Happy Saturday!  The industry I work in is having their annual trade convention in my town this weekend.  For any who may be new readers and for those of you who may have been over-served last night and are suffering from residual alcohol induced synapse mis-firings I will point out that most of my family is living in Washington DC and it is just my 17 year old son and I holding down the homestead.  High school boys have a lot going on and my son had made arrangements to spend the night at a friend’s house last night.  If you were to not get the opportunity frequently, the idea of having an evening with no plans and nobody home would seem appealing.  The reality is that first and foremost I’m a family guy and one or two of those types of evenings per year would be plenty.  A family guy… you can just stop the Peter Griffin comparisons right now!

          Late yesterday afternoon I was working my IT magic at one of our local branches when two of our vice-presidents came into the branch with a group of our Board of Directors who were in town for the convention.  My company is based in a smaller community 106 miles south of where I live and I kind of like my town so I was curious to know if they were having a good time.  While the community they live in is lovely in its own way I must admit that if you were prone to enjoy things like, oh I don’t know, let’s say, restaurant dining, there would be much to long for living where they live.  Needless to say I was delighted when I was asked to make a recommendation for their evenings dining pleasures.

          Immediately my mind filled with the possibilities of where I would choose to eat knowing full well that an executive expense account was supporting the selection criteria.  There was one dampening consideration involved with my recommendation process however.  I had not yet been invited.  Should I recommend the best possible choices for their dinner or should I purposely select a fine but difficult to locate establishment? The gears of my mind were working and they had to work quickly.  The spending authorization limit of my vaunted position is fifty dollars, per year and I have already used $38 of that up.  I opted for suggestions which would showcase my town.  Working in a community which is farthest from the main office one must always consider the idea that should there ever be a corporate consolidation it would be of benefit to have them enjoy their visits to my area.

          While I made my suggestions I was sure to point out that any of the options I presented them would be a welcome locale in lieu of the baco’s and wilted lettuce sandwich in the cold, dark and empty home that I was looking forward to.  It worked!  As I packed up my little IT tool bag to head home my phone rang.  “Would I like to join everyone for dinner?”  “Pssshaw, fo sho my fizzle!”  We went to Granite City, an upscale micro-brewery which has wonderful selections for dinner.  Um, Okay, the home brew beers aren't too bad either.  We had a long wait for a table as the restaurant is popular in the first place and the convention is a restauranteers delight.  Being relegated to waiting in the foyer yet remaining in good spirits one of our vice presidents and I took it upon ourselves to be psuedo-official doormen and greeters.  We welcomed all new arrivals and thanked leaving guests for their patronage.  We must have been good at it because we both earned one of their fabulous micro-beers free of charge!  I wasn't quite sure how to take it when one of our directors told me I had missed my calling.  hmmm, I don't think I should think about that too hard! 

          The restaurant has an airy mountain lodge ambiance and is staffed with a young, cheerful and attentive wait staff and I am pretty sure everybody enjoyed their dinner.  Hmm, I wonder if they are planning to have lunch after their morning meetings and before they head for home?

Someone told me they saw a bumper sticker proposing a novel idea to bi-partisanship.  It said, “I’ll hug your elephant if you kiss my ass.”   Being a bloggerist of the liberal persuasion I found that wonderfully funny.  At first.  Then I remembered some words spoken by Senator John Kerry.  “The American spirit wears no political label. In service to others and yes, in sacrifice for our country, there are no Republicans; there are no Democrats; there are only Americans."  In these difficult times those words should resonate from the roof tops.  The issues that face us today significantly impact our lives, the lives of our children and their children.  The people we have elected to represent us in government have lost sight of the true American Spirit.  American Spirit has been replaced in the hearts and minds of many of our elected officials with careerism and power consolidation.  

The policies that are coming out of Washington are directly related to the ability of special interests to purchase access to party leaders.  Campaign contributions buy access to our legislators and the American Spirit has been trampled in the money grab.  The minority legislators are so afraid of the possibility that the powerful money tide will wash them away that they have become impotent to defend the well being of their constituents.  If the powerful policy writing and spin generating lobbyists choose to target a dissident legislators reelection campaign the there is little hope they would survive the next election.

Our democracy is broken. Financing elections with private money has led to corruption and lack of public confidence in the Congress. There is a solution to the problem of influence peddling in Washington and a new, strong and legitimate organization has a real shot at making it a reality. Their objective is to implement voluntary public funding of all federal elections to give control of our government back to the voters and make our leaders accountable only to us. You can join today and sign up to help get the influence of big money out of politics.  YOU CAN! http://www.just6dollars.org

            Americans for Campaign Reform is a nonpartisan grassroots movement of citizens working to promote voluntary public funding of federal elections.  Notable participants behind this bipartisan effort to reform campaign finance are, former Senator Warren Rudman (R- NH)-Honorary Chair, Senators Bill Bradley (D-NJ), Alan Simpson (R-WY) and Bob Kerrey (D-NE).  When our elected officials are freed from the obligatory considerations inherent with accepting large campaign contributions; when our legislators can spend time in their office working on solutions to real problems, instead of spending months on the $1,000 per plate fund raising trail, we will finally see bipartisanship drafting legislation that is good for all of America. 

