The BIG LIE about CU is REVEALED

I have grown increasingly frustrated with the deliberate ignorance and BIG LIe that is the argument against the Supreme Court's Citizen's United decision. It time that I stop trying to educate individually, rather to take a broader approach with this blog. First let me state that I am no ideologue, I am a life long Republican, but rarely vote for a Republican unless they are deemed by ME as being worthy of my vote which has become a rare occurrence to say the least. I am a center-right voter. What was CU all about? A little history. The McCain/Feingold campaign reform law place limitations on the amount of money a person or corporation could spend on an individual candidate or party. When it came to issue ads, individuals were allowed to spend every dime they had. An issue ad is one that CANNOT be coordinated with any candidate or party. This is an ad that as an individual you want to throw your support to a candidate or party as a private person. PAC's, which are corporations were, by law, limited in their ability to create an issue ad as there was a financial limit to what they could spend. What CU was about was a PAC, which is a corporation created an infomercial attacking then candidate Hillary Clinton. The FEC cried foul as the CU PAC's broke the law by over spending. CU objected and filed suit claiming an infringement of 1st amendment rights of the people who were part of that PAC, a corporation. The Supreme Court agreed. So what was the effect of CU on elections? Now some claim that it means the Koch's and Adelson's of the country were now free to 'buy' an election. This is just not so. These individuals could have always spent unlimited amounts on issue ads PRIOR to CU. So let us put that one to rest. CU had nothing to do with individual's right to spend unlimited amounts of money on issue ads. So lets look at the effect of CU on the last election...Karl Rove's PAC (a corporation)spent $125M to defeat Mr. Obama and install Mr. Romney as President. How did that work out for them? Adelson spent a like amount as an individual for the same purpose and what was that result? So here you have $250 MILLION spent to 'buy' an election and what happened? Complete and total failure. So how can the CU ruling be a good thing? Here is a hypothetical for you to consider. Prior to CU, if David Koch wanted to create an issue ad supporting an anti-environment candidate and the Sierra Club (a corporation) wanted create their own ad, they were limited financially. They could never match Koch's money legally. AFTER CU the Sierra Club can fight him on equal footing. The playing field is leveled. Now this is but one example. Now for those of you who think in terms of say, Walmart being a corporation, which it is and they decide to support some extremist candidate or cause, it would be corporate suicide. First, the board of directors would have to approve the expenditure. Now, do you really think Walmart is going to put their stock price in jeopardy by doing something so stupid? No, they won't. The stockholders would never stand for it. Sure, they may not be known by the FEC, but the SEC would know they spent that money. Look, corporations have lobbyists who are much more effective for the money spent. Why bother with a crapshoot like an election?

I don't like Romney..but

The revelations of the past few days has shed more light on Mr. Romney. I will admit that I don't like the guy for a variety of reasons.

Tonight's 'interviews' only tend to prove beyond any doubt that this man has his secrets, he will justify everything and is in denial over his past statements regarding Bain. There is no doubt now that he and his campaign staff have decided to play the deflection game because if he exposed the truth, the damage would be worse than not admitting to what he actually did. As long as there is no definitive proof, a smoking gun other than what we already know, he can deny anything and everything and accuse others of speculating.

The question we all must ask ourselves is simply this. Given the secrecy of his past and his unwillingness to produce his tax returns, this should give us pause. Can we trust this man with the fate of 330 million people? Are his other qualifications and other possible intangibles overpowering enough to over ride common sense? I think not. He may claim to know how to fix the economy based upon his business experience, but his whole experience is making a profit. Not job creation, but creating wealth. This is not the President's job, to create wealth. This is all he knows. Government is not a business. Government cannot be run like a business. Imagine 535 members of a board of directors and him trying to accomplish what HE wants. This is not the way the real world works.

The biggest concern we have is simple. Given his propensity for going with the flow means he will succumb to the pressures of the Tea Baggers, just like Mr. Boehner. This is his pattern. To this day, he will flip flop on any subject. Look what happened with the penalty/tax issue of just last week. His whole Presidency will be just like this. He will go with the flow for political expediency.

Is this really the man we want in the White House?

President Romney's first week in office....

The votes are in, the tally set, Mitt Romney is our President, inaugurated a week or so ago. Have to give him credit, he sure hit the ground running. With the House and Senate all locked up in GOP hands, it has been easy to make the changes the right wing has been wanting and fighting for years. 


