Guidestar, "Neutral" Arbiter of Nonprofits, Swings Openly Left

The venerable* nonprofit organization rating website Guidestar has apparently become comfortable enough with its venerableness to openly shift to the left. This week it came out with a list of "hate group"nonprofit organizations that was long on conservative values and short on actual hate. Not surprising given that the list came from the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that would be genuinely surprised that anyone would NOT consider virtually any conservative Christian nonprofit organization a hate group. SPLC's definition of "hate" seems to be anything that disagrees with the progressive agenda. One Target  on SPLC's list is the American Family Association, a conservative Christian group that opposes redefining marriage, promotes Christian values, and opposes pornography, transgender bathrooms, and abortion. This according to SPLC and now Guidestar makes it a hate group.

Let the pandering to the socialist left begin....

As a semi-retired nonprofit professional, I read trade publications for the industry and utilize websites like Guidestar. Mostly I'm trying to keep organizations I consult with out of hot water with rating sites like Guidestar. Guidestar's raison d'être is ostensibly to serve as a guide to philanthropists, donors, and funding organizations as to the fiscal health and financial responsibility of nonprofit organizations that approach them for donations. Guidestar has, over time, become the most powerful arbiter of legitimacy in the nonprofit world.

Now that it has that power, like other "venerable" nonprofit journals I won't name, Guidestar's leftist underpinnings are beginning to show. One would think that a nonprofit organization should be judged by whether or not it is responsible with its funding and whether it is accomplishing its mission. If it's mission is to promote the creation of a socialist/communist state in America, so be it. Does it accomplish that mission? If you support that mission, then that's something you will want to know before you give them money.

As to the value of that mission, Guidestar should have no judgmental power, at least if it is going to claim "neutrality" in its assessment of America's not for profits. It is not Guidestar's business to arbitrarily apply labels like "hate group" to the charities it rates, especially when their criteria appears to be that the group is conservative. Otherwise, Guidestar needs to label itself "The Liberal Guidestar" in the interest of full disclosure.

I'm just saying.

© 2017 by Tom King

* Or at least as venerable as anything gets in the digital age.

Twenty-One Things Donald Trump Has Done That, As a Conservative, I Like

I remain skeptical of our new president, but he has done some things I like and I have to admire the man for keeping his promises to conservatives. And there is one really big reason to like the man, but here is a list and I'll save the best for last.

