Privatize What?

Romney wants to eliminate disaster coordination, he thinks private industry could do a better job than Big Government. His ideology says that right now in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania privatized everybody could get things cleaned up and running. 

Why do Republicans want everything the Federal government does to be outsourced to the states?
Answer:  There is money to be made and they want it.
Huge profit centers exist at the state level when Federal tax dollars are funneled in.It's about the MONEY not you.

Imagine today there is no FEMA because it has been outsourced to each individual state. Instead of the greater part of the North East being helped by an umbrella government (Big...and i know that is a dirty word to some) who has spent days preparing for the worst, moved resources into position, coordinated with governors, mayors and first responders..... instead each of these states on the eastern seaboard must fend for themselves. They have to rely on their own ingenuity and hope that the private companies they have contracted with in case of emergency aren't damaged themselves. They have to believe that all their responders will not be personally affected by a mega catastrophe because no one from outside their state will come and help.

Romney wants to eliminate disaster coordination, he thinks private industry could do a better job than Big Government. His ideology says that right now in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania privatized everybody could get things cleaned up and running. 

Of course the dude's never been in a disaster and fail's to see that most of those affected are trying to get their own lives back on track first before trying to get the communities on track, or the power up, or the transportation moving.

Usually the argument is that if you live in an area where a disaster could happen it is your fault. Well are all the people who were in the path of Sandy at fault? Doesn't that mean that every place in the nation is at risk for some calamity be it hurricanes, floods, fires, earthquakes, tornadoes, blizzards, ice storms, heat waves, crop damage etc.? Is every person in the United States at fault just for living somewhere where something disastrous could happen? i hate that argument, it means everyone who lives north of Virginia and east of Ohio are at fault because they were in the path of Sandy..

According to the New York Times Congressional Republicans have forced a 43% reduction in FEMA grants over the last two years. How do you think Chris Christie feels right now knowing this job is bigger than he is? Don't you think Katrina exposed the weakness of a lack of planning and oversight? Who wants fifty pieces of uncoordinated states when disaster strikes?

When the Federal money goes to the state you don't hear much about it after that. Who gets discriminated against in a privatized system that is under State control? Does my street get cleaned of downed trees in an orderly manner or is it who can pay the most gets their areas cleaned up first? When does my power come back on? How much do I have to pay up front? Remember everything becomes a profit center when tax dollars are funneled into the private sector. Private companies are not mandated to work for the community they work for those who pay.

And what about NOAA? All those private weather forecasters getting their information from NOAA. High quality real time forecasting by a government agency coordinating with FEMA to make decisions days in advance of a catastrophe. Hooo Boy! Are the private weather forecasters going to charge you a premium just to figure out you might be in disaster's way? You think private companies are going to help you? 

Private management of a disaster that stretches along the entire eastern seaboard is a demented idea. Maybe vouchers will drain the water off your street or vouchers can get the tree off the transformer that blew up and started a fire. Anyone that thinks private enterprise can handle this is delusional. Privatization of government disaster relief is bad news for society at large.

Floating around the net today are images of helicopters flying in to pluck you out of danger. These aren't government helicopters they are private helicopters but first you must sign their portable credit card machines. This may be the reality in future if the privateers get their way. No signy, no savey.

What...you don't like For Profit Disaster Relief? That is what you get when you gut government.

Which party tries to look out for all of us? Think about it before you vote next week.

i wonder what will happen when they want to privatize the sidewalks then all hell will break loose?

See ya next week.

PS- Did anyone notice I repeated something twice?

Revealing Smiles

i have a quote on my refrigerator that says “The most wasted of all days is one without laughter” by ee cummings. i take it seriously and have spent a lot of my life observing and participating with people who smile and laugh. i tend to put a lot of store in a persons smile and how they laugh and find you can usually figure out which are the phonies and which are the real deal.