As a recap, what has happened in the last week. 


The Ryan budget finally became law, austerity and lower taxes on business, a voucher plan for Medicare to mention a few things. 


A 20% increase in the defense budget. 


The biggest changes coming the regulatory environment. EPA, FDA, Department of Education all defunded. New laws rescinding Federal mandates in virtually all areas of regulation, replacing them with recommendations or suggestions to the states. States now will be responsible for their own environment, education, food safety and immigration. 


Virtually all Federal education, social programs, education programs, loan guarantees are abolished, leaving it up to the states to fund their own social programs, if they choose to have them at all. Medicaid and Food Stamps are eliminated on the Federal level. 


The NLRB too was defunded and the question of labor relations to be answered by the states, the national minimum wage being rescinded, also left up to the states. Revenue sharing is being phased out so as not to share the wealth between the states. 


Each state will be losing about 1/3rd of their budgets due to Federal cutbacks, leaving the states to replace that funding from other sources. 


As promised, the entire Affordable Care Act was revoked and the Federal mandate that any hospital MUST treat a person on an emergency basis, insured or not, is also repealed. 


Congress is now considering repealing the American with Disabilities Act, all laws regarding discrimination, workplace safety and equal pay and protections. 


To reduce the liability of Social Security, Social Security Disability program is terminated. 


The military will no longer allow gay's to serve, gay right's are being purged and national laws are under study to remove state responsibilities and authorities on this issue. 


There is also a new cabinet post, the Department of Moral Responsibility. This department will provide moral guidance to all areas of Federal responsibility, to provide litmus tests for appointees.


The first week was not without controversy too. Vice President Jindal had to step down a few days after taking the oath of office. The Congress passed a law making a person a person at the moment of conception. Mr. Jindal's mother was 6 months pregnant when she emigrated to the US which disqualified Mr. Jindal since he was a 'person' created in India. Mr. Jindal was replaced by Paul Ryan as Vice President. 


And this is just the beginning.......

Mitt Romney...Can he turn things around?

The Romney campaign has made a lot of noise, how he is a job creator and has the business experience to turn our economy around. Frankly, I am not convinced he can do this. My reasons are fairly simple. Mr. Romney's focus has always been to make a profit, regardless of the costs or the risks. Risks. This is the key. In Romney's business world he and his com-padre's would buy a corporation and sell off the individual assets and take the write-offs for the ones left over to offset the profits they made off the sale of assets. To some this is called 'Vulture Capitalism'. This is a fairly easy thing to do if you have the money behind you. The system is rigged to take advantage of this sort of operation. This is the basis for Mr. Romney's argument that he is a businessman, a job creator as the primary function of Bain Capital. This could be further from the truth. Bain's focus was to make money, increase wealth without creating one single job. Now, I am not complaining as to what Bain was doing. But to suggest that Romney is somehow qualified to turn the economy around based upon his vast business experience is misrepresenting reality.


Think of the US government as a giant corporation and you were Bain Capital, what would you do to make a buck? First you would identify those parts of the corporation which are the money makers and money losers. Can you imagine trying to sell off parts of the government to reduce overhead and costs, to bankrupt the losers and sell off the money makers? This is the experience Mr. Romney has. How this equates to government escapes me unless he plans on privatizing the parts government he can  and selling them off. 


The bottom line is this. Romney's plan would be to cut all money losing programs, essential or otherwise. If it's losing money, get rid of it. Then he can cut taxes across the board to match what has been cut loose. One thing is certain, people like Romney have no conscience when it comes to real people. Imagine sitting in a meeting at Bain Capital when a decision is made to shift a financial responsibility from one company to another then bankrupt that company, causing those employees to lose their jobs? Do you really think anyone stood up and said, 'what about the people?'. There is an old saying, Business is business, nothing personal.


The question we have to ask is this. Should we risk our future on a person who is risk averse, or do we maintain the status quo? The economy is clearly on  the rebound as it is. If it wasn't, then maybe we should look for change. 

Propaganda and Hate, are you are you as sick of it as much as I am?

For the last year I have been compelled to do battle with those extremists on the right as well as the left. Dr. Goebbels would be more than proud with the multiple propaganda machines in play, Hitler himself coined the phrase, "when he dictated his 1925 book Mein Kampf, about the use of a lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously." ".

