Florida vote critique just liberal claptrap

Six months after the fact I'm still being bombarded with the never-ending liberal lunacy. This current dose emanates from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, paragons of political correctness run amok, and purveyors of paranoia. We're told ad nauseam about the ''disenfranchisement'' of a single group of voters in Florida and elsewhere. I hear this same term used repeatedly by the self-anointed leaders of America's eternal victims, so I looked it up in the dictionary.

Disenfranchised: ''Generally too ill-educated, stupid or ignorant to perform simple tasks such as walking into a voting booth and following elementary instructions. Unable to find simple four-letter words such as 'Gore.' Cannot follow a large arrow leading to a circle where the 'franchised' among us simply punch a hole or make a mark.''

That sounded rather harsh until I later learned that great numbers of 6-and 7-year-olds were able to complete the task correctly.

Word has it that this same esteemed commission suggests one more Florida recount, this one to be conducted by the Gore family, James Carville, and the Florida Supreme Court. The tally would include, but not be limited to, those who really wish they had voted for Gore, those who really wish they could understand enough English to read and understand voting instructions so they could vote for Gore, and most important, those who didn't make the effort to vote but now wish they had and would have voted for Gore if they had.

The recount will be overseen by the Congressional Black Caucus.

Tony Moschetti
High Point

News & Record
July 14, 2001

The Democrats fuel corrupt government

Wonder why the Democratic Party symbol is a jackass? They should be renamed the Demagogic Party.

They've had no new idea since Social Security. They call the tax cut ' 'massive'' when it's only a fraction of what we've been overcharged during the past eight years. Then we hear ad nauseum the worn ''tax cuts for the wealthy''
rhetoric.

Their definition of fair is to give tax cuts to those who pay no income taxes, then demagogue the tax-cutting issue for those who actually pay most of the taxes. They can't ''afford'' to let us keep our own money. They call tax reductions ''spending.'' The ill-informed who populate this once-great country believe it.

If you purchase an expensive item, then discover you've been grossly overcharged, do you tell the merchant, ''Just keep the difference, or you can give it to your needy neighbor?'' Hardly. You want your money back.

What if he tells you he ''can't afford'' to return your money because he must buy prescription drugs for his wealthy parents so their friends will shop at his store? Would you say, ''Gee, great idea. Next time, overcharge me again and take your family on a junket to the Caribbean?'' Well, if you're a Dumbocrat you might, but most of us would contact the Better Business Bureau or the Attorney General.

The same people who go ballistic over a $ 1.50 ATM fee remain silent as they 're overcharged hundreds to thousands of dollars each year by our corrupt government.

Tony Moschetti
High Point

News & Record
May 30, 2001

Florida vote problem remains unexplained

So, elections will never be the same after Florida 2000. I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me what happened in Florida that was substantially different from what happened in every other state, and every previous election in Florida and elsewhere. We were told ad nauseam by the Democrats, and repeated faithfully by their lapdogs in the mainstream media, that every vote must be counted. Every vote was counted, many ballots were not. There were two to four million ballots not counted nationwide.

We do know that 2,000 to 3,000 felons were permitted to vote in Florida. We didn't hear Democrats complaining about that. In fact, Democrats have been lobbying to put voting booths in prisons. At the same time, Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., wants to move voting locations off military bases to make it more difficult for overseas military personnel to vote.

The reason many ballots were rejected in Florida and elsewhere is that far too many citizens are not literate enough to read and understand some very simple voting procedure instructions. There was a directly proportional relationship between illiteracy rates and voting problems in each county.

Despite this obvious fact, the ''nonpartisan'' (consisting of four liberal Democrats and four liberal independents) U.S. Civil Rights Commission conducted a sham ''hearing'' to blame the Republican governor and secretary of state for voting and ballot problems in three counties where the entire election apparatus was controlled by Democrats, including the design of the infamous butterfly ballot, and use of punch cards.
Tony Moschetti
High Point

News & Record
February 25, 2001

Federal tobacco stance is epitome of hypocrisy

So, Janet, ''Please let me keep my job,'' Reno, consigliare to the Clinton crime family, after saying in 1997 that the government had no legal standing to join the lawsuit against the tobacco industry, has not only changed her mind, but has somehow decided to use the RICO statutes - created to combat organized crime - to attack a legitimate industry producing and selling a legal product.