Usually the type of smile you view has a lot to do with how trustworthy you take a person to be. Most people, myself included, can spot an untrustworthy smile even when it happens so rapidly you might have missed it.

Fake smiles usually come from people who are talking out of both sides of their mouth. Their smiles don't look sincere, honest, approachable or friendly. They want you to think they are positive and charming and can change the world but actually they are negative or have some ulterior motive they want you to buy into.

A smile, on top of expressing joy can hide all sorts of things; embarrassment, confusion, fear, and anger, but it is really the eyes that can give you away. Apparently the muscles around your eyes can't be forced to look happy. A real smile includes raised cheeks and the bunching up of skin around them and this is how most of us gauge a person's sincerity.

Dr. Niedenthal who studies smiles says an embarrassed smile is often accompanied by a lowering of the chin. This lowering signals that the smile is trying to camouflage an underlying conflict. A greeting smile includes raising of the eyebrows and indicates a welcoming. She also says many of us flash power smiles while raising our chins so as to look down upon others.

Unfortunately Romney's smile just rubs me the wrong way. Every time i see him smile i think what a sly dude this guy is. His smile is so fake and contrived it makes me feel like someone has run their fingernail over a chalk board trying to alert me to the hidden agenda this man conceals. His smile puts me on alert, makes me uneasy, i don't believe it and i don't trust it.

When i was researching smiling i came across a comment by an Italian that said Americans smile more than other nationalities and that is because a lot of the smiling is fake. He claimed that other nationalities didn't use fake smiling as much as Americans. Other comments ranged on about how a smile can hide something dark, that confidence men use such smiles as well as pickpockets, pedophiles and politicians.

Dr. Niedenthal says some dominant power smiles actually say “You're an idiot, I'm better than you.”

i don't think i'm alone on this. Even Republicans have had a hard time buying into Romney's schtick and i think it has to do with his smile it just doesn't ring true. i think most conservatives would prefer to have someone else to support and i think it is because they recognize there is just something wrong with his smile.

i wonder if leaders around the world who were watching the debate the other night have any confidence that Romney stands for anything? What about the citizens of the United States? Romney changes his positions faster than you can change the channel with the remote. He agreed with President Obama on the finer points of our diplomacy during the debate but in weeks past lambasted him for the same policies. Now he says he is a peacemaker last week he was a warmonger and all the while he wears that awful smile. Who is this man? What does he really believe? How would he govern? No one really knows even those who are going to vote for him.

A man whose positions change from minute to minute and who has a smile that is suspect in so many ways just gives me the willies. 

See ya next week.

The Debate

Has anyone noticed that the world marches on while we mess around trying to find a leader or leaders who will have to start on the campaign trail before they even have time to govern. After two years of campaigning i think everyone in the country is sick to death of politicians trying to make you like them. Don't most of us want strong leaders not politicians that are effectively neutralized because they have to spend so much time raising money and campaigning.

Last night was just another detraction from the real problems we have mounting in this nation and all over the world. Neither man will ever have enough single power or time to govern the way they would like or solve the multitude of problems that affect the nation. Anyone thinking they can single handedly do what they said they would like to do last night is naive.

Our government is divided into three parts. None of them can work independently of the other. We have the Judiciary, Congress and the President. Laws are written by the Congress and go to the President for signing. The Judiciary rules on the laws and send them back to Congress. No President can ever make the changes Romney wants to make without the consent of the Congress and the Judiciary and to think otherwise is not to understand the laws that govern this nation.

So who do you really think can work with others? Who has spent his whole life working with and for others? Who has tried throughout his Presidency to the chagrin of his base to meet half way and try to compromise? Last night you saw a real leader in action. President Obama reinforced his commitment to everyone in the nation.

And just to set the record straight here are a few things i noticed about the debate.

