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Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts

5.27.2012

America First before Politics


America First before Politics


While listening to the Interview by FAREED ZAKARIA who was interviewing Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles.  I was pleasantly suprised that Simpson had the guts to put America First before Politics. (emphasis added by Scotty)

At the start of the Interview he got my full attention when he called himself a "R.I.N.O. ...which means a Republican in name only because I guess of social views perhaps or common sense would be another one which seems to escape members of our party". (Its a great lesson for all of the Republicans in Office).

I admired Mr Simpsons- frankness in why the Republicans and Democrats are causing the turmoil that is hampering the rebound of the US economy .  I especially appreciated his direct comment on Re-Election when he said:

" if (Re-Election)..." means more to you than your country when we need patriots to come out in a situation when we're in extremity, you shouldn't even be in Congress.
He continues on to discuss the economy and progress needed to ensure continued growth.  
You can't cut spending your way out of this hole. You can't grow your way out of this hole and you can't tax your way out of this hole "Put that in your pipe and smoke it,"
To  bring about the progress that is needed to fix our economy while lowering our US Debt all Parties must be involved in solutions and learn how compromise is not always a bad thing.
"if you want to be in politics, you learn to compromise and you learn to compromise an issue without compromising yourself.

Show me a guy who won't compromise and I'll show you a guy with rock for brains."
Truelly pointing out that the lack of Partinanship is not helping the economy.

Mr Erskine Bowles then went on with the interview and pointed out his thoughts on where the economy was headed

If we have a negative effect of 2 percent of GDP, we'll be right back in recession and you better believe that the people of America will be calling on these members of Congress to do something.

So we think something will happen in the lame duck session. We believe it'll probably be a two-step process where we end up setting up a framework with a time-frame in order to get something done. ZAKARIA: Boy, that's pretty optimistic.

Lame Duck Session? What are they talking about.  We need Compromises ASAP.  What happened to the American Way of:

Everybody pitching in to do their part for the benefit of all?


Granted we Americans are a tuff nut and can handle anything thrown our way.  But what in the hell is wrong with our Elected Officials when they have to go behind the scenes and enact legislation during "Lame Duck Sessions".   



  • Do we really need to wait 6 blessed months for progress?   


  • Further Example of how the GOP is truely "Out of Touch" with Mainstream America.

If you too are tired of the Politics of the USA.  


Join me in voting a Democratic Ticket in the upcoming election.


My Best to You and Yours,
Scotty 

Helpfull Web Links:


Article transcripts to follow- supplied by CNN from the following listed web sites.




