Showing posts with label health care. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health care. Show all posts

Saturday, March 20, 2010

America, Sit Down and Shut Up ....


Yesterday, I decided to call Rep. John Garamendi’s (CA-10) office in Washington, D.C. He’s my representative and I wanted to voice my opposition to the Senate Health Care Bill. I spoke with a female staffer and politely told her that, while I support health care reform, I oppose the Senate Bill because it wasn’t true “reform.” She said the Congressman thinks it’s a good bill and that he campaigned on health care reform. I told her I knew that. I also mentioned that I voted for him. When I tried to give her specific reasons why the Senate Bill would harm our system rather than reform it, she refused to listen. She said she was very busy and hung up on me. Being the persistent person that I am, I kept calling back. Each time I tried to finish my point, she hung up.

quiet

I called one more time. This time she said, “If you call one more time, we will notify Capital Police.” I asked why my conduct warranted involving federal law enforcement agents. She said I was “harassing” her. I tried to explain that trying to convince a representative to change his or her vote didn’t constitute “harassment.” Before I could fully explain, she hung up again.

I called back. This time, I asked to speak to her supervisor in order to report her repeated hanging up as well as the threat she made. I was placed on hold. Thinking I was holding for her supervisor, I was shocked when a Federal Agent with the Capital Police picked-up the telephone.

At first, the Agent was curt with me. He claimed I was harassing Mr. Garamendi’s staff by continually calling after being told to stop calling. I asked him when it became a federal crime to lobby a congressman. He said that it wasn’t but it was a crime to “harass” congressional members and staff pursuant to 47 U.S.C. 223. I told him I was an attorney (which I am) and that I would research the statute he had cited.

After researching 47 U.S.C. 223, I called Mr. Garamendi’s office again and asked to be transferred back to the Capital Police Agent. The Agent picked up the phone and I explained to him that the statute he cited was not controlling since it only prohibits people from calling with the specific intent to harass. I further explained that I was simply trying to voice my concerns with the intent of getting Mr. Garamendi to change his mind, not to harass his staff. The Agent eventually agreed with my position and said he would call Mr. Garamendi’s office and instruct his staff that I was within my rights to call my congressman and voice my concerns.

After I hung up, I realized that this story should be told. Besides being an attorney, I’ve also had the privilege of serving this great country in the United States Marine Corps. Having seen the ugly legislative process the Senate Bill had been through, I saw this as not just another tactic to pass the Senate Bill at all costs, but also as an affront to our liberties.

While I’m fortunate enough to be able to legally challenge what happened today, others aren’t. The sad part is the democrats know this. They know that Americans unfamiliar with federal jurisprudence can easily be silenced when threats to involve federal agents are made. They know that most Americans don’t want trouble and they’ll go away rather than face the possibility of having to explain themselves to federal agents. That’s why I found this tactic appalling, as a Marine, as an attorney and as a proud American.

During my final contact with Mr. Garamendi’s staff, it was confirmed to me that he would vote for the Senate Bill no matter what. I was told that I was wasting my time by calling. Mr. Garamendi is a junior member of the House of Representatives. He was just elected via a special election last November. He has made it clear that he is willing to forsake his constituents in order to please the Speaker of the House.

Speaker Pelosi has said that she will stop at nothing to get the Senate Bill passed. She publicly stated that she would “ole vault over a wall” if barriers stood in her way. While that may be an amusing spectacle, it is indicative of what happened to me today. Apparently, threatening Americans with federal crimes to silence them is the latest tool in Speaker Pelosi’s dirty bag of tricks.

In the coming days, I’m sure more stories will develop illustrating the “win at all costs” tactics being employed by democrats. It’s these tactics that have appalled a majority of Americans to the point that the Senate Bill has overwhelmingly been rejected by the American people. When we try to explain that to Speaker Pelosi’s Caucus, we are threatened with criminal sanctions. We are told to shut up or face federal agents. Such treatment may be acceptable in the former Soviet Union, but it’s repulsive in the country I love and served. Is this hope and change?

http://biggovernment.com/capitolconfidential/2010/03/19/the-heat-is-on-congressmans-office-says-constituent-calls-are-harassment/

Friday, March 19, 2010

America must stand tall ....

If there was ever a time in the history of the greatest country of the world to stand tall that time is now. The great Republic of America has been under attack for a great number of years now and things appear to be getting worse every day.

Elected officials are no longer serving the people they are supposed to represent but appear to be worshiping Owebama. What has this pretender done for America but increased the lever of debt at a rate that has never been seen in any country. If one needs to ask why then you have not been following what is going on in America.

There has never been a time when America has needed her people more than she does now to stand up for her Republic. A call has been made to go to Washington this Saturday and meet at noon to protest the bill. For those of you who are discouraged I beg you to reach down into the very depths of your heart and soul and go for the good of your country.

For those who believe it will not make a difference I urge you to know that if the streets are filled with angry protestors YOUR VOICES IN UNISON WILL BE HEARD. They were heard the first time this took place but made light of. You were not considered a serious opposition to what was taking place but you stopped it then in its tracks. You need to go for your lady liberty again.

For those of you who have phoned and faxed and emailed and think it is all for not think again. Every effort made to try and stop this injustice is as good as a bullet shot from a gun. It is a peaceful way of telling those who think they hold all the power that they are wrong. YOU hold the power. YOU the people of America hold all the cards as to what will happen and do not listen to the naysayers. DO NOT GIVE UP.

America is worth everything you can do for it now and it needs you to be there for her. Take from a Canadian who made a mistake many years ago and elected a government who promised real change. We are so screwed now my own grandfather would not recognize a country he helped shape.

