The July 15th primary election in Gwinnett County, Georgia showed up a problem with our country that no one seems to be talking about.  One of the questions on the ballot was “Are elected officials being held accountable for their actions?”  83% voted “No”.  Yet mere months after the Gwinnett County Commissioners commited Gwinnett taxpayers to thirty years of funding a stadium for the Atlanta Braves farm team, all the incumbents were voted back in.

Mike Beaudreau got 69% of the votes in the Replublican primary for his district, and the only Republican running for chairman who is not currently on the Commission got only 10% of the votes.

So who exactly do those voters think ought to hold the Commissioners responsible?

Are they waiting for God to strike them down with a lightning bolt?

Even though you can’t write in votes in a primary, you can still not cast a vote for those running unopposed.  Only about 10% of Republican voters did that in this election in Gwinnett.  The percentage was a bit higher on the Democrat side, but still not enough to get anyone’s attention.

If you’re not willing to vote out those who have shown they don’t represent you, how will you ever get actual representation?

I started out this year thinking that I might be able to actually vote FOR someone for President this year. Looks like that was wishful thinking…

John McCain had for years been one of the few Republicans to actually think for himself and not blindly follow Bush and his corporate sponsors. I had some concerns about the “hundred years” and “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” comments, but then the media likes to take statements out of context if they make good sound bites, and a dry sense of humor goes whooshing over their heads. But since securing the nomination, he is suddenly espousing continuing Bushisms like tax breaks for the rich at the expense of the middle class. He also failed to vote against the FISA Act which violates the basic liberties of all Americans by playing the “fear itself” excuse.

Barack Obama also looked promising, but went from promising a filibuster of any FISA bill that included telecom immunity to actually voting for it (see previous entry for his excuses for that flip-flop). It looks like any amount of time spent in Washington is enough to get you fully indoctrinated into the club.

The President takes an oath to uphold the Constitution. The FISA bill shows that neither Obama nor McCain can be counted on to follow through on that oath.

Which leaves us with Bob Barr. I like that he stands up for the Constitution. He actually seems to understand that every American is affected every day by loss of liberty to the increasing power of the federal bureaucracy. The Democrats and Republicans would both like you to believe that they can’t protect you from terrorists unless you make yourself totally vulnerable to them and their corporate sponsors.

I also agree with his stand against the US being the “World Police”, and that he would not repeat the gross stupidity of the invasion of Iraq.

However, he has a severe cerebral/rectal inversion on two subjects: the “Fair Tax” (brought to you by the same marketing department that brought you the “Patriot Act”) and the idea that global warming is just a fantasy dreamed up by people who want to ruin our economy (just for the hell of it, apparently).

There are in fact economic consequences to doing nothing, and costs being paid right now by people all over the world subjected to changing weather patterns.

Which leads me back to None Of The Above. Why?

Because there is no candidate who supports the interests of educated middle class Americans. In fact, the decline in our education system, the growth of fundamentalists, the growing gap between rich and poor, and the dumbing down of the press all indicate that those in power would prefer there not be an educated middle class.

Express your displeasure this year – let’s make “None of the Above” register on the election night news.

On June 30th I filed a comment on Barack Obama’s “Contact Us” form expressing my opposition to the FISA bill and disappointment with his “change” to supporting it.  The only response I got was emails soliciting campaign contributions.  These emails can be replied to via email. When the vote had been taken on the bill and I saw that he did in fact vote for it, I replied to one of the fund-raising emails expressing my displeasure and asking to be removed form the email list.

I then got and email in which Senator Obama uses the “fear itself” pitch to justify voting for big corporations and against the rights of citizens.  This email came form a “no-reply” address, so I am posting the whole email conversation here:

My original email:

So I don’t have a response yet on Obama’s support for a FISA bill that guts the Fourth Amendment search and seizure provisions, and this morning I read that he wants to gut the separation of church and state to buy the votes of the fundamentally ignorant.
Change, indeed!
Looks like I’ll be writing in “None of the above” again this year!”

The Obama camp justification email:

“Dear Friend,
Thank you for contacting us and sharing your strong feelings about this important issue.  Please find a statement from Senator Obama below.
We appreciate hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Obama for America

Given the grave threats that we face, our national security agencies must have the capability to gather intelligence and track down terrorists before they strike, while respecting the rule of law and the privacy and civil liberties of the American people. There is also little doubt that the Bush Administration, with the cooperation of major telecommunications companies, has abused that authority and undermined the Constitution by intercepting the communications of innocent Americans without their knowledge or the required court orders.

