Mar

7

If we are going to have a civil and meaningful discussion and get to an “end-game” we all need to agree on a few basic principles.

First and Foremost: “You don’t get something for nothing”

Most of the voting bloc routinely votes in politicians that run on the platform of giving us something for nothing. We routinely vote out politicians that are straight with us on this accord.

Second: Fiscal Responsibility

It is high time to amend our constitution and require that the Federal Budget be balanced. Whether you are an individual, a company, or a government you can only spend more than you make for so long. At some point one has to pay their debts.

Third: Save For a Rainy Day

When times our good we seem to think they will last forever. When times are bad we get into this funk that time will always be bad. Fact: If you look at the history of this nation (or any nation for that matter) you will see that there are economic cycles. No matter what we seem to do, seem to legislate this is just a reality. Saving for a rainy day seems to be something our government has never tried. There are many of you that practice this principle and understand how it can save you during tough times.

Fourth: Where money is concerned their will always be greed and corruption.

I could make this list 100 miles long and not begin to cover all the incidences of this. The power of money and wealth can corrupt the most well meaning people.

If we have agreement on these four items we can begin the discussion

Mar

3

If the Tea Party movements agenda is to rid the Republican party of members who are for fiscal responsibility and for smaller government until they get into office I am 100% for them in this endeavor.

I am for this as at some point, in the hopefully near future, America needs to deal with its Federal debt. This is an issue we need to deal with soon. No gimmicks, no BS. Real deficit reduction.

If and when this day comes, and I see some real evidence that this is happening I may once again vote for that party. It is sad to be an independent and only really have one choice.

Clean house Tea Party. Clean house.

Feb

28

On Wednesday by a vote of 406-19 the House passed HR4626. This bill will end the Health Insurance Industry’s 64 year Federal Antitrust Exemption under the McCarren-Ferguson Act.

What is astounding is how little media attention this vote got! The House seems to be the one body of government working “for the people.” The fact that this vote was so bi-partisan (in an election year) and so overwhelming in numbers says a great deal about how the American people feel about the healthcare insurance industry.

We can rest assured that it will not pass the Senate.

The two biggest problems we face today in this country are the “do nothing” Senate and our media. One is useless, the other dangerous. Both are the pawns of big business and special interest.

As much as I against a lot of the opinions and attitudes of the tea party movement, and the likes of Glenn Beck. I am aligned with them on one very important point. That is I believe government and big business are not looking out for the best interests of you and I.

You know, Americans and Communists formed an alliance during WWII in order to accomplish our objective and rid ourselves of the Nazi’s and Facists attempts at taking over the world.

I would watch out Washington, both parties, as I am not the only moderate/independent that feels this way. I think the House gets it. But the Senate remains utterly clueless (both parties), and the more days that go by I am not so sure about the White House.

I still believe President Obama cares about “we the people”, but he is catering far too much to Wall Street and the special interests for my good.  And, his recent signing of a 1-year extension to the Patriot Act, which violates our constitutional rights is not sitting well with me and will not sit well until we GET RID OF IT!

It is time for the White House and the Senate (both parties) to get a clue.

Feb

24

It will be more of the same.

Republicans coming with no ideas. If you read what they have proposed they have not proposed anything substantative. It will be more of the same. They are really out of touch with what the mainstream populace wants.

I suppose I have to give credit for our President for playing this out. It is sad we only have two and a half branches of our geovernment trying to govern. Our nation is being held hostage by 40 Senators (jury is still out on Scott Brown).

Get to reconciliation and lets begin round one of healthcare reform.

Feb

22

I received this in an email from my father. It is presented in-full.

“Hi Guys,

I don’t normally pass on political stuff, but in this case I feel that Senator Bayh needs to be read by as many people as possible.

I know some of you already read the New York Times and have seen this article.

It’s clear that Evan Bayh is a “Man for all Seasons” and is saying what a lot of us are feeling.  Some of you are Republications, some Democrats, some Independents and some are out on the far ends of both the right and left wings.  You know who you are.  I am on the far left, so you know where I stand on most issues.  However, in this case, I agree with almost everything Senator Bayh is saying.  I can’t believe I’m saying this, but, at this point in time, we need a cooperative centralist view in government (both Democrats and Republications) to establish a balance and stop the gridlock.  Perhaps, even get something done.  It’s time we start supporting politicians with centralist views and put a damper on all the garbage being spewed by all this partisan crap, Tea Party garbage, filibusters and other nonsense.  There’s a time and place for radical disruptive behavior, (God knows I love a good fight) but now’s not the time.   Do what you will, but do consider what Senator Bayh has to say.

