Dealing with government care issues.

Working with government social services programs for the elderly will absolutely drive you nuts. I’m in the process of trying to get my 71 year old mother who has lung cancer approved for Medicaid the last couple of weeks, and I can tell you from personal experience that it can be a nightmare. There is no “single point” of contact that you can get to work with you to navigate the myriad of paperwork trails, working with LTC facilities, insurance companies, and other myriad of government and private groups to get something accomplished.

Somehow, everyone automatically thinks that the “family” can deal with all this paperwork, interviews, and endless meetings to get things done, when in fact the “family” is typically in a situation that they are barely able to deal with the mental and physical aspects of taking care of a elderly family member in need.

So if any of you out there are currently in this position as well, or perhaps you will need to be in the future, my heart felt sympathies go out to you. My only words of encouragement is “keep plugging away at the walls”, and “good luck”. It is a mentally stressful and physically draining experience to have to go through, and anyone forced into the position of dealing with a serious illness of a family member needs comfort and support as well as the family member that is ill. Often, I have found, that the agencies, both private and government, that you have to deal with, forget what the supporting family members are going through, and act as if they are intentionally forcing them to perform 3 ring circus acts to get anything meaningful accomplished.

Blitzer preaching the "dream ticket" again

Wolf Blitzer of CNN is once again dreaming of the “dream ticket”. Mr Blitzer has been beating this drum ever since the last Democratic debate that he moderated between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. I’ve never quite understood his almost insatiable campaigning for this particular scenario, but I’m pretty sure that it is purely wishful thinking on his part.

The original hoopla over the “dream ticket” of Clinton and Obama being on the same Democratic party ticket started with his last question of that debate, and he hasn’t let it die for more than a couple of days in the intervening time. More and more of the DNC members, specifically Pelosi have stated quite frankly that the possibility of a Clinton/Obama or Obama/Clinton ticket is probably not even a remote possibility. And quite frankly, from a objective political view, it benefits neither Obama, Clinton, or the Democrats in a November general election.

While I give Blitzer leave to voice his opinions and possible wishes, I think the media needs to reflect on exactly what it’s role is in our national debates and elections. I firmly think that Blitzer should stick to the proper role of reporting and analyzing election news, instead of trying to beat a drum to try and direct an outcome, that most political observers see as a non-starter.

Stick to reporting Wolf, that is what you are paid for.

We drive less, but gas keeps going up? I smell a Rat

According a CNN article, the Department of Transportation, figures for MARCH.. that is MARCH, not April or May... but MARCH, we saw the steepest decline in driving in the US ever recorded. We drove nearly 11 Billion (thats a B) miles less in March of this year than last year, a 4.3 percent decrease, yet gas prices continued to rise over that period, and fuel stockpiles decreased.

Can someone explain what the heck is going on here? Last time I took an economics class, decreasing demand was supposed to mean increasing supply, not the inverse. And decreasing demand, should be leading to decreasing prices, not the inverse.

I'm begining to smell a rat in the barnyard here folks.

Attacks on Clinton's RFK comments asinine

Well we have finally reached a point in the Democratic nomination race where any statement by either of the candidates is ripped apart and spun in such a way to make it the most disgusting thing ever imaginable. Most of you who have read my blog know that I am an Obama supporter, and am not at all enthralled with the idea of Hillary Clinton getting the nomination, both on personal faults, and her stands on some of the issues.

With that said, I have to say the uproar over her recent comments about the RFK assassination is about as bogus as anything I’ve seen yet in these campaigns. The pundits and the bloggers would have you believe that she is somehow implying that she is staying in with the hope that Obama might befall the same fate as RFK, and making it out to be some heinous implication that it is one of the reasons she is staying in the race.

After reading her comments to the particular editorial board, how anyone can come to the conclusion that she is somehow awaiting Obama’s assassination is totally asinine. Her merely pointing out that previous Democratic nomination races have not been resolved before the middle of June, and turning it into some menacing meaning, shows the vitriol course that the media, the bloggers, and the political forum morons will go to try and twist any comment from a candidate into a blustering support for their candidate at the expense of any responsible judgment.

With the general election season gearing up to start, the viciousness of the media, and the campaign surrogates, can only be expected to increase to a more idiotic fever pitch. Anyone who needs to twist every comment made by a candidate into some sinister plan, is once again feeding on the propaganda of fear that has been the hallmark of the current administration, and should be viewed with proper scrutiny and cynicism.

When an election is decided by the pure unadulterated misdirection, and fear mongering of the media, the pundits, and the campaign surrogates, we all lose the view of facts. Be wary of falling for the despicable reporting of ALL of today’s media, both televised, and through the internet. Be cynical of their purpose and their agenda in reporting anything stated by any of the candidates.