Stand tall and stand together for your country America. Do it peacefully but please go to Washington on Saturday. Answer the call once more for your country and tell Owebama what he can do with his attempt to take over one sixth of your country.

Friday, March 12, 2010

Canada's Obama ....



I am often asked why I involved myself so passionately in American politics. As goes America so goes the rest of the free world. There were many, many reasons but this was the biggest one:





Our Obama AKA Pierre Elliot Trudeau burst on to our political scene in Canada in the late 1960's. There were things we did and did not know about this man but I believe that if we would have had the internet – and learned about his associations and where his base of beliefs came from he would not have gone very far. He was a very good orator. Could talk the birds out of the tree and was our pied piper of social programs .……

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Trudeau

'Trudeau was a charismatic figure who, from the late 1960s until the mid-1980s, dominated the Canadian political scene and aroused passionate reactions.'

Trudeau was interested in Marxist ideas in the 1940s and his Harvard dissertation was on the topic of Communism and Christianity. At Harvard Trudeau found himself profoundly challenged as he discovered that his "... legal training was deficient, [and] his knowledge of economics was pathetic. Thanks to the great intellectual migration away from
Europe
's fascism, Harvard had become a major intellectual centre in which Trudeau profoundly changed. Despite this, Trudeau found himself an outsider - a French Catholic living for the first time outside of Quebec in the predominantly Protestant American Harvard University. This isolation deepened finally into despair and led to his decision to continue his Harvard studies abroad.

In 1947 he travelled to
Paris
to continue his dissertation work. Over a five week period he attended many lectures and became a follower of personalism after being influenced most notably by Emmanuel Mounier. [18] The Harvard dissertation remained undone when Trudeau entered a doctoral program to study under the renowned socialist economist Harold Laski in the London School of Economics.[19] This cemented Trudeau's belief that Keynesian economics and social science were essential to the creation of the "good life" in democratic society.”

His socialist values and his close ties with Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) intellectuals (including Frank Scott, Eugene Forsey, Michael Oliver and Charles Taylor) led to his support and membership in that federal social democratic party throughout the 1950s (after taking over our Liberal party) Trudeau soon called an election, for June 25, 1968. His election campaign benefited from an unprecedented wave of personal popularity called "Trudeaumania" which saw Trudeau mobbed by throngs of youths. (I was a youth back then and part of that mob! First time I ever voted!).

So this was our Obama – our pied piper of socialism and social programs. If the majority of Canadians had been informed on what his political background was – or had been able to find out about it – this man never would have made it past the front doors of our parliament. But we did not know – and so here we are today. Sure was a lot about Obama no one knew about.

When Trudeau (Liberal = Democrats) took office in 1968 Canada had a debt of $18 billion (24% of GDP) which was largely left over from World War II but when he left office in 1984, that debt stood at $200 billion (46% of GDP), an increase of 83%. He promised us that the rich would pay but the majority population in any country is the middle class. It is where most of the money to keep our governments running comes from because we are the majority of the population. We were so taken with his ideals and his charisma we lost our common sense!

Our politics are complicated here – we do not elect our ‘President’ as you do there – the party who wins the majority of seats in our Parliament becomes the government and the leader of that party our ‘President’. Unfortunately this does not always give them a majority of members to hang on to power in the government.

Those of us who finally found our common sense knew we were getting into trouble here with the social programs that had been brought in. We had one chance to turn the tide. In 1979 we managed to elect a fellow by the name of Joe Clark (Conservative = Republican) and his party into government kicking Trudeau out. Clark was not a very good speech maker and was kind of a homely little guy but he loved our country enough to base his campaign on truth. He told us what we needed to hear. Said we had to stop what was happening to the social program ideas being tried and our economy or the cost of what we were doing would catch up to our children.

Well he got kicked out when the other parties ganged up on his minority and you would have thought Joe would have won again but Trudeau was French – pandered to
Quebec. (Quebec is a beautiful Province in our country that is full of history and wonderful people but what happened there is another long story) Trudeau won votes in that Province by promising them many things and one of them was that Canada would become bilingual! Great idea! Another social program! Most of us spoke English but it was a promise he kept, Quebec gave him the votes. He won a majority government so now all of our Federal and Provincial government levels right across Canada had to become bilingual. Still are - once you bring it in you are screwed. Now we have to pander to all languages because social programs are a right once given to one - has to be given to all. By the way … my family is from Quebec
, very French and they agree 100% with me.

Our news stations have to give equal representation to all parties who are running in our elections. If you smear one side you better be able to smear the other … equal rights and all. Our government controls some of them (same way
Hollywood controlled yours) and the list of things they slowly have to take over now because of our social programs continues to grow – as does the debt. Trudeau did a lot of good things for our country on the world level for sure – but his ideals he flaunted and we followed in a herd because of the excitement he stirred in us all those years ago has trapped my country in a never ending circle of more restrictions, bigger social programs more and more debt and higher and higher taxes that everyone of us in the middle class here pays the bulk of. I don't know about America
but millionaires are not the MAJORITY of the population here. Common sense alone should have told us that years ago.

I used to think there was nothing
Canada could ever teach America. When I went to school the only history I really learned about was yours. But I was one of the herd who blindly followed our Obama. Even though we have lost a great deal over the years I am going to heard now. I am going to keep trying to reach out to every American (especially the young) who stands where I stood all those years ago. Just as the Obama train used this media to spread this garbage of an ideal around your country I am going to try and speak from experience.  I and many Canadians were you now. College & university students, young parents with children looking for a better future for our children, every other person who took something that appeared out of nowhere with everything wrapped up in a big red bow. We were looking in the wrong direction. We made a terrible mistake and we continue to pay for it in spades.

There is something we could teach America – if people would only listen.

Share the wealth! Yeah right!