An Impossible Task?

A brand new year is ahead of us. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years are past, leaving everyone, I hope, with pleasant memories and hopeful anticipation of the coming year.

I always enjoy those six weeks or so, especially when I recollect holidays past.

Often, I find myself wishing I could stay in those memories, but to do so is like the ostrich sticking its head in the sand. When he finally pulls it out and looks around, he recognizes nothing.

Life, however pleasant or unpleasant, has left him behind.

You and me, folks—we’re grown up. We’re children no longer with doting parents to solve our problems. That is up to us. And we have more than enough problems to solve.

We’re all facing a challenging year. If Big Banking isn’t turning the screws on us, then the politicians are feeding us lies. There are escalating problems in the Middle East. Genocide in Africa. Islam warns Christians in Nigeria to leave or be attacked. The job outlook is dim; money is tight; and neither Democrats or Republicans give a ‘Tinker’s damn’ about the middle class.

So we are, like the old homily says, ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t.’

You know as well as I there’s a whole slough of folks wanting to be president. I don’t know if a white Republican, a brown Libertarian, a red Whig, a black Democrat, or a green Martian will win.

Either way, I do not honestly believe you and me, the average Joe Sixpacks of this country, will find ourselves better off.

Washington, and I include all political parties here, has succeeded in setting up a convoluted set of connections that sheds accountability while enabling financial largesse beyond imagination. Those jokers get slaps on the wrist for behavior that would throw you and me in the deepest hole in the jail.

Perhaps, I should pause and take a step backward here and include local political entanglements also. There is more than ample evidence here in Southeast Texas as well as around the country and the world, that many elected officials are nothing more than crass barons of greed, perfectly willing to strip their constituents’ bank accounts for their own benefit.

Now, I have news for you. Maybe shocking; perhaps unbelievable; and certainly nothing new, but simply asking politicians to change won’t work.

Oh, they’ll agree that changes need to be made; they’ll assure us they’ll do all they can; and then as soon as we close the door behind us, they’ll stick another handful of greenbacks in their proverbial pockets.

Seems like to me these bloodsuckers are waiting in line for the plum political jobs; awaiting their turn at the trough of greed and wealth celebrated by the Potomac Two-Step.

Don’t believe me? Give me the name of a retired politician who lives on the median income of $50,000.00.

Like the Dodo bird, them fellers don’t exist!

What’s the answer, folks? Or is there one? Do we just simply move to the rear of the truck with the rest of the sheep?

I don’t know who coined the wry observation, but it smacks more of the truth than a lie. ‘An honest politician is one when he is bought, he stays bought.’

But there are a couple solutions, Blind Trusts or Term Limits.

Term Limits hasn’t worked. Sixteen states have term limits; nine for consecutive years, seven for lifetime. There were six other states with limits, but they were repealed, two by the state legislature; four by the state supreme courts.

I suggest term limits will not work for they must be put in place by legislators and judges, the very ones most affected by them.

That leaves Blind Trusts.

Lyndon Johnson was the first president to put his family wealth in a blind trust so there would be no question of impropriety; no question of using inside information for profit.

Why not require the same of Congress?

We send them to Washington to run the country. And we pay them well, $175,000 plus. Oh, yeah, and give them cost of living raises along with housing expenses.

Being in Washington, they are privy to financial information ahead of time, and more than one politician has made a fortune by that method.

Put their family wealth in a Blind Trust for the time they serve. They can’t touch it, so they won’t be tempted to do a little ‘insider trading’, a habit all too frequently taken advantage of by our congressional folks.

Now, most of those jokers up there currently won’t pass the necessary legislation, so we must do like the Tea Partyers and put in candidates who will carry out the wishes of America’s middle class.

An impossible task?

The realist in me says ‘yes’; the dreamer says ‘some day’.







rconwell@gt.rr.com

http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/

www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell

www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26

Coincidence or Politics?