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FAREED ZAKARIA GPSInterview with Alan Simpson, Erskine Bowles; Panel Discusses Presidential Politics
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/2012.05.27.html http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1205/27/fzgps.01.htmlIn 2010, President Obama challenged the bipartisan duo to chair a commission to develop policies to bring America back to fiscal sustainability and they did. Many powerful Washingtonians on both sides of the fence applauded the proposal from the two chairs, but nobody ever did anything about it and this week, the dangerous carping over the debt limit began anew.
  1. Who better to talk about this than Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles who are joining me now from North Carolina?
  1. Thank you so much for joining me, folks.
  1. ALAN SIMPSON, FORMER WYOMING SENATOR: It's a pleasure.
  1. ERSKINE BOWLES, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: Great to be here.
  1. Senator Simpson, you've seen what's been going on these last few months. The House actually voted on the Simpson-Bowles proposal and it went down decisively.
  1. Paul Ryan, the leader of the House on fiscal issues, I suppose, said that Simpson-Bowles was the wrong way to go because there weren't enough spending cuts and there were too many tax increases.
  1. What was your reaction? That's your party.
  1. SIMPSON: Well, I think my party and I have different views on a lot of things. I guess I'm known as a "
  2. rhino" now, which means a Republican in name only because I guess of social views perhaps or common sense would be another one which seems to escape members of our party.
  1. Abortion is a horrible thing, but, for heaven's sakes, a deeply intimate and personal decision and men legislators shouldn't even vote on it. Gay-lesbian issues, we're all human beings. We're all God's children. What is that?
  1. And for heaven's sakes, you have Grover Norquist wandering the Earth in his white robes saying that if you raise taxes one penny, he'll defeat you. He can't murder you, he can't burn your house, the only thing he can do to you, as an elected official, is defeat you for reelection.
  1. And
  2. if that means more to you than your country when we need patriots to come out in a situation when we're in extremity, you shouldn't even be in Congress.
  1. ZAKARIA: But talk about Ryan particularly, because what I'm struck by is the Simpson-Bowles plan calls for an awful lot of spending cuts and, yet, those weren't enough.
  1. SIMPSON: Well, Erskine can tell you we don't call for --
  2. You can't cut spending your way out of this hole. You can't grow your way out of this hole and you can't tax your way out of this hole "Put that in your pipe and smoke it," we tell these people.
  1. This is madness. If you want to be a purest, go somewhere on a mountain top and praise the east or something, but
  2. if you want to be in politics, you learn to compromise and you learn to compromise an issue without compromising yourself. Show me a guy who won't compromise and I'll show you a guy with rock for brains.
  1. ZAKARIA: Erskine, you're hopeful. You think that some of the ideas gaining fraction and, you know, there's a kind of inevitability if you're going to do this, there has to be some approach that's pretty close to what you're describing.
  1. BOWLES: Fareed, I believe the markets will force us to. I've spent my life in the markets, as you know, and look at what's happening at the end of the year.
  1. We have about $7 trillion worth of economic events that are happening. We have expiration of the Bush tax cuts, we have the patch that's been placed on the alternative minimum tax that'll affect so many middle-class taxpayers, we have the payroll tax deduction that's expiring.
  1. We have these senseless, mindless, across-the-board cuts that come from the sequester that comes as a result of a failed super committee. You know, all of those are hitting at once and the economic effect of those just next year, about 2 percent of GDP.
  1. If we have a negative effect of 2 percent of GDP, we'll be right back in recession and you better believe that the people of America will be calling on these members of Congress to do something.
  1. So
  2. we think something will happen in the lame duck session. We believe it'll probably be a two-step process where we end up setting up a framework with a time-frame in order to get something done.
  1. ZAKARIA: Boy,
  2. that's pretty optimistic.
  1. BOWLES: And don't forget it doesn't have to be exactly what the Simpson-Bowles plan has, but it's got to be a balanced plan. You've got to have some small amount of revenue that comes from reforming the tax code and there's broad agreement that the tax code needs to be reformed.
  1. So I believe that you will find -- if, in fact, we can get the right kind of momentum going, I think I'll find strong support. We've been working with 47 members of the Senate, an equal number of Republicans and Democrats, the same kind of group in the House of Representatives.
  1. And I believe these -- this group will come together during the lame duck to put forward a plan like this. Now, I don't think the plan itself will be implemented during the lame duck, but I think there will be an agreement that we have to do some kind of balanced plan.
  1. If we don't, then I think you will see the markets really take a really adverse look at the country and I think you'll see us lose another downgrade in our credit and I think you'll see interest rates pop up and, before long, you'll see the availability of credit lessen. So I think we could have a real problem if we don't do something and do something relatively quick.
  1. SIMPSON: And you know who will get hurt the worst in that process when interest rates go up and inflation kicks in, the little guy, the one that everybody on their hind legs talks about, "We're doing this for the little guy, the most vulnerable, the unfortunate." Well, Merry Christmas, those guys are going to get eaten when interest rates and inflation kicks in.
  1. ZAKARIA: Gentlemen, stay with us. When we come back, we're going to ask Senator Simpson and Erskine Bowles what they think of President Obama's leadership on this issue, what they think of Mitt Romney and there'll be a few other things as well.
  1. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
  1. ZAKARIA: And we are back with Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, the authors of the Simpson-Bowles plan for a rare opportunity to have a conversation.
  1. Senator Simpson, I want to ask you -- I want to ask both of you, but I want to ask you what you think of President Obama's embrace of your plan or lack thereof.
  1. And I'm going to start by asking you -- just bear with me because I talked to him in January, mostly about foreign policy, but I did ask him about Simpson-Bowles. And he probably got -- this got him more agitated than at any point in our conversation.
