Dear Senator Durbin: Do You Get It?

Posted on 10/09/2009 by Grumpa Joe

My Flag Cries Everyday

Dear Senator Durbin;
Thank you for responding to my letter regarding your inability to hold town hall meetings with the people of Illinois. I appreciate that you are a busy man and prefer to receive input from the select few who will support your own views.
It takes courage to stand before a group of angry voters who are disappointed in their representative’s performance. I see by your actions that your character is not what I had always thought it to  be. I thought you were a strong leader who was concerned for all the people of Illinois. I see by your actions that I was wrong to assume that.
I am an American who believes that his country is sacred because it was founded on the principles of personal liberty. I see big government taking those liberties away from us faster than it takes a toilet to flush. I believe you and President Obama do not get it. It, being the fact that I am not alone. How can you possibly legislate when you do not know the mood of your constituents? By not hearing us out face to face at town hall meetings you cannot possibly know how we feel. Sure an angry constituency can become unruly, but only if their Senator gives them a standard line created by the bureaucracy in Washington. Tell the town hall people you understand their needs. Tell them that you will go back to Washington to stop wreckless spending, become fiscally responsible, and not vote for bills that are so long and impossible to understand, that a bevy of lawyers would have trouble doing so.
Here are some of the points I wanted to talk to you about:
1. Health Care Reform is needed, but not what is spelled out in HR3200. I do not want you to support HR3200.
   Come back with something that will not take money from Medicare to fund it. The President so eloquently told us that he will only eliminate waste from Medicare; some five hundred billion dollars worth. Yet, when he asked the entire government to eliminate waste from their budgets they could only come up with one hundred million dollars. Do you really expect me to believe that you and President Obama are capable of finding, and eliminating that much waste? That kind of reasoning is exactly why town hall meetings get noisy.
Take out the part about setting up every school with Planned Parenthood centers.
Add wordage that is specific to not funding abortions. Specify the word abortion, and not sneak it in under the radar as a medical procedure.
Add words that ban government operated public option health care system.
 In other words, HR 3200 is not worth the paper it is written on. Do not vote for HR 3200.
2. Legislate tort reform now, don’t wait for a reform bill.
3. Eliminate the barriers to private sector competition by allowing insurance companies to cross state lines with their plans.
4. Pass legislation that requires the president to obtain congressional vetting and approval on his “czars.”

Need I go on some more, or do you get it? If you can address these issues in a rational logical way, and not in a party controlled response, I will regain my faith in your ability to serve as my Senator.

Respectfully yours,
Grumpa Joe

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Public Option By Hook Or Crook?

Posted on 09/09/2009 by Grumpa Joe

Trigger option? What that probably means is a public option health care bill will automatically become a reality if private insurance companies don’t meet some government mandated goal.  I’m sure the goals will be totally unrealistic and impossible to meet. Public option will get in by hook or crook.  I have a different version of a trigger mechanism. If private insurance companies succeed in offering a plan to meet all of the problems currently identified, such as insuring people with pre-existing conditions, mobility from job to job, inclusion of those who are uninsured, increased competition, etc. then the trigger kicks in, and the Department of  Health and Human Services  is eliminated from the universe.

During WWII the USA badly damaged the Japanese fleet. The Japanese resources had become scarce, and they could not deliver the fire power needed to defeat us. Using their ingenuity, they began sacrificing pilots and airplanes to take out our navy. The combination plane and pilot became the missile whose function it was to crash into US war ships.

In the meantime, here is what I think is happening within our government.

Kamikazo-bama, Will he pull out in time?

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Tea Party Express–New Lenox, IL

Posted on 08/09/2009 by Grumpa Joe

TeaParty_20090907_190Tea Party Express Staff and ScheduleThis Labor Day was the most unusual I have ever spent. I participated in a Tea Party Express rally in New Lenox, a small town just west of Frankfort. A few years ago, the population of New Lenox, IL was around four thousand. Today it has around sixteen thousand. What happened yesterday, jammed the town and all the public facilities. People came from all around the southwest side of Chicago to protest big government taking over our liberties. This is Obama’s backyard, yet the people here feel betrayed by the man. His promise of change was sold under the banner of something good for the country. It is not, and we see it for what it is. The man needs to be impeached before he wrecks the constitution and the country. We also need to impeach Dickie Durbin, and Debbie Halvorson. They are rubber stamping Obamaphites of the enth magnitude. They don’t  read, challenge, or debate anything the man promotes. They just vote yes for everything despite major input from their constituents to the contrary. They know better than the six million voters of Illinois.

