Emma Berry

Archive for the ‘Stinking Politics’ Category

I hope that the Texas Rangers and the Democrats are taking extra care to protect the voters of Collin County in the upcoming November elections.

The Office of Elections Administrator was created by the Collin County Commissioners’ Court on August 18, 1980, pursuant to Section 31.031 of the Texas Election Code. The duties of the Elections Administrator are to facilitate voter registration and conduct elections.

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This is the first time in 30 years that the Republican rat’s nest of corruption in Collin County is being seriously threatened in any election.  Until now the good ole boy and girl Republican enclave has remained strong and chugged happily along handing out taxpayer money to their buddies whenever they felt like it.   They have run the county as if the taxpayer money were dues for their fraternity and sorority.   For example, in 2005 they handed out a multimillion no bid contract to Sam Johnson’s son to manage the North Central Texas Fusion center (a data mining center designed to spy on local citizens).  Sam Johnson’s son does not even live in the state, much less the region.  He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  More recently, and closer to the heart of the issue of voter fraud, we have the case of the women from the Collin County Clerks office whose records were raided this spring by the Texas Rangers.  These records show that these government employees used tax payer money to pay people to campaign for the Republican candidates.

ARE ANY OF THESE WOMEN GOING TO BE MANAGING ANY ASPECT OF THE VOTING PROCESS IN NOVEMBER?  THAT IS A QUESTION THAT SHOULD BE ANSWERED AND IF THEY ARE, AN INJUNCTION SHOULD BE FILED TO STOP THEM.

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There are those who say “Oh but these are just Grandmothers.”  They broke the law and violated public trust.  Martha Stewart did a great deal less than what these women did and she went to prison for a year.

Sen. Hatch’s column, “Reconciliation on health care would be an assault to the democratic process,” BLAH BLAH BLAH argued against the use of reconciliation, a simple majority voting procedure, to “to jam through [health care] legislation.”

Just another example of Republican short-term memory loss:  Sen. Hatch used reconciliation no less than 10 times over the past 21 years.

Someone needs to teach Hatch the meaning of  “double standard” .

The Dallas Morning News reports that Collin County’s early-voting turnout exceeded that for 2008’s presidential primary and was more than three times as high as in 2006. Dallas County Republicans are seeing similar turnout, nearly tripling 2006’s early-voting numbers and coming close to 2008’s.

A hotly contested primary for governor and a trend of voters shifting to early voting are factors.

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The article went on to discuss how some of this enthusiasm has been stirred up by the Tea Party Movement and mentioned that they support “conservative” candidates.  Once again, we have another movement that gives validity to the labels “liberal”/”conservative”/”Democrat”/”Republican”–as if such labels really mean a darn thing.  They don’t mean a darn thing, and until more Americans realize this and start demanding more detailed explanations regarding candidates’ solutions and stop settling for labels and cliches, we will continue to have the three ring circus in Washington that we have today.

Many Americans think that by putting a candidate into a category and labeling them that they have defined the candidate and can know that the candidate will support their best interests in Congress.  Well, that is simply a false assumption.

TAKE A LOOK AT WHAT THOSE WHO CALL THEMSELVES “CONSERVATIVES” HAVE DONE.

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SAM JOHNSON
For example, Sam Johnson has been referring to himself as a “conservative” politician ever since his first campaign 20 years ago.  He even has all the various A+ report cards from all the various Conservative lobbyists.  However on February 25, 2010, at 7:26 Eastern Time, Sam Johnson along with the majority of others in the House sold many of your Constitutional Rights down the river when he voted for the “Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act”–a bill that also had hidden in it this minor detail: To extend expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 and Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 until February 28, 2011. (Enrolled as Agreed to or Passed by Both House and Senate)[H.R.3961.ENR][PD

How can such an action be reconciled with a conservative perspective?  Neither Kucinich nor Ron Paul voted for this fraud of a bill.  Kucinich is  a progressive Democrat, but his vote reflected more of a congruity with the values of the Tea Party Movement than Sam Johnson’s.

See what I mean about oversimplifying with labels of  “liberal” or “conservative”.  It is just another form of stereotyping and like any stereotypical type of thinking, it is often wrong.  Kucinich’s vote on this issue was far more in keeping with conservative values than was Sam Johnson’s.

