Impeach and Convict Donald Trump and Get the People’s Business Done.

Dear Senator

I am writing you to express my disgust at the behavior of the President and the willingness of the Republican caucus's determination to protect Donald Trump. I will not repeat the plethora of laws and indignities Trump and his administration have committed. I want you to understand the facts of the investigation and be truthful to the American people on what is discovered. The results are obvious that Trump is nothing more than a two-bit mob boss and should be impeached, convicted, and removed from office so his stain can be cleaned from the fabric of these United States.

From the way that you and fellow Republicans are defending Trump I can only conclude that the GOP caucus and Senator Mitch McConnell are involved in much of the same corruption. The Republican party has lost its way and no longer has the citizens of our country as its primary concern. The GOP is now ruled by big money contributions from fossil fuel interests, health care insurance, pharmaceutical and other big contributors that only have their profits in mind when asking for you allegiance that you willingly give away for these contributions. I understand who your REAL bosses are, and they do not care about Democracy or the United States. I need you to break free from this corruption and again work for us, the citizens of this great country.

There are over 140 bills that are important business of the people and have been passed by bipartisan votes in the House and are waiting in the Senate for votes. These bills will make improvements in the lives of millions of Americans in health care, education, ballot access, government corruption, gun safety, and most importantly environment. All these bills are waiting for you to vote and pass but are being held in a black hole created by Mitch McConnell and your party.

I need you to do two things. Convict Donald Trump and remove him from office and pass the bills the American people are literally dying for. In my opinion if you are not acting to reduce corporate corruption or passing laws to improve the environment and reducing climate change you have no business in government.

I do not fill your campaign coffers, but I do pay your paycheck. Do what is right for your state and the citizens of your state. Impeach and remove Donald Trump and pass the bills before you.

Sincerely
Gary DeVaan
Hopkins, MN

In Defense of an Idiot

Never ever is there any excuse for someone to act violently against anyone, let alone our elected officials. To act against our elected representatives, no matter what office is an insult to your fellow Americans, Citizens, and civil society. Basically, your saying that your fellow citizens have made a bad decision, and voted for a person who is unacceptable to society and that person must be removed from office immediately. Violence of any kind is a rejection of civil society, but violence against elected representatives is an attack on our system of governance and civilization itself. Civility is what we need now more than ever.

However, I don’t think the anger James T. Hodgkinson felt was misplaced. As a politically active liberal, who sees the conservative party as corrupt and self-centered, this last election was very frustrating. It’s understandable, no, predictable, that someone felt the need to take matters into his own hands. I don’t know the mental health history of Mr. Hodgkinson, or for that matter his mental state on Wednesday.  Clearly, he was angry. I just think Mr. Hodgkinson felt as I do, that if the country doesn’t start taking care of it’s citizens soon, people will become desperate.

I don’t want to start a rant against Republicans here, because what the country needs is more political unity. However, from my perspective, it seems that when they win elections they take full advantage of their position without concern or respect for the opposite party, or more importantly their voters, or for that matter the spirit of the constitution, or again the welfare of the country. They do everything in their power to win the next election through redrawing legislative districts and restricting the rights of voters to name a few. All the while proposing and sometimes passing legislation that is no more than huge handouts for the wealthiest among us at the expense of the safety net below the rest of us.

As far as we know today Mr. Hodgkinson wasn’t mentally ill, he was a politically active citizen who was at the end of his rope. He wanted better things for his children and grandchildren and saw those advantages for working people being sucked into the giant vacuum of tax cuts and special benefits being collected by the .01%. What Republicans, conservatives, and the uber wealthy need to understand is that as more and more people, regardless of political persuasion, begin to reach the end of their own ropes, more people will need to try to take matters into their own hands. If things keep going the way they are, the rate of citizens coming to this conclusion could reach a critical mass.

What we need is less “winner take all” politics and more accommodation for the rights of both parties. For both parties to respect each other and their voters. To respect the traditions of the Congress and the bureaucrats who work in it. Of course this won’t happen unless the partisans and the press don’t begin to show some restraint.

To prevent this outcome we need two functional political parties who represent actual people in this country. I think the Democrats do represent real people. I’m biased. I do not think the Republicans do, nor do I think they are functional. This summer will be the test. If they cannot pass a major bill or budget, they will be proven to be able to win elections through stacking the deck and massive amounts of money from their corporate overlords, but not able to govern. I also believe they don’t represent the people who voted for them. Many Republican voters who are un-moneyed, are likely to be hurt by much of the legislation proposed by this Republican majority. Surly these people didn’t consciously vote for laws that will hurt them. No.