There are multiple examples of how propaganda has worked itself into our collective consciousness'. The subjects range from the President's right to serve to Monsanto and GMO's. 


As I said, the right and the left are guilty. I use those terms as a matter if simplicity. One can break them down into their specific components, but don't think that is necessary.

On a social networking site the latest rant is about Monsanto and GMO's. I asked the simple question, why are so many people against Monsanto? What have they done so wrong to draw the ire of so many people? Well, it all starts with propaganda. Pictures and graphics and data taken totally out of context is how it begins. So I asked the obvious question, is any of this true? So I did my research and was able to come to my own conclusion when taking the facts into consideration. These facts came from reputable sources other than from sources who had an axe to grind and also from Monsanto's site. I sourced from FDA and EPA and the NIH among others. The results were clear, those who 'hate' Monsanto have absolutely no basis to do so if they were to accept the facts, scientifically proven. 


For example, some argue that glyphosate used in Roundup causes cancer. This is completely false. There is no evidence to support that claim, in fact just the opposite. Some argue that Roundup poisons people, again a claim which is completely false. The state of California has a reporting system and in 13 years not one case of hospitalization due to Roundup poisoning has been reported. What the haters do not tell you is that the patent for Roundup expired in 2000, twelve years ago. Other pesticide manufacturers use glyphosate and some of their chemical formulations, the surficants they use when mixed with glyphosate can cause some issues, but glyphosate in and of itself is safe. 


Genetically modified seeds is another hate issue. Some argue, as in a current court case brought by a lobby against Monsanto that GMO's are not organic and that Monsanto should not be able to actually patent a seed product, that the farmers fear that Monsanto would sue them for cross-contamination. What they won't tell you is this. According to FDA, acting under LAW created rules regarding GMO's in 1992. Without getting into details, what FDA said is that GMO products are considered exactly the same if their characteristics are identical to a non-GMO product. These rule have withstood every court case. As for cross-contamination, GMO seeds are self terminating, meaning they cannot reproduce, hence no cross-contamination. Monsanto has never filed suit in a cross-contamination situation and has said they will not if this were the case. What the propaganda also claims is that Monsanto is sue happy and will sue organic farmers, their argument being over 700 farmers settling out of court and 124 other lawsuits. What they won't tell you is that those settlements were a result of those farmers breaking their contract with Monsanto over seed theft and/or seed hoarding. These were farmers who bought Monsanto seed and broke their contracts. The also claim that Monsanto enters property illegally, which is also false. Monsanto asks the farmer if they may enter the property, if the farmer refuses, Monsanto goes to court and gets a court order to allow them access because they have a contract with the farmer and have a right to protect their patent rights. Which takes us back to why they want the courts to deny Monsanto the right to patent their seeds. What I found interesting is that some people then use the argument that FDA is corrupt, EPA is corrupt. Okay, so Monsanto is fine, but the government is now corrupt.

Briefly I will touch on hormones, rGBH. This is another propaganda issue against Monsanto. The science disputes the claims made by the haters. But there is a twist to this propaganda. Monsanto has been vilified for continuing to sell rGBH to farmers when the truth is, Monsanto sold their rGBH product line to Eli Lilly in 2007, five years ago!! Imagine the silence when I mention this fact. 


Lets shift to Keystone XL. Here are some facts which the haters won't tell you. Keystone XL is NOT the first pipeline built by TransCanada to the US, there is one which was built a couple of years back to St. Louis, MO from the tar sands in Alberta. Where was the outcry then? If the pipeline is so 'unsafe' then why allow the first one, which has proven to be extremely safe. There are nearly 200,000 miles of pipeline in this country already. Why is this one drawing so much attention? Oh, the aquifer issue in Nebraska? What they won't tell you is that the state of Nebraska and TC have rerouted the pipeline. What they won't tell you that in the state of Nebraska alone, land owners are being compensated with one time payments for the use of their land anywhere from $10,000 to $110,000, not to mention the taxes which will flow to country governments, one of which is planning on using that money to build new schools, something they could not afford to do without the pipeline. Then there are the refineries being expanded to accommodate the oil. This pipeline will increase oil capacity to the US by another 900,000 barrels a day from a friendly source. Now, do you really want to know what the argument over the pipeline is? It's not the pipeline surprisingly enough. The pipeline is a red herring. What the environmentalists want to do is shut down the tar sands mining and they believe that if the pipeline is not built, the oil sands mining will stop. Silly of course, but those are the facts. The oil sands issue is a Canadian, not a US issue. The Canadian courts have backed the government of Alberta, so these guys figure they can take their case to the US and force a US President to step in on a Canadian issue. Imagine Canada telling us NOT to drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico!!!