Furthermore, the corrupt, hypocritical government not only sanctioned, but subsidized this product, and is the No. 1 profiteer from the product. More than 60 cents of every tobacco dollar goes to government in taxes.

That is more than goes to the growers, makers, distributors and sellers combined.

The greed and arrogance of this government is unprecedented in our history.

It is the government that should be sued for conspiring to cause the deaths of millions of citizens by permitting this dangerous product to remain on the market some 30 years after requiring warning labels detailing tobacco's dangers.

Products less damaging, such as alar or red dye No. 6, were banned with little or no proof that they were harmful.

But then, the government crime family did not reap billions in profits from those products.

We can by simple choice avoid tobacco; we cannot escape the dangers from our own out-of-control government as in Ruby Ridge or Waco.

Tony Moschetti
High Point

News & Record
September 30, 1999

Tobacco settlement cash belongs to the taxpayers

In a recent editorial you advised state lawmakers as to how to dispose of some of the funds extorted from the tobacco industry in a recent settlement.

The funds are supposedly a reimbursement for medical payments made by the state to cover tobacco-related illnesses. First, since it is reported as factual that all treated illnesses were due to the use of tobacco, I must assume that all of the affected patients were at or near their recommended weights, ate low-fat diets, exercised at least three times a week and had no family history of their particular illness.

Second, the state did not pay for medical treatment; the taxpayers of the state paid. Since they confiscated the money from me to pay for medical treatment for people I don't know, and since they then extorted those funds again from the tobacco industry, there is but one honest option as to the disposition of said funds: They should be returned to taxpayers.

Why does that simple logic escape our corrupt lawmakers and apparently you in the Fourth Estate, whose duty it is to be a watchdog over government excesses?

You instead become shills for corrupt politicians.

Tony Moschetti
High Point

News & Record
July 6, 1999

Liberals only get upset when they're in trouble

God gave us liberals for two reasons: for comic relief and to be able to study brain damage without traveling to the nearest asylum. You assail the independent counsel law, a law that liberals loved for 20 years when Democrats controlled Congress and used the law to harass Republican administrations. When the Nixon, Reagan and Bush administrations were targets of these partisan witch hunts, we didn't read of your outrage. You hypocrites loved this law so long as it appeared that Democrats would control its implementation.

Did you ever complain of Walsh's seven-year, multi-million dollar vendetta?
Were you outraged as Ollie North's father was dragged before the grand jury as you were about Monica's mother? Were you outraged when Casper Weinberger was indicted on the Friday before the 1992 elections even though it was common knowledge he, along with George Schultz, were the most vehement opponents of the arms sales? Were you outraged when the Democratic speaker told us that even the most ludicrous of charges had to be investigated, such as that George Bush had been taken to the airport in the trunk of a car so he could fly to Iran to make a deal to keep Americans hostage until after the election? Were you outraged when Charles Colson was jailed for releasing a single FBI file? The only difference between this administration and Nixon were tape recordings and John Dean. Without them nothing could have been proven.

Tony Moschetti
High Point

News & Record
September 17, 1998

Stop youth smoking; it prevents addicted adults

Tony Moschetti's letter mentioned that only 2 percent of cigarettes are consumed by teenagers (June 30). While this may be true, teenage smoking is much more important to the health of our citizens and to the tobacco industry than that percentage would imply. Ninety percent of smokers start to smoke before they reach 18. If a person does not start before 18, there will be little likelihood of that person becoming a smoker.

By preventing the 90 percent of smokers from becoming addicted to nicotine, one can eventually prevent 90 percent of the 400,000 deaths a year attributable to tobacco.

I agree that alcohol and drugs are problems that should not be ignored, and they cause the deaths of innocent people, but the total damage from tobacco is greater. Seventy percent of adult smokers want to quit, and if raising the price of cigarettes by a tax provides incentive to make many of them quit, that would be great.

