Emma Berry

Emma Berry – Independent Candidate for US  Representative from the US Congressional District 3 of Texas. CONTACT ME AT:  eebemma@yahoo.com

Welcome to  this site for Emma Berry, Independent candidate for the Third US Congressional District of Texas.  I’m a fourth generation  “native daughter” of Texas.  You can get to know me better and what I stand for by reading the posts that you find on my site.  This information is updated daily.  In addition,  if you want to view my activities and meet citizens from our Third district, please see the page titled “In My District” across the top of the page, just under the banner.

Our only hope for real change is to change the people that we send to Washington. Twenty years on the throne is long enough for any politician, especially one whose son gets million dollar no-bid contracts from the taxpayers of Collin County.  We don’t need professional politicians in Washington who have forgotten what it’s like to live on Main Street.

No one is paying me $100,000 to make speeches.  In fact, I’m funding my entire campaign on a budget of $2,000 from my own personal savings.

I hope that you like what I have to say.  I offer concrete measurable solutions–not vague, worn-out political cliches like those that career politicians drag out every two years and then put back in their trunks until the next campaign.

Sam Johnson, the current US Representative for the Third Congressional district has not even lived on Main Street for 20 years!  He is a visitor–not a resident.  Sam’s permanent address is in the Beltway, a stone’s throw from Wall Street and a light year from Main Street.

MOST ELECTED OFFICIALS REPRESENT THEIR OWN STOCK PORTFOLIOS AND NOT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

Most of the votes placed by our elected officials in Washington DC represent a clear conflict of interest?  Why? Because at least 263 (almost half) of them have millions of dollars invested in Wall Street.  They are in Congress in part to protect their own personal wealth. What is good for Wall Street is good for them.  But what is good for Wall Street is often bad for Main Street–this has been especially obvious for the past 18 years.
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SOMEONE NEEDS TO REMIND LOCAL LEADERS THAT TRICKLE DOWN ECONOMICS IS A MYTH

EDUCATE  YOUR CONSERVATIVE FRIENDS THAT THERE ARE CERTAIN INSTITUTIONS–SUCH AS PUBLIC UTILITIES–THAT SHOULD BE HELD IN PUBLIC–NOT PRIVATE TRUST.

This is NOT socialism.  This is protection of citizens from corporate greed.  There are plenty of markets left for the capitalists to compete in.  Just keep them the hell our of healthcare insurance, utilties, education k through 12, management of the nation’s infrastructure and prisons.

YES  magazine reports that the city of Fenton California took back control of their water supply from a private industry.

In 2002, when Citizen Utilities, the small company that ran the water system for Fenton, California  was acquired by American Water Works Co. Its subsidiary, California-American Water (Cal-Am), took over Felton’s water utility. American Water was acquired shortly afterward by London-based Thames Water.

In November 2002, Cal-Am proposed a 74 percent rate increase over three years, subject to approval by the California Public Utilities Commission. Felton residents formed Friends of Locally Owned Water (FLOW), and with legal help from Santa Cruz County, fought the rate increase, which the utilities commission knocked down to 44 percent. But the threat of escalating costs loomed, so FLOW began working on a plan to buy the water system and turn it over to the nearby San Lorenzo Valley Water District (SLVWD), a public utility

Their efforts were successful, and the ballot initiative won with nearly 75 percent of the vote. SLVWD then proposed to buy the water system for $7.6 million, but Cal-Am/RWE refused to sell. So SLVWD pursued eminent domain to force a buyout. Just before the case was to go to jury trial, the company settled with SLVWD. Today, with Felton’s water back in the hands of a public utility, the average resident’s bill has dropped by at least 50 percent. FLOW has calculated that even with the tax increase, most residents are already saving as much as $400 per year

At what point do our local Governments stop treating Wall Street Polluters as if they have a right to destroy the environment and force people to work for slave wages?

Perhaps we should say no when we can no longer even go to our beaches, lake shores and river banks, much less swim in the water that has been polluted by industrial discharge and oil spills.

Perhaps we should say no when  the majority of all animal species have become extinct because of industrial pollution.