The best defense for America is an intelligently cynical and informed electorate, who is unwilling to take the spoon fed pulp being fed up by today’s so called news sources. Research stands for yourself, make your own decisions. Only with those premises as our guide can we the true electorate make our impact on the direction of the country, and take back our government, and make it once again responsive to our needs.

An election that exposes our nations racial divides

If you happen to be a person that believes that racial hatred is dead in America, this presidential election will be a shocking revelation to you. As a baby boomer who grew up in the south west and then later living in Colorado, the kind of blatant racial hatred that you read about in other places in the country was always a far off thing to me, and something I tended to see as isolated problems. For some reason I had made myself believe that ingrained racial hatreds were somehow a thing of the past, and that we as Americans had progressed beyond using the color of one’s skin as a measure of their ability to contribute to the country.

I was mistaken. If one thing has been highlighted for me in this presidential election, it is that there is still a serious, and deep, racial divide within the country. I have spent a lot of time over the last few months participating in political forums of different kinds, and one thing that seems to be a constant, is that there are still some blacks and some whites that can not or will not move past the color of other people when making decisions about who they will associate with, who they will support, and who they will talk to, and who they won’t.

Simply view the postings on many of the political forums going on these days, and you will be swamped by the racial rants both for and against Obama. Most of the posters in these forums who are decidedly against his candidacy for president, can not give issue related reasons, without eventually, falling into the same old diatribes of him being a Muslim, his association with his former pastor, his writing that he feels more comfortable with his black heritage than his white. Eventually, any discussion about Obama in these forums degenerates into insults, and racial slurs.

The underlying racial tone of this election is not just seen in the popular forums either. The Washington post did an article depicting what some of the Obama volunteers have had to endure on the ground soliciting support for their candidate, and it was wholly disgusting that at this time in our history, that we as a nation are still consumed with racial hatred.

If there is one thing that I hope comes of this election, whether Obama is the nominee, or even eventually our president, is that his campaign will have made America finally look at it’s self in the mirror and force it to recognize that we are not the paragons of virtue that we announce ourselves to be to the rest of the world. We have a very long ways to go, but perhaps we are in the process of taking another great step in moving past the long standing racial divides within our society.

I for one hope it is the case.

Clinton goes Nuclear on Race card

I have long held to the belief that once the Clinton political machine got backed into a corner, that something would be said that would finally show Senator Clinton to be a politician that would say or do anything to get elected. Yesterday it finally happened.

Yesterday in a USA Today interview she pretty much dismissed Obama’s ability to be elected president as he would have a hard time winning support from white Americans.

Interview excerpt:
"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

"There's a pattern emerging here," she said.
/end excerpt

Does anyone remember the off the cuff remarks of Bill Clinton’s after the South Carolina primary where he implied that Obama’s win was similar to that of Jessie Jackson previously? Doesn’t sound like such a mis-interpretation now.

Clinton has continuously run a more negative campaign. As the math kept developing into a nearly impossible path to the nomination for her, it was only a matter of time before the vindictive political shrew came out into the open.

In a country founded with a born sin of slavery, a civil war to expunge slavery, and a national movement for civil rights to force equal treatment, the idea that a presidential candidate at this juncture would resort to the obvious and misguided statement that a Black candidate can’t win white support is beyond stupid.

I had said in my previous post after the primaries on May 6th that Clinton was essentially a “Dead candidate walking”. After yesterday, I can only hope that I am correct. Unfortunately, for the Democrats, Clinton may have just put a dagger through the heart of their chance to take both houses and the presidency. She may have divided the Democrat party irrevocably.

Oh and Hillary, if you read this? I’m a White American that not only supports Obama, but will vote for him come November.

Someone teach Clinton and McCain some economics please

Ok folks pay attention. I’m going to be discussing one of those subjects that made your eyes glaze over, and your head ache in high school and college….. Economics.

In the final days of the run up to the Indiana and North Carolina primaries we have three candidates slugging it out over a supposedly simple idea of removing the $0.184 federal gas tax for the upcoming three months of the summer. What surprises me more than anything about the entire discussion is how the two candidates favoring this “gas tax holiday”, John McCain, and Hillary Clinton, seem to be under the impression that a vast majority of us voters have less understanding of simple economic theory then what little they appear to have.