I can hear people thinking “poor snowflake, can’t win the election and get his way. Try winning an election then you can rig the election to your advantage, not like you wouldn’t.” It’s true, when Democrats were in power in years when the districts are constitutionally mandated to be redrawn, we do draw the districts in our favor. But not with such blatant precision has the other party has over the last 20 years. Republicans have even redrawn statewide legislative maps in years when the task was not mandated. Nor have we tried to prevent likely Republican voters from voting through legislation or amendment. That wouldn’t be right or fair.

The truth is, the Republican party has been taken over by the .01%. The Koch, Mercer, DeVos, Adelson, and a very few other families pretty much run the party. Moderate Republicans have been primaried out of existence. Any Republican who dares to talk about climate change for example, or propose solutions to it, are immediately given notice that they will have a primary, usually from someone far more to the right. If the have any courage a moderate will stick to the issue and do their best to convince the voters that it’s the right thing to do, but too many times they reverse themselves to avoid the primary challenge.

These families who run the Republican party are the type of people who expect their wishes to be obeyed. That’s how they’ve been treated all their lives. Most of these people are trust fund babies. Most if not all of their wealth was inherited, so they’ve been pampered since childhood. 

The politics of the families is far to the right of most Americans. Many are former John Birchers, some whose parents were sympathetic to fascists, and some are direct decedents of the robber barons of the 1920s. Are these the people who should be in charge of a major political party? Let alone the country? This is why there is such income inequality. This is why so many fathers and mothers have to work 2 jobs for a subsistence living for their children. These people fight against a living wage, health care, transportation, and infrastructure, anything they can do so the government will tax them less.

These families have the resources to create think tanks, university programs, and covert organizations to control media and government agencies, and have used them to influence legislation, influence the press, (they own most of it), and in the end influence voters. They influence all the federal elections, State elections in most states and selected local elections such as school board and city council.

Some of their successes are turning the working class against organized labor, making us believe that wealthy people are somehow better human beings simply because they are wealthy, making people in rural America believe that urban dwellers and minorities are to blame for all their suffering, and the biggest fallacy of all, that lower taxes create jobs. These are long term projects to try to create an American mindset that agrees with they’re point of view. All of it is specious at best.

All this effort, all these structures, all these people, are used mainly to consolidate more money and power. As if more of what they already have will make them better somehow. Is it some kind of perverse contest?

It turns out Mr. Hodgkinson was an idiot with a bad temper. He had no right to do what he did. I just wish more Americans were angrier about our country being taken from them. I wish more Republicans were angrier about the hijacking of their party. I wish the oligarchs understood that harming the American people in the long run is detrimental to everything they may (or may not) have worked for, a prosperous, dynamic country, where a person with hard work and a good idea can become successful. Not a place where only the winners survive, and all the little people can be squashed.

Dysfunction, incompetence, and inconsistent.

The President had a good week.

He has gotten his Supreme court nominee onto the court, at great cost to the republic, but he got it done. The sacrificing of the filibuster, a long-held tradition of the United States Senate, and any hope of a less polarized congress was the casualty. He doesn’t care too much. That has been his dysfunction, he doesn’t care about much.

On Monday, he said he didn’t care about whether Assad stayed in power in Syria or not, Friday he wages war against Assad and possibly Russia. We could call it inconsistent, you might give him a pass on that since I might have changed my mind considering the atrocity unleashed by Assad, but I wonder if he thought the whole thing through. It doesn’t look like it.

The real inconsistency is his work on his health care plan, he said “everyone covered for less money, go to any doctor you want,” to negotiating with the “Freedom” caucus to take away health insurance from possibly more people than had gained it under the Affordable Care Act, with the likelihood of higher premiums with less coverage. All he wants is a win.

As of today, of the 553 key positions that must be approved by the Senate Trump has only nominated 24. There are 28 more who have been announced but not yet sent to the Senate for approval. This is only part of the 1200 positions that require Senate approval. There are another 3800 or so total political appointees that have not been sourced. The reason for this is some kind of loyalty test that many potential candidates have failed. What about qualifications for the job? Is he willing to substitute competence for loyalty? Just that he hasn’t made the appointments is incompetent.