The tobacco companies would not have achieved immunity from future lawsuits had the scuttled McCain Bill become law. With the revelations exposed by the recently released documents (discussed in Doug Campbell's article June 28) it is doubtful immunity from lawsuits will ever be provided to the tobacco companies by Congress.

I applaud the News & Record for printing that article, which provides a glimpse of how vulnerable the tobacco companies are, and why they sought the agreement with the states' attorneys general. How fortunate we are that Congress is so deliberate.

Richard J. Rosen
Greensboro

News & Record
July 8, 1998

Bill wouldn't have stopped teen smoking

Your editorial concerning the tobacco bill shows once again your lack of understanding of nearly everything about which you comment. This bill is about hundreds of billions of dollars to fund spending programs, tax cuts, fill the pockets of the vultures known as personal injury lawyers, huge contributors to the Democrats and letting our beloved president claim a balanced budget.

Every state has laws prohibiting underage smoking. Teens account for approximately 2 percent of tobacco use. The Centers for Disease Control tell us that 34 percent of smokers are those who earn less than $ 15,000 annually. These who can least afford it will be hit the hardest by the miserable hypocrites who claim to be the benefactors of these very people. If the concern is teen smoking, why not a single word said, or single dollar spent on illegal drug or alcohol use, which cause the deaths of thousands of teenagers each year?

Politicians will reduce teenage smoking at the same rate they have reduced drug use, teen pregnancy, lowered cable bills, conserved water with the new useless toilets, saved children's lives with airbags and eliminated poverty.

Tony Moschetti
High Point

News & Record
June 30, 1998

High Point's council looks to cut budget

By Paul Muschick
Staff Writer

The High Point City Council is debating reducing its budget so it doesn't spend as much of the savings in its electric fund

City Manager Strib Boynton said he would have to cut two or three city jobs to trim the proposed 1998-99 budget by $ 150,000 as Mayor Becky Smothers and some council members asked him to do at a budget meeting Tuesday.

Smothers suggested slashing the overtime budget from $ 1.2 million to $ 1.1 million and cutting $ 50,000 in salaries.

Boynton said some salary could be saved by removing budgeted jobs that are unfilled, but he also likely would have to take it a step further.

''It would translate into another reduction in full-time positions,'' Boynton said.

The budget already provides for four fewer employees than last year's.

Council member Jim Stanley suggested even more drastic measures were necessary for High Point. He proposed cutting the $ 180.9 million budget by $ 700,000, so High Point wouldn't have to take as much from the electric reserve fund to balance the budget.

For years, High Point has used money from its electric bills to pay for other expenses. This year, Boynton proposes transferring $ 2.6 million from the electric account to pay for general expenses, although that would be decreased by $ 150,000 if the overtime and salary cuts are made.

Some citizens and council members have complained about the transfers, saying the extra money should stay in the electric fund to pay for system improvements and emergencies, so the council doesn't have to raise electric rates as it is proposing this year. The savings account will shrink to less than $ 1 million by next June, down from nearly $ 11 million in June 1997.

Boynton has suggested raising electric, water and sewer rates by 4 percent each. The combined utility bill for a family of four living in a $ 250,000 home would increase by about $ 1 a week to $ 1,314 a year, up from $ 1,263.

At a public hearing before Tuesday's budget discussions, four of the eight people who spoke out lambasted the council for raising the electric rates while borrowing from that fund. They accused the council of being too scared to raise taxes, but instead obtaining more money through taxpayers' electric bills.

The proposed budget keeps property taxes at 57 cents per $ 100 property value, the same as the last two years. That means the owner of a $ 100,000 home would pay $ 570.

But taxpayers at the public hearing said the electric fee is just a hidden tax hike.

''This is nothing more than a tax increase,'' said Tony Moschetti of Old Winston Road. ''I get an electric bill, I assume I'm paying for electric, water, sewer, etc. I didn't know I was paying for roads, police.''

Alan Johnson also said the council should just admit it's raising taxes.

''I think that is an underhanded way of doing it,'' Johnson said.

Stanley did not receive much support in his call to cut $ 700,000 from the budget, so that money could stay in the electric savings account.

Boynton asked the council where they would suggest saving that much, and their answers did not come near $ 700,000.