First let’s look at John McCain’s proposal. Just drop the federal gas tax, and don’t do anything else except promise to put the estimated $8.5 BILLION dollars in lost revenue for the Federal Highway Trust, back in from the general fund. I thought there were supposed to be fiscal conservatives in the GOP? So McCain wants to tack on another $8.5 billion dollars on to the already nearly $10 trillion national debt. If we calculate the additional interest payments on the additional $8.5 B, we are adding an additional $255 million dollars at just a 3.0% interest rate (pretty cheap interest eh?). From a economic principle viewpoint, this is not an incredibly sound idea. The US dollar is already falling in value against world currencies with our increasing debt and foreign debt ownership, that it may be impossible to ever have a “strong dollar” monetary policy again. And what does a weak dollar do to us average working Joes and Janes that the gas tax holiday is supposed to give some relief? It makes every barrel of imported oil more expensive when paid in US dollars. Now here is where a little economics come in. If the raw materials (imported oil) cost more to acquire (due to falling US dollar value), the end product costs more to purchase. So not only does the tax holiday put us farther in the hole with the national debt, but will likely end up actually causing an increase in imported oil. There are times when I really believe that John McCain was telling the truth when he said he didn’t understand the economy.

Now let’s look at Hillary Clinton’s proposal. Drop the federal gas tax, but put a “windfall profits” tax on the oil companies so that they pay the tax instead of you and me. So first off the process of taking the federal gas tax money from gasoline suppliers and depositing directly into the FHT will have to be replaced by some system of applying a “profit” tax on oil companies, collecting it, and then making sure that it gets into the FHT. So theoretically, we get that $0.184 off at the pump, but oil companies know that uncle Sam is going to be coming around to get it later from them, so to ensure that their shareholders aren’t getting shorted (after all, corporations really only answer to their shareholders), quickly pass on all or most of the gas tax back to their customers, which eventually ends up right back on the pump saving us absolutely nothing. Meanwhile everyday Joes and Janes thinking they are going to get a little more gas for the money, start driving more than they planned, and demand goes up. Now this is where we get back into economic theory again. If you have an already short supply product which is driving prices up do to over demand, and you increase the demand, the price continues to go UP. So not only are the oil companies making us pay the gas tax by passing their additional tax cost on to us consumers, the increase in demand simply continues the rapid push of prices upwards, making it worse than it was before.

But even with all this fundamental economic reasoning for the gas tax holiday being a really dumb idea, the problem becomes even bigger at the end of the three months when there hasn’t been any decrease in demand, the tax has been passed on to us anyways, and we have increased our national debt by $8.5 B. At the end of the three months, what then? Who is going to be the one to tell the American people, “well we gave you a break, it didn’t really help much, but we are sorry, we have to add the gas tax back in at the pump now”? Does anyone honestly think that during an election campaign for president that either Clinton or McCain are going to be willing to ADD the $0.184 back into the mix prior to the election?

I think not.

Now I’m concerned that neither McCain, nor Clinton, know anything about the economy. The only one of the three current candidates that seem to have this whole idea figured out right, and is against it, is the one that supported a similar idea in Illinois, until they found out it didn’t work. And they say he has no experience? At least he learned from previous attempts at this gas tax holiday hocus pocus.

Earmarks need to be ended permanently

Earmarks are generally regarded as specific funding requests by a member of congress to be directed to a home state or district project or organization. These requests are generally outside of specific government agency funding requests and the federal government agency whose appropriation bill the earmark is included in has no authorization or control over the expenditure. According to Taxpayers for Common Sense (www.taxpayer.net) the current FY08 appropriations contain just a hair over $18 billion dollars in totaling $14.8 billion in sponsored congressional requests, and another $3.5 billion dollars in earmarks that had no congressional sponsor identified.

Earmarks are seldom added to an appropriations bill while it is being constructed, but rather during the conference phase where the two houses of the congress get together to work out differences between the two house’s respective legislation. And in this conference phase is where the real “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” of our current political environment comes into play. This is where the seniority of a congress member comes into play, since the more senior a member of congress is, the more likely he or she is going to get their little pet project funding into a piece of legislation, because their support is needed either to support another piece of legislation, or their weight and support for an earmark for a lesser senior member of congress is desired to ensure that earmark gets included.

Much has been made this election year on earmarking by congress, particularly by Senator McCain, who had zero earmarks associated with the FY 08 appropriations, according to TCS, while Senator Clinton had $342.4 million, and Senator Obama had $98.6. Many projects or organizations funded through earmarks are truly worthwhile causes and do bring jobs, funding, and needed projects to the individual state or precinct. The problem with earmarks is that Citizens against Government Waste estimates that 98 percent of earmarks are added during the conference phase, and are not voted on by the full membership of either house as a stand alone appropriation. This behind the scenes back scratching between members of congress puts the rest of the members of congress in the situation of having to vote for critical federal funding legislation as a whole containing the earmarks. If a member decides to vote against a funding bill due to particular earmarks, they risk suffering the backlash from fellow house members, senators, and constituents for holding up needed government appropriations.