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DEBRA MEDINA
Here is another example of Tea Party Conservative labeling gone awry:  According to data compiled by OMB Watch, Medina’s medical billing company, Prudentia Inc., was granted a $50,000 federal loan guarantee shortly after she incorporated it in 2002. The loan guarantee came courtesy of a program administered by the Small Business Administration, headquartered in Washington—a program that Republicans and “Conservatives” tried to kill twice in the past 15 years.

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RICK PERRY
Then we have no finer example of “conservative” gone awry than Rick Perry, the governor of our state.  You tell me how taking money out of the taxes that Texas workers pay into an unemployment fund to help pay for their unemployment should they lose their jobs and giving it to multibillion dollar  corporations like Bank of America for them to guarantee job creation fits in with “conservative” thought.  From my viewpoint I see it as extortion payments made with stolen money from the people.

Last I heard the amount taken from the unemployment funds of taxpayers was $161 million dollars.  All this for another of Perry’s grand privatization schemes–The Texas Enterprise Fund.

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KEITH SELF AND ALL THE CURRENT COLLIN COUNTY COMMISSIONERS–all of whom wear the “conservative label”

So what is so conservative about their actions to force the purchase of at least 7 different properties without the consent of the owners.

For the last year, the county has been using its power of Eminent Domain to force the purchase of at least 7 different properties without the consent of the owners.

In today’s court session, the commissioners will vote to “lend” (against future toll revenue) the Collin County Toll Road Authority $6 million to pay for these condemned properties.

For a road that may never be built, at least not in our lifetime

If you might be among those wondering why a blithering blundering crook like Perry who has sold the people in the state of Texas out to Wall Street with his “Texas Enterprise Fund” is running ahead of Kay Bailey, look no further than the tired, lackluster way in which Senator Hutchison presents herself. If she showed any less personality or passion for her beliefs she would be in a morgue.

Perry, on the other hand, shows all the fire and brimstone passion of a rural Pentecostal preacher from Paint Creek Texas.

If you don’t have the convictions and the fire and energy behind your beliefs, how can you expect the voters to get excited about you?  Unfortunately, in politics, it’s not enough to have the best solutions.  You must believe in them and demonstrate your passion for them and the people you represent.  Whoever voted to allow this ad to go on for Kay Bailey Hutchison should have been fired.  It actually does more harm than good.  Of the three Republican candidates running for office, I would choose Hutchison, but I don’t think that is how the votes will go on Tuesday.  In great part, Senator Hutchison has no one but herself and her campaign  committee to blame for such a lackluster presentation of her as a governor of our state.

You would think that after all these years as a politician that she would know better.  But perhaps this ad was going for the sympathy vote and that’s why Kay looks like Pitiful Pearl.  who knows?  Perhaps it’s some clever campaign strategy that I don’t understand.

DEBRA MEDINA IS JUST ANOTHER POLITICAL HYPOCRITE.

Medina, is another Bush league Republican who is taking advantage of the Tea Party movement.

She has positioned herself as a radical anti-government outsider who would cut Texas free from federal government programs and influence in favor of the free market. However, according to an investigation of Medina’s business records, her company, Prudentia Inc., benefited greatly over the past decade from federal government subsidies and lucrative municipal government contracts.

According to data compiled by OMB Watch, Medina’s medical billing company, Prudentia Inc., was granted a $50,000 federal loan guarantee shortly after she incorporated it in 2002. The loan guarantee came courtesy of a program administered by the Small Business Administration, headquartered in Washington—a program that Republicans tried to kill twice in the past 15 years. [And please remember that bit of history, Small Business owners, the next time you donate to a Republican who tells you that they support small businesses.]

SOURCE

SAM JOHNSON VOTES NO ON WAGE INCREASES FOR THE AMERICAN WORKERS AND THEN CLAIMS AS HIS EXCUSE THAT HE IS SUPPORTING SMALL BUSINESSES

Sam Johnson, a man who in 20 years of having his meals paid for by the American people voted against the first wage increase for the American workers in 10 years back in 2007 !

The Bill to raise minimum wages for ordinary Americans was passed in 2007 in spite of  his obstruction on a bill  for the MAJORITY of working people on Main Street.

Increase the federal minimum wage to:

1. $5.85 an hour, beginning on the 60th day after enactment;
2. $6.55 an hour, beginning 12 months after that 60th day; and
3. $7.25 an hour, beginning 24 months after that 60th day.

