Hoarding the Wealth

As our country approaches an artificially contrived "fiscal cliff," our leaders are telling us we need to reduce the deficit and yet generate growth. That's great; we can all agree on that. So what's the problem? Let's do it.

The problem is we want to do that without sacrifice. We want the "other" people to  make the sacrifice. We are not interested in doing our fair share.

George W. Bush tried to tell us that if we gave a "temporary" tax break to the obscenely wealthy, they would invest in America and create growth and jobs. The result was the "Great Recession". As a result the government had to infuse large amounts of money (probably not enough) to keep the Bush Recession from becoming the second Great Depression.

Now, the Republicans are trying to extend those very same tax breaks for the extremely wealthy. It should be obvious to everyone that this did not work and it's time to end this gift to the wealthy. It's time they pay their fair share. This is a no-brainer first step.

Then what?

I would suggest that Congress:

1) eliminate oil and gas subsidies. These companies are wallowing in profits; they do not need tax-payer support - welfare.
2) eliminate agricultural subsidies. As with oil and gas subsidies, they may have been a good idea when initiated, but now it is simply welfare for the wealthy. In fact, agricultural corporations receive a subsidy for the gas they use in their farming operations.
3) penalize corporations that move American jobs out of the country.
4) reward corporations that move over-seas' jobs back to the US.
4) institute a "Stock Transaction Tax" of .005% ( 1/2 penny per transaction). Tax based on the number of transactions -- only fair. Much like the fee on a toll road. Whether I drive a large Cadillac SUV or a Smart Car, I pay the same.
5) adopt Warren Buffett's proposal for a minimum tax on high incomes:
          30%     for $ 1 million to $ 10 million
          35 %   for anything above $10 million
6) refuse to fund military projects that the Pentagon does not want.
7) eliminate the mortgage-interest deduction for vacation homes. You can deduct mortgage-interest on only one mansion, the one you designate as your residence.

If these measures were taken, we would not need to talk about defunding school lunch programs, Social Security, Medicare etc. The wealthy would still be obscenely wealthy, and the middle class might have a chance, and the old, the disabled, the impoverished, the veterans and the children might a chance of sharing in the American Dream.

Our great country is not broke. The money is available, but it's being hoarded.  We have to require that the wealthy (and therefore powerful) stop hoarding and pay their fair share.

It has been said: "For everyone to whom much is given, of him shall much be required." (Luke 12:48)


       
         

Chambliss Rejects Un-American Pledge

At no point did it ever occur to me that I would be writing in praise of Georgia's Republican Senator,  Saxby Chambliss. In addition to not being a fan of his chicken franchises, the number of issues we disagree on is prodigious. And yet today I find myself ready to applaud him on his recent act of breaking ranks with the conservatives when he said he is ready to throw overboard Grover Norquist's antiquated anti-tax pledge.

"I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge," he told WMAZ-TV. "If we do it his way then we’ll continue in debt, and I just have a disagreement with him about that."

The 20 year-old pledge sponsored by Grover Norquist required that those who signed it "solemnly bind themselves to oppose any and all tax increases."  Many congressional  Republicans signed the pledge and Norquist has been holding the pledge over their heads ever since. (According to Norquist's website, 39 senators and 219 members of the House have signed it.)

As Saxby Chambliss' recent rejection of the pledge exemplifies, those who signed the pledge and were willing to abide by its requirement were acting in direct conflict with their oath of office. When those congressmen and senators were sworn in, they took an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, and that Constitution requires  among other  objectives, establishing Justice, and providing for common defense , "We the People...promote the general Welfare."

Congressmen and women who take a private "Pledge"  which could potentially conflict with their Constitutional oath  have crossed a dangerous line. Which is more important: their Tax Pledge or their Constitutional oath? Obviously a conflict of interests. Voters should have demanded that candidates value their constitutional oath of office as their primary obligation rather than some "Pledge" proposed by a guy who never stood before the voters.

Apparently, Senator Chambliss is one Republican who has chosen the welfare of the country above Norquist's  simple-minded, self-interested solution to governing this great nation. 

We can only hope that the senator from Georgia is really serious about serving the "general welfare" of the country and that other Republicans will honor their Constitutional oath more than Grover's irresponsible pledge.

Bishop Seeks Friday Abstinence

Last week in his opening speech at a meeting of US Catholic bishops in Baltimore, Timothy Cardinal Dolan of New York, suggested that it might be time for the Church to return to pre-Vatican II practices. In addition to re-establishing "Confession" as an integral part of being a Catholic, he suggested the bishops should consider ruling that US Catholics abstain from eating meat on Fridays.