How about Exxon and their 'profits'? Last year Exxon had revenues of nearly $500 B. Exxon paid $108 B in taxes, $30 B of those taxes were US income taxes on profits of $71 B, their net profit was $41 B, $10 B of which was from an asset sale. Exxon's profit margin is roughly 6.5%, about the same as GM. For comparison, Apple, which has more money in the bank than the US Treasury, is $28%, Microsoft is 33%, McDonalds is 17%, WalMart 3.4%. Yet there are those who want to bash Exxon...my question is why Exxon? Imagine if we had no oil companies, what would be our complaint then?


Now for some political crap. 


Obama said unemployment would not go over 8%. 


Yes, he said that. He also was repeating what the Bush transition team had told him. No one knew at the time how bad the economy had tanked. The fact is in his first month in office, unemployment went over 8%, hardly his fault. May I point out that unemployment peaked at a little over 10%. In comparison, unemployment peaked over 12% when Reagan was President, 20% where I lived in central Florida. Jobs are coming back from Mexico and China as the standard of living in those countries has negated the lower labor costs, plus the two tiered UAW labor agreements. VW spent a billion $ on a new plant in Chattanooga, Hyundai and Kia and BMW and Daimler-Benz are expanding US factories and increasing production. GM is reopening the Saturn plant in Spring Hill. 


Obama's economic policies have been a total failure.


Unemployment is back down to when he took office, the stock market is back. GM and Chrysler were saved and have returned to profitability and expanding, increasing investments. Record profits. Instead of building on the positive momentum the GOP won't even admit that it exists. 


Repeal Obamacare.


No President can repeal anything. 85% of Americans have health insurance, so who is complaining about mandates? The 7% who refuse to take responsibility for their own medical care, letting the tax payer foot their bills. 


Same sex marriage. 


Give me one secular, legal reason why this cannot be allowed?

Taxing the uber wealthy is a tax hike.


False, the tax breaks the wealthy were given on their personal income was temporary, all the President wants them to pay is the actual, statutory rate authorized by Congress. Since the tax breaks are on personal income, it has NO effect on job creation. There is no shred of evidence to prove that those tax breaks have created one single job in 10 years. In fact, tax breaks are actually an expense according to the IRS. That expense, which will have to be paid for by the rest of us is running close to $1 trillion. 


I could go on and on, I have probably already lost my audience as it is. My point here is this. Beware of the propaganda machines. Become a cynic. Question everything. Think on your own, don't let anyone tell you what to think or believe. 

After Iowa

The Iowa caucus finished tonight with 3 leaders. Of the three, only one generally appreciates the responsibility of be President of all of us. The other two are extremist ideologues who have a very narrow moral view and agenda not shared by mainstream America. One must remember, this is a secular nation, with laws created by Congress. It is not the place of a President to wage a religious war upon this nation. It is common knowledge that the term 'family values' is a code phrase for the extremist views of right wing Christians, who wish to foist their values and morality upon the rest of us, to deny us our rights as Americans to choose our own values.

If we elect a President whose agenda is to create a nation in their image and likeness, then we empower that President to try to do just that. In turn an extremist Congress will follow suit. Think is cannot happen? It has happened before, slavery was abolished in part because of the extremist views of at the time, the Christian left. Prohibition too was brought about by pressures from moralists and we know how that worked out. A Republican Congress brought to fruition following the election of Ronald Reagan proved disastrous at the beginning with infernal tax cuts and high unemployment and record deficits and national debt. It was clear by the time Reagan's term was up this approach was not working and during his tenure, Congress was compelled to raise taxes and set things right again.

It is highly unlikely that the extremist religious right will be able to put 'their man' in the White House. All this talk about gay marriage and DADT and abortion rights are red herrings. The President has no power to affect any of these issues. An ignorant electorate will buy into this nonsense. It amazes me how myopic many voters are, they fail to look at the big picture when selecting a candidate.