American workers  waited for over 10 years on a minimum wage for the poorest workers in this country Low-wage workers had their wages frozen in time, from 10 years ago, but when they go to the supermarket, the food prices are higher; when they put gasoline in the car, the gasoline prices are higher; when they pay the utility bills, the utility bills are higher; when their kids get sick, the medical bills are higher. All of those things are higher. They were living in 2007, but in their wages they were living in 1997.

Do you wonder why so many Americans for the past 10 years have needed two job to make ends meet?  Ask Sam Johnson and those who have kept wages at below subsistence levels for the MAJORITY of Americans.

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Sam Johnson and others from his party often give the excuse that wage increases hurt small business by reducing their ability to compete with large companies.

In other  words, their “solution” to help Small businesses be more “competitive” with Wall Street is to keep the wages of  the majority of workers at a slave level.  With “solutions” like those, Main Street doesn’t need Sam Johnson helping them out in Congress.

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One Better Solution for Small Businesses (and there are more)

LEGALLY DEFINE A “SMALL BUSINESS” AS A COMPANY UNDER 100 EMPLOYEES BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT 98% ARE–UNDER 100 PEOPLE.   Then small businesses could actually compete for government contracts on a level playing field with corporations like Boeing and Halliburton.

There are more than 26 million small businesses in the United States. Almost all of them — 98 percent –have fewer than 100 employees. Yet, the basic standard that is used by the government is 500 employees.

Over the years, the Small Business Administration has revised its “size standard” – the numerical definitions for each industry. A recommendation to reduce the basic employee limit to 100 was halted by the SBA in July 2004, despite response comments that were overwhelmingly in support of the reduction. More

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In terms of wage increases, Sam Johnson has a ready-made dog and pony show for this election.  Last year he donated his cost-of living increase that Congressional members are paid every year to charity.

BIG DEAL.  Such an act is nothing short of more political grandstanding and means about ZIP to the majority of Americans.  What impact does Sam Johnson’s political grandstanding have on your life, on your ability to get a job that pays a livable wage? ZIP that’s how much and if you fall for these political dog and pony tricks along with the standard political cliches and promises that people like Sam Johnson dish out instead of real solutions that Independents like me will bring to Washington–then you have yourself to blame as you are the only one who gets to decide what you want to do with your vote.

You can throw it away on more of the same tired old cliches and political grandstanding, or you can vote for me.

The question that I will be searching to answer is:   How many times over the past 20 years has Sam Johnson voted himself a raise?  That is the REAL test–not whether or not he donates a paltry $3,000 or $4,000 of  his current $174,000 salary to charity, most of which is tax deductible anyway.  I’m not impressed.

Another question to ask Mr. Johnson except for “lower taxes” which never seems to be delivered and his vote to keep wages at below subsistence level for most Americans–what other solutions does Sam Johnson offer for Small Businesses?

As you may have noticed, I tend to avoid most of the standard political cliches (lower taxes, less government red tape,  a chicken in every pot, I’ll fight for you, etc.)  It’s because I’m as sick and tired of hearing politicians say them and then get to Washington and do the same thing that all the crooks before them have been doing.

Here is an example of exactly what I mean when I say that “I will fight for you if you elect me.” The House just yesterday voted to keep all those affronts to our rights as citizens that are in the US Patriot Act. They approved the bill exactly as worded by the Senate in a vote earlier this week.  Parts of Patriot Act would have expired Sunday, but passed through the Senate without debate.

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NO HAND-BASKET FROM THE SENATE EXAMPLE

The vote, incredibly enough titled the “Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act,” passed 315-97. The bill was so named because Senate Democrats inserted the Patriot Act’s extension into a Medicare reform bill.

This is exactly the kind of stinking wrong politics that I call BOTH the House and the Senate and BOTH the Republicans and the Democrats on: Instead of having it out in the open, they hid the  in the “Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act. First of all it is hidden so it makes it difficult for citizens to go and find out how their Senators and representatives voted on an important issue.  Then it is sometimes stuck in bills that those who want to pass the stink bomb know that the politicians would be in big trouble it they didn’t vote for the main body of that bill.

Three sections of the Patriot Act were to “sunset” this year, including the roving wiretap provision, the library records seizure provision, and the “lone wolf” provision, which permitted surveillance against possible terrorists even if there was no evidence tying them to any terror organization.