That is why last year I opposed the so-called Protect America Act, which expanded the surveillance powers of the government without sufficient independent oversight to protect the privacy and civil liberties of innocent Americans. I have also opposed the granting of retroactive immunity to those who were allegedly complicit in acts of illegal spying in the past.

After months of negotiation, the House passed a compromise that, while far from perfect, is a marked improvement over last year’s Protect America Act.  Under this compromise legislation, an important tool in the fight against terrorism will continue, but the President’s illegal program of warrantless surveillance will be over. It restores FISA and existing criminal wiretap statutes as the exclusive means to conduct surveillance - making it clear that the President cannot circumvent the law and disregard the civil liberties of the American people. It also firmly re-establishes basic judicial oversight over all domestic surveillance in the future.

It does, however, grant retroactive immunity, and I voted in the Senate three times to remove this provision so that we could seek full accountability for past offenses.  Unfortunately, these attempts were unsuccessful.  But this compromise guarantees a thorough review by the Inspectors General of our national security agencies to determine what took place in the past, and ensures that there will be accountability going forward. By demanding oversight and accountability, a grassroots movement of Americans has helped yield a bill that is far better than the Protect America Act.

It is not all that I would want. But given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay.  So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as President, I will carefully monitor the program, review the report by the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any additional steps I deem necessary to protect the lives - and the liberty - of the American people. ”

And what I think of that:

Not good enough.  Senator Obama pledged to filibuster any bill with immunity, and he caved.
How can we possibly claim to be exporting democracy and freedom while trashing them in our own country?
President Bush and his corporate sponsors have been the best recruiting ad bin Laden could have dreamed of, and by voting for the FISA bill Obama has thrown in with them.  This bill was in no way a compromise.
The President swears an oath to uphold the Constitution.  Bush apparently wrote a signing statement disavowing most of his oath, and by this vote Obama shows he would not uphold that oath as President either.”

Enjoy your Independence Day - it may be the last one without warrantless surveillance becoming the law of the land in spite of the Fourth Amendment.  A month ago, we had both major Presidential candidates pledging opposition to warrantless spying and immunity for telecoms who cooperate in doing it.

Now both Barack Obama and John McCain say they support the FISA Amaendments Act already passed by the House.  Obama has reneged on his pledge to filibuster any bill which included telecom immunity.   The Senate vote is scheduled for July 8.

This vote by the House and the support of the two people most likely to be our next President is especially scary in that they don’t even know exactly what they are granting immunity for.

McCain has made his name as being an independent thinker who didn’t bow to party ideas he disagreed with.  For years he has stated his opposition to Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy, yet he now supports making them permanent.

Obama has based his campaign on the theme of change and ranking the people’s interests above big business interests.

I don’t even like to wear flip flops, much less vote for them.  Looks like I’ll be writing in “None of the Above” again this November…

Well voters, it appears that Bush has managed to convince way too many of you that your Constitutional rights aren’t worth having and that giving them up will guarantee your safety from the big bad terrorists. And on the power corrupts front, Barack Obama says he can be trusted not to abuse surveillance powers like Bush did. What am I bid for this nice shiny bridge between swamps?

The original FISA act provided telecoms with immunity if they followed a court order or a government request for surveillance that was certified by the Attorney General to be lawful. By insisting on expanded, retroactive immunity as part of the new FISA update, Bush is making it obvious that the telecoms participated in activity they knew was not legal under existing law. Even the legislators being asked to vote for immunity do not know what exactly they are granting immunity for. Bush wants to keep his secrets, and to establish a precedent of retroactive immunity so it can be applied to him when the secrets do finally come out.

His fellow fear mongers in Congress use language like the following response I received from Sen. Saxby Chambliss, up for re-election this year in Georgia:

“It is imperative that we provide protections to providers that legally cooperate with the Intelligence Community to provide information that is crucial to thwarting future terrorist attacks. Without these protections, electronic communications providers may be reluctant to assist the intelligence community in ascertaining information vital to protecting our country.”

Protections for companies who follow legal requests are already in place! And they are required to abide by legal orders! Qwest was the only telecom to refuse the illegal requests, and as a result they have since been shut out of much federal government business.

The House has already caved on this issue, and the Senate has postponed a vote until after the Independence Day weekend. You have until then to badger your Senator into voting with the few who actually believe in Freedom, and know that Patrioitism lies in protecting the rights of Americans, not the wallets of criminals.