1. Neil Gorsuch Supreme Court nomination and appointment. The man’s a rock-ribbed conservative constitutionalist. He won’t always make the right happy, but he’ll always do the right thing.
2. Rex Tillerson – New Secretary of State is going about business without any regard for the tender feelings of the international socialist movement. Turns out, we’ve got an American for a Secretary of State. How cool is that?
3. Ben Carson – I just love that he makes the left so nuts. Here’s a black man who believes that poverty is a state of mind. He’s right. One can escape poverty, but you have to not mind working without a net. Carson speaks the truth! And he’s shining a light on the corruption at HUD and cleaning house.
4. Mad Dog Mattes – New Secretary of Defense.  ISIS is missing some people and we’ve delayed trying to go out and recruit sexually confused people until 2108. Note he didn’t cancel it. Simply delayed it till cooler heads hopefully prevail some time in the next 200 years.
5. Betsy Devos – Secretary of Education.  Charter schools, competent teachers, getting the feds out of the education business. Love this lady!
6. Elaine Chao – Secretary of Transportation. Loved her as Bush’s secretary of labor. I think she’ll bring the same level-headed cut-the-crap approach to the mess over at transportation.
7. Jeff Sessions – Attorney General. It is such a relief to have a guy as the nation’s law enforcer who makes decisions based on whether a thing is legal and not on whether it makes lesbians, gays, transsexuals, Muslims, Democrats, communists, or Russia unhappy, but rather on whether it violates the law.
8. Donald Trump talks around the mainstream media straight to the American people.  It’s not quite the way Ronald Reagan did (which also made the media frantic), but it’s fun to watch. He does not let the media define him and he’s willing to call Beezelbub by name. This makes the media insane, the spectacle of which I find quite entertaining to watch!
9. The five-year ban on White House officials making a living by lobbying. Long, long, long, long overdue measure to stifle corruption.
10. Popularized the term “fake news” and shined a bright light on the closet “making up the news” industry and named names. A president isn’t supposed to do that, but this one did. I’m sorry but I get a sadistic glee watching them skuttle for cover.
11. The infamous travel ban!  Trump blocked travel from several countries that support terrorists (Obama wrote up that list) until we could get better security into place to screen out jihadis. Lib judges are still trying to find a way to block that.
12. Cut money being sent over seas to fund abortion and repealed the Obama order forcing states to fund Planned Parenthood (a misnomer if there ever was one).
13. Funding cut to sanctuary cities. If your city is defying federal law, it seems logical that they don’t need federal money. I’m not sure I’d have handled it so politely.
14. Withdrew from the Paris "Climate" Accords – That so-called climate deal basically laid all the cost and work on the United States and transferred a boatload of American dollars into the pockets of the worst polluting nations on the planet, while wrecking the American Economy and doing nada for the climate.
15. Did NOT bow to any foreign kings. WAAAY more presidential than the previous president who basically bent over and stuck up his bottom for King Abdulla to pat and tell him he was a good boy. It was pathetic. I noted he did not bow to Queen Elizabeth and gave her a book he wrote and returned a bust of Winston Churchill England had presented a previous president with.  Trump is way more class if you can believe. And his wife is very gracious out on the road.
16. He cut about 7 million bucks worth of unnecessary folk from the White House staff. Melania will be polishing her own toes it appears or paying for that out of her own pocket. It sets a good example.
17. Withdrew from the Trans Pacific Partnership. The badly lop-sided trade deal essentially transferred sovereignty over American economic interests to foreign nations. Bad for us, great for them. We needed to drop that turkey and Trump did.
18. Approved the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines. Took a lot of oil out of Warren Buffett’s more expensive choo-choos and tank cars (which, surprise, is why Buffet supported Obama’s ban on the pipeline), and put them in safer, pipelines rather than moving all that flammable material on our nations roads and railroad. Stationary pipes are safer than vehicles moving through our neighborhoods.
19. Illegal immigration dropped like a stone after Trump was elected. It fell by 72% in the month after he was sworn in. Apparently the border patrol got the okay to step up enforcement. And they haven’t even built a wall yet.
20. The economy kicked back into gear. I’ve got work again in the past six months. Now if he’d ditch Obamacare, maybe I could afford some health insurance and could get off Medicaid. I’m tired of being forced to be poor to avoid IRS fines.
21. Last but not least, WE DO NOT HAVE HILLARY CLINTON AS PRESIDENT AND BILL BACK IN THE WHITE HOUSE CHASING INTERNS UP AND DOWN THE HALLS. That alone gives me a lot of patience with the Donald.
    
    

Donald Trump was not my first choice, nor was he my second or third. I didn’t vote for him, nor did I vote for Clinton. I’m still skeptical as all get-out about his sudden outbreak of conservatism, but he has at least racked up a pretty impressive opening salvo. I think he needs to become more skilled at using Twitter, but hey.  It’s entertaining and makes the media frantic, and, as I previously mentioned, this pleases me.

 © 2017 by Tom King

PS:  Make that 22. He just gave his first paycheck $78,000 to historic battlefield preservation - namely the Antietam battlefield.  Donors matched his donation to the tune of more than $265,000 and more than 7.2 million dollars in grants have been received toward the project according to the Secretary of the Interior.  Not bad Donny boy. Not bad at all.

The Left Continues to Ramp Up Its Frantic Attacks on Ride Share Companies

 

 

And the liberal left continues it's attacks on the Uber and Lyft ride-sharing services. It's amazing to watch how "progressives" defend the status quo, especially when it's their status quo. And wouldn't you know it would be the city of San Francisco leading the charge.