The Obama Administration had expressed concern about the addition of civil rights protections to the bill, but said they would consider them so long as they didn’t weaken the president’s powers. In the end such consideration will be unneccesary, because the neither the House nor the Senate saw fit to include any protections at all.

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Unlike Sam Johnson who went gently into that dark night and sold you out without even a hand-basket,  I would have been a whistle blower on this bill calling it out for what is was.  I would have the freedom to do this as an independent as I don’t have to be concerned about embarrassing the leadership of my party–my constituents, are my party.

Just in case you don’t know, or in case you forget:

The Current US Representative for Third District Sam Johnson voted your rights as a US Citizen away. You can check here passed 315-97 and see for yourself.

Yep, most Democrats are such flipping wimps that butter won’t melt in their mouths.  I’m from West Texas so I don’t have that affliction.  If I win the confidence of the people in my district, then Rahm Emanual with his strong-arm tactics of the House will find out that West Texas grit is a lot tougher and maybe even smarter than Chicago gangster.

The Republican leadership in Washington from 2000 to 2006 is the single cause for the deficit built during those six years. No one but the Republicans are to blame for that. Try as they may.  The Republicans are 100% responsible for all the debt they created in the first 6 years of this decade.   Then in January of 2007 when the Democrats took over Congress, the two parties shared equally in debt creation during the last two years of the Bush Administration–and it was a spectacular effort.

The combined effort of the two parties, in their “bipartisan” lovefest was particularly deadly for the American people. In the last four years of the Bush administration our nation lost $15.5 trillion dollars of its net worth.  In the last 18 months of the Bush Administration during the bipartisan lovefest, we lost $12.5 of that $15.5 trillion of our net worth as a nation–$40,000 for every man woman and child.

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LET’S LOOK AT SOME OF THE PORK FOR OUR CURRENT DEFICIT THAT THE REPUBLICANS GAVE US

First we have HOMELAND SECURITY, a hog of a bureaucratic system that increases the executive powers of the president.  225,000 employees and an annual budget of $52 billion

Congress estimates that the department has wasted roughly $15 billion in failed contracts (as of September 2008. In 2003, the department came under fire after the media revealed that Laura Callahan, Deputy Chief Information Officer at DHS with responsibilities for sensitive national security databases, had obtained her advanced computer science degrees through a diploma mill in a small town in Wyoming. [Hmmm Wyoming, Cheney's home state.]

The department was blamed for up to $2 billion of waste and fraud after audits by the Government Accountability Office revealed widespread misuse of government credit cards by DHS employees, with purchases including beer brewing kits, $70,000 of plastic dog booties that were later deemed unusable, boats purchased at double the retail price (many of which later could not be found), and iPods ostensibly for use in “data storage.

The Associated Press reported on September 5, 2007, that DHS had scrapped an anti-terrorism data mining tool called ADVISE (Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight and Semantic Enhancement) after the agency’s internal Inspector General found that pilot testing of the system had been performed using data on real people without required privacy safeguards in place. The system, in development at Lawrence Livermore and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory since 2003, has cost the agency $42 million to date. 

In March 2007, the Government Accountability Office stated that “the ADVISE tool could misidentify or erroneously associate an individual with undesirable activity such as fraud, crime or terrorism.” Homeland Security’s Inspector General later said that ADVISE was poorly planned, time-consuming for analysts to use, and lacked adequate justifications.

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PATRIOT ACT
In addition to shredding many of our basic legal rights as citizens of this country, the Patriot Act has cost Americans billions of dollars.  And this cost began even before the bill was passed.

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft spent over $200,000 of taxpayer money in a four-week, 31-city tour last year promoting the controversial USA PATRIOT Act, according to a report by Congressional auditors.  Two hundred thousand dollars seems like peanuts when weighed against other government expenditures, but think of it in personal terms.  How many years of income does $200 translate for you?  For most of us, that is at least three years of income spend by a government official in the course of four weeks.

One of the Republican’s standard campaign cliches concerns how they are for eliminating “government red tape” but their Patriot Act created miles of it. Tamara Loomis’s New York Law Journal article, “The Rising Costs of Patriot Act Compliance,” gives us some more examples and more expensive news for financial institutions and other businesses.

These are but two measly examples.  If I were to provide the entire list, I would be writing into next year.