1. Mitt said he wants no taxes on bank account interest, dividends, or the money you make off capital gains. Essentially what he was saying is that he doesn't want to pay any taxes at all because that is where he makes all his money. i guess 14% is even too high for him.
2. Those binders full of women's names he “asked” for. Apparently prior to his election women's groups all over Massachusetts put together the binder full of names and handed them to Romney . He never asked for them he was given them.
3. He indirectly accused single mother's for the violence in America.
4. Oil is a global commodity and the President has no control over the price of oil or the cost at the gas pump. Romney won't be able to control gas prices either.
5. Romney said automatic weapons are illegal in this country. NOT TRUE they are legal and he never answered the question.

So who won?

See ya next week.

Water People

Who said this? He is a water person which I found out a while ago and which further endears him to me.

“When I lived in Hawaii, I’d take a drive from Waikiki to where my grandmother lived—up along the coast heading east, and it takes you past Hanauma Bay. When my mother was pregnant with me she’d take a walk along the beach. . . . You park your car. If the waves are good you sit and watch and ponder it for a while. You grab your car keys in the towel. And you jump in the ocean. And you have to wait until there is a break in the waves. . . . And you put on a fin—and you only have one fin—and if you catch the right wave you cut left because left is west. . . . Then you cut down into the tube there. You might see the crest rolling and you might see the sun glittering. You might see a sea turtle in profile, sideways, like a hieroglyph in the water. . . . And you spend an hour out there. And if you’ve had a good day you’ve caught six or seven good waves and six or seven not so good waves. And you go back to your car. With a soda or a can of juice. And you sit. And you can watch the sun go down …"

i've been wanting to put up some of the pics i took while out in San Francisco but the politics of the election season thwarted that effort. So today i'm going to ignore politics and write of other things and sprinkle in pics from the trip.

Plato's piece on the Myth of Er recounts the tale of a man called Er who is killed in battle. When he is placed out for burial alongside his comrades who have also perished it is noticed that his body does not decompose like the others. While on the funeral pyre he awakens to tell of an unearthly place he has visited. He claims that seven days pass in this meadow that has four openings. Two to the sky going in either direction and two into the earth also going in either direction. Judges decide who goes up or down but Er is commanded to only watch the proceedings and take back to mankind what he has observed.

People were coming and going. Those from the sky back to earth were clean and bright but from earth to the meadow they were stained and dusty. All seemed glad to return to the meadow and recounted their different journeys and tales of suffering and joy.

City Lights my favorite book store.

For every wrong done to any man sinners had paid the penalty ten times over and having spent one thousand years below ground they were brought out to begin a new round of earthly life. Lachesis, one of the Fates, declared that each man chooses the life he lives and only he who chooses accepts the blame for that life. This became a rallying-cry among the champions of freedom of will during the early Christian era.

Plato's tale tells us we are responsible for the good and evil in our lives. The underlying doctrine of humanity, according to Plato, is that there is an element of necessity or chance but also an element of free choice that makes us live the lives we live. Many of us don't want to accept responsibility or even acknowledge the good and the bad that our nation spreads or the good and bad that we each spread. It behooves us to become more informed about what we do around the world,at home, and to each other.

If granted a day where no one knew who he was that was what President Obama would do. There are a lot of us who read this blog that will understand his attachment to the water. How could we go wrong with another four years with a water person?

Went to Yosemite too...great picnic spot here

Debate Thoughts

Like a slick car salesman Romney knows how to sell. He was poised, aggressive, well trained and relaxed unlike the President who has been running the country and couldn't take time out to get ready. Romney had volume and talked over Lehrer and the President so often i was yelling at Lehrer to actually do his job and moderate.

Although my view last night was that Romney had more time to speak in fact President Obama had four minutes extra but you would never know it. He was a gentleman extraordinaire and fortunately never lowered himself to the mud pit Romney's gaffs were trying to eek out. A lesser man may have succumbed to the temptation to correct him but he chose to leave that up to the media. He was his same measured self he always is. Not one to loudly try and dominate the debate.