John”

…My take… 

These days in almost all walks of life we seem to have forgotten that it is okay to accept good ideas on merely the merit of the idea itself. Even people on the fringes can have a good idea. Yet, routinely we dismiss good ideas solely on there origin.

Having said all this I have one more observation to make. It takes “two to tango.” People seem to be calling for “bury the hatchet.”  If only it were that simple. What we have today is the party out of power and their base not willing to come to the table. It could very well be that only the media is reporting the extreme fringes of the conservative movement. But there would seem to be very few people speaking up.

We need to continue to have a free exchange of ideas and to do so in as civil a manner as we can. At the end of the day, and within the guidelines of our constitution and civil discourse we need to allow the party in power to govern as they were elected by the majority.

 

Feb

21

Have you ever noticed that? I do all the time. Bother you? Bothers me. Lots of catchy slogans, lots of hyperbole, but hardly ever does one hear it directly quoted.

Why is that?

Could it be that most folks have never read it?

Could it be that they have read it and realize that they cannot use the constitution to support their own positions?

Why is it?

Curious? …I am.

Here is quote from the constitution:

“Section 8. The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States”

I would like to offer a few points here.

For those that claim that our Federal Income Tax is unconstitutional because of issues concerning apportionment.  Note that section 8 authorizes “Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises” be collected for the purpose of paying its debts. But, it only mentions “Duties, Imposts and Excises ” needing to be uniform. It purposely excludes the word taxes.

Next point, section 8 authorizes Congress the power to collect revenues for not only our defense, but also for the “general welfare” of the United States. We have a healthcare system that in the last 20 years doubled expenditures when weighed against GDP.

We have insurance companies that have dropped over 2 million US Citizens from covereage. We have young people and other reckless citizens that refuse to buy healthcare but do not think twice about showing up at an ER knowing they must be care for in some way. Frankly, I want to blame the insurance companies. I really do. But, they are involved in a for profit business. The less they dole out in expenditures (our care) the more profit they make. That is their charter.

How is this problem not related to the “general welfare” of the Untied States?

You may not agree on the solution, but share with me an area of the constitution that will make your case that healthcare reform is in violation of the constitution. I just have cited you section 8 which unless you are a total bullshit artist and spin-meister (The name Dick Armey comes to mind) is in direct support of healthcare reform. This section also justifies single payor and even a complete takeover of healthcare by our government. This is not something I would be in favor of. But our constitution supports it.

Finally, I would suggest all you folks out there pick up and read our constitution. You will find that many of your positions are quite baseless when trying to tie them directly to the constitution.

Finally, section 8 says, and I quote… ”Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States”…

Hmmmmmm, “to pay the Debts.”

Maybe you could all quit the talk about bloodshed and revolution. The constitution also has provisions for dealing with idiots like you. If you have something that our government is doing that is unconstitutional then I am with you 100%…

Maybe some of you could become rationale again and we could start to have a meaningful dialog about how we are running up debt for things we really do not need, and that we are paying for it with debt. I believe in this we may have actually stumbled across something that is unconstitutional.

Like say… giving the American public a tax cut for 7 years that had to be financed through debt from other countries.

 

 

Feb

16

I really do not know but I would suspect many do. So much of the Tea Party movement is sponsored by fallen Republicans and big business.

There are actually many things these people are for that I actually agree with.

- I agree that both Parties have been bought and sold by special interest and big business

- I agree we need to pay down the Federal Deficit

- I agree that many of our civil liberties have been compromised by scary legislation like the Patriot act.

- I believe the Federal Reserve needs to be abolished or radically reformed

- I believe we never ratified the 16th ammendment that is the basis for Federal income tax

What I do not agree with is their hypocrisy. If you are for fiscal responsibility in Government then you are for fiscal responsibility in Government. You are not just for it when the Democrats are in office.

You do not get to forget that the last fiscally responsible President was a Democrat (and this is coming from someone whose mother sent him a “Countdown to Clinton Calendar” when he was elected as I was a Bush guy).

You do not get to forget that Reagan ran up the Federal deficit by 1.34 trillion dollars in his eight years. If you adjust this number for inflation using the CPI the figure is 2.63 trillion.

You do not get to forget that Bush 1 racked up .93 trillion in four years (or 1.44 trillion adjusted for inflation). Or, Bush the younger racked up 1.78 trillion in his first seven years along. This did not include his 800 billion dollar medicaid drug prescription bill, or quite a bit of debt financed outside of the Federal Budget for the Iraq war.

You do not forget these things. For those of you folks on the fringe that have been consistent in your position that you do not like any government I can respect your position even if I do not agree with it.