Suffice it to say that the Republican leadership is largely responsible for the current deficit that we face as a nation.  And that the Democrats have shown that they cannot do much better.

IT IS TIME TO SEND  FEW INDEPENDENTS FROM MAIN STREET TO WASHINGTON DC.

It will be interesting to see if the majority of the citizens of Texas will be fool enough to vote for Rick Perry for a third time because it looks like he might squeak through the Primary as the Republican candidate.

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In another world, if Rush Limbaugh were a progressive giving advice here, he might say:
Those Democrats  who really care about the state of Texas might think about voting the Republican ticket in the Primary and casting a vote for Hutchison. You can always change your mind in November, no law against that.  Of course, those Democrats who feel passionately about either Bill or Farouk are likely to get all puffed up about this  suggestion, not to mention the Perry and Medina fans.  If push came to shove, I would rather have Kay Bailey Hutchison as my governor than Rick Perry.  At least with her there might be hope of some reason and intelligence–whereas with him, we know what we are getting and  it’s not pretty.

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What happened to Kay Bailey Hutchison?  Well, listen up candidates.

She has three things going against her.

1. her indecisiveness [All fall long she kept going back and forth regarding whether or not she would run for governor--shall I?  shall I not?. . .]

2. her lack of passion [She has not been at all strong and passionate about what she will do for Texas.  All we hear from her are nothing statements such as "I am the most conservative."  Hutchison is apparently among those politicians who have NOT gotten the memo from the American people.  We don't give a hoot about your ideology.  We want to know EXACTLY what you are going to do for us.  Furthermore, two-bit political cliches such as "lower taxes" are not good enough any more--not this time, not this year.  We want to know EXACTLY what you are going to do and we want to you to show some excitement about it.

3. her sense of entitlement - Kay Bailey Hutchison has  conveyed a sense of entitlement to the voters of Texas--never a good thing to do, especially here in bootstrap country.  I believe she has even said things such as it is her turn.   LOL   Kay reminds me of the Democratic candidate for Ted Kennedy's Senate seat, Martha Coakley.  Martha acted like she was entitled too.  She didn't bother to go out and press the flesh with her voters because it was too cold she whined.  [Code:  I'm a Democrat so I'm a shoo-in in Ted's state.]

Well it looks like the same thing that happened to Martha is in store for Kay Bailey Hutchison.

AND IT’S TOO BAD FOR MOST OF US TEXANS.  If Rick Perry is re-elected, you may be paying a toll to back out of your own driveway because it’s a given that  Perry will continue with his wholesale privatization fraud on the people of this state.  Look up information on his Texas Enterprise Fund if you want more information on Perry’s giveaways to Wall Street.  He is Robin Hood in reverse–stealing from the poor and giving to the rich.  Like his mentor, George, Rick’s people are the “have mores”.  Don’t let him fool you because he dons a goodwill sport coat and attends one of those fake Tea Party rallies.

The Allen American reports that “. . . Self said this is a race citizens need to pay attention to because of the control the commissioners’ court has on funding within the county. By determining which funds go where within the judicial system on a county level, which funds go to different government entities and the tax rate that will generate these funds, Self said citizens who are concerned with government spending cannot afford to ignore this primary. . .”

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I have a few questions for Judge Self:

Where  exactly does expressing the approval of the award of a multimillion dollar contract to the son of an 20 year Republican incumbent U.S. Representative fit into your concerns with government spending? From my viewpoint, it would appear to fit into a good ole boys club decision.

Do you see the risk involved with the very reason that you offered to justify this approval? I believe you said that that system (that would be the North Central Texas Fusion System) designed by Sam Johnson’s son was so customized that only Bob Johnson knew could operate it.   Bob Johnson who lives in Santa Fe New Mexico  originally built the system under a no-bid contract approved by some of the long time current Collin County Commissioners like Jerry Hoagland in 2006.

I think it is time to retire a lot of good ole boys  from Collin County and the Third District government.  What would happen to the now multimillion dollar taxpayer investment if Sam Johnson’s son were to be killed in an auto accident, or die suddenly of a heart attack?  Not only would the citizens be out several million dollars [since no one else could operate the system] but if indeed fusion center are so important to domestic security as some claim, our entire region would be vulnerable to a terrorist attack.

I fail to see the wisdom of your logic as a judge–at least as a judge who has the public interest in mind.