With the failure of their health care bill and any compromise on the horizon. Any tax bill looks to be just another fight among the Republicans, I don’t hold out much hope that the Republicans will be able to govern at all for the next 2 years. They’ll get some small things done. Repeal any climate saving rules for the oil and coal industries that were imposed by President Obama, make some rich people richer by making it easier for banksters to siphon off money from our retirement accounts. But they won’t be able to pull off the big transfer of power and wealth to the already obscenely rich and obscurely powerful.

I feel that If Mr. Trump survives his first term, and we have not had a nuclear event, a major war, or a financial meltdown, I am expecting one or more of these. I will consider his presidency a success. The United States will have dodged a bullet.

The best part for me, of this dumpster fire of an administration, is that we may never again have to hear “why don’t we let a business man run the government” Clearly that is a bad idea.

Refuse to use Plastic.

We all hate plastic. We hate plastic food containers, plastic water bottles, plastic shopping bags, plastic product packaging (I really hate blister packaging), and all the little crappy toys and nick-knacks that we see in every convenience store. We hate plastic in the oceans, in the landfills,  anywhere in the environment and the chemicals from plastic in the food chain.

My wife Peggy and I are eco consumers. We use reusable bags, bottles and cups. In our household we don’t buy anything or at least resist purchasing items with plastic packaging, and if we have to we will pay more for something not packaged in plastic, or at least in recycled/recyclable plastic and everything that can, does go in the recycling bin. We use bar soap, bar shampoo, bar shaving soap & a brush and refill glass bottles for other household products. Lately we have been relaxing some because our city started accepting any plastic with a recycling label, numbers 1-7. Most, but not all packaging is one of those so we've been buying more things in or made from plastic.

Then I discovered the Plastic Pollution Coalition website through some tweets I've been receiving. This opened my eyes (again) about the serious nature of plastic pollution. The realization that only 93% of recyclable plastic produced is recycled. Even when it is recycled, it’s energy intensive, and the new product is still many times, thrown away.

My question for the reader is should we discourage recycled/recyclable plastic? Peggy and I have a small online store that sells some recycled plastic items, bowls & utensils and we sell BioBags biodegradable plastic-like bags for the kitchen. They are all great products, but are they equally bad for the environment as virgin plastic? My thought is no, but they may not be much better for the environment than virgin plastic.

While I still think that as a nation & society, in the mean-time, we need to recycle all plastic that exists, but we really have to stop making any new plastic.

We as consumers need to demand better packaging options from wherever we buy anything. Write that letter to Costco, Target, & Wal-Mart to stop selling items packaged in plastic or items made from virgin plastic. If you buy durable items like benches, picnic tables or waste baskets, buy ones that are not plastic preferably or made from recycled plastic as a second choice. Look for the products that have recycling information on the package, if there isn’t any, don’t buy it.

We as citizens should pass laws to limit the manufacture of virgin plastic. Until plastic can be recycled and re-recycled like aluminum cans, no consumer item can be made from virgin plastic. All plastic products and packaging should have recycling information on it. More money needs to be spent on recycling programs and more research into the health risks that plastic in the environment creates. Existing plastics need to be recycled into fence posts, telephone poles or something that doesn’t get thrown into a landfill or worn down into microscopic bits that end-up in our food, water, and us.

Chemicals from plastic are in our food chain, therefore in us and in our children. It may be a small thing for one person to write a letter or use a reusable cup, or recycle a yogurt cup, but when all of us do it we become a market force and it makes the governments and corporations react in a positive way.

First They Came After Me

First they came for the communists,
I did not speak out;
As I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I did not speak out;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
As I was not a trade unionist.
When they took the Jews,
I did not speak out;
As I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

These words by Rev Martin Niemöller have stood as a warning to pluralistic societies all over world.

With a constitutional amendment on the ballot in Minnesota that proposes to deny some people the right to marry the person they love, this poem needs to be brought to our attention again. This poem should serve as a Red flag whenever a segment of our society is denied rights.

I am not a homosexual. I find the thought of gay sex a distasteful as anyone can, but I also know what it is to love someone with all your heart. There is not one way to express love.  No one can say to me the way I make love to my wife is wrong or evil, because it is born out of love.

Some people say that allowing gay marriage will make their marriage less in some way. I know it will make our marriage stronger and more important because we will share the institution with everyone.

I hope someday soon the Niemöller poem can be revised to:

They freed the homosexuals
I am not gay
But I spoke up.