FactCheck and PolitiFact have been working over time checking Romney's statements and if lies or half truths are indicative of how he will govern we are in big trouble if he actually wins.

More than one Fact checker has claimed Romney's saying that he could pay for the 5Trillion tax cut that he says his policies wouldn't trigger by giving a 20% marginal tax rate without raising the deficit is impossible. And that lowering the rate to 20% would give millionaires another tax break and raise middle class taxes by $2,000 even though he claims it wouldn't.

Romney's $716 billion claim against the President is half true. It doesn't take any money away from current recipients of Medicare but does reduce payments to insurance companies and drug manufacturers. And that unelected board can not restrict benefits nor determine care for anyone in order to reduce costs. The law specifically prohibits that.

But here is the big take away from last night and it may have happened because Romney realized he had missed out on a tax break others were getting. He said, “ You get a deduction for getting a plant overseas? Look, I've been in business for 25 years. I have no idea what you're talking about. I maybe need to get a new accountant.”

That one statement reveals the real Romney. He could care less about the rest of us and quickly thought about firing his accountant for not informing him about this tax deduction when offshoring jobs. He thought it didn't exist but it does and he never got a chance to use it. In fact in July Republican Senators voted to protect these giveaways by voting against the Bring Jobs Home Act. This is the real Romney not the slick, well trained, aggressive man you saw last night.

According to Think Progress Romney told 27 myths in 38 minutes. Go read them here

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/10/04/958801/at-last-nights-debate-romney-told-27-myths-in-38-minutes/

See Ya

White guys

Paul Ryan said the other day that we have lost 582,000 manufacturing jobs since President Obama took office. He wants you to believe that the President is responsible for that loss. What he failed to mention is that those jobs got off shored by CEO's that vote for and lobby for laws allowing them to move companies anywhere in the world  to make a profit and try to bring the money back tax free.

Now, if you put on your little thinking bonnets which party promotes laws that encourage companies to do this? Which party wants business to have carte blanch when it comes to world wide manufacturing?

Which party said let the auto industry die? It doesn't take a genius to understand why business wants Romney in office and why they think it will be so easy to delude their followers.

The cold dark heart of greed

And that word entitlement...when i think of the entitled i think of the elite, those who have enough money to do whatever their hearts desire. Those who can buy whatever they want, make demands upon all of us and still want more. i don't think of the homeless person or the person on welfare or food stamps as ever feeling entitled or even thinking they are entitled. When i go into an area of the island where subsidized families live  entitled is the furthest thing from my mind. Who ever turned that picture around was brilliant in taking the focus off the wealthy and putting it on to the poor.
What would an America shaped solely by Republican policy look like? Well according to a diarist who goes by the handle SYWTSAR this is what we have to look forward to.
1. No minimum wage.
2. No social security and medicare.  That includes disability.
3. No housing assistance for the poor.
4. No family planning or access to birth control.
5. No taxes for the wealthy.
6. No new roads.
7. No repairs on existing roads or bridges.
8. No maintenance of the electrical or sewage grid.
9. No rights for immigrants.
10. No safe drinking water.
11. No clean air.
12. No unpolluted earth.
13. No access to medical care for the poor.
14. No food stamps.
15. No safe conditions for workers.
16. No protection from discrimination or harassment.
17. No science taught in schools that is contrary to Creationism.
18. No limits on the number of hours employees would be required to work.
19. No limits on defense spending.
20. No restraints on the monitoring of U.S. citizens.
21. No assistance or restitution for workplace injuries.
22. No gun control.
23. No free speech, unless of course, you are a corporation.
24. No national parks.
25. No endangered species protections.
26. No food labeling.
27. No farm conservations rules.
28. No wildlife protections.
29. No protection from corporate malfeasance.
30. No freedom from or of religion and lots more war.
But the one saving grace for all the craziness he says is that they have alienated:
98% of our black population
65% of women
80% of Hispanics
60% of Jewish Americans
65% of Native Americans
65% of our young people
85% of scientists
Whats left? White guys?