In case you have forgotten, prior to 1966 Catholics were forbidden to eat meat or meat products on Fridays. To do so was a sin that could result in eternal damnation Then in 1966, Pope Paul VI eliminated the requirement and suggested that Catholics fast and abstain voluntarily and suggested non-dietary practices such as prayer and works of charity. Since then most US Catholics abstained from meat only on the Fridays of Lent.

In a radio interview  after his speech, Cardinal Dolan suggested that the 1966 ruling was a mistake and that US Catholics should return to Friday Abstinence. When pressed for a rationale for Abstinence, the Cardinal said that  US Catholics need "identifiable markers," external signs that will identify Catholics as Catholics. In fact, he lamented the absence of other "identifiable markers" such as nuns wearing habits and the traditional genuflection, both of which have their origin in Medieval Europe. He thinks we need more external signs such as ashes on the forehead on Ash Wednesday.

This fascination with the need for external sign strikes me  as being contrary to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Did he not tell us that if we are going to fast, we should do it and not let others know that we are fasting? He also reminded us: "I repeat , you will be able to tell them by their fruits." (Matt. 7:20) True Christians and Catholics do not need "external markers" to identify themselves. If our lives and works do not identify us, then external markers markers are not going to do the job. A nun does not need a habit to proclaim her Christianity  her dedication to helping the poor and disadvantaged tells us more about her than a silly black dress. In fact, Jesus had an issue with the Pharisees because they flaunted external markers.

The Cardinal's concern about external markers is superficial  and insulting.

 In 1966 when Pope Paul VI presented the concept of penance, fasting and abstinence , he gave Catholics credit for being adults who were capable making decisions for themselves. Cardinal Dolan wants to go back to the days when the Church treated its members as children who need to be told how they are going to fast, abstain or practice acts of penance. US Catholics do not need their Cardinal to tell them when to abstain from meat; they are quite capable of deciding how and when they will abstain. Is the Cardinal going to suggest that a Catholic who observes a "meatless Monday" instead of abstaining on Friday is going to face eternal damnation?

It appears Cardinal Dolan and many other bishops of his ilk  are choosing to take the Catholic Church back to the Middle Ages when bishops were royalty and the people in the pews were their serfs.

Perhaps it is because of this autocratic and condescending attitude that a majority of American Catholics, 25% of the electorate, chose President Obama over the bishop's choice in the 2012 presidential election  (Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, CNN)

P.S. And I am a  big fan of a  Friday Fish Fry.

Secession: The New Racism

Residents in thirty states across the country have filed "secession petitions" to the Obama administration's "We the People" program, which is featured on the White House website. * 

The Civil War, no matter what one calls it ("War Between The States," "The War of Northern Aggression" or whatever), was about slavery.  South Carolina and the other southern states chose to secede from the Union in order to preserve slavery and President Lincoln fought to preserve the Union.

Today, these people saying that they want their state to secede from the Union are so transparent that it is ridiculous. Face it, they are racists who are offended that a black man has been elected, (not once, but twice), to live in the White House and lead our great country.

At one point, even the governor of Texas, Rick Perry, a Tea Party kind-of-guy, was floating the possibility of Texas seceding, but in an attempt to become more mainstream and rational,  has since  changed  his mind.

One would have thought that Americans had put racism behind us, but apparently there are still some among us  who consider the color of one's skin, whether it be white, brown or black, an indication of one's worth and character.

On the other hand,  that racism should rear its ugly head at this point in our history is to be expected. Racism is based on fear, and the demographics of the last election give the old power structure of wealthy, white males something to fear. They are no longer the majority. Their overwhelming support of Mitt Romney was of insufficient  importance.  The people of color (Asiatics, Latinos, and Blacks), the women, and the young carried the day for President Obama. On top of that, Pew Research predicts that the number of Latino voters will double to 40 million in the next twenty years. That is the new reality, and the wealthy, white males are reluctant to admit it. 

As a consequence, the more extreme among them are calling for secession.

It is interesting to imagine what a state like Arizona would be like after it seceded. For one thing, many of these people who want to secede live in states that receive more federal money than they pay in federal taxes. In fact, most of the "Red States" like Arizona get more than they pay.

But what would  Arizona be like after secession? Will they simply defund health care, education, transportation, and infrastructure projects? Will they have a border patrol to keep out undesirables from the other fifty states? Will they require a passport to enter ?  Would people from Colorado have to go through customs to enter Arizona? Will they levy import fees on gas tankers delivering gasoline from out of state? 

The list of questions could go on and on, but the bottom line is that a particular state needs the rest of us more than we need that state. Seceding is the equivalent of committing suicide because the sky is blue.