What concerns me at this point is the probable selection of Mr. Romney as the GOP candidate. As we have already seen, Mr. Romney has powerful friends in very well connected places with an awful lot of money to spend on attack ads.

There is no doubt that Mr. Obama has nothing to fear from Mr. Romney as Mr. Obama has the power of incumbency and voters who vote. After all, what could Mr. Romney say, truthfully say about the policies of the Obama administration? What personal attacks can he mount against Mr. Obama which he has not already weathered?

Mr. Romney is a prime example of the military/industrial complex some complain about. He is also an example of Wall Street run amok, bankers running scams. He represents the worst and the best of corporate responsibility. The question we have to ask ourselves is this. Do we want as President someone who represents the same types of people who brought our country to it's knees?

So I have a choice, as do all Americans. I cannot accept the idea of a President who will not represent the nation as a whole, who wishes to force their morality upon us. The question then is, can I support someone who has direct ties to corporate America who will stop at nothing to put their man in power. Mr. Romney has already demonstrated that he will do whatever it takes to 'turn things around', even if it means throwing the rest of us under the bus. Morality has no place in big business, apparently neither does ethics. Romney is a risk I don't think we should take.

As for Mr. Obama. I will be the first to admit that there are some things I am not happy about, when I look at specifics, but looking at the long view, it's clear he is smarter than all of us. Contrary to what the GOP say's, things are better than what they were the day he took office. We are out of Iraq, Afghanistan is winding down. We have a a national health care plan. Almost every promise Mr. Obama has made has been kept. The ones he has not kept, he was blocked by Congress. It has been the stated goal of the GOP from day one, to make Mr. Obama a one term President. Why? In the grand scheme of things, he has won, considering the obstacles put in his way by the GOP. Imagine if he is re-elected, what then would the GOP mantra be? He cannot run again, so he has nothing to to lose and that is what scares them more than anything. Mr. Obama has shown great leadership. He has taken that 3 am call and done well.

The question for all of us is this. We have a sitting President who we have grown to know. It is true he has not pleased everyone. We are a nation of over 300 million people and he can never please everyone, no President can. Mr. Romney is an unknown quantity, but we know where his loyalties lie and it is not with the American people. No one can say Mr. Obama is not the President of all of us. I don't believe we would be able to make the same assessment of Mr. Romney.

I think what we should consider is simply this. We hear and read from the GOP candidates complaints. Unfounded accusations. Flat out lies about the policies of the current administration. What we have have NOT heard or read are specific solutions or ideas, well maybe 9-9-9...LOL. How can we consider voting for someone who can only lie, whine and complain? Let's hear some concrete ideas. Not the rhetoric about birth control, right to life, deficit, debt, economy, family values.....how about, what can you do as President? Answer that question. The problem is that when one has to think about it, the President's 'power' is very limited. Let's top the whining and come up with plausible, well thought out solutions. We have a President with ideas and solutions, should we not expect the same from someone who wants that job?

Whiners and complainers, the American pastime.

Friends, I have just about had it with the whining and complaining going on in America today.

I have no problem with the public expressing outrage over the problems we face as a nation, what I do have a problem with is where the outrage is directed. Everyone is responsible in this regard. The one thing thing that has been ignored is who is actually responsible and why the complaints are misdirected. The bottom line is this, if you are going to whine and complain, then focus on who is really responsible and do something about it. As I will point out, we can do something about it because there is but one cause and we do have the ability to rectify the situation on our own. The question is, can we walk the walk? Personally, I don't think the American people have the courage to resolve these issues.

I will give several examples of what I am talking about here. I will also point out the root causes and then what we can do about it.

There are those who will blame our President for raising taxes. The truth is, no President has the power to raise taxes. In fact, the President cannot submit a budget directly to the House, only members can do that. No Presidential budget has ever been passed by Congress in it's original submitted form. Congress alone is responsible for the budget. For example, the FY 2012 budget was to be finalized by LAW by the last day of September, yet we have no budget, just continuing resolutions. Who is responsible? Congress.