A couple days back, an old classmate of mine from decades past sent me a few interesting tidbits of information that caught my attention. After reading the first scrap of Washington nonsense, I started to skip the second piece, but for some reason I went ahead and read it.

I’m glad I did. Makes me wonder once again; just what is going on up there in Washington. At first, I figured the two incidents were simply coincidence, but upon second reading and a little research, I’ve come to the conclusion the two events are part of a larger game that is being played out behind the ludicrous façade of politics today.

You decide for yourself.

Now, everyone is aware of the ‘Occupiers’ in New York, a group of protestors endorsed by President Obama. I’m not exactly sure what they are protesting, but that isn’t as important as the spot at which they are conducting their protest.

I had heard the park in which they have settled, Zucotti Park, is not owned by the city. It is a private park owned by Brookfield Properties. I often wondered why the trustees of the park didn’t order the people off.

Naïve me.

Guess whom they recently hired as their attorney? Vice-President Joe Biden’s son. But that’s not all. Sitting on the board of Brookfield Properties is New York Mayor Bloomberg’s live-in girlfriend, and now guess what company just received some of the last of Obama’s billions in stimulus?

If you guessed Brookfield Properties, go to the head of the class.

How is that for coincidence?

No wonder Brookfield doesn’t mind folks squatting on their property.

But our President doesn’t just have his finger in the New York pies. He’s also hard at work in the kitchen over in Wisconsin, a state that could be ‘the’ swing state in 2012.

Now, I’m sure this is just coincidence, but do you have any idea who will be tabulating the electronic votes in Wisconsin in 2012?

No one but George Soros.

And who is George Soros, you ask.

He is none other that the biggest financial contributor to Obama, that’s who.

Talk about a fox in the hen house.

Anyone care to give odds on who will win Wisconsin?

My ex-classmate closed his message with a quote from Joseph Stalin. I didn’t verify the quote, but it seems apropos here. “He who votes does not have power. He who counts the votes has power.”

I’ll bet Florida would second that.

Over the last few years, I’ve seen too many Washington ‘coincidences’ to believe very few are anything but carefully constructed events to achieve political gains.

Think back, if you will, to the days prior to the first Republican debate. A time was designated for the debate. The next day, the president and the White House announced a request for a joint session of Congress on that same date so he could give his jobs speech. He was forced to back down, but can you tell me with a straight face that such an announcement was a coincidence; that he was not deliberately trying to disrupt their debate?

I’m gullible, probably more than the average person, but I’m not that easy to fool.

Ever since the first stimulus, I’ve wondered about the recipients of the grants or loans.

I hadn’t thought much about the loan to General Electric until I ran across it during research of several sources online. To my surprise, many of the sources utilized the expertise of one writer, Walter Korschek.

According to Mister Korschek, sometime back word surfaced that General Electric had over a billion in worldwide profits as well as a billion in domestic earnings in 2010. In addition, they paid no income taxes, receiving in fact a two billion dollar tax refund.

For years, GE had been making overseas loans and receiving interest. According to a loophole in our tax codes, they paid no taxes on the interest.

The Democrats got their nose out of joint and swore to their sorely taxed constituents that GE would indeed pay taxes. Charley Rangel, at the time Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, decided to rewrite the code so GE would have to pay taxes.

And then a funny thing happened on the way to the forum.

One day Rangel stood ready drop the floor from under GE, tightening the noose about the neck of their loophole. The next day, he inexplicably removed the rope and tore down the scaffolding altogether.

An then a miracle. A few days later, a GE Foundation donated millions to New York City schools, several million of which went to schools in Charley’s Congressional District.

Coincidence? Or politics? Or a miracle?

You and I both know the president is always talking about spreading the wealth around.

Personally, he’s doing a lot better job at it than I care for. I don’t know how the wealth could be spread around any better than what old Charley Rangel is doing.

Rangel’s district is a model that Obama would love to see spread to the rest of the USA. The majority live in government housing, cash government checks, utilized government food stamps, accept government cell phones, use government health services, and take advantage of government social services.

