands.

Some people even wanted their photo taken with our little mini-Fidel of the 31st District.

Me? Not so much....

I did manage to hear a conversation he had with a local resident who was complaining about the cost of Obamacare raising their insurance prices.

When asked about how Obamacare will stand up against the multiple state lawsuits against it, Becerra held up his hands with the "fingers crossed" pose and said "hopefully we will win".

Yep...he makes my list.

Xavier Becerra: A Dangerous Enemy of Freedom.

Barack Obama: Muslim Sympathizer

I was watching CNN tonight and caught a clip of Donald Trump doing his best to destroy Obamas chances in 2012 by going into the stratosphere with his conspiracy birther talk.

He said Obamas birth certificate "is missing". He also said something about Obama maybe hiding things on the birth certificate ..."because he's a Muslim"

Wow. Trump really dropped the atom bomb there. He didn't say maybe. He said Obama was a Muslim, which is something that concerns many, many Americans.

I personally don't think Obama is a Muslim.

But he is definitely a Muslim sympathizer.

His middle name, Hussein, is a figure from Islam.

The photo above is him removing his shoes before entering a mosque.

He even said the Arabic call to prayer is "one of the prettiest sounds on earth".

2008 Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said that Obama attended a "Madrassa"

There is no disputing that Barack Obama is the first American President who ever lived in a Muslim country (Indonesia).

These facts are all disturbing to me as they evidence his support of Islam, which is the most vicious and bloodthirsty religion on earth. After all, Islam is the only religion whose followers have committed 17,000 terrorist attacks since 9-11.

"Che" with Benicio Del Toro

Last night I watched a DVD of the film "Che" about the notorious Cuban guerilla fighter Ernesto "Che" Guevara.

You might wonder what I was doing watching a film like this, since I am fervently anti-Communist.

I don't feel that I have to cut my worldview off to other points of view. Hollywood is notorious for producing lefty, anti-American films like "Avatar", but that doesn't mean I can't watch them and just take their message with a grain of salt. I actually get a good laugh out of some of the wild junk the left produces.

"Che" was actually a great film. It was directed by Steven Soderburgh in a very artistic and stylish manner.

I admire Benicio Del Toro for his years of research he put into this film...interviewing people who knew Che personally. The results are obvious on film, as Del Toro literally becomes Che Guevara in the film. Del Toro, who is Puerto Rican, actually had to change his accent in Spanish to an Argentinian accent that was distinctly different from the others on the film, who had varying Cuban accents.

As a Spanish speaker, I noticed it and was impressed by his efforts.

It is difficult to applaud in any way the efforts of Che Guevara or those of Fidel Castro.

There is one thing I actually admire about both men and that is that they were real men. They saw their country was being ruined by the evil dictator Fulgencio Batista, and they decided to do something about it.

Batista had murdered over 20,000 Cubans by the time he fled the country with hundreds of millions in misappropriated gains. He would have been executed by Castros army if he had been caught, and deservedly so.

The dark side of the Cuban revolution is that Che Guevara and Fidel Castro were not really freedom fighters like all lefties always claim to be. They did not replace a dictator with freedom or democracy. They were just fighting so that they could gain control over power and become the new dictators, which is exactly what they did. Castro and Guevara executed thousands of people who had been loyal allies to Batista and went on to seize industries and redistribute land and wealth to the population.

Castros actions have set Cuba back 50 years. For every positive improvement Castro can argue, there are tons of negatives. Destroying capitalism hasn't improved things for Cuba. They continue to fall further and further behind the rest of the world. I've been there myself. I've seen it.

Del Toro and the movie do not romanticize Guevara. They show him doing negative things, like executing some of his own troops. But they do tend to steer away from that dark area of Cuban history in general.

Even though I don't approve of the end results of the Cuban Revolution, it was an interesting period in time and I enjoyed the depiction in this film of the lives of the characters involved.

They certainly changed the world. Just not in a good way.

Donald Trump: The 2012 version of Meg Whitman

I was thinking today about this potential Donald Trump candidacy and why it bothers me so much.

Then it hit me: Donald Trump is the 2012 version of Meg Whitman.

The parallels are there for all to see.

A troubling voting record.

A troubling history of having donated money to the opposition.

No track record of having held any political office before.

A disturbing lack of clarity when it comes to message, ideology, or mission.

A "checkbook candidacy" that is supported almost entirely by the candidate and their own personal wealth.

An arrogance that borders on egomania. The candidate believes they are the best candidate for the highest office without having worked their way through the political career process.

Yes, if you add all these facts together, you see that Donald Trump is, indeed, a mirror image of Meg Whitman - who lost the Governors race in California in 2010.

I hope GOP primary voters in Iowa and New Hampshire will show Mr. Trump the door, should he arrive, uninvited, to their political get-together in 2012.