  1. This is what he said. He said, "I've got to tell you most of the people who say it if you ask them, "What's in Simpson-Bowles," they couldn't tell you. First of all, I did embrace Simpson-Bowles. I'm the one who created the commission. If I hadn't pushed it wouldn't have happened because the Congressional sponsors, including a whole bunch of Republicans, walked away."
  1. "The basic premise of Simpson-Bowles was we have to take balanced approach in which we have spending cuts and we have revenue increases. And although I did not agree with every particular thing that was in it, what I did do is take the framework and present a balanced plan of entitlement changes, discretionary cuts, went ready to make a deal."
  1. "I presented this plan three times to Congress. The core of Simpson-Bowles, the idea of a balanced deficit reduction plan, I have consistently argued for, presented to the American people, presented to Congress."
  1. Is that fair?
  1. SIMPSON: Well, he does get a little testy and we all get a little testy, but the president -- I wouldn't have done this if I didn't regard him as our president. I accept that. He's my president, too. And it's ugly stuff out there.
  1. There's a lot of hatred in the world, hatred toward politicians, hatred toward the president, hatred toward Democrats, hatred toward Republicans, but I can tell you this. If he had embraced our plan, he would have been ripped to shreds.
  1. Erskine can tell you a little more. He visited with him personally alone for an hour-and-a-half, but he would have been ripped by the Democrats saying, "Why you rotten -- you're digging into the precious, precious Medicare."
  1. And the Republicans would have rejected -- if he'd embraced the Republicans, en mass, in the House would have rejected it. So, either way he's going to get hammered so he's playing the waiting game.
  1. ZAKARIA: Erskine, a lot of economic experts say, look, the right solution for the United States right now is obvious, which is you need some stimulus now, particularly given the very low interest rates, the very high levels of unemployment in the construction sector.
  1. The government should spend some money repairing and rebuilding the infrastructure, but that would only be viable and particularly something the markets would celebrate if it was tied to a long-term deficit reduction plan like Simpson-Bowles.
  1. Do you buy that basic idea that if your plan were adopted as a ten-year plan, it actually gives the U.S. government some leeway to make some necessary investments now?
  1. BOWLES: Yes, I truly believe that the only thing standing between the U.S. and sustainable growth is having a sensible, responsible, long-term fiscal plan. I believe if the world believed that we were going to put our fiscal house in order that you would see substantial economic growth in the future.
  1. But, again, I got back to what's happening at the end of this year. We have $7 trillion worth of economic events that are going to hit the fan in December.
  1. And if we don't set up to them -- if we don't stand up for them and we don't do the right thing, if Congress doesn't act, it doesn't put this partisanship aside and doesn't make some compromise, you'll have a negative impact on GDP next year of at least 2 percent. That doesn't make any sense.
  1. ZAKARIA: Alan, what do you make of Mitt Romney? Romney's first ads are out and when he says, on day one what is he going to do and he says he's going to approve the Keystone Pipeline, fine. But then he says and, then, we're going to have tax cuts.
  1. This has, of course, been the, you know, kind of a Republican strategy for a while. Do you think -- given what you're describing, I can't imagine you think day one what a Republican president should do is propose tax cuts?
  1. SIMPSON: Well, I wouldn't have voted for him if I'd have been in Congress. How could you vote for a tax cut when you were doing two wars on the cheap? You had two wars you were fighting. You had things that were -- the government -- all the income from the government was only taking care of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security and you do a tax cut.
  1. Every time there was a surplus and the last time was when this fine gentleman was doing it in '96, you can't get there. But you don't have to do a tax cut, get that out of your gourd. You go into the tax expenditures and start knocking that stuff off and that's where you get your revenue.
  1. BOWLES: Fareed, we have the most inefficient, ineffective, globally anti-competitive tax code that man could dream up and what we need to do is broaden the base, simplify the code, use -- get rid of this spending in the tax code and use about 90 percent of the money to reduce income tax rates for everybody and use about 10 percent of the money to reduce this deficit.
  1. You know if you think about the debt today and the interest on the debt, it's kind of -- you know and put it in relationship to something else, we spend about $230, $240 billion a year on interest on the debt today even at these current low rates.
  1. Fareed, that is more than we're spending today at the Department of Commerce, Energy, Education, Homeland Security, Interior, Justice and State combined. And if we don't do anything, if we just, you know, put our heads in the sand and hope things will get better, we'll be spending over a trillion dollars on interest by the year 2020.
  1. That's a trillion dollars we can't spend on this country on education or infrastructure or high valued-added research. And worst of all, it's a trillion dollars we will be spending principally in Asia to educate their kids and to build their infrastructure and to do high value-added research over there so that the next new thing is created there and the jobs of the future are there not here. That's crazy.
  1. ZAKARIA: All right, final question. Erskine, there are rumors in Washington that President Obama has asked you whether you would be interested in being the Secretary of Treasury. Do you have a comment?
  1. BOWLES: He hasn't asked me to be Secretary of Treasury for sure.
  1. ZAKARIA: If he were to ask you, would you accept?
  1. BOWLES: No, I'm living in North Carolina and that's where I want to live. I'm the happiest in my whole life, Fareed.
  1. ZAKARIA: Gentlemen, pleasure to have you.
  1. SIMPSON: I would just say we -- all we do, Erskine and I, is math. We don't do Power Points. We don't know charts. We do math, but we don't do BS or mush so join us.
  1. ZAKARIA: Maybe what we should try and get -- and do is for the first time in the history of the republic, have co-Secretaries of the Treasury, one Republican and one Democrat. SIMPSON: Boy, if we could get our hands on that script.
  1. BOWLES: I don't want a job, thank you.
  1. ZAKARIA: Thank you very much, gentlemen.
  1. SIMPSON: Thank you.
  1. BOWLES: Thank you
  2. .







