This week from the Plain Blunt Guy...

I find it hard to believe that Maquoketa spent all that money on an indoor swimming pool, when we needed a new fire station all along; now we have to go out and borrow more money for it. Lets make this clear -- I will vote for the fire station addition. The Maquoketa volunteer Fire Dept. saves many lives, not to mention the taxpayers loads of money, and they deserve a building that they would be happy with, do they need it or not? I don't know, but one thing is for sure -- we need it worse than an indoor swimming pool, thanks mayor Tom for showing the right priorities I am with you on this, and thanks fire dept you have my support.

Well, they are going to raise the minimum wage. At work this week i had a co worker who was happy he was expecting a $2.10 raise and i told him that we do not make minimum wage, and quite rightly our employer was not obligated to give us a raise since we do not have a collective bargaining agreement with him. The coworker was shocked, and I am too that the general public can't see that this is nothing more than a payoff to public employees, teachers, and other union workers. Let me make this clear -- I am not saying that the people I just mentioned are in the wrong and do not earn their money, I am only saying that the press has portrayed this as a increase to the working poor when people in the higher income brackets will benefit more at contract negotiation time. Very unfair, and deceptive on the part of the press. I wonder if Schueller Construction is going to voluntarily raise their employees $2.10 an hour, since Tom voted for this. I am not quite sure if Senator Stewart has anyone employed that this would effect.

Well, I did not see any celebrity birthdays this week for welcoming some one into the Medicare club. I guess we will take a week off, although I did receive my Social Security statement, it had an interesting line on it under the benefits section: YOUR ESTIMATED BENEFITS ARE BASED ON CURRENT LAW. CONGRESS HAS MADE CHANGES TO THE LAW IN THE PAST AND CAN DO SO AT ANY TIME. THE LAW GOVERNING BENEFIT AMOUNTS MAY CHANGE BECAUSE, BY 2040, THE PAYROLL TAXES COLLECTED WILL BE ENOUGH TO PAY ONLY ABOUT 74 PERCENT OF SCHEDULED BENEFITS. I thought that the press and the Democrats told us it was not going broke?

Tim Grover, the plain blunt guy

Romney To Make Appearance in Dubuque

Mitt Romney will be appearing at the Best Western Midway Hotel in Dubuque on Friday, January 26th at 5:30pm. Admission is free, there will be a cash bar and complimentary hor d'oeuvres. The Midway Hotel is located at 3100 Dodge Street. For more information or to RSVP, please call 1-888-722-4704 ext. 200.

This week for the plain blunt guy

Well, lets see what happened this week:
I see at the gun show this weekend that there is a federally licensed gun buyer going who is to be on hand. Although i do confess i dont know what that entails, the words federally licensed gun buyer has a bad ring to it, and I can't see what good could come from it, I guess the government has the wisdom to decide who gets to exercise their constitutional rights although you will have a hard time convincing me of that.

It was announced late Friday that our new County Attourney has filed dismissal papers on four cases that are currently in district court. Two of them are for violent incidents, the other two are for marijuana possession. I don't understand this, did they legalize marijuana in this state? What kind of evidence could have come in that would create a dismissal? Isn't that the judge's job? I don't think it is fair to the arresting officers to not back them up on this. I am sure the last thing they have to do is arrest someone wrongfully, and since those cases were filed by the last County Attourney, everthing involved in these cases could not possibly have been in the notes, very disappointing.

This week's new Medicare qualifier is Muhammad Ali, yes indeed he is eligible for full Medicare benefits. Happy birthday, Muhammad.

-Tim Grover, the plain blunt blogger

the plain blunt blog

Hello,
This is my first attempt at blogging, the name of my blog is the plain blunt blog since i think that describes me best. I think a person can be plain and blunt and not offend anyone. It has to be done right though, if you think i am doing it wrong, please let me know. I would like to cover things involving local news and state politics, and try to show how it is affected by national issues. Well, this week:

-Kind of dissapointing the turn out for the local sales tax extension, around 1,000 people voted to extend the tax, thus i guess most of the county did not care. I voted no even though i knew I would lose, now we can have a new gym up here and it will only cost about 5 months of what it takes to operate the school, yes i know they are borrowing the money.

- TIF: Interesting, I listened to Kim Huckstadt ask the city council not to TIF the Wal-Mart project, and many local educators supported him. I am curious, how many voted for Dave Kendall, do they vote for the issues, or the party despite the issues?

I will have a weekly update on who gets social security, and medicare and who do not:
receiving Mick Jagger, not receiving is Elvis, he would have been 72 this week.

Thanks,
tim grover, the plain blunt blogger