*(In response to the calls for secession, there is another petition: "Strip the Citizenship from Everyone who Signed a Petition to Secede and Exile them." I guess one extreme always generates another.)

Jon Husted, You're Living in the Wrong Country

Jon Husted, you have made a mockery of the office of Secretary State in the great state of Ohio.

In fact, Mr Husted, you're living in the wrong country. It's obvious you do not  believe in participatory democracy. You disavow the Gettysburg Address, in which President Abraham Lincoln (a Republican) called for "government of the people, by the people, and for the people." There are at least three amendments to the Constitution that reinforce the idea that governments, state or federal, cannot  restrict or abridge a citizen's right to vote. What is your problem, Jon Husted. Why do you not understand democracy?

Jon Husted, you are living in the wrong country. You should be living in Russia or Iran. Those countries practice what you were hoping to do in Ohio. In those countries the party in power rigs the voting system to their own advantage.  Exactly what you and other Koch Brothers officials have tried to do here. Thank God in the USA we have an independent judicial system which put a stop to your continued shenanigans.

And even then you had the audacity to order county election boards to defy a judge's order and not restore early voting hours. You relently only when being faced with the prospect of being hauled into court.

Your last minute directive to election officials on counting provisional ballots was "was a flagrant violation of a state election law" according to  Federal Judge Algenon Marbley.

I find it fortunate that my immigrant grandparents who chose to settle in Ohio did not live to see this day when the Ohio Secretary of State, instead of promoting voter turn-out, is spending the State's resources to squelch the vote.

Apparently we the people cannot remove you from office until your term expires, but we will remember in 2014.  But, although you may lose that election,  I am sure the Koch Brothers will take care of their boy and give you a nice salary as one of their lobbyists. And then, of course, there is Russia or Iran. Since you like their style of elections, Vladimir Putin or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be happy to avail themselves of your services.

In closing,  Jon,  I am sorry you find participatory democracy so cumbersome; most of us appreciate it and many of our ancestors and family member have sacrificed their lives to protect it.

Wealthy Old White Men Play the Blame Game

Wealthy Old White Men Playing
"The Blame Game"

The measure of the man is often how he handles defeat. Romney's delayed concession speech was not near that of John McCain's speech four years earlier, but then we could give him the benefit of the doubt since, for some reason in spite of the polls, he did not consider that he would lose. However, the next day after he had had time to consider his defeat, he was anything but gracious in that he blamed everyone but himself.

And, since then Republicans are offering all sorts of explanations (excuses) to explain the defeat, but never admitting that a majority of the voters chose President Obama rather than Governor Romney. Of course, the media and the fact-checker were out to get them. And they blamed the hurricanes, Isaac in Tampa, and Sandy on the East coast. Even more bizarre was Karl Rove who blamed the Obama campaign for using a standard GOP tactic -- suppressing the vote. (Karl, of course,  could not explain this charge in the face of the statistics). And finally a Wisconsin Republican suggested that Obama won because Americans are basically stupid.

Face it, the GOP seems incapable of handling defeat gracefully.

I might humbly suggest to Mitt that the real reason he  lost were the things he and his supporters said and did:

1) Mitt refused to let the American people view most of his federal tax returns.
2) Mitt said he didn't care about 47% of the voters because they were moochers.
3) The GOP Convention featured Clint Eastwood talking to an empty chair. (Has anyone told him there was no one in the chair?)
4) Rush Limbaugh called a co-ed a "slut," and the only thing Mitt disagreed with was the language.
5) Mitt insisted Jeep was going to move American jobs to China although the executives denied it.
6) Mitt supported keeping the Bush tax cuts for himself and the other inordinately wealthy fat cats.
7) In a prime-time speech at the GOP Convention Paul Ryan lied so often he had to spend the rest of the campaign backtracking.
8) Mitt adopted the joke about "self-deportation" as his immigration policy.
9) Mitt and his family stashed money in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.
10) Mitt and Paul suggested that good wives should be home doing laundry.
11) Mitt continued to support an extremist candidate who spoke of "legitimate rape."
12) Mitt wrote an editorial advising us to allow the Detroit Auto Companies to go bankrupt.
13) Mitt's domestic policy was a rewrite of George W. Bush's. (I guess he thought we would forget that that policy led to the Great Recession.)
14) As for foreign policy, Mitt indicated he agreed with everything President Obama was doing.
15) Mitt changed his mind on at least 30 major issues in order to get the GOP nomination.
16) Mitt wanted to eliminate federal disaster relief and leave that job to the states or private contractors.
17) Mitt had "binders of women," but could not remember even one name.
18) In spite of fact-checkers pointing out their mendacity, Mitt and Paul continued to say Obamacare  "robbed" Medicare of $ 716 million (On the other hand Paul Ryan failed to mention what his proposed budget would do to Medicare.)
19) Wanting to cut student loans, Mitt suggested students borrow money from their parents. (You're right, he lives a totally different universe.)
20) And finally in his infamous "47% Talk," Mitt mentioned that he was hoping for an event such as the Iran Hostage Crisis that he would be able to exploit like Reagan had done years earlier to defeat Jimmy Carter.

