When Will We All Become Americans Again

One of the things that scares me is the total lack of togetherness displayed in our country now. It is all about me, has become our national phrase. The Republicans are doing nothing and then blaming the President for the economy's sluggish recovery. The last I looked it is the Congress that votes on spending money and taxes. The President tries to set the agenda, but when the opposing party decides it's top priority is to make the President a one term leader, you can be sure that nothing will be accomplished

I don't want to hear the rhetoric from the right about principles. They have thrown theirs out the window. They are allowing Americans to suffer because they what to win politically. When Obama took office he was slammed for trying too hard at giving to the right. His own party took him to task and wanted him to stand his ground. Each time the President gave to the right, the left screamed he was giving away too much and the right moved the line further away from compromise.

Do you honestly believe the country can afford to wait for the election to be over to start solving problems? Do you believe that if Mitt Romney is elected, Congress on the left side of the aisle will miraculously decide to forget the do nothing politics from the right, and start working with him? They will continue the same destructive politics that the Republicans have been practicing for the last three years.

The right keeps saying the left wants to keep blaming President Bush. We are not continuing to blame him we are trying to remind everyone of those eight years. The Romney presidency will look just like the Bush presidency. Cut taxes. Deepen the recession. Cut regulations so we can have more companies to bail out.

Look at the facts. Bill Clinton, left office and the country had the largest surplus in history. We could have looked at ways to fix Social Security, not privatize. We could have looked at reforms for Medicare and Medicaid. We could have built off of the successes, by Congress and Clinton, instead Bush decided to cut taxes. Got us involved in two wars, without paying for them. Then, he was in office for the start of one of the worst recessions in history.

It took Bush eight years to destroy the economy and yet the right expects Obama to solve the problem and right the ship in three years, all while giving him no support from Congress. Any economist will tell you that an economic downturn this severe will take more then three years to recover from and we all have to work together to do so. It will take a combination of increased revenue and spending cuts to get us moving forward. It will take the effort of American companies and the government working to get people back to work and grow the economy. It will take time as much as we wish it didn't. The right wants to have us believe that the same things they did to get us here in the first place will some how turn the American economy back around. If you believe this, then you must also believe Peter Pan was a real boy.

It is time to quit waiting for the next election. It is time to quit waiting for the ideal situation to come along for businesses. It is time to become an American and stand up for the country as a whole and not just for yourself. Decide now!

Reply To Doug.

I am not surprised by your response. Truthfully I could have predicted it. You want to ignore one glaring fact. There is almost NO voter fraud, but a great deal of voter suppression. I want my vote protected as much as you do and we could certainly look to put in place procedures to ensure voters rights without disenfranchising groups or individual voters. My return question is why now. Why were we not doing this ten, twenty or even one hundred years ago? There is less fraud now then ever and yet it has become such a rush to institute these laws. I would be willing to bet, that if new voter suppression laws were being enacted that affected white, middle to upper middle income men, you would be screaming your head off. Remember Doug we have a responsibility as Americans to ensure every ones rights. I would even fight and have fought for you to speak and vote and carry a weapon, even though I disagree with you. That is what makes America different. That is what makes America great. Protecting every ones rights, not just your own.

Voters Rights Versus Gun Owners Rights!

Yesterday Speaker of the House John Boehner announced that their will be no new bills introduced on gun controls. To the surprise of many who read and know me, I agree with Mr. Boehner. Now, is NOT the time to look at ways to reduce the number of deaths by firearms. The atmosphere is too emotional.

My question to the Speaker and all of the Republicans around the country, at both the state and federal level is why is it a good time to restrict voters rights? Why now? Why after the 2010 election and not before?

Let's look at some facts. To my Swedish friends, that demand facts here they are.

The following are from the firearms industry. There are approximately 235 million guns owned in the United States. That equates to almost one gun per person. From the Center for Disease Control, there are approximately 14 thousand murders by firearms in the United States each year.

So with facts, there are a great deal of firearms and deaths caused by firearms in the United States each year. Tragedy, yes, but to make it clear I do not support bans on firearms. I support ways to weed out the irresponsible people that kill needlessly with firearms each year.

What is my point. Exactly this, over the last couple of years we have seen 19 new laws in 14 states that target voter ID and fraud. This push is being lead by Republican and conservative lawmakers and is trying to impede and keep over 5 million ELIGIBLE voters from casting their votes. The right to bear arms is mentioned in one amendment, the second. Voters rights are so important that they had to be addressed in the 15th, 19th, 23rd, 24th and 26th Amendments. Yes each one of these were changes to address the inequities that we failed to cover previously.

Some more facts for everyone to think about. Over the years 2002 to 2007, and this is according to the Justice Departments Records. there were 86 cases of voter fraud investigated and their were no, zero, nada people prosecuted for going to the polls and impersonating an eligible voter, which the anti fraud laws are supposed to stop. Think about this over 300 million votes cast only 86 investigations and ZERO prosecutions, and the frauds that were investigated were due to the registering process not ID at the polls. During this same time there were over 33 thousand UFO sightings reported. There were 353 deaths in the country due to being struck by lightning. There were approximately 70 thousand deaths by firearms and yet what are we worried about. VOTER FRAUD.