For the rest of you, take a look in the mirror so you can see what hypocrisy looks like.

Next time you pull into that Walmart parking lot congratulate yourself on all those U.S. Factories your purchases are responsible for closing.

“Always low prices, Always”

But be proud in the knowledge that those Jeans you just bought made someone in Indonesia, paid enough to buy a 1/2 cup of rice.

Feb

12

Insurance companies reported 12.2 billion dollars in profits in fy 2009. They did this while dropping 2.7 million Americans from coverage. All done in a year that saw double digit unemployment and the worst economic climate since the Great Depression.

Democrats, get with the program. You are in the majority. Republicans used reconciliation five times during Bush’s tenure. Republicans are out of the picture. Success or failure is on your shoulders. We see that party is being obstructionist. But, you are in charge. Start being in charge or your tenure in charge will be short.

 

Feb

7

We seem to have forgotten how our economy went into meltdown. It has a now become a political scuffle and the bankers are on the sidelines laughing their asses off.

Banks lent money to consumers in the form of credit debt. They also put people into mortgages they could not afford and then further lent them money on the paper gains on their house. They wrote consumers loans as adjustable rates to make them initially affordable. They created loans that deferred interest.

Essentially they duped a percentage of the American public to literally mortgaging their future to live in the moment. Are the people that allowed themselves to get into financial trouble culpable? Of course they are. But this is not the point. The point is that lending institutions acted irresponsibly, and they knew exactly what they were doing. 

If this was not enough they let Wall Street investment banks package up these toxic loans and sell them as securities to investors to “spread the risk.”

If that was not enough, some of these investment banks took hedges against these investements and when they collapsed made billions of dollars in profit.

When everything came crashing down what did we do? We had the Federal Reserve step in with a guarantee of 700 billion dollars to bail big business out. How did they respond. By laying off employees. And…

Miraculously in less than one year through further gambling in the stock market these folks helped to crash they manage to made enough money, not lending money, but speculating on securities to pay back the government. The big bonuses begin to flow and it is business as usual.

The Democrats who have a majority create legislation but the other party is blocking it. When it does not pass the Democrats will blame the Republicans. When the Repulicans run they will spin things and have you believe that the problem is the Democrats.

Am I missing anything here? Actually I am missing a whole lot more. You have been watching all this mess just as I have.

The cold hard reality is that both parties are in the pocket of big business and banking. They get richer and the rest of us conservatives and liberals alike get the shaft. We all get sidetracked by a media that is also owned by big business.

CBS is eveing airing a show where the CEO comes and works with the common man to get a dose of reality. Sorry, we are not buying it!

Big business, the Democrats, the Republicans, all think “we the people” are collectively stupid. If we continue to support either party we are. Obama ran on reform and has not done a damn thing yet that is close to reform. I am still hopeful, but only slightly.

America, we have been through so many scandals and meltdowns since the late 80’s alone.

- S&L Scandal of the 80’s/90’s - Over 450 S&L’s go under largely due to reckless, speculative real estate lending (hmmm, where have we heard that one?)

- Enron, Tyco, Adelphia.

- Accounting scandals at KPMG and Arthur Anderson

- Freddie Mac and Fannie May

Nothing seems to change much except we keep voting in people that keep putting us deeper in debt, do not do what they promise.

I am not sure if our elected officials realize how frustrated we all are. I am not aligned with the Tea Party. I am not aligned with Glenn Beck. I do not like or agree with a lot of their ideas or agenda. I am in agreement with them on one thing. I am tired of being screwed by all of you in Washington D.C. and by big business. I am tired of all the reckless corporate behavior without accountability. I am tired of promises from political leaders that are not fulfilled.

It is time for real reform. It may very well be time to ditch both parties and put some people in office that can make the changes we need.  

 

Jan

25

Today I saw an op-ed piece in the NY Times by a guy named Harold Ford Jr. The title was “Democrats, Get Down to Business.” My first thought was another right wing numb-nuts talking trash. This is how disgusted I have become with the Republican party. But, I gave myself a good talking to and read the piece. It had some good talking points in it. It had the type of dialogue we needed long ago.

(Word to Democrats. Pull your heads out and get that bill passed. Your majority and political future depends on this legislation.)

I also saw Mark McKinnon on Rachel Maddow. I really like that guy. He was McCain’s campaign advisor. I have always liked him and the way he communicates and many of his positions. It is nice to see him back on the public scene. If Republicans were wise they will bring more like him to the forefront.

Also, I find the media to largely be a bunch of dinks that are reading the wrong tea leaves. Especially regarding the election of the new Senator from Mass. Maybe more on this later.

 

 

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