See ya next week.

San Francisco

Blogging while traveling is not so easy. Only having access to an iPad, incompatibility between my camera and computer and not much time to think about what i want to write leaves me at somewhat of a loss.

Since this blog is not really about me i don't want to write about how much i'm enjoying this wonderful city by the bay, or feeding myself on treats unavailable at home, or my sore calf muscles from walking up and down hills, or freezing my butt off when the fog rolls in.

In my quest to try and avoid making false statements  i looked up a quote by Mark Twain that claimed he had spent the coldest winter he had ever had during a summer in San Francisco. Well it turns out he has been associated with a lot of quotes he never made and that is one of them. Apparently checking through his letters and published works  the closest anyone could come to crediting him with the quote was when he answered a question in a letter but quoted someone else.

Well regardless of who said it the quip is absolutely true San Francisco is freezing in the summer. But it is as charming as ever and i'm heading back out to enjoy it.
See ya next week.

Public

On the road again so the blogging this week and next will be light.
No pics.
Been thinking alot about education, corporations, money, power and the public and what it means to all of us as a nation. At some point some kind of discussion has to occur that relates to what the word public actually means and how it gets funded.
We seem to have lost sight of public responsibility for the nation, not just militarily but as a community of mixed individuals.
Historically we have funded the public endevors through taxes but now there is a concerted effort to reduce all things public and make them private.
The problem with making everything private is that the public gets lost in the quest for profit and supremacy.

Are you better now?

Here in the islands, not so good, we lost one of our major employers, electricity costs have gone out the roof and gasoline just keeps getting more and more expensive every week. Business's are closing for lack of demand and we have a 15% unemployment rate that is killing us. Did President Obama cause this...no...the international oil market caused our problem and nothing President Obama could have done would have changed our reality.

Four years ago the sky was falling, banks were on the brink of shutting down, money markets were telling us our dollars weren't worth a dollar any more, financial institutions were under threat of total collapse, the stock market was in free fall, houses were being foreclosed, real estate values were tumbling, people were losing their jobs and all of us rich and poor alike were on edge.

Is the nation better off than four years ago...HELL YES. 

You know that old saying that those who forget the past are condemned to relive it well i don't want to and i haven't forgotten where the Bush administration left this country after eight years in 2008.

Most of the rest of the world thinks we are better off too. They have their money tied up in our Treasury bonds and they wouldn't invest here if they didn't think we were not a good bet. We aren't bleeding jobs the way we were in 09 and the unemployment rate has been slowly going down. Taxes are lower than they were four years ago and international polls show the US is VASTLY more respected than it was during the Bush administration.

But the real question should be is the nation better off than it was three years ago because that's when things really started to turn around. Today Bin Laden is dead and GM is alive. The market is higher than its been in four years, real estate values have stopped going down, jobs are coming back and the bleeding has been stanched.

On another note:

Romney really put his foot in it this morning and yesterday...phony outrage, no facts, then creating lies to cover up, his statement about the embassy crisis was incoherent and inappropriate. Let a real President handle this please we need grownups running the country not political grand-standers playing games with a nation of real people.

If you want to know how our president makes decisions that affect millions of people every day read the latest article in Vanity Fair by Michael Lewis http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2012/10/michael-lewis-profile-barack-obama

And for any Republicans reading this that live here or have a second home on island and are thinking about their investments, think long and hard about who will have our backs.

See ya next week.

Picture Day

Getting the traps ready

The Democratic Party has barely begun their convention but already the differences are glaring.

Last week Republicans were invited into living rooms all across the nation. Those that turned on the TV sat back in their recliners and their sofas gazing at speech after speech that was trying to firmly plant a crushing need to get you off your duff and vote for their man in November.

