Fiscal Rangers

ESEA Federal Bill Needs to be Defeated - Learn Why and Call your Congressman

Concerned about Obama Education inititiatives and damage caused by Common Core? More damage will occur if you don't call Congress to derail a ESEA or No Child Left Behind bill vote on Tuesday or Wednesday, Dec. 2 or 3. Here is some background why you need to act. Read more →

Palm Beach County Audit Discloses Favoritism & Cronyism in Selecting Contractors

Tavares, FL April 17, 2015 This is older news, but a relevant example of local government cronyism, bribery, and waste in Palm Beach County, FL Source: Orlando Sentinel: "Lunches, golf outings and vacations involving a Palm Beach County official and government contractors created a potential perception of favoritism in awarding $9 million in publicly funded work, according to the county's inspector general. The inquiry raised questions about Deputy County Engineer Tanya McConnell's role in directing county contracts to three firms represented by people she described as "friends." While Inspector General John Carey found that no laws were broken, he did call for changes to the county's contracting process. He also forwarded the case to the county's Ethics Commission for further review, which rules on potential violations of the county's ethics code." READ more HERE. The above article provides an example of how a strong County Director can bluff staff into giving business to favored vendors who are "friends". It is amazing she was that stupid when the County hired an Independent Inspector General several years ago due to political corruption. Link to Palm Beach Inspector General's website - which has link to the above mentioned 4/16/2015 "Engineering Department" audit. Vance... Read more →

US State Dept issues Worldwide Travel Alert on "possible risks of travel due to increased terrorist Threats"

The US State Department alerts U.S. citizens to possible risks of travel due to increased terrorist threats. Current information suggests that ISIL (aka Da'esh), al-Qa'ida, Boko Haram, and other terrorist groups continue to plan terrorist attacks in multiple regions. The alert expires Feb. 24, 2015. Read more →

Lake County School Board and Superintendent Restrict District Audit Director from Auditing Certain Functions

Today the Daily Commercial published a front page article about recent actions by the Lake County School Board to restrict the ability of the District Internal Audit Director from reviewing "teaching and learning" processes. We comment on why that is a bad idea. Never forget that government is a monopoly, so extra oversight and transparency is needed to ensure operations are efficient, effective and economical. One way to do that is have an independent internal audit function with full and unfettered access to all employees, vendors, and records. Read more →

62 Mayors in 28 States, including four in Florida, tell Congress to bring in more Syrian Refugees

62 out of 1400 members of the US Conference of Mayors sent a letter to Congress urging them NOT to restrict acceptance of Syrian Refugees. This was even though the FBI Director has said in Congressional hearings they cannot vet the Syrians to determine if they are a security risk. Here is a link to the letter which has all the names, including four Mayors in Florida. Read more →

How to Use Common Law Grand Juries to Investigate Government Officials

Who knew there is a method defined in the US Constitution and descended from the the British Magna Carta on how citizen activists can convene a Common Law Grand Jury (CLGJ) to investigate local Governent corruption. A well known conservative talk show host and author, Jason W. Hoyt, visited Lake County, FL recently and explained how to setup a CLGJ. Read more →

Syrian Refugee Update: House hearing on the issue and HR-4038 passes House

Nov. 19, 2015 - Syrian Refugee Resettlement Update: Today there was a two hour House hearing led by Rep. Trey Gowdy on the Syrian Refugee program. Links to the hearing video are in this post. Federal managers talked in vague generalities (again as in earlier hearings), and then the House voted along party lines to approve HR-4038 which set tougher vetting restrictions for approving Syrian AND Iraqi Refugees. In my view, the approval requirements are so tough that few will be admitted. Read more →

Florida Gov. Scott moves to prevent accepting any refugees from Syria - but since Muslims practice "Taqiyya" to LIE to non-believers, they can just claim being from another country

At least it is a first step In preventing some unvetted refugees from entering the US. http://www.fox13news.com/news/florida-news/50025186-story Get the latest on the refugee issues at Ann Corcoran's blog www.RefugeeResettlementWatch.wordpress.com Vance Jochim Read more →

Nov. 13, 2015 Orlando Sunshine Summit and offsite Ted Cruz grass roots rally

Tavares, FL Nov. 13, 2015 Nov. 13, 2015 Ted Cruz Orlando Grass Roots Rally pictures Ted Cruz attended the Republican run Sunshine Summit on Nov. 13, 2015 in Orlando and gave a 20 minute speech which is on C-SPAN HERE. Then he went to the Faith Assembly Church in Orlando and gave a 55 minute speech to 1500 grass roots followers in a rally. You can see that entire video HERE. You can see my album of pictures on Facebook HERE. Some pictures and video clips have no sound. Video created by Vance Jochim at FiscalRangers.com . The Grass Roots Rally was organized by local and statewide Cruz supporters including: Cindy Thompson, Florida GrassRoots Director; Cindy Cooper Yuell, Leadership Coordinator for Florida; Tiffany Brodt, Events Coordinator; Gabriel Avila MC, Gwen & Bob Fox, local volunteer coordinators. The link to our video of the entire Grass Roots Rally is at: https://youtu.be/NZRkT0Znfk4 The C-SPAN video of Cruz's 20 minute talk at the Sunshine Summit is HERE. Other source for videos of Grass Roots rally https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jn2lLXFYdA&feature=youtu.be Vance Jochim FiscalRangers.com Read more →

Catholic Church bans Islam education in their British schools.