Perhaps we should say no, you can’t have a free ride  when we realize that there may not be another generation because slave wages paid by Wall Street corporations, combined with the high prices for food are not sufficient to sustain life.  We already see evidences of this all over the world and the USA is no exception.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported that in 2008:

• Of the 49.1 million people living in food insecure households (up from 36.2 million in 2007), 32.4 million are adults (14.4 percent of all adults) and 16.7 million are children (22.5 percent of all children).
• 17.3 million people lived in households that were considered to have “very low food security,” a USDA term (previously denominated “food insecure with hunger”) that means one or more people in the household were hungry over the course of the year because of the inability to afford enough food. This was up from 11.9 million in 2007 and 8.5 million in 2000.

I am so fed-up with the half-measures undertaken by the Obama Administration that I could scream.  The legislation that they pass is so watered down that it will not effect the sweeping reform that is required.

For example, we are supposed to cheer because Congress passed a health care bill that does NOTHING to provide  real competition for Wall Street health care insurance crooks giving Americans the choice of a public option and instead mandates 50 million Americans to purchase health care insurance from the very Wall Street crooks who are currently robbing us blind?  Sorry but don’t expect any thanks from this corner.

Now I read in this morning’s Huffington Post that we now are supposed to cheer because of the half-assed  attempt of Congress in addressing a historic wrong on Wednesday afternoon, replacing it instead with a slightly lesser wrong, when the House voted to reduce the disparity in the sentencing of people caught with crack cocaine versus powder cocaine.

To be charged with a felony, crack users needed to possess only 5 grams of the drug. To be hit with the same charge, powder cocaine users needed to be caught with 500 grams. This 100-to-1 disparity has frequently been cited by drug war opponents as exhibit A to buttress their claim that drug laws are racist.

Pending President Obama’s signature, the new law will reduce that disparity to 18-to-1. The threshold for crack cocaine in the new law will be 28 grams; the powder level remains the same.

WE ARE SUPPOSED TO CHEER BECAUSE WHAT AMOUNTS TO RACIAL DISCRIMINATION IS NOW ONLY 18 TO 1 IN FAVOR OF WHITE PEOPLE?

Pardon me, but I see little difference between these crumbs that the corporate centrists are offering us the and entire cake that Republicans take.

Excuse me if I don’t fall all over myself in gratitude.

If Americans really want to “take back their government”  as many claim to want to do, they are going to have to take back control of industry first from Wall Street.  AND IT STARTS AT A LOCAL LEVEL.

Americans, and primarily with the assistance of local and state governments have literally sold out their people to Wall Street in order to lure Wall Street organizations to bring jobs to their communities.

Now we are likely to see even more ridiculous demands coming from Wall Street regarding tax breaks and lower pollution standards for their operations.

Because of the need for jobs, there will be the temptation of communities to bend the rules and make exceptions for these greedy people, but now more than ever is the time to say no and turn away from these people before they completely destroy our nation.

WALL STREET CORPORATIONS SHOULD NOT GET SPECIAL TAX BREAKS.  WALL STREET CORPORATIONS SHOULD NOT BE MADE AN EXCEPTION TO POLLUTION STANDARDS–NOT IF YOU GIVE A DAMN ABOUT  YOUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN BEING ABLE TO SWIM IN THE RIVERS AND OCEANS OF THE WORLD.

Tell your local governments to use your tax dollars to create a local corporation that produces some type of goods that will be consumed locally.  These corporations can only have investors who live in the region and shares cannot be sold outside the area.  ANCHOR the economies of your community so you can more easily say no to these greedy pigs from Wall Street.

If there is to be change in the stranglehold that Wall Street has on America,  it will have to begin with people in  local governments and local Chamber of Commerce’s who stop making any kind of a deal with Wall Street corporations to attract Wall Street business to their communities.

It is absolutely ridiculous.  In Plano Texas, for example, their local government raised property taxes in 2006 to the extent that people owning a home valued at $244,000 were paying an extra $40 a year.  And what did the local government do with this added revenue?  They did things like give a cash incentive of $1.2 million to Pizza hut to move its corporate headquarters to Plano on a tax free piece of property.  ABSURD!  The people who most benefitted from this were not the local people in Plano but the global investors of Pizza Hut.

In Texas, we see this at a state level with our governor who is willing to allow industry to pollute our air and our water.

This faulty logic of an “either/or” mentality must end if we are sustain life on our planet. We have been hoodwinked for years by special interests into thinking that either they must have their way and be allowed to pollute and take unnecessary risks with worker safety and all without paying their fair share of taxes or they won’t bring their business to town.  We must have local leaders who have the courage and insight to say no.  No it is YOU who must be responsible and pay your taxes to the community that you use.  It is YOU who must reduce YOUR profits.  It is YOU who must not put our community at risk for your profits.