Last week every time i turned on the Republican convention i saw a sea of white faces. Last night at the Democratic convention i saw the United States in all its glory. If any of you had ever pondered which party represented all of us just looking at the makeup of the two conventions should have clinched it.

i'm going to post pictures today. It is a beautiful day. Tell me which sunset you like the best. See ya Next week.

Loading the traps

August 29th, 2012    

 

 

 

September 4, 2012

September 3, 2012

September 2, 2012

August 30, 2012

Yellow Eyed Snapper Yummy Dinner

Blue Moon Aug. 31, 2012

Ghengis

A friend of mine asked me once how i come up with the different essay's i write every week and it made me kind of sit back and think about where they develop. When i first started this blog i wanted to concentrate on the similarities we all share, the need for food, water, shelter, love and safety and how every single one of us would die if those needs weren't met.

i wrote about different aspects of all those things for a long time then branched out into community. From there it was a small leap into politics which created a never ending stream of topics. Today i'm in the midst of reading a book about Ghengis Khan and the man has me mesmerized. i wanted to step back a bit because Ghengis Khan was a ruthless killer of men, women and children but also one who saw the benefits of uniting all the tribes of the plains of Asia into one people in order to stop the waring.

Ghengis had his own set of grievances, he had scores to settle and tribes to conquer but unlike most Khans he saw the value that could be attained by not killing his rivals off. Instead he united them to fight the Tatars and later other dynasties enabling him to expand his realm of influence and create the Mongol empire.

He was a dangerous, violent, cold-blooded killer a really awful man but one who had a vision. He and his generals killed millions of civilians and rivals during his campaigns in order to unite them all.

i have a really hard time with his methods for he was a man that spent his entire life killing in order to unite. He believed the end to war was to war, but in fact that was never the case for the wars just kept coming. There was no peace.

When you read about him you discover that he was tolerant of all religions, that he based his support for generals and lesser administrators on merit and not heredity or status. That acquiring money and riches was not his goal. That he may have tried to create the first civil state and believed in the equality of all men and women. He was not bound by custom and was open to advancing his concepts through the wisdom of others.

His Pax Mongolica at times had a stabilizing effect on trade, communications and the social, cultural and economic life of his conquests. He is credited with initiating the connection of the east and the western trade routes during his grandson Kublai Khans reign and it was said that during those days a maiden could travel in the realm safely on her own. But the wars went on and eventually his empire was destroyed.

So where am i going with this? i don't know. i find Ghengis fascinating, i like his ideas of unity and equality, i like that wealth meant nothing to him. i find common ground with his values for he revered his family and friends and rewarded honesty with his loyalty. i also find that his methods supports my opinion that war is not the way to create change for in the end he did not achieve a permanent solution. His empire lasted one more generation and self combusted. War never stopped and there was no peace.

Today the idolization of material things is a burden. If we could put aside objects and not be attached to them it would be easier to see that we are all part of the human cell, we are all in this together and together we can make a better world. The division that Ghengis tried to eliminate still afflicts us today. Instead of tribes we have Republicans and Democrats, poor and rich, educated and not.

What will it take to learn how to work together for common goals? Ghengis couldn't figure it out and it appears neither can we.

LaVallee Mailboxes

See ya next week.

What is a person?

Flamingo at Great Pond Aug. 2012

Abortion and rape have been getting heavy play in the media what with the Missouri Republican Todd Akins faux pas. The right have been stumbling all over themselves supporting and rejecting his statement, even going so far as to say he didn't really mean it, or he misspoke.

The problem is the right recognizes they have a major catastrophe here. Too many conservatives actually agree with Akin but don't verbalize it. Women all over the country on the right and the left are waking up to the liberties that people like Akin want to take away from them. Some call men like him the American Taliban who want to push women back into the subservient roles they had in the past. No birth control and no access to abortion even if you have been raped... just stay home and have babies.