The rally was peaceful. We opened with the pledge of allegiance to the flag; novel concept right? The crowd placed great emphasis on the word God during the pledge. I heard estimates of eight thousand and ten thousand people crowding the grassy entertainment bowl. We had to park a mile away. The weather was perfect this time. The speakers were passionate, and told their personal stories about how they became involved. All of them were tired of doing nothing as they watched our elected representatives do the opposite of their requests. None of them had any experience in politics or in organizing a political rally, but their passion to do something drove them to make the effort to create a difference.

There were ten thousand people objecting to big government, over spending, abuse of the constitution, government run health care, and high taxes. Only six protesters, who were in favor of  health care reform, showed themselves. All of them were civilized. One was a respectable elderly black man, and the rest were middle aged ladies. All held up pre-printed signs (shown below). 

I looked for news regarding the event and found a report from ABC channel seven news at five o’clock. Their report was accurate, but was marred with a closing statement by Joe Biden (I didnt see him there.) about how well the stimulus is working, and how the unemployed are receiving unemployment compensation.

It was told to me that ABC network news reported the crowd to be a few hundred people who were rowdy.

I commend and thank Tim Kraulidis for planning this great event.

The pictures tell the true story.

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If You Want Frustration(edited)

Posted on 31/08/2009 by Grumpa Joe
My Flag Flies Everyday

My Flag Flies Everyday

With all the discussion and debate about the Health Care Reform bill, I decided to download the bill HR 3200 for some late night reading. My computer is relatively new. It has an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, and a 4 gigabyte RAM, with a hard drive sized for the future. I connect to the internet through a cable network.  This is clearly the fastest system I have ever owned.  I couldn’t believe what happened when I began the download of HR 3200. The system froze. Seven minutes later I was able to move the curs er around on the screen. I had a call from Peggy to  help with something, so I saved the file to my hard drive. It froze again, but I left the room, and it didn’t bother me.

Today, I opened the file to read the bill. It took seven minutes to open the file on my own machine. When it was completed, I couldn’t scroll down or move the pages much less read anything . If you believe your Senator or Congressman is reading this bill you are more naive than I am. I consider myself pretty good at using a PC, and I’m sure I can out do Senator Roland Burris, and even Senator Dick Durbin on PC usage. I also feel like I’m light years ahead of Debbie Halvorson. The only way these people are reading this bill is if it has been printed out for them.

If you think I am kidding, go to the government website and try downloading the bill yourself. If I am wrong, let me know how to do it right.

NOTE!

My son Mike read this post and downloaded HR 3200 in a few seconds. He Googled HR 3200 and selected the first government website on the list . He snet it to me via e-mail, and I was able to open it as easily as he downloaded it.

When technology works it is beautiful. When it doesn’t, it’s frustrating.

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Michael Moore Would Be Proud

Posted on 24/08/2009 by Grumpa Joe
My Flag Flies Everyday

My Flag Flies Everyday

Subject: Fw: President O visit to Bozeman

 This is from a woman who lives in Bozeman, Montana..  Thought you would be interested in the truth about how his visits are orchestrated. Her husband is a former Navy pilot and Delta Airlines captain.

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     By now you have probably heard that President Obama came to Montana last Friday. However, there are many things that the major news has not covered. I feel that since Bill and I live here and we were at the airport on Friday I should share some facts with you. Whatever you decide to do with the information is up to you. If you chose to share this email with others I do ask that you DELETE my email address before you forward this on.

      On Wednesday, August 5th it was announced locally that the President would be coming here. There are many groups here that are against his healthcare and huge spending so those groups began talking and deciding on what they were going to do. The White House would not release ANY details other than the date.

     On about Tuesday Bill found out that they would be holding the “Town Hall” at the airport. (This is only because Bill knows EVERYONE at the airport) Our airport is actually located outside of Belgrade (tiny town) in a very remote location. Nothing is around there. They chose to use a hangar that is the most remotely located hangar.. You could not pick a more remote location, and you can not get to it easily. It is totally secluded from the public.

