Why We Need the For the People Act--What It Does

Please contact your Senators this week and ask them to support, vote for the For the People Act.

What the Democrats Must Do

Yes, what, exactly, the Democrats must do, at long last, to break the logjam that is the Republican Party in Congress currently. Then, once that's ended, we must pass the For the People Act so we end gerrymandering, get the dark money out of our elections and put ethics back in government. We must.

Republican Senator Roy Blunt, Then and Now

In November, 2006, The New York Times ran an article about the Republican Party and our very own representative Roy Blunt and what he means and represents in Washington, DC and this country. I ran a post on it then, all those years ago. It's still true, very true, right up to today.

 Some excerpts from that article on this man, what he is, what he does and how he represents us and more to the point, just who he actually represents:

Roy Blunt embodies the insidious, half-legal corruption that has permeated the G.O.P. majority since 1995. Blunt’s election as minority whip, by a 137-to-57 margin, was a defiant Republican rejection of calls to clean up their act. Warnings by Blunt’s challenger, John Shadegg of Arizona — “We ceded our reform-minded principles in exchange for a ...tighter grip on power” — went unheeded.

  In 2004, Blunt turned his lobbyist team loose to win passage of a bill eliminating a $50 billion corporate tax break that the World Trade Organization had ruled in violation of international agreements. These lobbyists inserted $143 billion worth of new corporate tax breaks, turning the bill into a Fortune 500 Christmas tree.

  Blunt...is bland, unctuous and adept at keeping a low profile. But there is plenty to see. After divorcing his wife of 35 years to marry a tobacco lobbyist, Abigail Perlman, he cleared his second marriage with the House Ethics Committee to get “a waiver of the limitations of the gift rule to allow me to accept gifts in connection with my wedding.” 

 Blunt unblushingly told the Heritage Foundation this month that Republicans “have allowed our efforts to defend traditional values to be defined as little more than a politically driven effort to appease ‘family groups.’ ” 

 For Blunt, the blurring of boundaries is a family tradition. His son Matt is the governor of Missouri. Another son, Andrew, is one of the state’s top lobbyists. Almost all Altria subsidiaries — Kraft, Miller Brewing, Philip Morris (remember Abigail Perlman) — hired Andy Blunt, along with other financial backers of Roy Blunt. (Bold font added for emphasis).

 In Blunt, House Republicans have kept on display a top official reminding voters why they cast ballots for Democrats on Nov. 7. After winning the post of minority whip last week, Blunt declared that the Republicans had “come together ... frankly, to get rid of the bad habits that we may have developed in 12 years in the majority.” This is precisely the opposite of what they actually did, which was to affirm their bad habits. The burden on the Democrats will be to make the elusive Blunt a nationally recognized figure.

 All reasons why we need to get Roy Blunt out of our government and with all due, deliberate haste.

 Link to original post:  Same Old Party

This is a city ethics code?

City ethics code?

Are you freaking kidding me?

Reportedly, this week, our own city hall adopted what they're calling an ethics code:

New ethics code, approved Thursday, says Kansas City employees can't accept gifts worth more than $1,000.

Are you kidding me?

They can accept gifts up to $1000?

Who doesn't think our city government representatives can't be bought for $1000 or less?

Especially if, say, this month they get $1000 and then next month and the month after that, ad inifinitum?

Or $1000 this week from me and $1000 next week from my wife and another $1000 the week after that from my kid, 'cuz, you know, it's all perfectly legal, right?  Right?

I ask again--who here thinks their representative can't be bought?

Anyone?

Bueller?

Come on, guys, try a bit harder.

We know there are absolutely no limits down in Jefferson City for gifts or "campaign contributions" (don't make me laugh) but it's City Hall. You have to have more and better--read: lower--gift limits than this.

Get real.

No laws about throwing away or trashing government computers?

I keep remembering that ol' Mittens Romney had computers erased and destroyed on his way out of office back in Massachusetts, when he was governor. Did you read or hear about it?

Mitt Romney administration deleted emails before leaving office

"It doesn't appear to have been illegal, but this, from the Boston Globe, doesn't make Mitt Romney's administration look particularly open and transparent:

Just before Mitt Romney left the Massachusetts governor’s office and first ran for president, 11 of his top aides purchased their state-issued computer hard drives, and the Romney administration’s e-mails were all wiped from a server, according to interviews and records obtained by the Globe.

Romney administration officials had the remaining computers in the governor’s office replaced just before Governor Deval Patrick’s staff showed up to take power in January 2007 … Beth E. Myers, who was Romney’s chief of staff, bought her hard drive on Aug. 18, 2006, the same month that she left state employment.

Peter G. Flaherty, who was Romney’s deputy chief of staff, bought the hard drive from his computer on Nov. 3, 2006 ... Flaherty later became the Romney campaign’s chief liaison to social conservatives."

I don't mind telling you folks here and I think most, if not all, would agree, first, I think this is wrong since these were government computers, reputedly doing government--the people's--work.

Second, I think this could, of course, likely cover up things that otherwise shouldn't have happened.

Third, and most importantly, I think it needs to be said and acted on that this is made illegal--very strictly and clearly illegal--in each and every of the 50 states, all our cities and counties and then in our Federal Government, too.

Every government employee--every one of them--needs to be held accountable for their actions and official words and deeds. These are OUR computers, people, again, supposedly doing our work. It shouldn't be possible to be able to either sell these computers or trash the information on them.

Making this illegal would make our representatives at least somewhat more accountable for their words and actions in office, if not a great deal more.

What troubles me is that there doesn't seem to be an existing outcry for anything like this to happen.

Left as it is, legal to give or throw away this information, will lead to not good things.

If it hasn't already.

Link: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/68583.html#ixzz24P4EfJ6I

And now, the way Senators in Washington wasted their/our time and money this past week

I pointed out here, earlier, the way our Missouri State legislators wasted their/our time and money this past week. Now, from Washington:

Senators Seek To Name Bison 'National Mammal'

We've got thousands of important--really important--things the Senate could and should be working on like, say, a budget we haven't had for three years but what are they working on, instead?

Why, what our "National Mammal" is.

We have a horribly broken health care system they're responsible for; we have corporations running over the nation, stealing from us, individually as well as collectively and all kinds of, as I said above, real problems but this is the kind of nonsense they spend their time on instead.

Really.

There is no shame.

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/25/bison-national-mammal_n_1546602.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

Power to the people

We are Anonymous. United as ONE. Divided by ZERO. EXPECT US.

Did you hear the one about the congressman?...

I'm sure you read or heard about the Congressman--one Christopher Lee (Repub., NY)--who sent the picture of himself shirtless to a woman on Craigslist, got caught and had to quit that same job?

Yeah.  Great, wasn't it?

What a dolt.

Anyway, it's gotten better, since.

Check this out:  It's out today that A) he was at an annual GOP retreat and---wait for it--B) he had just left a GOP conference on "Intelligent Use of Information Technology".

Man, you just can't write 'em any better than that.

Have a great weekend, y'all.

Link:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/16/chris-lee-craigslist-photo-gop-retreat_n_823979.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/10/us/politics/10lee.html

A Missouri Travesty

Thanks to Representative Jason Kander for this video and to Tony at Tony's KC Blog (from whom I saw and appropriated it). This is too important not to put up.

It is stunning that these are the conditions for our state.

This all needs to change.

And as soon as possible.