On the other hand, it might be we should thank Obama. Had he not tried so overtly to move our country into a socialistic society, we might never have noticed just how far we’ve already slid as a result of back door politics and Congressional greed.

Irate Americans put many new faces into Congress in 2010. Our only salvation is to send that many more new faces to Washington in 2012.

Give us time, and we’ll win out.





rconwell@gt.rr.com

http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/

www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell

www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26

Power Corrupts

In a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887, Lord Acton stated, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”

Take a look at what we have in Washington today. Of course, Austin is no better, but luckily for us, the Texas legislature convenes only once every two years.

Pause and reflect. Think back to the number of legislators and congressmen who have had their hides nailed to the wall for almost every conceivable white-collar crime imaginable.

Just in our neck of the woods, I, as you, have witnessed many head to Washington for the first time, usually carrying all they owned in a four-year old Chevy. When they returned ten or twenty years later, they’re millionaires several times over.
Quite an achievement for the rank and file congressmen who makes $174,000 a year. Darned good budgeting, though given Washington’s spend-crazy attitudes, I don’t know where the newbies would learn to watch their money.

Who am I kidding? No one, that’s who. Most got their wealth with support from powerful individuals who expected a helping once the newbie congressman was able. Not all, but many.

Many of them served so many terms that they came to truly believe they deserved the seat—it was theirs and theirs alone. I witnessed one who lost after decades in congress explode in rage, spitting out the toxic suggestion that his constituents deserved the sorry candidate they got. Off camera, of course.

Most of those folks up there have honed corruption to a razor’s edge. They are so filled with their own self-importance that they believe they can do no wrong; that they know what is best for each of us; and that if we disagree, we are traitors and racists and bigots and even hate Mickey Mouse.

Look at how our president demeaned Arizona’s new law. I don’t know if it’s just me or not, but it seems he likes to throw his weight around. But he isn’t the only one up there throwing his weight around.

Up in Vermont in a pastoral setting of rolling hills covered with hay sits a two-story, red brick border crossing between the U.S. and Canada by the name of Morse’s Line. The crossing is about fifty miles southeast of Montreal on a lazy country road.
In this sleepy crossing, three cars an hour are considered heavy traffic. And most of them are visiting family. Said one of the retired custom guards, “We usually passed the day watching deer graze.”

And then the Department of Homeland Security, led by that All-Knowing Champion of Security, Clueless Janet Napolitano, decided to update the crossing. She also wanted several adjoining acres out of a dairy farm run by the Rainville family since 1946 that abutted the crossing.

Though the government had allocated 420 million for Homeland Security and planned to spend eight million plus upgrading the crossing, they only offered the Rainvilles $39,500.

The Rainvilles refused. Those acres brought in about a thousand bales of hay a year for the dairy herd of 150. At the current price of $3.25 a bale, after twelve years, the $3,250 would start coming out of their income.

Clueless Janet exercised her ‘power’ and told them either sell or the government will take it by eminent domain. (government talk for legal theft)

Now here’s what bothers me about the whole mess. First, why spend eight million upgrading such an out-of-the-way crossing? That is the epitome of government excess, spending just because they can, a behavior that is the reason the whole country is neck-deep in debt.

Second, why does Clueless Janet need several acres? What kind of crossing does she plan on building there in the middle of nowhere, a super Walmart?

And third, if they’ve allocated eight million to upgrade, how about buying the land at a fair or generous price instead of trying to steamroll the family into selling out? I’ll bet you if the Rainvilles were part of Napolitano’s family, they’d get a generous deal.

But then, the whole community jumped into the fray, and believe it or not, Clueless Janet started backing down. As of now, the whole thing is still up in the air.
Lord Acton was right, folks. Power corrupts.

It is time for us to send those jokers back to a regular job. If there is ever a
time to put in ‘term limits’, it could be with the fresh faces we vote in come November.