Each of the individual earmarks in and of themselves may not seem like a lot of money, but a couple million here and a couple hundred thousand there, multiplied by a little over eleven thousand individual items, and you start talking about real money. The need to remove the ability to insert earmarks into needed pieces of legislation is becoming more and more imperative, at a time when we are running such large deficits, and funding two external wars. If a particular project or organization’s funding is important enough to take a portion of everyone’s tax dollars, then it is important enough to stand alone as an appropriation line item and be subjected to full congress scrutiny as the spending bills are constructed. The time to eliminate earmarks from the federal budget process has come.

I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!

Time and again, our elected officials are proving that they have no concept of what “providing for the common defense, and promote the general Welfare, secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity” means anymore.

We have a government establishment hell bent on doing everything to weaken our ability to defend ourselves with totally irrational concepts of preemptive military action. I have yet to talk to anyone who feels or disagrees with our decision to invade Afghanistan to pursue Al Qaeda and remove the government responsible for supporting the group which was responsible for the largest loss of American lives on US soil by an enemy since Pearl Harbor. But our leaders could not stop there. Instead of completing our task and bringing the culprits to justice, our elected officials either deliberately mislead us, or fabricated the need to invade Iraq to preempt their development of WMDs. Now we have our military in both Afghanistan and Iraq with ever changing objectives and a military that is stretched beyond a sustainable level. At the same time the current administration intensifies the saber rattling at the prospect of a nuclear Iran with growing influence in the region due to our destabilizing actions in Iraq. If some rogue faction was to now actually attack us, we would be without any viable military resources to confront the threat.

We have a government establishment more concerned about propping up support for greed induced meltdowns of companies that propagated close to pyramid schemes of fabricated assets built on sub-prime mortgage paper that was built on predatory lending practices. To further show their support of the financially stressed home owners facing foreclosure, the senate has proposed a bill that would give a $7,000 tax credit to people who buy a home that have been foreclosed, or have had foreclosure filings, which does absolutely nothing for the people actually being foreclosed on, except make it more likely they will lose their home more quickly. The senate bill also gives $25 billion in tax breaks for homebuilders who so over built homes that there was almost no way they could ever possibly sell them. Again our government proposes saving the businesses that primarily drove the crisis while leaving the actual distressed homeowners out in the cold. The only general welfare they seem concerned about is the corporations that have done more to create our current recession than the constituency of American tax payers and homeowners that are left to fend for ourselves.

We have a government that is unwilling to make any positive step to secure our borders and really manage the growing problem of illegal immigration. We have officials asking not to enforce our own laws on immigration because it is bad for business. There is an assault on our American IT workers to have their jobs either supplanted with cheap foreign workers, or having their jobs outright moved to offshore cheap labor markets. Two bills were introduced recently after Bill Gates visited Washington to bemoan the lack of world class employees in the US. The first bill introduced by Representative Lamar Smith would retroactively increase the 2008 H-1B visa cap to 195,000, as well as set that level for fiscal year 2009. The second bill authored by Gabrielle Giffords the same week would increase the cap to 130,000 a year from it’s current cap of 65,000. This blind obedience to Corporate pandering is increasing the pressure on the US middle class by moving the very jobs that we are supposed to be depending on to take us into the future to foreign employees. Even the IEEE-USA pointed out that the decrease in unemployed U.S. high-tech professionals dropped sharply after the reinstatement of the H-1B visa cap to 65,000 in 2004 from 195,000 in 2003. So exactly where is the concern for the welfare of the American people in all this?

Again, and again, our elected officials choose to pander to the corporate CEOs who’s primary objective is their own self interest and corporate greed, without any consideration to the impact to the American worker and tax payer. As Americans it is time for us to fire our dysfunctional and inept employees. We need to examine the records and stands of every political office seeker, and ensure that we vote for a change of our elected officials across the local, state, and federal level to elect people that have the best interests of the American people as their focus. We need to send a message that political business as usual is no longer acceptable. We need to elect officials that are truly concerned and understand the meaning of “providing for the common defense, and promote the general Welfare, secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”

We need to use our votes to tell our government that “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”.

Another GAO report.. more of the same Government Waste

Another year, another GAO report ( AP ), more of the same government waste is found. It seems it never ends, or in any case, ever gets better. Every year there seems to be a GAO report or audit that finds that there is continually an issue with government employees wasting tax payer dollars. This time instead of $400 hammers, we are paying for online dating services, steaks and crab, tailor made suits, and my favorite, “women’s lingerie” for “use during jungle training by trainees of a drug enforcement program in Ecuador.” You just know those thongs were much more comfortable in that jungle heat.

