Verne Frost did get one thing right (“Is the USA a democracy?” April 27, 2014.  Yuma Sun).   Our founders, students of history, knew that democracies morphed into mob rule.  Students of philosophy, they understood as well the weakness of the human character and designed a system of government that would be less vulnerable to tyranny of any kind, a republic, but as Benjamin Franklin predicted and Verne Frost says, we have not kept it very well.

               However to blame the “do nothing” congress on the Republican Party is the absolute reverse of the truth.  The Republican house passed measure after measure and budget after budget every year, but every bill died because the Democrat leadership in the senate refused to bring any of the bills to the floor for discussion.  Harry Reid, apparently afraid he didn’t have a tight enough control over his majority, would not risk letting the senate even discuss the bills.

               Republicans foresaw the disaster the Affordable Care Act would foist on the American people, so they tried with 5 consecutive bills to ameliorate the damage.  Once again, however, their proposals never made it out of Harry Reed’s office. It is interesting to note, however, that every proposal the Republicans recommended were actually enacted by Presidential fiat, the executive order.  Really, now Verne, don’t you wish we had read the law before we passed it?

               Mr. Frost is also wrong about our free enterprise system.  It did not fail the American people.  It is the diabolical marriage of government and industry that failed us.  George Bush warned congress over and over again that the housing bubble would burst and destroy the middle class, but ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Barney Frank, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee scoffed at him, and democrats, in bed with the mortgage industry kept pumping our money into the failing over inflated market.  When the bubble blew, all of us lost half of the equity in our homes.

               Although republicans do not have clean hands when it comes to the diabolical marriage of government and industry and the national debt,   any thinking person would admit that a huge portion of the blame rests at the feet of the Democrat Party.  They have been buying votes with empty promises for 100 years and those mandatory spending programs eat up 70 per cent of our national budget and add millions of dollars to the national debt every time we take a breath.

               I wish the Tea Party could take over the Republican Party.  Its aims, to limit the power of government and rein in the federal spending would serve the country well, but neither Republicans nor Democrats would put their cushy jobs in jeopardy by telling the truth and making decisions necessary to protect our children and grandchildren from the burden of debt we are leaving them.  Taking into account the debt along with the unfunded liabilities, my newest great-grandson, due in August, will born with a $400,00 share of the national debt chained to his delicate little leg.   

Watch out for the guy who cries wolf. He’s probably the wolf.

         Watch out for the guy who cries wolf.  He’s probably the wolf. Democrats pretend to be watching out for the little guy by passing endless regulations to protect him from carnivorous entrepreneurs.  The problem is, the little guy doesn't have the deep pockets and the cost of compliance is prohibitive, so 9 out of 10 little guys don’t make it, but the big corporations can absorb the extra costs.  They have huge contingents of lawyers and deal makers to muddle through the quagmire.  As a matter of fact, big corporations conspire with congress to put the little guys out of business.

         Big banks, for example, donated millions of dollars to Democratic candidates, 3 times as much as they donated to Republican candidates. Talk to your local small town banker.  He’ll tell you that Dodd-Frank pretends to protect them, but it actually protects the big corporate banks who have the deep pockets and staff necessary to complete the volumes of reports the regulations require. The little independent banks struggle and eventually sell out.  Massive government regulations pave the way for huge monopolies. 

               The newest boondoggle of regulations are the new rules for commercial truckers.  Regulators have turned the 6 page DMV report into over 300 pages of rules that will double the cost of the medical tests required and which will disqualify some 20 per cent of the drivers now on the road.  Unless, of course, they are Mexican or Canadian drivers.  Those truckers are not subject to such regulations.

              Christopher Cook is right:   “Republicans have not been blameless in this, but when big business comes looking for government help to squeeze out the little guy, they have always found a far more fertile field to the left side of the aisle.”

English 101: Assertions must supported with evidence

        James Sefcak, do we have to go over this again. Twelve column inches of diatribe and not one fact to support your assertions, not one example, not an iota of evidence.  Tea Partiers are reverse Robin Hoods stealing from the poor to give to the rich? When, where, what? 

         You need to support your assertions.  You could, for example give reference to the fact that those right wing goof balls gave $750 billion of our tax dollars to General Motors so they could build 5 new plants in China.  Great for Wall Street, but it did nothing for Detroit and the working stiffs back home.

         Oh, wait, that was Barack Obama.  Well, how about the Tea bagger who used his connection at the BLM to confiscate property for a Chinese firm that his sun works for.  Oops, that was Harry Reid.           Well you get the idea.  

        

           

There is hope, I hope.

               Verne Frost did get one thing right (“Is the USA a democracy?” April 27, 2014.  Yuma Sun).   Our founders, students of history, knew that democracies morphed into mob rule.  Students of philosophy, they understood as well the weakness of the human character and designed a system of government that would be less vulnerable to tyranny of any kind, a republic, but as Benjamin Franklin predicted and Verne Frost says, we have not kept it very well.

               However to blame the “do nothing” congress on the Republican Party is the absolute reverse of the truth.  The Republican house passed measure after measure and budget after budget every year, but every bill died because the Democrat leadership in the senate refused to bring any of the bills to the floor for discussion.  Harry Reid, apparently afraid he didn't have a tight enough control over his majority, would not risk letting the senate even discuss the bills.

               Republicans foresaw the disaster the Affordable Care Act would foist on the American people, so they tried with 5 consecutive bills to ameliorate the damage.  Once again, however, their proposals never made it out of Harry Reed’s office. It is interesting to note, however, that every proposal the Republicans recommended were actually enacted by Presidential fiat, the executive order.  Really, now Verne, don’t you wish we had read the law before we passed it?

