Warren Buffett's Message to Congress

Aren't we all sick of our legislators playing the party game instead of acting on what is best for our country? The tea partiers have terrified the Republicans into inane actions. The Democrats are pussyfooting around the issues. (How's that for generalizations?)
Warren Buffett seems to be one of the few sensible, influential minds in the news. Just maybe we can learn from him to become active and pressure our politicians to act sensibly and nobly to restore our country to the greatness we all expect. The following is his challenging proposal:
Subject: Pretty good idea from Mr Buffett

Warren Buffett, in a recent interview with CNBC, offers one of the best quotes about the debt ceiling:

"I could end the deficit in 5 minutes," he told CNBC. "Y

ou just
pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more
than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible
for re-election.

The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds)
took only 3 months & 8 days to be ratified! Why? Simple!
The people demanded it. That was in 1971 - before computers, e-mail,
cell phones, etc.

Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took one (1) year
or less to become the law of the land - all because of public pressure.

Warren Buffet is asking each addressee to forward this email to
a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask
each of those to do likewise.

In three days, most people in The United States of America will
have the message. This is one idea that really should be passed
around.

Congressional Reform Act of 2012

1. No Tenure / No Pension.

A Congressman/woman collects a salary while in office and receives no
pay when they're out of office.

2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social
Security.

All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the
Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into
the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the
American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.

3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all
Americans do.

4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise.
Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

5. Congress loses their current health care system and
participates in the same health care system as the American people.

6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the
American people.

7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen/women are void
effective 12/1/12. The American people did not make this
contract with Congressmen/women.


Congress made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in
Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers
envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their
term(s), then go home and back to work.

If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will
only take three days for most people (in the U.S. ) to receive
the message. Don't you think it's time?


THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!

Yea! Let's all pass this around, especially to our congressmen/women and get some sanity back into our government!

l:

Luna Resign

 The citizens of Idaho have voted “no confidence” in Supt. of Schools Tom Luna's political efforts to further his own ambitions. (Notice, I did not call his efforts “leadership” because he has not led; he has railroaded.) He can have only one motive for continuing in the role as superintendent of schools:  He is pretty sure the money people and the majority of the Idaho legislators are still supporting him, as well as Butch and Lori Otter, interestingly enough. (Lori Otter's biography says she is passionate about education. It would seem that she's on the other side of that issue now--maybe the political side??)

Luna called his loss on election day a “bump in the road.” Let’s hope it’s more like a big pot hole that has derailed his railroading. His actions have shown very little concern about the education in this state. Note the major loss of money to our public schools while he's been supt. Teachers’ morale can’t get much lower. Anyone who cared about education would NOT want our teachers stressed out because of politics. Their teaching load is all the stress they need.  The teachers deserve a leader who supports them, our students, their parents, and our citizenry.

Well, I hope Idahoans recognize that he is using his position to further his own self-interests and now demand his resignation. I think he would be better qualified for a mining job in Montana.

Elections

The wealthy elite guided by Karl Rove and a few other pundits must have been a bit shocked after the elections. All of their millions did not buy the presidential office, nor several congressional seats. And it looks as though their insistence on requiring voter ID just made the 99% realize how valuable their votes were.

In Idaho, the Luna laws were soundly defeated, largely because of Luna’s flawed process. He sprung his propositions on the public and won the backing of a toadying legislature and governor without consulting the teachers. Bad idea. Again, money from the elite was involved. They attempted to persuade the Idahoans that merit pay for teachers, laptops for every student, and busting teachers’ unions were good ideas. We raise a lot of sheep and cattle in Idaho, but obviously they are out in the pastures and not in the voting booths. Wow! Way to go, Idaho! 

Lords of Corruption (Banks)

One thing I do care about, or rather am very concerned about, are banks. When I moved to Idaho in 1982, I joined Capital Educators, a credit union for educators obviously. I’m not sure I joined by design, although I knew that credit unions did NOT charge an exorbitant amount for overdrawn checks, nor did I have to keep a significant balance. After reading about the atrocities of the major banks in the last few years, I’m very glad I have not supported them these 30 years.