To me it isn’t that the GAO found “questionable” expenses, or “some” lack of department controls of expenditures, it is the fact that year after year it continues to pop up as a problem.

Many Americans are struggling to hold on to their homes, afford gas to get to their jobs, and pay their taxes, only to find that time and time again government oversight of expenses are wasting vast amounts of those hard earned dollars. It speaks to the attitude of long standing practices as Senator Norm Coleman stated “Too many government employees have viewed purchase cards as their personal line of credit”. And I agree with his sentiment that “When money that is intended to pay for critical infrastructure, education, and homeland security is instead being spent on iPods, lingerie and socializing, we must immediately remedy the problem.”

But the bigger and more systemic problem is that it will simply die down, only to re-surface with the next GAO report. As is the trend in these situations Senator Carl Levin stated “Although internal controls over government credit cards have improved we still have a long way to go…”, and that seems to be the consistent response.

Our government leaders wonder why there is such cynicism in the American public toward government. All they have to do is look at how they have managed the hard earned money that is given them by that public to get a clue.

Full GAO report can be found here

Freedom of the Press under attack?

“Attorney General Michael Mukasey and three other top Bush administration officials are weighing in against legislation that would allow reporters to protect the identities of confidential sources who provide sensitive, sometimes embarrassing information about the government.” (CNN article)

One of the foundations of journalism is the confidentiality of sources. And with the administration weighing in on a bill that would specifically safe guard that foundation, we move one step closer to another loss of Constitutional freedoms for the sake of perceived national security needs.

If we allow the growing trend of “contempt of court” punishments for journalists who refuse to divulge confidential sources, we put at stake the very foundation of a free and unfettered press intended to investigate, and inform the public.

To note just of a few of the most dramatic modern examples of reporters breaking stories with confidential sources that may not have been broken otherwise: David Halberstam's critical reporting from Vietnam; publication of The Pentagon Papers; Woodward and Bernstein's revelations about the Watergate break-in; details of the Iran-Contra scandal; the existence of secret CIA interrogation centers; and the recent revelations of extralegal spying by the National Security Agency.

By not protecting the right of a journalist to protect their sources, the likelihood of anyone in government to provide information, knowing that they can easily be exposed with simple “contempt of court” decisions, seems to me, extremely reduced.

One of the arguments used in opposition to the proposed bill, “In a separate letter, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the nation would be more vulnerable to "adversaries' counterintelligence efforts to recruit" those shielded by the bill.” Is Mr Gates implying that if the shield law is passed, that it then becomes “open season” to the recruitment of journalists by foreign intelligence agencies? I think we are placing a very low perception of the patriotism of our journalists if we agree with that view.

“Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the bill would erect roadblocks to gathering information "from anyone who can claim to be a journalist, including bloggers" and Internet service providers.” This was particularly disturbing, since DHS with the enactment of the Patriot Act has been given almost carte blanc to investigate anyone deemed a possible “domestic terrorist”, which in recent disclosures have indicated that the FBI even broke those rules when performing investigations.

The more disturbing trend of the arguments by the administration against the shield law, is once again the mantra of “national security” which has been used as a bludgeon against American rights and civil liberties to facilitate broad, intrusive, and secret government actions aimed at our own nation’s citizens.

If we allow the defeat of this shield law by the administration, could we be allowing ourselves to gag the one institution that is primarily our only means of being informed of government misbehavior, and improper conduct? If journalists can not uncover corruption in government because sources won’t come forward, without the guarantee of confidentiality, how will we the people be able to watch and be informed of the actions of our government?

Bernanke finally admits that there is a recession risk?

Bernanke speaking before a congressional committee ( CNN article ) said he wasn't yet prepared to declare that the economy has fallen into a recession. But later stated "It now appears likely that real gross domestic product will not grow much, if at all, over the first half of 2008 and could even contract slightly," Now if that, coupled with a total melt down in the mortgage/housing market, sky rocketing fuel prices, and his acknowledgement that he expects further rises in unemployment, I have no better definition of what a recession is.

We have the president continuing with his head in the sand mantra that the economy is strong, and the Fed bailing out or capitulating to Wall Street in providing cheap loans, while the US dollar continues to plummet, homeowners bear the brunt of the mortgage crisis, middle class Americans are pummeled with increasing unemployment, and higher and higher fuel costs.

If there was ever a point in time where Americans can look at the statements of our elected and appointed officials, and wonder what planet they live on, now is that time.

Union leaders fiscally irresponsible when paying for political advertizing

As a long time union member, there was always one thing large unions did that completely irritated and annoyed me. Spending my dues, that should be going to improve union health, pension, and individual training programs and benefits on political advertising for candidates that the union leadership feels compelled to support.