Where are the same people that are concerned about gun ownership laws? If they believe in the Constitution so much why are they ignoring the restrictions on voting rights. Does not the same concerns apply here. If we loose our right to vote, a small, select group of people will gain more control. They will come after your gun rights. Make no mistake about it.

 We have a problem that kills and affects people everyday and we do nothing. We do not look at ways to retain the right to bear arms and yet reduce the number of deaths by firearms. On the other hand we have a problem that is not a problem. We spend money to investigate voter fraud and yet we get no prosecutions. We waste time, energy and resources to find a solution that has no problem and yet the conservatives are perfectly fine with that.

One last point. The voters fraud laws being passed were done to restrict early voting and absentee voting, No fraud here, lets just restrict it. They were done to limit voters registration. This is where the 86 cases occurred. Still not much to find here. No prosecutions. Bottom line is they are being enacted after President Obama was elected to affect minorities, poor, disabled and students. All people that tend to vote Democrat or liberal. That is the intent. To suppress voters rights. This pisses me off, sorry to my Swedish friends for having an emotion, and should do the same to you. If you really care about our country and believe what is written in the Constitution, then you should be involved and speaking out against anyone that is taking away our rights. Whether they are gun rights or voting rights.

There Are Ways To Help Curb Violence!

Here we go in the discussion, in the aftermath of the mass killings in Colorado. I am sure the extremists on both side will attack my ideas, but so far I have not heard anything that would help to, at least, reduce the killing sprees here and around the world.

In response to the left, that will scream severe gun controls, no way. I will always defend the right of law abiding and stable Americans to purchase and own guns.

In response to the extremes on the right, I say we need some common sense restrictions on types of weapons and the amount of ammunition that is available.

Will either of these end the gun violence? No, but could it help? Very likely!

I feel that limiting the amount of ammunition people can buy and track any extremely large purchases, can reduce the ability of mass killings. Limit the size of clips, so that the crazies have to stop and reload, giving an opening to someone to stop the massacres.

Stop the sale of assault weapons until a complete and comprehensive background check can be performed.

Stop the ability of people to buy multiple weapons without the same background check.

Does this make it harder for the regular gun owner to buy for their collection, hunting or pleasure shooting. It does, but we are at the moment making it harder for people to vote all across the country and I have not heard anyone from the right scream about the rights of people voting being violated.

To the "Dirty Harry" wannabes, the idea that arming so many people, will stop, nut jobs, from killing is extremely naive and actually incredibly stupid. Think of the scenario, that just happened. A dark theatre. Some mad man opens fire. Chaos ensues. Ten people, with concealed weapons jump up and start to return fire. Who do they shoot? Will they think that there is more then one person involved? Remember it is dark and smokey and panic has set in. Now everyone is firing in the direction of muzzle flashes. Other people are trying to get out of danger. There is crossfire and people are trapped by it. Bullets fly everywhere. They go through the side walls. More "heroes" with weapons start to run into the theatre, firing as they enter. The police start to arrive. Who do they fire at? Nobody knows who the actual killer is. The end result is the number of dead is multiplied. This is not the way to handle the situation. We need to stop the killer from getting the ammunition and weapons in the first place. That is the closest we can come. Will it stop the killings completely? Again I have already stated it will not, but if it keeps one idiot with a gun from killing innocent people, we need to look at it.

I stated in the beginning I am not now and have never supported the idea of taking gun ownership from Americans, who are responsible and law abiding. The right will argue they want no restrictions and the left will argue they want severe restrictions. The answer lies in the middle. I will address additional comments I have heard over the past few days in future post. Some of them just made me shake my head in disbelief at how uncaring and uneducated human beings can be. As for my readers, state your opinions. Let me hear some thoughtful and educated ways to help end the violence.

When Will Our Leaders Grow Up?

I don't know about you, but I am already sick of the political rhetoric flying about. This is not about one party or ideology it covers every so called leader. It reached a zenith yesterday when I listened to Republicans attack the President of the United States, relentlessly as being Un-American. They kept using the phrase, "This President". Hold on everybody, "This President" is our President. Whether you voted for him or not, he received the majority of votes and under, "our" Constitution he is our President. I did not vote for George Bush either time. I disagreed with his policies many times. The bottom line is that never, not once, ever, did I say he was Un-American. I never questioned his legitimacy to hold office. From the beginning of Barrack Obama's term, people on the right have questioned him being American. Enough!!!

Yesterday the President made a speech in which he stated, correctly, that every person who has reached a high level of success owes part of that achievement to other people. He spoke of teachers, parents, co-workers and many others that contribute to each one of us having a better life. He spoke of government creating, through research, avenues for others to come in and gain success. He used the example of government getting the Internet moving and thus opening a way for people to build companies, create jobs and become wealthy. Every factory, store, movie theatre, hospital and all other businesses, owe part of their growth to the government. The roads that lead to their business was built with other peoples money, through the government. The water, electrical and all other infrastructure is due to collective funds and work. This was his point. It is factual and valid. The right now distorts the words and states that Obama hates business. He hates it so much and has created such a hostile environment for companies, that their profits are the highest in history. I wish he hated me so much.