I read an article recently that stated that each incoming President seeks to be stylistically opposite in some way from his (don’t have to add “or her” yet) predecessor. I think I know what will change this time, whether it is Barack Obama or John McCain in the White House. In 2006, the two of them, along with two other Senators, sponsored a bill (S.2590) which created a searchable online database of government contracts. It was even signed by President Bush, whose favorite phrase seems to be “state secrets”.

This past week, those four of those same Senators (including both Presidential candidates) introduced a bill (S.3077) which aims to strengthen and expand that website by including copies of the contracts, whether the contract was the result of an earmark, an assessment of the quality of the work performed under the contract, and other changes.

Let’s just hope the desire for transparency survives the inauguration.

It seems it’s not only the Bush Administration that wants to suspend the rights of anyone it considers dangerous, but our school systems seem to want to as well. It seems to be general policy that school locker searches don’t require a warrant. In Gwinnett County, Georgia, students who want a parking pass at their high school have to sign a statement allowing warrantless searches of the vehicle.  My children will have graduated by the time I could get the Supreme Court to rule on that…

If a student were to phone in a bomb threat to El Camino High School in Oceanside CA, would saying it was just a hoax get him or her out of trouble? I doubt it.

So why do school officials there think it was OK to terrorize the students with phony reports of their classmates deaths?!??! If they think that students didn’t believe their warnings about drunk driving before, why would they possibly believe anything their school officials tell them now?!?!?

I repeat, if students did this, they’d be arrested. People in Boston doing a publicity stunt that the police misinterpreted into a panic attack got arrested. Why haven’t the school officials and police officers involved in this traumatic hoax been arrested?

Do we want an entire generation brought up thinking that their rights don’t matter?

The following is a true story – my wife and I witnessed it this afternoon in a doctor’s waiting room. To me it provided a major “Where’s Waldo” type picture of many (if not most) of the things wrong in 21st century America. See how many you can spot, both at an individual and societal level.

Walking down the hall to the waiting room, I hear a tiny voice behind me say “That’s MY toy!” and the rapid pitter patter of little feet. In the waiting room, several others are discussing how long the little girl has been running around while her mother tries vainly to catch her. Finally she does, and as they come in to the waiting room I see a woman in her twenties with one leg in a huge brace and on crutches. Another woman helps her get her daughter back in her stroller and buckled in, as I gather up the girl’s scattered shoes. Someone else gathers up toys thought to be the little girl’s which turn out to belong to the doctor’s office.

Clearly unhappy with her inability to taunt her injured mother further, the little girl squirms and cries trying to escape the stroller. The mother’s response is to tell the little girl that she has lost her trip to McDonalds after the doctor because she “is mean”.

A few minutes later, the woman is informed that the doctor does not participate in the insurance plan she has, and if she wants to be seen she will have to pay cash upfront. She responds that she does not have the cash, so she will “go back to the emergency room”.

The woman is now clearly going from stressed to hysterical, and as she is trying to sort out pushing a stroller while on crutches, her daughter is still trying to squirm out of the stroller and chanting “Madonal, Madonal, Madonal”. The mother screams “NO” and pushes the stroller hard, crashing it into the doorframe. She then tosses her crutches on the floor and burst into tears.

The doctor and nurse come running at the sound of the crash. The little girl, somehow not hurt, has gone silent for the first time since I had arrived. The nurse asks the mother “Are you alright?” The doctor asks “Did the crutches fall?” The nurse gets the woman to sit down and offers her some water. Pretty quickly, they retreat back into the exam room area.

My wife is livid and follows them back there to make sure they understand that the woman did not “drop her crutches”, she threw them and her kid in a stroller into the doorway. The doctor replies that my wife is welcome to call the police, but the last time they did that they had to wait five hours for social services to show up.

Meanwhile, the woman gets on her cell phone and calls someone who is apparently her significant other, saying she needs him to come get her at the doctor’s office. She tells him about the insurance issue and that her (or possibly his) mother made the appointment for her but didn’t check if the doctor accepted her insurance plan. Though she is obviously distraught, the only response from the other side of the call is “Why do I have to come there and get you?” Eventually she hangs up on him. Several people offer to help her out to her car, and eventually she accepts one of the offers.
When we get in to see the doctor, he is talking about how it is common for people to have “hissy fits” when they find out they have to pay for a visit upfront, and how he hates it when people think of healthcare as a right instead of a privilege. I’m not sure if that was before or after he introduced us to the medical student who was shadowing him.