These new ride-sharing services having expanded rapidly, capturing a consumer market long ignored. It is a market transit has been trying to figure out for a long time. In some parts of the country, especially in rural areas with aging populations, up to 20% of citizens over the age of 16 cannot drive a car or do not have access to one.  It's too expensive to run buses around to pick them up. Most live too far from bus routes for that to be a viable option. What Uber and Lyft have done is create a clever way for regular folk to make a little money hauling their neighbors who cannot drive around on errands they cannot accomplish with fixed public transit systems.

I'm one of those customers Uber was designed for. Without them I'm left with unaffordable, often unpleasant choices for purchasing transportation services. So, of course the left wants to take Uber down. They are hoping to force people to move into town next to bus lines. You think I'm kidding? I've sat in on the meetings and that's precisely the goal. 

Politically, I can see why the left would want that. They keep losing elections to people living in small towns and rural America.  I guess they figure if they can force us to move into human hives, walled up in cities, we'll just naturally become liberals.  It seems to be working for the Democrat party certainly.

"So, why don't you just call a cab?" Uber detractors ask. Okay since you asked:

(1) Cleanliness - I've never ridden in a dirty Uber car. I've seldom ridden in a clean taxicab.

(2) Cost - Taxi rides cost half again as much. I can give the extra to the driver as a tip and it's clear profit for him. Uber doesn't require or even encourage customers to tip, but I usually give 20-25% or more to my driver because the service is really really good. I give it to him in cash and since he doesn't have to report it to Uber, well, the IRS doesn't have to know either. I'm a big fan of the black market. Cab drivers meanwhile demand a tip for rides in unclean vehicles, that take too long and are overpriced.  So I have to tip drivers who often don't earn it AND the cab company and Uncle Sam take a piece of it from the drivers.

(3) Atmosphere - I have never had an unpleasant ride in an Uber. The last two consecutive cab rides we had with the taxi service, our driver yelled at someone on the phone in Farsi all the way to our home. My wife said it felt like being abducted by terrorists. I kept waiting for him to yell "Allahu Akbar!" and drive into a crowd of people. Honestly. It was an unpleasant trip.

(4) Drivers - I've never had a driver who didn't like his job with Uber. And I ask them how they like their jobs. Most are doing it as a second job or using it to make their car note. They choose their hours and pick their customers. Our cab drivers don't seem nearly as happy. Though some cabbies seem to be making the best of it, I don't detect a lot of joy like I do with the Uber guys.

(5) Satisfaction ratings - With Uber you get to rate your driver and the quality of the ride. I've yet to give anyone less than 5 stars with Uber. Also my driver rates me as a passenger. Since my wife and I are already nice people by nature, we seldom have any trouble getting a ride. I suspect I've got a five star rating too. The Uber drivers see that and are more comfortable picking me up than a customer who is nasty to drivers and gets a consistently low rating. With taxis, you take what you get, both driver and customer. That explains why the Uber experience is better I think.

(6) Availability - I've waited for hours for a cab to come and find me. I think with Uber my longest wait was 20 minutes on a busy late Friday afternoon. It's usually under ten minutes.

 

So the killjoys in San Francisco and other liberal cities want to take Uber down. They are under the mistaken impression that if Uber goes down, customers will accept less attractive transportation options - options that pay a piece of the action to the city. What they miss is that if customers don't have an easy affordable way to get around, they don't patronize shops and restaurants and other businesses in town that DO pay taxes to the city. Transportation done right can feed local business if you don't try to gouge people for a piece of the action. Liberal city leaders remind me a lot of a criminal syndicate in the way they operate. I can imagine the council meeting where they hired Arnold "One Ear" Giovanni to "....make 'em an offer Uber and Lyft can't refuse."  Except they can refuse and have already abandoned more than one unfriendly town, much to the dismay of merchants and consumers, between whom, business has since fallen off.

© 2017 by Tom King