Speak-up! Vote against this amendment.

Tax the Rich

As our State begins a shutdown due to the pigheadedness of Republicans, it’s time to understand who they are fighting for. I have heard a thousand times “Don’t tax the job creators”. But let’s think about that statement. We are suffering from unprecedented unemployment, corporations and banks are swimming in money, but they are not creating Jobs, why? Because consumers are tapped out, the middle class is cutting back because so many of us are unemployed or under employed we’re not spending any money. The rest of us are afraid we’ll lose our jobs next. Business is having a hard time finding customers. In spite of the improvements in manufacturing, we’re still at about 80% of capacity. If I owned a business I wouldn’t hire anyone if I didn’t think I could keep them busy.

The problem is not that businesses don’t have the money; the problem is that there is no demand.

So if Consumers can’t feed the economy and business can’t or won’t invest, who will make the investments to keep the economy going? Like it or hate it, the only institution able to kick start the economy is the government.

So the idea that 90% of the people in our state should suffer higher tuition, poorer roads, less police & firemen, larger class sizes, less help for the elderly, higher property taxes, have to cut back our family budgets further, and lay off thousands of state workers, so some fat cat can keep a couple percent of income tax is stupid.

To be fair, not all business owners are swimming in money. Many are existing hand to mouth just like many of us. Also, not all, in fact MOST of the wealthiest Minnesotans are NOT business owners. So to tax the wealthy will not affect most businesses and we can create a mechanism to filter out those that are businesses.

So write your legislators and encourage them to move on the budget and stop protecting the wealthy at the expense of the remaining 95% of citizens.

Birds of a feather

My wife and I happened to be in Washington DC when the Rolling Thunder motorcycle parade began it’s endless procession around the mall with Sarah Palin on one of the Harleys. How fitting it is that these two have come together. A half term governor of Alaska who toys with the conservative right and the press for attention and fame, and the cadre of Harley riders who will trailer their bikes across the nation to ride in parade formation, rev their engines, seeking attention, and pretending to be bad boys.

To be fair Rolling Thunder does help veterans and look for missing POWs/MIAs.  As a motorcyclist I would be happy to be part of the demonstration, but I would have ridden there. I also would have been very pissed if I found out after the fact that the event was co-opted by any presidential candidate let alone, an incompetent Sarah Palin.

4 Steps to Restore Our Democracy

Our nation has endured many dangerous and demanding times. When we thought the Democracy might be torn apart from external and internal forces we have come together and met every challenge before us. One advantage we have, that has helped us in our times of need, we have been able to elect leaders that fit the times and were willing to sacrifice political capitol to make correct and courageous decisions that brought our nation and our democracy through these crises.

We now have challenges on many fronts. Some of these crises are overblown but many, too many, are in need of real solutions, solutions that take political courage and may require unpopular legislation. We have an ever growing national debit. We have an un-winnable war and one or two brewing. We have Public health and Social Security programs that are on the verge of going bankrupt. Our children are failing in our schools at an alarming rate. We have India and China who are poised to eat our economic lunch, and China may not as malevolent a world leader as the US has been. We have a potentially civilization ending environmental crisis that, if you choose to believe the people who do know, this crisis will have direct affects on our population within 50 years. Oh and there’s terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and the Middle East. All of these crisis, and I’m sure you can add a couple more, need timely and smart solutions for this country and the world to survive.

With the political climate of the last 30 years we cannot eliminate the best ideas or exclude the best people from serving in public office. I believe it is true that qualified candidates for public office and for leadership positions remove themselves from consideration because of the risk involved in public life. The risk of having to carry water for a special interest when that person does not agree wholly in the message or path that interest forces the elected official to pursue. The risk of ruining a family or a career if past indiscretions are aired in public, or just the idea of having to schlep around you district or state in order to raise money to get elected every two years. I also believe that the best ideas are left on the table because the political environment won’t tolerate them or because they come from one unpopular train of thought or doctrine.
Below are 4 ideas that I hope will fix or at least move our political process forward. These are changes in the law that other more knowledgeable people than I have proposed many times in the past.

We need the can-do spirit and attitude that we employed 30 years ago, where government, if needed could move quickly and decisively on behalf of the American people and the world. This IS the best country in the world and it is time we decided if we want to keep it the best, and if we are willing to make the investments and sacrifice we need to make it so.