I was reading a CNN article on how Hillary Clinton had raised $35 million dollars for her campaign in February, when I came across this little piece at the bottom.

“The Service Employees International Union began spending $1.4 million in ads in support of Obama in Ohio and Texas. The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union was spending nearly $200,000 in ads in Ohio.”

Now as far as I’m concerned there is nothing that a union should be spending the hard earned union dues of it’s membership on other than benefits and programs to support the members that pay the dues that are being spent.

If Obama can raise $32 million dollars for his campaign in January, and Clinton can raise $35 million dollars in February, they are more than capable of paying for their own advertising. If the Union leadership wants to support a particular candidate because they are pro-union then they can volunteer their time, or ask membership to volunteer their time in the myriad of things every political campaign needs bodies to help do.

But to me the spending of union funds on political advertising is tantamount to fiscal irresponsibility on the part of the union leadership. And if it could be outlawed I would fully support it.

A time and need for change and what it means to me

I have spent a lot of time recently getting my fixes of the political landscape. With the current election progressing the way it is, how could a political junkie not get a daily fix? I get a lot of news from CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and local news channels to that I feel that I get at least a smattering of varying perspectives and coverage. I also spend a lot of time discussing politics with folks on the various political discussion forums. A lot of the discussions center around the two extreme perspectives of the political spectrum, and these discussions along with the news has given me a much different view of politics and our government from what I had when I was 20, 30, 40, or even 50. One of the things that I have become concerned about most recently, is the absolute polarization of the country between the far left and the far right. If you visit any of the large political discussion forums you continually see the folks squaring off between the ultra conservatives, and the ultra liberal factions. What I have found is that neither side willing to compromise on their perspectives essentially settling nothing, much like our current situation in the national government.

We have a tremendous number of things that need to be fixed in this country, and we have gotten nothing but continual doses of fear and doom from the conservative side, and nothing but continual finger pointing and failure to take responsibility from the liberal side. But neither extreme is willing to move toward the other to compromise to actually accomplish anything meaningful, resulting in continual grid lock and stalling, and failing to fix any of our major problems.

On the issue of Iraq there is a great majority of the American people that believe that we were led down the terror path to war in Iraq with no understanding of what it was going to require to extricate ourselves, and were convinced of the need for war, on faulty, and to be honest, exaggerated intelligence that under more strenuous examination could have kept us from this unwarranted predicament in the first place. While 20/20 hindsight is always perfect, even in the initial discussions of the need for invasion, there were only tenuous and highly suspect links between Al-Qaeda and Iraq. There was insufficient proof of WMDs even in the most cursory review of the UN inspector reports. But the Administration pushed the buttons of fear and national security for force a resolution that they obviously wanted, but drastically took our attention from where it was most required in the tracking and capture or killing of the actual 9/11 supporting terrorists in Afghanistan. Democrats not wanting to look weak followed the Administration lead and toed the line to save face rather than stand and require substantial verifiable proof before agreeing to authorize the use of force in Iraq. Both sides failed us, the Administration by jumping into a second front that was never required, and the Congress by not doing their duty to require reasonable proof before authorizing. Now we are in two wars, with no real plan to extricate ourselves other than providing occupation forces for the foreseeable future, while we continue to put the Afghanistan front on a back burner and allow the Taliban and Al-Qaeda to reinvigorate, and grow stronger in that area. And the deficit continues to grow at an alarming rate with no plan on how to pay for it other than printing more green backs. This two front war on terrorism has created a situation that is intolerable at best, and unsustainable at worst. In the mean time the conservatives dig in, and the liberals dig in, and our young military people continue to die, and spend increasingly longer tours in a place we should have never gone.

On the issue of Illegal immigration, the vast majority of American people believe that something has to be done to control and manage the inflow of illegal immigrants through our boarders. The current estimate is that there are 12 million or more illegal immigrants in the U.S. and the number is growing. The current administration tried to negotiate a comprehensive immigration reform program with congress, only to be torpedoed by the two extremes of the political spectrum. The conservatives demanded securing the borders first and then deportation of the illegal immigrants already in the country. The liberals demanded some form of realistic approach to allow the current illegal immigrants a path to citizenship and a focus on securing the borders. The conservatives pounded on the fear buttons again, blaming the immigration issue for the down turn in the economic prospects and threw the fear of terrorist infiltration through our unsecured borders for the need for a wall and a big one first. The liberals having felt fooled by the Administration on Iraq, failed to believe that the threat from terrorist infiltration was as severe as advertised, and focused more on the plight of the immigrants and wanted to make the road to citizenship as painless as possible. Consequently nothing actually got achieved, neither the securing of the border, or a realistic plan on dealing with the 12 million people in our country illegally. Again the two extremes focused on not giving in to the other side so that they could claim being “right”, and the rest of us suffer the consequences of no progress on either front simply because the two extremes can’t compromise.