There are those who blame the banks and Wall Street for our financial difficulties. Again, even according to our President, on the surface it appears they broke no laws. There are those who want the banks prosecuted, but if they broke no law, then this won't happen. Why then did we get where we are? Congress deregulated the banks and allowed them to enter into the field of investments. There were not enough safeguards in the law to prevent the financial institutions from doing what they did. Congress, in their shortsightedness chose to open Pandora's Box and look what happened. Should we blame the banks for taking advantage of an opportunity to make a lot of money, courtesy of the US Congress? As a condition of any bailout, Congress should have instituted a financial transaction tax to pay back the American tax payer and to slow down the derivatives market.

Some people blame the banks when some instituted a 4 or 5 dollar fee for using a Visa other debit card (not credit card). Now a bank has every right to recover the costs involved with these transactions. Transactions are handled through a third party clearinghouse. Prior to the banking reform law just passed by Congress, these costs were covered in fees charged the merchants. By law those fees were reduced. Two things happened, one the merchants did not lower their prices to reflect the reduction, but it does pad their bottom line. Secondly, since the fees were reduced the banks had to find a way to cover those costs, hence the monthly fee. Is it right to be able to use a banking service without actually having to pay for it? Of course not. Believe it or not there are some people who actually believe that a bank makes money off our deposits. It may be true that if you have a CD they might, but not off a checking account where the customer lives from paycheck to paycheck. Some say they should not have to pay to use their own money. The thing is, it's not our money. If you make a purchase at WalMart, you are actually borrowing money from WalMart and WalMart then is paid through a third party from your bank.

Keystone XL pipeline has received a lot of attention lately. What most people don't know is that it's not the pipeline the protestors are against in DC. What they object to is the tar sands oil project in the Canadian Province of Alberta. They see the mining there as an environmental disaster. The problem is this, this is a CANADIAN issue and the President has no authority to shut down an oil mining project in the COUNTRY of Canada. Here are a couple of facts to consider. There are 7 billion people on this planet, there are a little over 300 million people in this country and we use 25% of the worlds oil. We need oil, regardless of where it comes from. We are oil gluttons, simple fact. We have less that 2% of the provable reserves on the planet, in fact if we stopped importing oil from all sources outside the US, we would have a 3 years supply, that's it, under current consumption rates. Canada (Alberta) provides us with 20% of our imported oil. Now, here is something you may not know. There is already a pipeline, Keystone 1 pumping oil from Alberta to St. Louis. This is a second pipeline, Case 2. Alberta's oil production is limited by pipeline capacity, just as the shale oil project, Bakken here in the US is. In the end, it will be the President's decision whether to approve the pipeline or not. Since this is a matter of national security, he will certainly sign it. But what if he did not sign it? What would the ramifications be? Well, for one, it won't stop the mining, which is what the tree huggers want. You see, Alberta also has Case 3, a pipeline to British Columbia to service China and the Pacific Rim in the works. So the Chinese would be getting the oil that was supposed to come here. The new refinery being built in Port Arthur, TX would have to be modified to accommodate a different type of oil, if possible. If we ever needed oil from a friendly source because we got cut off in the future, well, no pipeline, no oil. The point here is, protesting at the White House will have no effect one way or the other on the mining of the tar sands in Canada. It is a wasted effort. The complainers should go to Edmonton to voice their concerns. Given the fact that 1 in 14 people in Alberta are tied to the oil industry and that expected oil royalties from the mining is expected to reach a total of $335 Billion (CDN) by 2035, I would not expect a warm, polite Canadian welcome.

Citizen's United has caused quite a stir, but I doubt if many people know what the ruling really means other than the tag line the 'corporations are people too'. First off, corporations are taxed and regulated without representation, corporations cannot vote. The CU ruling does NOT affect direct contributions to a candidate or party by a corporation or union. The way the law was written, an individual could spend as much money for or against a person, party, platform or issue whereas a corporation could not. This means that George Soros or the Koch brothers could spend as much as they wanted, but not as a corporation. All the CU ruling said is that a corporation cannot be treated differently than a person. If a person can spend as much as they wanted on their own campaign for or against an issue, person or party, so too can a corporation or union. Now, if you limit corporation/union spending, then the only source of political campaign ads will come from a candidate or party. So say an incumbent in a safe district would have a distinct advantage over a rival without CU. Congress created this law and is responsible, not the Supreme Court.