OTHERWISE, we will use our tax dollars to create community corporations.  Every community in America should have at least two community corporations that are owned by shareholders who live in the community.  This is the only way to stabilize local economies.  Wall Street corporations do not own their alliance to the communities that they pollute.  They owe their alliance to their global shareholders.

If local communities don’t start making them behave–no one will.

DEMAND THAT YOUR LOCAL GOVERNMENT STOP HANDING OVER YOUR COMMUNITY TO WALL STREET.

Another area where local communities are vulnerable is with food security.  To the extent possible, all food consumed locally should be grown locally and/or in the nearby region.

When various posts are yammering on about special interests, they never mention Party as a special interest, but the fact is that BOTH the Democrat and the Republican parties represent the special interests of Wall Street.

This is not true of the progressive arm of the Democratic Party, however it is true of the current Clinton/Obama administration as well as all of the Republicans.  Most of these people are multimillionaires who vote to protect their own personal stock portfolios.

The Cinton/Obama Administration are corporate centrists and there is not enough daylight between them and a Republican to make any difference.  Only fools like Glenn Beck and those who believe his clap trap are dumb enough to not see this.

Even progressive Democrats who sign up under the party ticket are like those who sign up under the Republican ticket as well as those who are sponsored by right-wing multibillionaires who sponsor the Tea Party–all are signing up to represent rich special interests–not mainstream America.

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The Republicans and the Corporate Centrist Democrats BOTH stack the deck in favor of the rich.

IT’S OK WITH BOTH GROUPS IF THERE IS A TRANSFER OF WEALTH–AS LONG AS IT CONTINUES TO BE FROM THE POOR TO THE RICH.  BUT JUST LET ANYONE SUGGEST OTHERWISE AND LISTEN TO THESE GREEDY CREEPS SQUAWK.

Credit cards do more than drain money from your wallet — they may actually create an “implicit money transfer” from the poor to the rich, according to a new study from the Boston Federal Reserve.

The study, titled “Who Gains and Who Loses from Credit Card Payments? Theory and Calibrations”, suggests that, as card use becomes more frequent, merchants have raised their prices to compensate for card-processing charges. (Hat tip to the WSJ)

As a result, the study suggests, the poor — who usually lack access to reward-paying credit cards — end up paying more for everyday goods.

In Rick Perry’s Texas, no sacrifice is too great for a job–and that includes giving up the air you breathe.

Perry’s commission over the years has granted over 140 pollution permits to large petrochemical companies and other large industries in an attempt to skirt the Clean Air Act.  That is why we have an orange alert OZONE alert several times a month in Texas.

If you don’t like warnings like the one below then don’t vote for Rick Perry in November as Perry is largely responsible for air pollution in Texas.

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AIR POLLUTION WARNING – LEVEL ORANGE
OZONE is UNHEALTHY FOR SENSITIVE GROUPS in the Dallas-Ft. Worth Area Monday, July 26, 2010, 15:15 CDT

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has issued a LEVEL ORANGE warning for the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. Ozone air pollution levels are rated as UNHEALTHY FOR SENSITIVE GROUPS based on measurements at the following monitoring site(s)…

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For the past decade that Perry has been governor, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, composed entirely of Perry appointees, has turned the very name of the agency into an oxymoron. Instead of protecting the quality of our environment, it has put polluters ahead of the public.

PLEASE CONNECT THE DOTS BETWEEN PERRY AND AIR POLLUTION
Do you think that perhaps there is a connection between our orange days in Texas and the fact that  Perry’s commission over the years has granted over 140 pollution permits to large petrochemical companies and other large industries in an attempt to skirt the Clean Air Act?   Now the EPA is finally doing its job.

ENOUGH ALREADY!  IT’S TIME TO SEND THAT HILLBILLY BACK TO PAINT CREEK WHERE HE CAME FROM BEFORE HE AND HIS GOOD OLE BOYS* TURN OUR STATE INTO A CESSPOOL.  They’ve already got a good start on it.

FOR MORE ON THIS TOPIC VISIT THE COLLIN COUNTY OBSERVER

*One of Perry’s good ole boys is billionaire Harold Simmons who over the years has contributed over $600,000 to Perry. Not only has Mr. Simmons’s company, Waste Control Specialists, landed a lucrative contract to take the Hudson River sludge to Texas, but this spring it won a permit from the state to store low-level radioactive waste as well.