               Mr. Frost is also wrong about our free enterprise system.  It did not fail the American people.  It is the diabolical marriage of government and industry that failed us.  George Bush warned congress over and over again that the housing bubble would burst and destroy the middle class, but ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Barney Frank, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee scoffed at him, and democrats, in bed with the mortgage industry kept pumping our money into the failing over inflated market.  When the bubble blew, all of us lost half of the equity in our homes.

               Although republicans do not have clean hands when it comes to the diabolical marriage of government and industry and the national debt,   any thinking person would admit that a huge portion of the blame rests at the feet of the Democrat Party.  They have been buying votes with empty promises for 100 years and those mandatory spending programs eat up 70 per cent of our national budget and add millions of dollars to the national debt every time we take a breath.

               I wish the Tea Party could take over the Republican Party.  Its aims, to limit the power of government and rein in the federal spending would serve the country well, but neither Republicans nor Democrats would put their cushy jobs in jeopardy by telling the truth and making decisions necessary to protect our children and grandchildren from the burden of debt we are leaving them.  Taking into account the debt along with the unfunded liabilities, my newest great-grandson, due in August, will born with a $400,00 share of the national debt chained to his delicate little leg.   

Wrong Again, Jimmy Boy

          Gotta bring Jimmy boy in from left field again. It is true, of course, that “Many presidents have foreign born parents” (James Sefcak, Yuma Sun, May 14, 2014). We are a country of immigrants, after all.   The difference, sweetie, is that the parents of the presidents he listed were citizens and residents of the United States at the time of the presidential birth.
       The founders thought it necessary to insure that there was no question of a president’s allegiance to the idea that was America.  They apparently believed that blood is indeed thicker than water.
        Onyango Obama had no such allegiance to America and Barack’s brother Malik is a Muslim Brotherhood operative and investment adviser.   It may be only coincidental that the IRS quickly grants 501(c)3 Status to groups who support the Muslim Brotherhood, but is scrupulous about granting such status to Tea Parties.

I Am Woman

         The “Reverse the Roles” cartoon in the April 11 edition of The Yuma Sun perpetuates a pernicious myth.  In the first place, it is a misleading, false factoid; and it’s embarrassing when our President and leaders in congress perpetuate it.  The 23-cent gender pay gap only reflects the difference in earnings among all men and women working full-time. It does not account for differences in occupations, positions, education, job tenure, or hours worked per week. When all these relevant factors are taken into consideration, the wage gap narrows to less than five cents. That’s a pretty narrow difference when you consider that women take more sick days in deference to family and children.

               The myth the cartoon perpetuates is especially pernicious because it attempts to make victims of women.  We are not victims.  We make choices, and for the most part, we celebrate those choices.  “I am woman, Proud and free, 

More to me, Than what you see. 

  I stand alone, A world apart, 

Just holding fast, To wayward heart.

 I am healer, Poet too, 

I see colour, Rainbow hue. 

I am fire, Burning gold, 

Cold as ice, If truth be told. 

  I am spirit, Pure and bright,

 Rising up, To meet the light,

 I enter there, The realms of love,

 It’s all around, Below, above.

 My kindred souls, Enfold me there,

 Full of joy, Bright and free, 

For I am woman, I am me.” 

       

 Linda Harnett

Another Blast from the Past Post Election Diatribe

         President Nixon resigned in shame because he participated in a cover-up trying to protect his staff members who had made a ridiculous blunder breaking into the Watergate Office.  If the tapes show one thing, it shows that Nixon did not participate in the break in.  He was shocked when he learned they had done such a stupid thing.  But he did try to cover up the evidence to protect his friends. No one died, but he was guilty of a cover-up.

        President Obama should drop out of the campaign to show his shame for having allowed four to die in the Benghazi attack.  He knew very well what had happened. The State Department had emailed the situation room of White House within two hours of the attack. The CIA station chief sent messages describing exactly what was going on.  They were watching on video it in real time.  They even knew the guy in charge.  He not only claimed credit, he was there in the crowd waving his personal flag.  

           But disturbances in Libya would look bad for the Obama re-election because he was running on the pretense that he had made friends with those in the Middle East. His whole election depended on the myth that “General Motors is alive and Al Qaeda is dead.”  The attack illustrated an undeniable fact that Al Qaeda is not dead. (And by the way, we learn that GM is on life support.  The stock has dropped by 50 per cent and is again on the brink of bankruptcy.)

       After the White House was notified by both the State Department and the CIA, the attack went on for 5 more hours, lasting a full 7 hours. The Seal Team guys were killed late in the last hour.  The president had plenty of time to react, but he quickly arranged for a fake, “It was the terrible video” cover-up, and jetted off to Las Vegas.

         There are some who would say that we don’t know if the fake movie story was his idea.  The buck stops with him.  He’s responsible. Furthermore his blaming the video brought it to the attention of other Islamists and created a firestorm across the Middle East.  He’s responsible for that, too.  After that as well as all those indefensible things he said in the debate,  I don’t know how anyone can vote for him.

      “Sequestration was not my idea.”  Yes it was.  You proposed it. Reed took it to the house.

       “Because of what she did, the unemployment rate for veterans is lower that it is for the rest of the country.”  Absolutely not.

         “I did not propose a Status of Forces Agreement in Iraq.”  Yes you did.  You worked on it for almost a year, but couldn’t talk them into it.

         “Exports to China have doubled under my watch.”  Absolutely not.

         “The Arizona law lets officers stop people just because they look illegal.” Nope.  It doesn’t.

         “I sat down with Republicans and Democrats and begged them to fix the system.”  Nope.

         “If elected, I can promise you that I’ll always listen to your voices.”  But when we asked, we were told, “Why should we sit down with them.  We already know what they’re going to say.”

          You had four years to show us change; we've lost hope.