 
Reinstate the Fairness Doctrine
The Press is the 4th branch of our government. It keeps elected officials in check, and if it’s doing its job, it prevents any one entity in our society from controlling any part of our government without a complete examination in the public eye. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Unfortunately parts of the press have been co-opted by the powerful and power hungry. All major newspapers and television networks are now owned by large corporations and they are exerting control on stories and investigations by those press affiliates. Rather than examining the pros and cons of an idea or group, some parts of the press is playing cheerleader on behalf of powerful interests and the already wealthy.

After the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords it should be clear to all Americans that our political environment has become distorted and overly adversarial. Even though the shooter turned out to be apolitical, just the fact that this is the first thing everyone assumed (including myself) was the motivating cause of the shooting, shows an amount of guilt that the media and elected officials are holding onto. We cannot continue to demonize each other the way we have for the last 30 years.

The Fairness Doctrine was a policy of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), introduced in 1949, that required the holders of broadcast licenses to both present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was, in the Commission's view, honest, equitable and balanced. One rule in the Fairness Doctrine was called the “Personal Attack Rule”, this rule applied whenever a person (or small group) was subject to a personal attack during a broadcast. Stations had to notify such persons (or groups) within a week of the attack, send them transcripts of what was said and offer the opportunity to respond on-the-air. I think that would be fair and it would help tone down the rhetoric we see on television and talk radio.

Many other parts of the doctrine would be useful today. One rule banning a single company from owning multiple of broadcast stations, and newspapers in the same market. This would guarantee more ideas in the marketplace. The idea of the Fairness Doctrine was to make as many ideas available to the electorate as possible. When the rule was repealed in 1987, it was thought that with cable TV and later the internet, many new ideas would be available and the doctrine was no longer necessary. However what happened was this; points of view and opinions began to monopolize channels, stations and whole corporations, with one point of view or another. And now the electorate is segregated, conservatives watch FOX and to a lesser degree, liberals watch MSNBC and we are beginning not to trust each other. Hostility is the next step. People naturally gravitate to the channel or source of news they agree with and both are denied an honest and fair representation of the other, or many other sides of any issue. Worse yet not only is one side promoted over the other, but the other side on some programs are castigated and demonized as extremists and evil people. Sometimes you’d think people with a different opinion from the hosts of a political program would steel from your mother and kill your children. You’d think that people would be able to see through this type of blatant hyperbole but there is always someone who isn’t in on the joke, like Byron Williams who took Glenn Beck up on one of his rants and tried to kill the CEO of the Tides Foundation, a non-profit in San Francisco, or as could be the case, shoot a congresswoman.

In any case, some rules about journalism need to be applied to the current media landscape. We cannot continue to allow the people of these United States become further alienated from each other.

Public financing of all Congressional Elections
The reality of a congressmen’s life, unless they are independently wealthy, is that he or she is a professional beggar. Every two years they press the flesh of lobbyists and other contributors, in order to build a campaign fund to ward off the next challenger. If this congressperson is in a competitive district, or his/her party is becoming unpopular that becomes a full time job unto itself. The lobbyists are more than happy to fund an incumbent, but for a little assurance of getting their way, they may fund the challenger too. I don’t want my representative selling himself to lobbyists for campaign funds; I want him to learn about issues I care about, learn what his constituents want and need, and work the levers of government on OUR behalf, not on behalf of anyone with a fat checkbook.

The other problem with our current campaign financing system is that even if your Representative is an honest person and not willing to trade a campaign contribution for a vote or favor. However if a large contributor/lobbyist calls this congressman after the campaign, he WILL pick-up the phone. I don’t know if you have ever tried to call your congressman lately, odds are, at best you’ll be speaking to an aide, more than likely an intern. Back to the qualifier at the beginning of this section, if they are wealthy, we have to be sure they don’t have an ax to grind in government. This is not always true, but it can be.

The most important advantage of Public Financing is it keeps politicians honest.
Public financing of campaigns is the only way we can take the begging out of the job description and give Representatives the time to do their job well. It will also make the office more competitive. The effort to make public office term limited was a lazy way of not being able change representation. People were frustrated that the same person held an office for decades. But what if that person was doing a good job? What if the people liked what he or she was doing? Do we just force them out anyway? Public financing for congressional campaigns would make it easier for the citizens to change representation without a draconian rule that kicks them out no-matter-what.