Our corporate tax structure and individual tax laws are so archaic and unmanageable that no one from either side of the political spectrum can figure out how to give middle and lower level income working people a tax break without giving tax breaks to the corporate raiders, and the financial elite who continually fund campaigns to ensure that they get first crack at the “appropriate” legislation. The passing of NAFTA has been a major contributor to the current economic problems, by providing incentives for American companies to move jobs and manufacturing outside the U.S. and drive lower the incomes of those few workers that remain. We have provided a bankruptcy law that protects the financial corporations who prey on low and middle income families with “zero” interest or down payment schemes to lure people into extending themselves farther financially than both they and the financial institutions know they can afford. Both conservatives and liberals have failed the middle class of America by pandering to the corporate and financial elite at the expense of the middle class, and they wonder why the 2/3 consumer driving portion of our economy can’t keep the ever expanding deficit and budget deficit afloat. More Americans are going to lose their homes due to mortgage company greed in throwing away responsible lending practices, in order to make the quick buck sale, and garner the up front fees. And when the housing market bubble caused by the rampant speculation brought on by this race for profit at the expense of reason, the government looks to support the financial institutions rather than finding a way to help the families that are not only losing their homes, but crippling their ability to afford the now sky rocketing rental rates. The conservatives don’t want to provide any solution that doesn’t bail out the corporate sharks who created this problem, and the liberals don’t want to provide any solution that doesn’t bail out the people who knowingly over extended themselves without thought of changing circumstances. So nothing meaningful gets resolved because the two sides can’t afford to move away from the ingrained extremes of their respective political poles.

Our national health care situation is now bordering on a crisis, yet neither side is willing to move to do anything other than talk about how sad it is that families can’t afford health insurance, and large health providers having a right to make ever increasing profits. Conservatives support the HMOs, and private institutions as the way to provide adequate health care, but fail to realize that profit and providing necessary expensive care do not coexist in the corporate world. Liberals support the government intervention in the provision of health care, either by single payer (i.e. government) or mandated health insurance purchases regardless of ability to pay. While the two sides bicker and fight with each other, millions of Americans are caught in a health care vice where insurance is unaffordable, and care is metered by the profit percentage. The elderly and retired of our country are increasingly forced to choose between barely being able to feed and house themselves, and affording the health care that is a natural consequence of aging.

We have required people to pay into a Social Security system their entire lives with the promise that the monies paid in would be there for them when they retired to provide a safety net. All the while both conservatives and liberals have without hesitation dipped into those funds to decrease spending gaps for bridges to nowhere, parks, and every other pet project of the politicians except for what it was intended for. We have provided corporate bankruptcy laws that make it cheaper to simply default on pension plans that were supposed to be the primary retirement means of middle America, and stolen from the Social Security funds so that there is no safety net remaining. Yet even something so obvious as the insolvency of Social Security and Medicaid can not stir the two sides from their implacable polarization to move to solve the problem, we remain at a bickering “they said”, “they said” war of words with no solution in sight while the elderly hope without reason that all the money they paid in during their working lives will be enough to keep a roof over their head, some food in the fridge, and some health insurance that will not force their family to have to declare bankruptcy to acquire.


We need a change in the political landscape. And the required change is not a swing from the conservative extreme to the liberal extreme. The change needed is a return to the principles of our original founding ideas of compromise for the good of the majority, rather than the myopic polarization of the radical extremes. We need a government concerned about the majority of working class Americans that provide the foundation and hard work that is the base of this great experiment in democracy. We can no longer afford the debilitating grid lock of extreme conservative, and extreme liberal bickering that provides nothing but stalemate. We can no longer afford to pander to the corporate and financial elite who take the labor of the middle class and then discard them. We can no longer afford the notion of ever increasing government expenditures without fiscal responsibility. We must have a political landscape that encourages compromise to actually solve the vast problems that we face. We must step away from the use of fear to remove individual freedoms so hard won centuries ago. It is time for our politicians to go back to work for us instead of themselves. Whether the leader of this change is a conservative, a moderate, or a liberal is of less importance than their willingness to drive compromise and movement to actually solve the problems of our country instead of encouraging stalemate due to radical ideological differences. The time to do away with the last 40 years of polarized political posturing is upon us. The time to step away from the politics as usual is painfully obvious. The question is do we have the intelligence and resolve to force such a change upon ourselves?

Wal-Mart .. the store that cares? Umm.. No.