10.03.2011

Canadian Tar Sand Pipeline Political Corruption


Keystone Pipeline Lobbyist Had Cozy Relationship With State Department Staffers, New Emails Show


Opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline proposal continued their assault Monday on what they consider a corrupt federal approval process for the project, releasing dozens of new email messages between State Department employees and a lobbyist for the company behind the pipeline, TransCanada.

The emails, part of a growing cache obtained by the environmental group Friends of the Earth, focus on the interaction between TransCanada lobbyist Paul Elliott, a former deputy campaign director for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's failed 2008 presidential bid, and representatives of the State Department, which is currently weighing approval of the Keystone XL project.
While no emails between Clinton and Elliott have been released, the newest messages reveal a cozy and solicitous relationship between Elliott and State Department staff -- particularly one member of the senior diplomatic staff at the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa, Marja Verloop.
"The emails between Verloop and Elliott are extremely friendly and illustrative of a cozy and complicitous relationship," Friends of the Earth said in a memo released Monday morning. "They are filled with emoticons and contain an invitation to visit Ottawa's 'winter wonderland,' acknowledgment that Elliott obtained his job as a lobbyist 'precisely' because of his connections, and an offer by Verloop to hand-deliver an invitation to Elliott. The emails also indicate that Elliott succeeded in securing multiple meetings between TransCanada and high-level officials at the State Department."
In one particular exchange from September of last year, Verloop is seen cheering for Elliott after he secured support for the pipeline from Democratic Montana Senator Max Baucus. "Go Paul!" Verloop writes. "Baucus support holds clout."
previous cache of emails concerned interaction between Nora Toiv, a special assistant to Secretary Clinton's chief of staff, Cheryl Mills. Friends of the Earth suggested those emails provided "evidence of agency bias" and showed that "the State Department was doing favors for TransCanada during the Keystone XL review."

Last week, Friends of the Earth called on the Justice Department to open an investigation into Elliott for violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires that "persons acting as agents of foreign principals in a political or quasi-political capacity to make periodic public disclosure of their relationship with the foreign principal, as well as activities, receipts and disbursements in support of those activities."
State Department officials have previously argued that the email exchanges only demonstrate that Elliott -- an aggressive lobbyist by any light -- was nonetheless unable to gain audience with key agency decision makers, and was instead routed to lower-level staff with no influence over the permit application.
Friends of the Earth argued in a letter to DOJthat Elliott failed to register.
The $7 billion, 1,700-mile proposed Keystone XL pipeline would carry crude oil from Alberta across the border with Canada in Montana and traverse five other states before reaching refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast. Because the project would cross an international border, a permit is required from the State Department.
Intense opposition to the pipeline project by a variety of environmental groups and, increasingly,citizens in states where the pipeline would run, have delayed the issuance of a permit for years, but the State Department is expected to render a decision on the project before the end of this year.
Friends of the Earth, along with the Center for International Environmental Law and Corporate Ethics International, sued Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last May after repeated attempts to obtain correspondence between Elliott and the agency through the Freedom of Information Act were rebuffed.
In late August, however, the State Department began to comply with the request, delivering 34 pages of emails. Friends of the Earth says more documents are expected.

reposted from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com

#FeelTheBern




4.17.2011

Re: Congress 2011-IT'S ONLY A DREAM

Subject: Congress 2011-IT'S ONLY A DREAM
Guest Post by: Russ Hacker


IT'S ONLY A DREAM

The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only 3 months & 8 days to be ratified!  Why?  Simple!  The people demanded it.  That was in 1971...before computers, before e-mail, before cell phones, etc.

Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took 1 year or less to become the law of the land...all because of public pressure.

I'm asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise.

In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message.  This is one idea that really should be passed around.

Congressional Reform Act of 2011

1. Term Limits.

  12 years only, one of the possible options below..

  A. Two Six-year Senate terms
  B. Six Two-year House terms
  C. One Six-year Senate term and three Two-Year House terms

2.  No Tenure / No Pension. 

A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.  

3.  Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security.

All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately.  All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. 

4. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.

5. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise.  Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

6. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

7. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

8. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/12.  

The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen.  Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves.


Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career.  The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work. 


If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only take three days for most people (in the U.S. ) to receive the message.  Maybe it is time

THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!!!!! If you agree with the above, pass it on.




--
Regards,

Russ Hacker
913.593.3480 (cell)
rhacker3@gmail.com 




--

Scott's Contracting
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4.13.2011

Politician Joke

Diapers and Politicians should be changed often, both for the same reason- EDs Rentals
Diapers and Politicians should be changed often, both for the same reason- EDs Rentals
Shared via Facebook

1.24.2011

Corporation Election Spending- Petition Sign-Up

We're asking every state legislator in the country to back adopting resolutions supporting the only remedy we have left to correct the Supreme Court's awful Citizens United decision: a constitutional amendment clarifying that corporations are not people.

It will take a long term campaign but a constitutional amendment is the only way to permanently undo the ruling.

Citizens United has already has a huge impact on our democracy. In 2010 spending on elections topped $4 billion, by far the most ever spent on a midterm election and even matching the total spent in the 2008 presidential election.

We've amended our Constitution before in moments when we needed to make fundamental changes to how our country works. Right now is one of those moments because giving corporations the full First Amendment rights of people is threatening the integrity of our democratic process.

A compiled petition with your individual comment will be presented to your state legislators.

Sign the Petition

Full petition text:
"Corporations aren't people and shouldn't be able to corrupt our democracy. We need as many state legislatures as possible to get behind the call for a constitutional amendment to reverse the Citizens United ruling."
*Your Name:
*E-mail:
*Your Street Address:  
City:
State: *Zip:
Your message to your state legislators: (optional)

After you click the button below, we'll send your name, address, and comment to your state legislators.

(see privacy policy below)
Privacy Policy (the basics): We do not share the information you’ve given us with unaffiliated groups without your explicit permission. For petitions, letters to the editor, and surveys you’ve signed or completed, we treat your name, city, state, and comments as public information. We will not make your street address publicly available, but we may transmit it to members of Congress and to the President as part of a petition. MoveOn will send you updates on this and other important campaigns by email. If at any time you would like to unsubscribe from our email list, you may do so. For our complete privacy policy, click here.
Please submit unanswered questions here: http://pol.moveon.org/feedback/
The " Support a Constitutional Amendment: Corporations Are Not People " campaign is brought to you by MoveOn.org Political Action™.


Corporations aren't people. We all know that. But in last year's Citizens
United decision, the Supreme Court gave corporations the same First
Amendment rights as you and me. The result was record breaking spending by
giant corporations to try to buy our elections.

We must take our democracy back. The most direct remedy we have left to
correct the Supreme Court's awful decision is a constitutional amendment
clarifying that corporations are not people.

I signed a petition urging my state leaders to support a constitutional
amendment to reverse the Supreme Court decision. Can you join me at the
link below?

http://pol.moveon.org/constitutionalamendment/?r_by=&rc=comment_mailto

Thanks!

References

John Marshall And The Constitution: A Chronicle Of The Supreme Court (1919)The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme CourtThe Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries That Defined AmericaThe Supreme CourtThe Supreme Court

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