Not really wanting to get into the whole abortion issue but concerned with the bestowing of rights on a fetus which many on the right want to do i've decided to publish some research i personally did years ago.

i think most here know that i'm not religious but i do enjoy studying the religious texts of all religions. Some of the most elegant language can be found in these ancient books and since so many people use them to guide their lives i think it's important to understand them. When i was wondering what actually constituted life i researched the scientific data and then went to the King James Bible to look up the religious view.

My personal belief is that you are not fully human or a person until you can breath on your own. The bible does address this and in some ways supports my own belief. So in the interest of sparking debate.

Here are passages that directly address the issue:

Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Ezekiel 37:5 Thus saith the Lord GOD unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live:

Ezekiel 37:6 And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the LORD.

Joshua 12:10 In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind.

Job 33:4 The spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life.

Psalm 33:6 By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.

Psalm 150:6 Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.

Isaiah 42:5 Thus saith God the LORD, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein:

Galatians 1:15 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace.

Unless you have breath, you can never praise the Lord, and without breath you are not alive nor are you fully human. The Buddhists believe it is very difficult to obtain birth as a human but once you have it is then that you can grasp the basic message of the Buddha. For the Hindu's we are all spiritual beings that have human experiences so the idea of person-hood does not exist at all. In Islam as in Christianity and Judaism Allah, the Lord, and God all breath life into the newborn babe.

So in my mind to bestow personhood and all the protections of the law for being fully human upon a fetus or a fertilized egg is wrong. Until that fetus can breath on its own it is not a human being nor a person and it seems the bible supports this.

Storms coming!

See ya next week.

Dark Money

i'm just wondering how many here reading have ever thought about money and good government. What influence should money have over our politicians and how do we feel about people who prefer to give money in secret? Don't cha think one question should be why they prefer to give money in secret and how is that good for the nation?

Do you know what dark money is, have you even heard the term or been exposed to its influence in the political process today? Mother Jones editors coined the term “dark money” after doing research into 501(c)(4)'s that were buying ads all over the nation. They wanted to know who was supplying these groups with their money and came upon a brick wall.

Historically there has always been a battle between those with money and power wanting to control the political process and all the rest of the population. The first campaign reform law passed by Congress was in 1867 to make it illegal to pressure workers at naval yards for campaign donations and it has continued ever since. In 1906 Teddy Roosevelt banned corporate contributions for any political purpose. He believed that open competitions kept out the criminals and corruption. Unfortunately the Citizens United ruling by the Supreme court in 2010 trashed that law and allowed corporations to spend as much money as they want on elections.

So today what would we label a free and fair election? Is it one where a 1,082 people out of a population of over 300,000,000 donate over “94 percent of all individual donations to super-PACs from January 1, 2011 to June 30, 2012. Those 1,082 donors amount to just 0.00035 percent of the US population.” MJ

Is this what we all consider a free and fair election? Where money donated to Super Pacs dominates the airwaves and pollutes the media with their small vision for society.

Here is another one for you. According to Mother Jones and their research dept. 47 rich individuals have given over $1,000,000 each, some as high as Sheldon Adelson who has given 36.3 million so far. Some will say more power to them if they want to control our elections let them.

Right now there are three groups that are using dark money to create what many will call a dark election if they are allowed to continue unobstructed. Karl Rove's Crossroad's GPS and American's for Prosperity partially funded by the Koch brothers operate as 501(c)(4)'s and hide their donors names as does the pro-Obama Priorities USA. These groups operate in the shadows and reveal very little about what they spend. Using money in this way in order to sway the voters leaves a bad taste in my mouth, i don't know about yours, but it seems that today there is too much money in politics.  This year may prove to be historic in the amount of money spent trying to influence this election.

When you don't know who is trying to manipulate you to vote or not vote, who is feeding your brain with goo to get you to vote for their guy its time to start wondering where this democracy of ours is really going. Do we approve of dark money? Should money rule our politics and elect our government servants? When do we start the conversation about private money financing elections and its corrupting influence? When do we start clamoring for laws that stop the free flow of private money?