I was pretty quiet through all this, mostly because I didn’t know who to tear into first: the brat, the bitch, or the Hypocritic Oath staff. I doubt any of them would see themselves as part of the problem. It’s about six hours later as I write this, and I doubt any of them are still upset (other than about not getting McDonalds), but I am.
I wonder if the little girl will grow up to toss her “mean” kids around when the junk food bribes don’t work.
I wonder if the woman will ever be grown up enough to make her own doctor’s appointment, or cut loose the insignificant other.
I wonder what the med student would say she learned today.
I wonder if we’ll ever have healthcare system and not a medical industry.
I wonder how we can ever expect a bureaucracy to care if even the doctors don’t.

I wonder why I should care, but I do.

Thanks Mom & Dad.

On one hand, the reported demise of S.2191 can be looked at as “Great!  Another year goes by and still the US does nothing about global warming”.  On the other hand, this proposed “solution” was not going to actually accomplish much except set up another system of income redistribution to be used for political purposes.  The “cap and trade” in this bill was not a free market system but a game that Congress would rig.

I am reminded of a survey I received a year or so ago from my Congressman asking me to pick from a list of issues which ones I thought he should “do something about”.   Well, to me, that depends on what he intended to do about each issue.  If what you want to do is a band-aid that does not get to the root of the problem, than I would prefer you do nothing.  On issues of substance, that seems to be what Congress is best at anyway.

The recent increase in energy prices is not a temporary fluke.  It is a result of increased demand for fossil fuels.  On top of that, burning fossil fuels polutes.  Continued attempts to subsidize fossil fuel use and hiding the environmental costs by passing them on to everyone will both hasten and make more drastic the day when fossil fuel energy becomes not just ruinously expensive but unavailable.  You can argue about when that will happen, but you cannot argue with the fact that oil is most definitely be taken out of the ground much faster than nature is making more.

The United States (and indeed the world) needs a comprehensive energy policy that first of all puts the cost of pollution on the balance sheet and income statement of the polluter.  Let’s use vehicles as an example.  First of all, the tax breaks for businesses on SUVs and pick-up trucks should end now.  It is completely backwards from an energy policy viewpoint.  Second, let’s tax vehicles not based on their value but on their pollution output.  Tag fees/property tax charges should be replaced with a fee based on the quantity of pollutants coming out of your tailpipe.

On a corporate level, tax all emissions.  You want to pay less tax, lower your emissions.  The only subsidies should be to invest in the development of alternative energy sources from non-food products, in more efficient use of energy, and in reducing pollution output.  Oh, and the emissions calculation is for the company WorldWide.  Those companies that moved their manufacturing to China to escape environmental regulations - get over it!

It shouldn’t take 492 pages to write up that policy into law!

Since the Gwinnett County Commissioners seemed to have no problem dipping into taxpayer wallets for the next 30 years to subsidize the Atlanta Braves farm team, I think Gwinnett taxpayers should hit back at their wallets.

Chairman Charles Bannister appears to be retired from business - let’s retire him from government as well this November.

Unfortunately, oppostition comes from Lorraine Green attempting to move from District 1 rep to Chairman.  Ms. Green is environmental engineer and president of her own engineering consulting firm Green Environmental & Corrosion, Inc.  This company appears to specialize in government and military projects, which leads me to wonder if she is therefore used to government agencies signing one-sided contracts with the taxpayers on the losing side.

District 2 is “represented” by Bert Nasuti, who, when not admiring his model stadiums, is a Partner in the law firm of Thompson, O’Brien, Kemp, & Nasuti, P.C. specializing in commercial transactions, banking, finance, and government law.  From their website, Mr. Nasuti’s specialty is bankruptcy law including “representation of banks, credit unions and commercial finance companies”.  Res ipsa loquitor.

In District 3, we have Mike Beaudreau, whose re-election web site states that he will ”make every effort to reduce taxes by controlling government spending.”  He’d like you to interpret “controlling” as “reducing”.  His vote for the stadium gives me a better idea how to interpret that, and my vote will go elsewhere.  Mr. Beaudreau is a National Accounts Manager for Ricoh.  Please buy your office equipment elsewhere.

Kevin Kennerly (District 4) has a listing in his bio that states he is president of a business and management consulting firm, but I have not been able to track down the name of that firm as yet.  If you know, please post a comment with the info.

We have an opportunity to rid ourselves of  three of the five perpetrators of the stadium debacle this November.  Unfortunately we will be paying for the mistake of electing them in the first place for the next 30 years.