In fairness, the left, has done the same to Romney. When he stated, "He enjoyed firing people", it was in reference to the point, if he does not get the proper service for his money, he will fire that company and go to a competitor to get a fair return on his money. Simple, we all do this. I have changed cable companies, phone companies, insurance companies and others. This is a form of firing people. The dog carrier on the roof was as ridiculous of an attack as I have seen. This should be fodder for the late night comedy shows, but an issue in a national campaign. Hardly!!

There is fairness in debating issues, but lets do that and not attacks on a person. Let's stop taking statements out of context, to distort the facts. I would like to see the election about one thing and one thing only. Vision. Where do the leaders see America going and how would you help us get their. I have in the past and will continue to do so in the future, to push our leaders for solutions. I have pushed individuals for solutions. We have become great at bemoaning what is wrong. We all know what the problems are. What we lack is leaders who are willing and able to deal with the problems and offer solutions. It is time for Congress, the President and business leaders to come together and put solutions into actions. It is time to grow up and lead!!

Response to Jacob Svoboda Reguarding Left!

For those that do not know Jacob is a friend on Face Book and he and I have had some very spirited debates. On Sunday Jacob sent me an article that stated, the left was not willing to face up to the prominent role, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac played in the housing market failure. This is my response to him and to people on the right that want to paint everyone with a broad stroke, without asking individuals how they view an issue.

First, the article used the view of one person and then extrapolated the idea was held by all so called liberals or the political left. It also down played the role, large financial businesses, the banks, played. There is plenty of blame to dole out here.

Jacob, I want you to understand why I feel qualified to discuss this point. I worked for Bank of America for 27 years. I was a mortgage officer for 15 of those years. I was only able to do 20% down, conventional loans. Large and small banks, when I started, did portfolio loans and retained the paper, thus the responsibility of the loan. If a bad loan was made they took the loss. Simple. Then Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike came up with an idea, that became the secondary market companies, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. The banks could make more loans and much more money and do it quicker.

I do not deny the role that was created here and agree it was a disaster. The reason it became so toxic, was however driven by the banks and financial services companies that got into the home lending business. The original idea should have been, money sent back to the banks, to re lend, but on a smaller scale and the lender would have to follow strict under writing rules to do the loans. Last the institutions would be responsible for the loss. Then we would have had smart, efficient loans. I do not believe that everyone should or has to be a homeowner.

The right has to acknowledge the role played by lenders in this fiasco. To use one person's response and call all politically left people wrong and thinking the same is irresponsible. To try and make this an issue that only the left is ignoring is wrong. The right was content with this process, when they thought it was working. I believe that we need to go back to banks being banks. The Federal Reserve, needs to quit giving free money to banks. Then banks will have to attract money from savers and pay a fair interest rate. The banks should have to be responsible for their loans and keep it within its portfolio. We need to stop the money flowing to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. We need to have the housing market upright itself and assist homeowners to keep the foreclosed rate down.

There are many companies and people to blame here. Greed drove this and the people who played the right way, should not suffer, but yet they have seen their own homes go down in value, because of the actions of others. Lets all acknowledge what went wrong and then have a plan to address the issues and change the direction. I have in the past and will again in the future discuss my ideas and plans.

Lastly, I ask that the right or left or independents, stop thinking they know how the other side thinks. I look at each situation and decide from there. Look at my posts and you will get a better understanding of who I am. My largest issue with my political opponents is the fact they have in the past and continue to demagogue issues and distort facts. Is the left guilty of the same. Absolutely. So, why don't we start to work toward resolutions and not arguments.

You Might Be A Republican, If!

I am going to get everyone started and then see if you all can add to the list. This is meant to be fun, but as with most items that have humor, there is an element of truth. Read mine and then try to think of some of your own. I am sure that if any of my Republican, Conservative friends read this they may have the reverse for Liberals or Democrats. I'll  let that go into the comments also.

If , "No Taxes" is your religion and Grover Norquist is your high priest, you might be a Republican.

If you feel that giving someone a helping hand is giving hand outs. you might be a Republican.

If you feel that taking money from the rich to help the poor and middle class is class warfare, you just might be a Republican.

If you feel that taking money from the poor and middle class to give to the wealthy is good economic sense, you might be a Republican.

If you feel President Obama is a communist, socialist, Marxist, who was not even born in America, you might be a Republican.

If you compare anyone to Adolph Hitler, you might be a Republican.

If you feel Chief Justice Roberts is a traitor, you might be a Republican.

If you feel America should be involved in every war, you might be a Republican.

If you feel sorry for the top one percent, elite, you might be a Republican.

If you voted to repeal Obama care 33 times, in the last year,  you might be a Republican.

If you failed to vote one time for a jobs bill during the last year, you might be a Republican.

If you make minimum wage and yet vote to support the wealthy and corporations, you might be a Republican.

If you say, "Don't blame me, because I voted Republican", you are definitely a Republican and in need of serious help.

This is a beginning and if you have others to share, please do so.