The words of Henry Kissinger ring true today, “Our greatest foreign policy problem is our divisions at home. Our greatest foreign policy need is national cohesion and a return to the awareness that in foreign policy we are all engaged in a common national endeavor.”  Think of the impact our troops could make in the Middle East if our leaders were unified in the support of a specified objective.  If our legislators will once again approach their jobs with all American’s interests in mind our divisions will diminish and be replaced by the pursuit of our common goals.  John F. Kennedy said, “Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer.”  If our politicians are working for us and not working to appeal to whims of big money contributors we will again be able to recognize the American Spirit.

They that give up essential liberty in order to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." (Benjamin Franklin) With regards to the war on terror the President must have the best intelligence available to protect us but that intelligence must be obtained within the frame work of our Constitution and our laws.  Laws that exist which allow domestic spying require investigators to get warrants issued with the permission of a special judicial body called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court (FISAC). In February on FOX News, Condoleezza Rice claimed, “the war on terrorism is a “different type of war” that gives the commander in chief “additional authorities.”  That isn’t quite the way the 4^th Amendment to the Bill of Rights reads. President Bush, in his war on terror has abandoned those laws. 

In absence of Executive branch compliance with FISAC Congress should be enforcing our system of checks and balances. Of what value are our laws if Congress will not uphold them?  If the Congress does not hold the Executive Branch accountable the government can monitor any phone call or e-mail they want, and they can collect and disseminate any data they find however they like.  The argument that if you don’t have anything to hide you shouldn’t be concerned with this intrusion does not hold up.  Have you ever said something on the phone or in an email that was stated out of frustration and was useful to you as a venting mechanism?  Where does the interpretation of your message receive final judgment?  Will the fact that you were just kidding or just blowing off steam restore your credibility with family and peers after you have been arrested?

Two bills are now before the Senate: S.2453 authorizes a broader domestic spying program against American Citizens with accountability in the hands of the police.  What if the town cop doesn’t like you?  S.2455 allows Americans' conversations to be wiretapped without probable cause of wrongdoing and requires zero notification that your phone calls and e-mails have been captured or analyzed.  In the event that our civil liberties continue to deteriorate do you really want anything you ever wrote or said to be a matter of record in a criminal trial?  Congress has a duty to get the facts, not help the Bush administration cover them up. Our Senators must oppose both S.2453and S.2455.  Ben Franklin would have understood this.

 

For my conservative friends, Were Hillary Clinton to be our next president, would you feel comfortable with her having the ability to do unwarranted wire tapping, the power to arrest an American Citizen without a trial and rights to a lawyer or to seize the internet records of the NRA?  This is not a partisan issue.

“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital.  Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed.  Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much higher consideration.” Abraham Lincoln.  “No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned.  Every dollar received should represent a dollar’s worth of service rendered – not gambling in stocks, but service rendered.  The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means.  Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective – a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate.” Theodore Roosevelt.

Did you know that, while President Bush and his administration have been in office average household income has actually declined by more than $1,500 per year?  In 2004 the President extended his tax cut of 2001 right before elections.  Attached to this legislation was a $13 billion tax break for corporations.  They couldn’t ask the Chinese Central Bankers to finance all of the debt this tax break was going to cost so they looked else where to find the resources to reimburse their corporate campaign donors.  It worked.  I did not notice, and I am telling you because I would imagine you did not notice, that this corporate tax break was paid for by the elimination of the child tax credit for families earning more than $10,750 per year.  The law eliminated the child tax credit which was a $1,000 credit for each child for any family having a combined income of greater than $206.73 per week.  That eliminated the family credit for 9.2 million children who live below the poverty index.  The middle class portion of the tax cut was $600 per family.  If you were a family with only one kid you actually paid $400 more in taxes beginning in 1994.  Thank God President Bush had compassion for the working man and pushed through that middle class tax cut.  I can’t believe there is a mini van in America that still displays a George Bush bumper sticker but I see them all over my town. 

Removing the child tax credit for families living below the poverty index meant that “The GOP Congress put their crosshairs squarely on people who are living the values they preach: choosing work instead of welfare, choosing to have babies rather than abortions.” James Carville and Paul Begala, Take It Back P248.  Congressional elections are coming around this November.  Please consider your vote carefully.  If you earn or believe you will soon earn over $200,000 per year vote for whomever the heck you want to.  If you earn or in the near future potentially earn less than $200,000 per year then I believe you ought to vote for the more fiscally responsible Democratic Party.