That's enough. I choose to stop this list. If after all of these lies, miscues and gaffes, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and the "Wealthy Old Men and Their Dependents" who make up the GOP  choose to blame anyone but themselves, it is quite obvious that United States of America dodged a dangerous bullet on November 6, 2012.

Fix This Dysfunctional Voting System

Ballot Boxes

When President Obama in his "The best is yet to come" acceptance speech thanked his many supporters, volunteers  and those who had to stand in line for many hours in order to vote, he threw  in the line,"By the way, we have to fix that."

Our nation which prides itself on participatory democracy definitely needs to fix our dysfunctional system of electing leaders.

It has been twelve years since the fiasco of the  2000 Bush vs. Gore presidential election, and we still lack a system that ensures every citizen the constitutional right to vote. And, in addition to a broken system, we have elected government officials ( Ohio's John Husted and Florida's Rick Scott among others) who try to suppress the vote for their party's political  advantage.

For starters, the notion that a whole nation has to vote on one particular day -- the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November  -- is blatantly undemocratic. According to the U.S. Census Bureau there were 207,643,594 eligible voters in 2006. Ideally a participatory democracy would want all of these people to exercise their right to vote. If all of these people showed up to vote on Election Day, we would need four times more polling stations than there are gas stations. It makes no sense to invest that much in equipment and personnel for one or two election days a year.

Also, in terms of basic fairness, having to vote on a Tuesday during specified hours eliminates many who can't afford to leave their job or their family responsibilities, especially when they face the prospect of standing in line for hours. The man or woman who owns a coal mine is able to vote on a Tuesday afternoon with no financial penalty, but the man or woman in the mine shaft will not have that luxury.

And then there is the problem of the long lines. In Ohio on the Sunday before the election, early voters had to wait in line four or five hours to vote. And this was by design. When the courts forced Ohio Secretary of State, John Husted to allow early voting on the weekend, he limited the hours and the number of voting locations. There was only one voting location in all of Lucas County. In Dayton some early voters were given the wrong ballots.

On day in Florida the polls closed at 7 P.M., but there were so many people in line that some did not get to vote until 1 A.M. In some counties in Tennessee and South Carolina, voters had to wait in line four hours. In Virginia people were still in line after 11 P.M. Nationally 43% of the voters had to wait 15 minutes or more.

It's no surprise either that the delays and long lines are in urban areas where minorities are located in large numbers.

And what's with Florida? Again? It's been 2 days since the election and they still don't know who won.

Florida is indicative of our broken system. We are electing the President of the United States, but we leave the process of running elections in the hands of state, county and city leaders. In the interest of  democracy, fairness, efficiency, and uniformity, it is time for the federal government to set  specific standards for voting across the whole country.

The first standard should deal with early voting. The opportunity to vote early is a necessity, and it should be the same for everyone in all 50 states, providing weekend and evening voting times. Secondly, precincts should be required to have adequate voting machines and poll workers to serve the number of eligible registered voters. The standard should be uniform from city to suburbs, and state to state. Thirdly, poll workers should be trained and tested on their responsibilities and paid as well as comparable skilled workers.

And, very importantly, federal regulations for federal elections should include uniform standards for voter eligibility and identification. It is fundamentally unjust if a voter is rejected in one state, but another voter in the same situation is permitted to vote in the neighboring state. The country as a whole has to determine uniform and just standards for federal elections. The president is the president of the entire country, and the voters of the whole country should have the same opportunity to elect their president.

Let's face it, it's 2012 and it is past time to fix our dysfunctional and inequitable voting system.

We are the United States, Not Fifty States

In a constitutional democracy such as that in the USA,  the role of the federal government is always going to be a topic of debate. Our founders had  difficulty agreeing on the role of the federal government vs. that of state governments.


Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, we have what we have, and we have to continue to work out the  conflict as we go. In the current 2012 election, the issue is: what is the role of the federal government in solving the problems that confront the country?