Redistricting by Fair and Non-Partisan Committees
Every 10 years after the census, every political boundary, from precinct to congressional district, is re-drawn to reflect changes in the population. In most states this is decided by the state legislature. The thing is they (Statisticians in the legislature) know pretty well how everyone votes, and can estimate likely voting down to the street level. Precincts, neighborhoods and streets are traded and altered to create friendly or unfriendly legislative districts for incumbent officials.

It’s more like the elected officials are choosing the voters than the voters choosing the elected official.

In Minnesota, after the legislature takes a crack at this puzzle, the Governor gets to approve the plan. If he doesn’t, the plan goes to an appointed judicial panel. This is good because Judges are less political and trained to be fair. California Doesn’t even let the legislature try; the task goes directly to a panel of judges.

More states need to move to this type of system. It will prevent abuses like the Texas redistricting that happened 2 years after the first redistricting in 2002 where Tom Delay illegally funneled money to state legislature elections to win the Texas legislature, so they could re-re-district the state to create more “Republican” congressional districts. It worked! The following election Republicans picked-up 5 seats.

While you can say, this is someone taking advantage of the existing rules to benefit their party (with the exception of illegal funding). It is not good for the Democracy. It’s not right that once in power; a party can ensure their grip on power and thus taking that choice away from the voters.

Rewrite the Legal Definition of Corporations
Corporations are a great invention of our society. They provide the tools for entrepreneurs and innovators to build organizations that provide needed services and products to consumers and create capitol for further investment in other enterprises. They are intended to be a tool of the Democracy for the benefit of society. Since the turn of the 19th century Corporations (and I’m sure before then) the national government has become a tool to some degree of the corporations.
I own stock in corporations through mutual funds like thousands of other citizens. And while I think it is extremely important to vote and get involved with your government to try to make a better world. It may be more effective to use the proxy ballot I get every now and then and vote for or even lobby a member of the Board of Directors on one of the companies that I own, in part. If you can influence BP or GE to make a serious investment in renewable energy it may do more good than getting a congressman elected. And that of course is the problem.

In politics, if you show up, you make a difference. If you vote, you make a difference. Corporate board elections are very complicated and closed. As a small shareholder I’m not invited to a shareholders meeting. The only reason I get the proxy ballot is because the corporation is required to send me one. And it is a proxy, not an actual ballot. Of course the more shares (money) you own the more votes you have. Corporate governance is not very democratic.
Case in Point: The Citizens United v Federal Election Commission case in the Supreme Court needs to be reversed. It is a travesty to Democracy. That decision makes money equal to speech and those with more money are now able to speak, yell really, with a bull horn, out of every speaker in the country literally, whereas us mortal Citizens are only able to have $2300 worth of speech. If money is speech then only those with money will be heard. If corporations can contribute an unlimited amount of money to any or all campaign(s) and I can only contribute $2300 (like I can afford to donate that amount). That makes them more of a citizen than me. They have more “voice” than any human citizen and can afford to use it.

Just the fact that there are corporations that are “to big to fail” should cause some unease at the size of these companies, and the might they have to influence elections and the direction of our country. Their only purpose is to make money for their shareholders, NOT for the health or good of the Country. The Citizens United ruling must be reversed. Corporations should have LESS say in the governing of the Democracy than human citizens. Corporations are supposed to be a tool of society, not the other way around.

I add this suggestion with some reluctance for two reasons: While Corporations have started wars, assassinated democratically elected leaders and manipulated our government with ease to the benefit of themselves and in many ways harmed the society at large, they are the economic driver in our country. They are why we are rich and happy. Corporations are an Integral part of our society. The second reason is honestly, I am not an expert. I am not exactly sure how the law should be changed. I only know corporations should not have as much influence over our government either with campaign contributions, or the billions of dollars they spent on lobbying elected officials.

In most cases CEOs and other corporate officers and board members are inclined to do the right thing. But they are only human. If a CEO can get a Senator or congressman elected to change a policy or regulation, and that allows a corporation to create more profit for the shareholders, it’s just a good investment. Really isn’t that all that matters?

In Conclusion
To me the political atmosphere in this country is so much more toxic than it was 30 years ago. Conservatives are whipped into a frenzy every evening and liberals are amazed at the lengths Republicans will go to win. It seems that politicians aren’t working for the middle class or the average American, they’re working for someone else who we can’t see and don’t really know anything about. These changes will be very hard to enact because there are some very selfish and moneyed forces out there that would rather keep things just the way they are.