The EPA and over regulation is another issue. When asked, what regulations are hurting business, you either get no answer or you get something like, Mercury emissions or Greenhouse Gases. The truth? EPA has no choice but to create and enforce these rules because they are under orders from the Supreme Court to do so. The mercury emissions law was created by Congress in 1990 and the regulations will be finalized this December of 2011. The greenhouse gases issue was ruled on by the Supreme Court in 2007 and the new rules went into effect in January 2011. What are the rules which kill business? 1) Only new builds will be affected by the rules. 2) Only major refits will be affected by the new rules 3) Small businesses are exempt from the new rules. Each state is required to issue a permit due to the different environmental conditions of each state, there is no blanket permit for all. Existing plants are not affected by the new rules. Now, where did the authority for EPA to regulate come from? The US Congress, that is where. The Congress creates laws which EPA must enforce.

Taxing the wealthy and business is a clear responsibility of Congress. The wealthy do not make tax law, Congress does. Business does not make tax law, Congress does. Don't blame the wealthy for paying the taxes they are lawfully mandated to pay. If it's not enough, blame Congress.

Why blame WalMart for buying from China if that is all we choose to buy from? WalMart sells products made from all over the world, but we will only buy at the cheapest price. So who is at fault? Is it WalMart for selling the product or US who wants cheap prices? No one wants to pay 'list' anymore. If this were true, people would not wait until Black Friday to get the best deals for Christmas. Why do smart people wait until the end of the month to buy a car knowing that dealerships push for those end of the month sales. Why bother have sales at all? It's because we want to get the best deal we can. We made WalMart who they are today. All WalMart is guilty of is providing us with exactly what we asked for, cheap.

Now for the big one, the biggest problem and the ONLY one we can fix. Congress.

If anyone watched Dylan Ratigan today on MSNBC and listened to Mike Williams who was running for Congress in Connecticut, who quit the race over money, you can get an idea how screwed up our political system really is. Does anyone remember when Hillary moved to NY to run for Senate? She could have gone anywhere and run, why? Money. She would raise millions for the party no matter where she landed. She was called a carpetbagger, which she was. Dennis Kucinich, it was speculated he would move to another state because his seat in Ohio would be lost due to apportionment after the census. It's all about the money. Who can raise the most, who has 'connections' to the party and lobbyists. In rare cases a new candidate can break through, but usually because there is no incumbent and their opponent does something really stupid. On the other hand, does anyone remember Carnahan in Missouri who was elected AFTER he had already died? What does that say about the Missouri electorate? What does that say about the electorate at large? What makes an incumbent's seat so safe that well over 90% get re-elected even when it is clear the Congress is absolutely responsible for the fix we are in? Why do we keep voting for the same incompetents? Congress has an 8% approval rating, yet nearly 100% of the incumbents will be re-elected. Doesn't this one question bother anyone? What is it they say about insanity, doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result? Yet this is what we do. We make it so easy for the political parties. We are predictable and they prey on that. Because we let them. Who decides who runs for Congress? The party for one. If there is an incumbent you can forget any party help UNLESS you can bring in more MONEY. If there is no incumbent, the party chooses whomever can bring in more MONEY. If you are a Democrat wanting to run against a Republican in a 'safe' Republican district, you can forget any help from the party at all, it will be all on your dime.

If you have the chance to watch the movie, 'The Distinguished Gentleman', with Eddie Murphy, you can get an idea of how the process works.

So what is the answer? Campaign finance reform for one, but it will never happen, after all, the current system virtually guarantees re-election, even at the avg. cost of $1.2M per seat and where does the money come from?

The second solution is a lot simpler, but it will take a real change in voter activities.

People vote. People should vote. People should have a choice. The problem is the institutionalized corruption of the political system. There is only one way to put the brakes on. Toss the 435. What would be the ramifications if every single member of Congress was tossed out on their ear? For one, the House seniority would be in a shambles, the pecking order would no longer exist. Money would be less of an issue since the lobbyists would not know who they can approach to bribe. We would have a Congress of idealists not ideologues. The power base would be destroyed overnight. Replacing every member would mean fresh ideas, smarter people, connected to the people and not party. Maybe then we may get campaign finance reform and possibly term limits. We would have people who would put country first rather than party or special interests.

The truth is, Congress is the root cause for where we are today. The solution is to toss them all. So instead of blaming Wall Street and the banks and the wealthy or the Chinese, go after the people who truly are responsible. We cannot bring down Wall Street, but we can bring down the political system. So why not go after what we really can change?