Rugged individualism and self-reliance are American values and go back to the earliest days of our country's founding; but are they the solutions to  the issues our country has to face? Is allowing every American to own an AK47 and a  drone missile the answer to our national security? Even the so-called "patriots" hiding out in the mountains and not paying their taxes do not believe that.  Our national security depends on all of us pooling our resources to build a federal security force. 

In spite of the current rhetoric, there are some things the federal government can do better than the states or private enterprise. Dwight D. Eisenhower's vision for an Interstate Highway System was only possible on the Federal level. And, although it was mismanaged in the case of Katrina, the best method we have to deal with disaster relief is the federal government (FEMA).

But, in this political campaign  Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan  ( don't forget Paul Ryan, he is even more scary than Mitt) want to eliminate FEMA  Romney says: "We cannot afford to do those things (Federal disaster relief) without jeopardizing the future for our kids. It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids." His recommendation is that we transfer disaster relief to the states, and preferably to private for-profit contractors. *

Are you kidding me, Mitt? You think your profit-seeking private companies are going to keep people safe, fed, and surviving.?  I suspect they will be as successful as the private contractors George W. Bush and Dick Cheney sent into Iraq.

And at one point, Mitt suggesting eliminating FEMA and giving the money to the states to deal with their own disasters. Please explain how that will work. Can Mitt  predict in which states the disasters are going to occur?  Would he have allocated enough to New Jersey and New York to cover the costs of Sandy?  Would he give the same amount to Utah as Missouri?

Face it; there are some things the Federal government can do better. We are the UNITED STATES, and we provide assistance to our fellow citizens who are in need.  We need unity, not division.

We cannot allow Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan to divide us,

*Of course, as he has done on almost every issue, Romney  after trying to avoid the topic during Hurricane Sandy, is now backtracking.

Ohio Coal Miners Not Duped By GOP

As  a fan of Jim Hightower who writes for Nation of Change I  read  his article, "The Corporate Mad Dogs of Citizens United" published on October 31, 2012. Within that article was the following quotation which I want  to share in light of the attempt by Mitt Romney and Josh Mandel, (the candidate who actually had the nerve to mimic a southern accent)  to appeal to coal miners. Mitt and Josh  obviously think coal miners are too ignorant to recognize the facts. The fact is Ohio's  miners are nobody's fools. They recognize GOP duplicity when they see it and in this election cycle they are seeing "ten ton" of it.

"So, sure, this is America, where we're all equal as citizens — you, me and the Fortune 500. And don't forget that you're perfectly free to defy the guy who can fire you for whatever reason he makes up — or for no reason at all. Good luck with that.

For a rich example of unbridled boss power in today's political process, harken back to August, when Mitt Romney appeared on a stage with a group of Ohio coal miners arrayed behind him. "I tell ya," the clueless candidate cheerfully exclaimed, "you've got a great boss."

That would be Robert Murray, CEO of Murray Energy, who'd previously held a $1.7 million fundraiser for Romney. But if Mitt had just turned around and seen the scowls on the soot-smeared faces of the Murray miners, he would've had a clue that they didn't quite share his enthusiasm for their "great boss."

One reason for their grumpiness is that they hadn't volunteered to be there, but had been directed by Bossman Bob to attend. Also, Bob was docking them a day's pay for "taking the day off" to serve as stage props for Mitt's campaign. In effect, they were compelled to donate to the Republican. That'll make you grouchy.

As uncovered in an investigative report by The New Republic, such involuntary support is routinely demanded from the salaried employees of Murray Energy. They get hit up again and again for donations to Romney and such other designated candidates as Sens. Rand Paul, Scott Brown, Jim DeMint, and David Vitter.

Murray himself sends dunning letters to employees' homes, specifying to each one how much to give and instructing them to send their checks directly to corporate headquarters. Staffers there maintain a list of those who did as told — and those who didn't. "If you don't contribute, your job's at stake," one employee bluntly explained. "There's a lot of coercion," he adds, "They will give you a call if you're not giving."

Indeed, Murray deploys his lieutenants to squeeze the laggards — as the boss put it in one letter to them last year: "Please see that our salaried employees 'step up,' for their own sakes." And, in another letter this March, he pointedly named names: "I do not recall ever seeing the attached list of employees ... at one of our fundraisers."

After Romney's "great boss" statement, he added that Murray "runs a great operation here." Yeah — a political shakedown operation by the 2012, court-sanctioned, corporate version of political bossism. If you needed another reason to support a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United, there it is."

Copyright Creators.com

Our coal miners provide an important, vital service to the country in life-threatening situations, and they should not be treated as Medieval serfs by the wealthy, the plutocrats,  the corporations, and the GOP. They deserve our respect and support.