Beyond the widely agreed upon $ 150,000 in overtime and salary savings, some council members suggested delaying a $ 33,650 parking lot expansion for the library. Council member Arnold Koonce said perhaps the city could put off $ 110,000 in sidewalk repairs and construction. The other talks centered on line items of only a few thousand dollars.

The City Council will meet again at 3 p.m. Monday before its scheduled meeting to discuss the budget. The council tentatively is scheduled to vote on the budget at its June 18 meeting, but that could be delayed if drastic cuts need to be made. The budget must be adopted by July 1.

Boynton said that to cut large amounts of money, he would have to put off even more major projects. A much-needed third electric distribution site already has been delayed.

''It boils down the personnel side,'' Boynton said. ''Do you freeze salaries?''

Council member Ron Wilkins said he was against Boynton reducing the budget more. He said the budget already is too tight.

''I think asking him to look for more cuts would be unfair to our constituents,'' Wilkins said.

News & Record
June 10, 1998

Bureaucrats don't need money; classrooms do

The News & Record, using the same distortions and half truths used to shill for millionaires during the recent baseball tax fiasco, has now come up with the term ''per pupil capital spending'' in an effort to convince us that we don't pay enough taxes and don't spend enough on education.

How about something called ''per pupil administrative spending.'' I'll wager we don't rank near the bottom in that category. We continue to pay more and more to fund a failed educational system. Based on almost every measurable achievement standard, we pay far too much, not too little. Where do we rank in total per pupil spending?

Not enough classrooms or books? Simple, take some of the money that goes to fund the sprawling, bloated bureaucracy that contributes little, if anything, to teach a child to read or write. I suspect that we do need more classrooms, much more so than bureaucrats. So instead of using our tax dollars to fund a jobs program for mostly useless bureaucrats, put the money into the classroom. Look at the number of bureaucrats in any religious school versus the public schools.

Look at the cost per pupil in each. Then compare results. How smart do you have to be to figure out the problem?

Tony Moschetti
High Point

News & Record
May 24, 1998

What's wrong with lower taxes on the rich?

I suspect that when one applies to be an editorial writer for the News & Record, he or she is given an EEG. If there is a trace of a brain wave or indication of a single living cell, the applicant is rejected.

Ned Cline, following the party line of all brain-damaged liberals, meaning all liberals, tells us that repealing the food tax is bad because rich people save more money. Even he admits that the savings are a much higher percentage of the low income earner's total income. He glosses over that very important fact, then goes on the usual liberal line that the rich man will save more money.

Of course he will. He spends a lot more money. But he spends a lot lower percentage of his income, almost 600 percent using your own figures. So the low income person gets a nearly 600 percent bigger break than the rich person because of the repeal of the tax, but the twisted liberal mind strikes out because the rich person probably robbed the poor person to become rich.

What is it about liberals that makes them want to always pit one American against another? If we get a break on our taxes, it is not good because someone else gets a bigger break. They never tell us that these same people pay more in taxes. Why can't liberals figure it out? Simple, they have no living brain cells.

Tony Moschetti
High Point

News & Record
February 21, 1997

You editorialists are just looney

How does one even come close to detailing the perpetual lunacy of the idiotorial staff of the News & Record in 250 words or less. In fact, 250,000 words would not be sufficient. And I only take the newspaper on weekends. The never ending moronic, liberal, drivel forced me to cancel my subscription two years ago, except for weekends for the TV guide and Sunday sports. But even those two days produce enough nonsense from these fools that I may cancel even that. Give some examples you say. Well half my words are already used up, but let's take the most recent twisted logic of the fools who make up the editorial staff.

We were told of the great class with which Hector Rivera left his post. You morons, it was the Republican majority on the board who acted with class. Instead of firing him in the middle of the night, as did that crowd you shill for when they fired Brenda Jones in such an underhanded manner, they let him resign and gave him carte blance as to the method and timing.

After the Republicans treated him with class, it was discovered he had mailed out contracts to people for high-paying positions with the county only hours before his resignation. Real class act this Rivera.

Tony Moschetti
High Point

News & Record
December 19, 1996