If we continue to have politicians elected by private money the outcomes will not be conducive to a democracy or even a republic. Those politician's will appoint their stooges to regulatory boards, the judicial system and give sweet heart deals to contractors of their choosing. These “elected” officials will have no obligation to “all a we”. Is this where we want to go?

See ya next week.

I love rainbows

I love rainbows

Fill in either Conservative or Liberal depending upon which place you get

your propaganda from.

Logic is and never was the strong point of a _______________.

Those____________'s have been drinking the Koolaid again.

You are witnessing the fall of a great country aided and abetted by______________'s in Congress.

We played a shell game this morning where the_____________ media blocks a shot.

The lying and story telling by the ___________'s is what is ruining this country.

I wonder if the American people realize they are being duped by the ____________'s.

If the knee jerk portion of America would stop and think things through they would have a better chance of not being hoodwinked by the _______________'s.

Could the _____________'s become disgusted with what is going on, are these people beyond any sense of shame?

All the ____________'s think about is winning at all costs. Why don't the _____________'s look at where they are being led?

When will the _______________'s step up and chastise their own?

Let's not forget that it was the ____________ tax policy that got us here.

The _______________'s are a collection of people that represent the scum rising to the top of the morally and ethically bankrupt political pool. A pool filled by corruption as thick as a crude oil spill.

Somewhere on the south shore nice empty spaces

Now fill in the blank with Obama or Romney.

The more ____________ campaigns the more he exposes himself as a man completely and utterly without morals, dignity, or class.

Ultimately it's ____________ own constituents who will have to draw the line, who will have to say no you have gone too far and abandon him.

______________ is a job killer.

_______________ is the king of empty vessels and a shape shifter extrordinaire.

______________ is convinced his world view is correct.

The media needs to do a better job of calling out ____________'s lies and distortions.

Making shit up, that's all _____________'s doing.

i'm sick of the back stabbing by both sides. i hope some of you filling in the blanks recognize that both sides say exactly the same things to manipulate you and make you angry. My piece last week about limiting the campaign season would do away with a lot of this, but here are two more issues to consider.

Great Pond a wonderful birding spot

1. Why is it that this political season no one talks about the situation in Afghanistan? Just looking at the troop deaths alone in the past few months we had 36 in May, 42 in June, 29 in July, and for August it is pushing 10 already. No one knows why we are there anymore and it is ignored by the ______________

media. If the mission was to topple OBL then we have accomplished that and more. Bring them home.

2.  Setting the record straight. Statement by President Bill Clinton on Governor Mitt Romney's New Television Advertisement

New York, NY—Governor Romney released an ad today alleging that the Obama administration had weakened the work requirements of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act. That is not true.
The act emerged after years of experiments at the state level, including my work as Governor of Arkansas beginning in 1980. When I became President, I granted waivers from the old law to 44 states to implement welfare to work strategies before welfare reform passed.
After the law was enacted, every state was required to design a plan to move people into the workforce, along with more funds to help pay for training, childcare and transportation. As a result, millions of people moved from welfare to work.
The recently announced waiver policy was originally requested by the Republican governors of Utah and Nevada to achieve more flexibility in designing programs more likely to work in this challenging environment. The Administration has taken important steps to ensure that the work requirement is retained and that waivers will be granted only if a state can demonstrate that more people will be moved into work under its new approach. The welfare time limits, another important feature of the 1996 act, will not be waived.
The Romney ad is especially disappointing because, as governor of Massachusetts, he requested changes in the welfare reform laws that could have eliminated time limits altogether. We need a bipartisan consensus to continue to help people move from welfare to work even during these hard times, not more misleading campaign ads

“Remember a lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” Mark Twain

See ya next week.

A retired guy cleaning his fish!