According to CNNmoney.com Wal-Mart announced that it will chop prices up to 30% to "keep its cash-strapped consumers excited about shopping". Wal-Mart's chief merchandising officer said, "We all know economic times are tough so our plan is to help with added savings throughout the year, focusing especially on what people want, when they need it,". Isn't that considerate of them?

What I found intriguing was that this benevolence is only good for this week, a coincidence that it is the week leading up to the Super Bowl. If the company is truly concerned about the plight of cash strapped consumers, why only a week worth of cost cutting? And why are they particularly focusing on items that are traditionally bought to go with the "big" game?

I don't think I am the only one that recognizes that this is nothing more than the ole "traffic generation" ploy to help with their own retail sales numbers, and has nothing to do with concern for us poor cash strapped consumers.

According to Melissa O'Brien the Wal-Mart spokeswoman, this month's week long (now how you have a a month a week long... ) additional price cuts are "the first of more to come". If you are a worker for Wal-Mart you just have to be asking if the up to 30% price reductions will have to come out of some of your compensation, creating more pressure on the cash strapped consumer.

After 2 years New Orleans Fire Houses still unrepaired

I came across an article on CNN today detailing the work of "The Leary Fighrefighters Foundation" to rebuild and repair fire houses in New Orleans. New Orleans had 22 of 33 fire houses damaged during Katrina and it's aftermath, and the city and state had yet to aggressively move to rebuild any of the destroyed and damaged fire stations.

Dennis Leary the star of "Rescue Me" stated the reason for his foundation's involvement in the restoration work, "I gave up on ever hoping that politicians in this country -- local, state or federal -- would step in to help these guys,"

While Frigidaire is partnering with the Leary foundation, as far as I could determine from researching a number of NO sites, the $9.1Million in FEMA funds for infrastructure had yet to be spent by the local government to repair any of the sites. According to Edward Blakely, the czar of New Orleans recovery effort "Under city law," he said, "there has to be enough money in city coffers to pay for a project before construction starts." Blakely added, "funding projects has become a shell game of sorts since Katrina." What astonishes me even more is that New Orleans still after 2 years hasn't figured a way to either correct their city laws to allow proceeding faster, or are unwilling to do so.

To me this is another in a long line of political boundaries precluding relief monies getting to where they need to get to as soon as possible, and is one of the most egregious public oversight.

If you are reading this and are as disgusted at the response of our government bureaucracy to step up to the plate and want to donate to the Leary Foundation to aid in this undertaking feel free to visit DONATE TO THE NEW ORLEANS RESTORATION PROJECT and help.

Why are there NO Garth Brooks songs on ITunes?

I went to ITunes and was looking to download a couple of particular songs since the CD with them went missing into the same place as the single socks from the dryer apparently, and I was astounded that there are NO Garth Brooks songs on ITunes. Sorry just a little rant since I get most of my single music for my play lists from there.

Enough with the male enhancement and ED comercials already

It has gotten so bad that you can't watch any show anymore without one or the other of these types of commercials coming on. If someone wants to REALLY help men out, come out with a pill that we can take that will actually help us understand what women are really thinking, because after thousands of years of evolution we men still don't have a clue.

Stop the Screen Logo madness

Once again I am fed up with the continual "network logo" being displayed on nearly every network, cable channel, and satellite channel during the presentation of a show. Do these network big wigs think so little of our intelligence that they think we can't remember what bleeding network our favorite shows are on? Yet that is not the worst of it anymore.

It used to be just the little innocuous little logo down in the bottom right corner of the screen, (except on a 65" HDTV, that little logo is about 6" high and wide) but now they are inundating us with the torture of the bottom screen pop up advertisements during our favorite shows, (which takes up nearly 1/4 of the bottom of the screen and totally wipes out any subtitles) to blithely inform us of the new monster hit miniseries or other up coming show that they are sure we would miss if they didn't blast us with the full width of the screen messages, while we are trying to watch our favorite shows (Does anyone not know that "Frank TV" is on TBS after watching the MLB playoffs?).

One of my favorite channels (starts with "sci" and ends with "fi") has progressed with their on screen pop up advertising and logo placement to the point of annoying my wife so far as to quit watching some shows and actually doing housework during the usual "together" TV time now.

We must band together and end this totalitarian invasion into our living rooms.. write your congressman... (like that would help).... write the network.... (yeah ok that isn't going to do it either).... WAIT!!!! write the FCC!!! (I did that, and they politely told me to find another way to vent my dissatisfaction, but they did recommend that if the logo is burned into my HDTV I should write the manufacturer).

I guess I'll have to wait for the next technological breakthrough in time sliding viewing enjoyment.. the logo remover :)