Tavares, FL Nov. 9, 2015 This is news the local or main stream media press is probably not telling you. The UK Catholics are rejecting pressure to "educate" students in Islam, and decided formally to only provide education in Christianity and Judaism . There are over 2,000 Catholic schools in the UK. New education reforms In the UK require private schools to teach at least TWO religions, so the Catholics chose Christianity and Judaism only. Another article blamed the decision on Islamic takeover of many UK schools and only providing Islamic religious education. Perhaps a lesson learned for Lake Schools since the existing World History books are extremely biased and not balanced in coverage of Islam history? Just in case you forgot all the things that Lake School World History books by Pearson leave OUT about Muslims, here is an image listing many of the attacks by Muslims on different locations. NONE of that is in the Pearson textbook used by the schools. They don't describe the 570 military attacks over 1400 years committed by Muslims, or the 270-million people slaughtered by them. Vance Read more →

New Canadian Liberal leaders bringing in 25,000 Syrian refugees within 7 weeks

Tavares, FL Nov. 9, 2015 There goes the neighborhood north of the US. Canada elected a liberal government and the new President is pushing to bring in 25,000 Syrians within 7 weeks, even by boat or plane. Read the depressing details here. Since the FBI says it is impossible to vet the Syrian migrants, I assume many will be experienced warfighters and males of military age just like in Europe. Population Jihad is taking over another country just like Europe, but this one is across a porous border. VJ Read more →

Florida Gets a D- and is ranked 30th in National State Integrity Investigation Report

Florida ranked a D- in a new, national study comparing all states in 13 "integrity" or accountability categories. A well known national watchdog, Center for Public Integrity ( http://www.publicintegrity.org/ ), published their annual "State Integrity Investigation" report comparing how each state ranks in 13 categories related to transparency, oversight and accountability. A partner, www.GlobalIntegrity.org was also involved in the report development. Florida, like MOST states, ranked near the bottom with a D- and only three states had higher C or B rankings. Based on points, Florida "achieved" a 61, and was 30th out of all 50 states (or 57 states if you are Obama). Read more →

Florida Property Rights Update by Dan Peterson, JMI Center for Property Rights

Tavares, FL Nov. 4, 2015 Our Video of a Property Rights update by Dan Peterson, Director of the Center for Property Rights of the James Madison Institute presented at the North Lake Tea Party meeting on Nov. 4, 2015 in Tavares, FL (Lake County). https://youtu.be/FfPp5imcPTs Read more →

City of Opa-locka, FL suffers from Corruption Scandal, fails to pay phone & other bills

Tavares, FL Nov. 5, 2015 A corruption scandal in the city of Opa-locka, FL has caused the city to run out of cash and they aren't paying their bills. "The city even stopped paying life insurance premiums for its workers. You know it's bad when their phone service is shut off for not paying the bills. I will write more later, but here is an initial story on it: Miami Herald On brink of financial collapse, Opa-locka seeks state help For Opa-locka government leaders, the signs of financial distress came abruptly last month: The phone service to City Hall was shut off. Then came the complaints: The city owed thousands in rent payments for police satellite offices and $100,000 to a contractor who walked off the job while restoring the historic City Hall. The city even stopped paying life insurance premiums for its workers. Just two weeks after a corruption scandal embroiled Opa-locka's leaders, the city is faced with another grim development: Opa-locka is edging toward financial collapse. http://www.miamiherald.com/…/miami-gar…/article43040772.html vj Read more →

Lake County, FL Penny Sales Tax PASSED with 72% of vote.

Tavares, FL Nov. 3, 2015 The great vote on the Lake County Penny Sales Tax renewal is over. The "For" votes got 71% of the votes vs Against at 29%. Congratulations to County Commissioner Tim Sullivan​, Leslie Shamrock Campione​ and School Board member Bill Mathias​ who did all the work. Those of us for the Against side made them sweat, and more people are aware they need to keep a close watch on the elected officials who will split up the estimated $800-million collected over 15 years. Hopefully they won't run out and sell bonds and raise debt and interest costs just to spend the funds early. See all the Lake County election results for various city council seats at: http://elections.lakecountyfl.gov/election_results.aspx?id=36 Vance Jochim FiscalRangers.com Read more →

For Profit Colleges Under Investigation by Congress, and this one shouldn't receive funds

Tavares, FL Nov. 3, 2015 Billions of US taxpayer funds flow to private, for profit colleges, and many overcharge, lie to students and the students run up school debt from Federal loans and don't pay it back. How do these colleges qualify to get the Federal student loans? They are approved by private accreditation firms, and if they don't implement tight standards, the colleges get away with fraud and students, not the colleges, are on the hook for debt for poor education. Read this story and watch the video of Senator Warren grilling the head of one of the accreditors and you will get mad at the Federal government for allowing some of these accreditors and colleges to get ANY Federal tax dollars. VJ Read more →

LAST Chance to VOTE AGAINST the Penny Tax is TOMORROW - Representative Marlene O'Toole Comes Out Against Penny Sales Tax, we defend Leslie Campione - and how to save yourself $130/year per family member

Tomorrow is the last day for Lake County, FL taxpayers to save themselves about $130 per year per family member by voting AGAINST the referendum to renew a 30 year old sales tax. Read more →