These suggestions I believe, are some basic changes that would help our country deal with the major issues before us, and strengthen our Democracy in the process. They are mechanisms that protect us from corporations, the wealthy and elected officials themselves. They will make a better informed electorate and more honest elected officials. These ideas are not particularly clever. They are not something new that no one had ever thought of before. These are old ideas that are in essence going back to what the country did in the 1950s.

Oil leaks are a sticky business

I’m afraid it’s time for me to criticize my President. The President whom I have campaigned for, supported and loved since he became a candidate.

The Deep Horizon Oil Spill fiasco is completely out of control. This morning the situation was not compared to Bush’s Katrina but to Carter’s Embassy Hostage Crisis. The difference is not subtle.

While Bush demonstrated that he didn’t have an interest helping New Orleans during Katrina. He appeared to be lazy and didn’t care, like it wasn’t his job to do anything. When he did finally figure out that it was his job, he was totally ineffectual and incompetent.

Jimmy Carter on the other hand didn’t have any control over what happened to the hostages in Iran. He made the struggle with Iran his only concern after the revolution. He didn’t have the resources to negotiate with a regime of this kind that the world had never had to deal with before. He was destined to fail we see in hind sight, and he owned it. The problem is when a President of these United States says he’s going to do something; the people expect and demand action.

President Obama’s issue is that, besides the federal government not having the expertise or equipment to stop the oil leak, it’s beginning to appear that we also don’t have the resources, capacity, or command structure to keep the oil off the beaches.

The fact that BP, a major contributor of the president’s presidential campaign, can tell the EPA that they plan to continue using a dispersant that the EPA has ordered them to cease using gives me pause. Is BP an example of a corporation with its hooks into the federal government so-far that they have rendered the government ineffective? Like a bystander? A proverbial man leaning on a shovel watching other people work? I’m afraid that is the impression we’re beginning to get. It certainly isn’t what I had in mind.

The Government is giving the orders and BP must follow them.

My advice for the government is two fold. One, get a court order to stop BP from using any more dispersants, or at least unapproved ones. Two, the federal government should start hiring those out-of-work fishermen (and anybody else) to start stringing boom, skimming oil, let them get involved in the clean-up.

Another thought is that I don’t like about the whole idea of dispersants. Isn’t the idea to clean this thing up? Not to hide the problem, but to actually retrieve the oil from the water. Instead of trying to disperse the oil, we should be trying to collect it into one place. Dispersants are old thinking that the “solution to pollution is dilution”. Not so. We have to REALLY clean this up. We should be mixing the oil with straw, or any kind of biomass to soak-up the oil. That would make it easier to pick-up and dispose of it. I also think it could be more effective and easier to do.

In the end, President Obama has been a good president. He has done a lot of good for this country. He’s smart, engaged and has some great ideas. I just wish he’s think out of the box on this issue and start kicking BP in the ass some more.

Tell Republicans to GET TO WORK!!!

If I were a Republican I would be ashamed of my party right now. They are trying to prevent the Dems from doing anything, so much for being the loyal opposition. The Democratic government was elected to fix all the wrongs of the Bush era. But between Health Care and Jim Bunning’s recent standoff, to financial sector regulation, energy and environment legislation, deficit reduction and of course any job bill, they are all held back by Republicans.

Why do Republicans want the job if they won’t want to do any work?

In health care reform, The President has bent over backward to include republican ideas. He has included some ideas from Republicans that aren’t very good in my opinion and dismissed ideas that should be included (like the public option) in order to gain their support. At every committee level the Democrats invited Republicans to offer input and more than half of their amendments were included into the bill. The bill has most of their ideas in it including tort reform and a national exchange where insurance can be sold across state lines, but they still won’t vote for it.

The reason for the attempt at bipartisanship is that Democrats did not want to treat Republicans like they were treated when Republicans controlled both bodies of congress. Shut out.

Republicans are working for the short run. In a myopic strategy they are only working for the next election. They don’t see the long term. If they want the right to govern again they have to have the long term in mind.

In spite of all the bluster over the deficit, I believe if they were in control again they would run up the deficit again as they did under, George W. Bush and Reagan/Bush. History is not an ally to Republicans. Citizens remember that Democrats and Bill Clinton were the only recent government to end deficit spending and begin to re-pay the debit.

If you are a Republican please encourage your representatives to GET TO WORK! We need to get health care done and then energy/environment, jobs and banking regulation. Please stop holding up progress and get to work!!!