     FYI: We have many areas in Belgrade and Bozeman which could have held a large amount of folks with sufficient parking. (gymnasiums/auditoriums). All of which have chairs and tables, and would not have to be SHIPPED IN!! $$$$$

     During the week, cargo by the TONS was being shipped in constantly. Airport employees could not believe how it just kept coming. Though it was our President coming several expressed how excessive it was, especially during a recession.  $$$$$    

      Late Tuesday/early Wednesday the 12th,  they said that tickets would be handed out on Thursday 9am at two locations and the president would be arriving around 12:30 Friday.

      Thursday morning about 600 tickets were passed out. However, 1500 were printed at a Local printing shop per White House request. Hmmmm……900 tickets just DISAPPEARED.

     This same morning someone called into the radio from the local UPS branch and said that THOUSANDS of Dollars of Lobster were shipped in for Obama. Montana has some of the best beef in the nation!!! And it would have been really wonderful to help out the local economy. Anyone heard of the Recession?? Just think…with all of the traveling the White House is doing. $$$$$ One can only imagine what else we are paying for.

      On Friday Bill and I got out to the airport about 10:45am. The groups that wanted to protest Obama’s spending and healthcare had gotten a permit to protest and that area was roped off. But that was not to be. A large bus carrying SEIU (Service Employees International Union) members drove up onto the area (illegal)and unloaded right there. It was quite a commotion and there were specifically 2 SEIU men trying to make trouble and start a fight. Police did get involved and arrested the one man but they said they did not have the manpower to remove the SEIU crowd.  

     The SEIU crowd was very organized and young. About 99% were under the age of 30 and they were not locals! They had bullhorns and PROFESSIONALLY made signs. Some even wore preprinted T-shirts. Oh, and Planned Parenthood folks were with them…..professing abortion rights with their T-shirts and preprinted signs.  (BTW, all these folks did have a permit to protest in ANOTHER area)

      Those against healthcare/spending moved away from the SEIU crowd to avoid confrontation. They were orderly and respectful. Even though SEIU kept coming over and walking through, continuing to be very intimidating and aggressive at the direction of the one SEIU man.

      So we had Montana folks from ALL OVER the state with their homemade signs and their DOGS with homemade signs. We had cowboys, nurses, doctors you name it. There was even a guy from Texas who had been driving through. He found out about the occasion, went to the store, made a sign, and came to protest.

      If you are wondering about the press…..Well, all of the major networks were over by that remote hangar I mentioned. They were conveniently parked on the other side of the buildings FAR away. None of these crowds were even visible to them. I have my doubts that they knew anything about the crowds.

     We did have some local news media around us from this state and Idaho. Speaking of the local media…they were invited. However, all questions were to be turned into the White House in advance of the event. Wouldn’t want anyone to have to think off the top of their head.

      It was very obvious that it was meant to be totally controlled by the White House. Everything was orchestrated down to the last detail to make it appear that Montana is just crazy for Obama and government healthcare. Even those people that talked about their insurance woes……..the White House called our local HRDC (Human Resource and Development Committee) and asked for names. Then the White House asked those folks to come. Smoke and mirrors…EVERYTHING was staged!!!!!!!!!!! 

      I am very dismayed about what I learned about our current White House. The amount of control and manipulation was unbelievable. I felt I was not living in the United States of America, more like the USSR!! I was physically nauseous. Bill and I have been around when Presidents or Heads of State visit. It has NEVER been like this. I am truly very frightened for our country. America needs your prayers and your voices. If you care about our country please get involved. Know the issues. And let Congress hear your voices again and again!! If they are willing to put forth so much effort to BULLY a small town one can only imagine what is going on in Washington DC. Scary!!   

 Kathy

Bozeman, Montana

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Why is it that I believe every word she wrote? It’s my opinion that Obama did not go to Bozeman for a Town Hall meeting. He could give a rats ass about what the people of Bozeman think. He needed an excuse to take his family to see Yellowstone on the tax payer. The theatrics of these events is overwhelming, but presidential in scope.  The man has no shame when it comes to spending other people’s money.

 

  To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.   

Thomas Jefferson

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