President Clinton saw the poverty rate in America fall twenty-five percent during his terms in office.  If you recall, at the top of the post I pointed out that average income has fallen under the Bush Administration.  The current national deficit is over 8.36 TRILLION Dollars.  President Clinton left office with a $127 billion surplus.  President Clinton, in his 1992 campaign, said that Republicans had “raised taxes on the people driving pickup trucks and lowered taxes on the people riding in limousines.  How could we have replaced Bill Clinton with the likes of George W?  We did it because Al Gore was duped by not only the hanging chads in Jeb Bush’s Florida but because of the “Liberal Media” I will be doing a post on the “Liberal Media” in the near future and explore Al Gore’s political demise in more detail.  Before I leave my thoughts on Al Gore, there is strong evidence to suggest that 9/11 might never have happened if Al Gore had been appointed President.  That gives me grist for another future post. 

 

Hey check this out.  I can not believe I had not heard about the movie "Why We Fight"  It is playing in limited theaters right now and I'm going to see it as soon as I can.  You should too.  Watch the trailer. http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1808716474/details

          My Easter weekend seemed to be going along pretty well.  Time spent with family is always time well spent.  I spent lots of time with family.  We had lots of laughs, many shared stories and a little nasty gossip.  There wasn’t a lot of the latter but I think in most families it is inevitable that a little gossip will occur.  The nature of what I heard was pretty harmless and you know that I personally did not make any comments which I had not already or would not make in front of the subject of our conversations.  I did hear, however, that my brother-in-law, the one with the disorder is going to… Nah, just kidding.   If there are any on any side of my family with any diagnosable disorders it would most likely be me. 

          We finished our whirlwind humongous ham tour at about 8:30 Sunday night.  As soon as we arrived home the D.C. portion of my family began packing up their stuff so we would be able to jump in the trusty Yukon at THREE FREEKIN’ A.M. (yeah, that early) to get them to O’Hare airport in time for their flight home.  As we were picking things up I asked my oldest son to go to the basement on some now forgotten errand and he stopped short at the top of the stairs.  The family turned in the fashion of a poorly blocked high school drama production.  We gathered behind him asking what was wrong.  We have had a lot of rain the last three days.  A lot of rain.  Our home is possessed by some totally demonic, evil and ruthless sump pump eating monster.  It had been nearly a year since our basement flooded and even the six year old knew in his heart of hearts that any day he would get to hear dad let loose with the proverbial truck driver string of curses which accompany news of water in the basement.

          I gave up hauling the old pumps out of the basement and now in the sump pit corner I have a collection of six pumps who all failed at the most in opportune times.  It is reminiscent of an elephant grave yard.  Inevitably the pump will fail at night, usually a Sunday and most often on a Holiday.  This sets me into motion to do the best I can to repair the pump and after failing at that and virtually eliminating any opportunity of finding an open plumbing retailer I begin my search.  Hmmm, who would be the godless, greedy, giant corporate retailer who would be open 24 hours a day including holiday’s so as not to miss an opportunity to make a buck?  Being no amateur to this endeavor I should just know right where to go first but something about Walmart makes them always my merchant of last resort, always.  It was well after 10:00 P.M. when I dejectedly walked out of the second Walmart with the sump pump I needed.  I was thrilled to have just shelled out sixty bucks for an obvious return item that had a box so torn apart that it took both hands just to keep the box wrapped around the pump until I could get it paid for and into one of those nifty little smiley face bags that they so graciously provide.

          It was well after eleven before I had all the water drained from the room we should have converted to a swimming pool on move in day and I cleaned myself up a little and went about writing my blog for the day.  I tell you this so you appreciate the great sacrifices I go to in an attempt appease you, my four regular readers!  Okay, our numbers are better than that.  My month to date April statistic report shows an average daily visit count of thirty-four.  Hey, Rome wasn’t built in a day but if you know someone who might enjoy the site from time to time be sure to share the link!

          So I was in bed by mid-night and when the alarm went off at TWO FREEKIN’ A.M. (yeah, that early) I was certain I would have preferred Armageddon.  I stumbled my way to the shower.  Damn.  No hot water.  Evidently the water had gotten deep enough to snuff out the pilot light.  I ran barefoot to the basement and slid in a remaining puddle almost landing on my atypical ample arse and relit the rusting from being submerged so many times over the years water heater with just enough time to secure a luke-warm shower before the trip to Chicago.  I pounded coffee all the way to Aurora and that is when I decided that my Karma must be at an all time low.  If you have never had the opportunity to be inbound to Chicago at rush hour and needing to take a pee well... well, good for you.  I won’t tell you how the thought entered my mind that it would be appropriate to piss on the 295 at 7:15 in the morning but traffic was stopped already.  Twelve lanes of traffic pointed in opposite directions and I was on the side that was not moving.  I figure the seasoned veterans of rush hour traffic have seen it all from time to time anyway and after the sump pump, the trip to Walmart, the lack of sleep, the tepid shower and the spousal reprimand for letting loose with the proverbial truck driver string of curses in front of the children that I had nothing to lose.  Or rather I did and what a relief it was!