I assume everyone in the 99% is very aware of the atrocious amounts paid to bank executives (which keeps the money in the hands of the 1% and out of the hands of the middle and lower classes). Not only that, but , even though the government gave huge bailouts to banks, the banks still pay their executives unfathomable figures. Carelessly, banks sold mortgages to someone up in the clouds where home owners could not find who owned their mortgages. It would seem the wealthy are intent to wipe out the middle class and enslave the lower classes even further than they are.

If you bank at Citibank, known to some as the Lords of Corruption, you need to know that the corporation has worked very hard to change the governing rules for banks such as deregulating themselves. Does that matter? Google and find out. They also control Visa and Master Card. That’s so huge it makes me shudder to think of the control they can wield.

Wells Fargo marketed risky securities before the recent crash, telling people the securities were highly secure. They also concealed investment performances to prevent exits. They violated fair lending laws by encouraging loan discrimination by directing Blacks to subprime loans. They have taken advantage of borrowers and refused to correct the errors. A complaint filed with the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Dev. exposed WF for their discriminatory handling of Blacks and Latinos in the housing market.

Bank of America has had its share of scandal in the news in the last few years. Chase Manhattan merged with JP Morgan and has the largest assets today. Too big, too big. They bought their own insurance company and so double dip by controlling the mortgage and the insurance on the mortgage. Look up Huffington Post.com—bank corruptions.

You can find much, much more of their corruption on the internet. Most people have given up fighting these monsters. But, I ask you, do you care enough to take some action against the 1%? The following are some ways we can do something to return money to the middle and lower classes. 

• Join a local credit union or at least a local bank. Bring money back home where it can do some good for the 99%.

• Write your legislators and express concern about banks controlling government.

• Look for alternatives to Visa and Master Card.

• Research banks and their activities and be informed.

• Speak out to relatives, friends, acquaintances, newspapers, etc.

• Start a campaign to write to bank executives complaining about the huge CEO salaries.

• You fill in the blank____________________________________________.

I feel so strongly that we all need to get involved in changing our world. One of the easiest and  best ways we can do that is to vote with our money every day. Please care enough to take one small step.

K12Inc: Bad for Idaho

Are you aware that your school taxes are funding a private corporation called K12Inc?

Former Sec. of Education William Bennett gave an “improper” multi-million dollar grant to fund K12 (see Media Matters for America).  Since then, K12 has received millions of dollars that would have been better spent on our public schools. The K12 CEO received a salary of $5 million last year, and K12 spent $26 million to advertise its program in 2010 (Spokesman Review?).

A study by the University of Colorado found that K12’s methods are performing below the national educational standards: (National Education Policy Center / NEPC).” Obviously, K12’s bottom line is profit, not achievement.

Supt. Luna received $44,000 in campaign funding in 2010 from K12Inc. It looks suspiciously like his driving interest in providing laptops to students, forcing every student to take online courses, and demoralizing public school teachers has been influenced by K12. 

Do you want your school taxes to go to this subpar, virtual online corporation? Do you want a supt. of schools who is more concerned about putting children in front of a computer than providing adequate funding for our schools? Vote NO on Proposition 1, 2, 3 in November.

Sun Valley

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men (and women) do nothing." 
 
~Edmund Burke

This is my first blog. I feel I need a voice, more than an occasional letter to the editor, and so I hired a blog tutor, Laureen who works with individuals who are going through a process of personal transformation and she has supported me in getting this whole thing started…. And so I am finally ready. 

I have a main objective in blogging: I want to encourage others to become activists. Being active in my community and nation is my passion, especially with the coming elections. I have other passions such as healthy eating, exercise, socializing and reading. But right now, I feel that most of us need to get involved in the politics of our country.

The wealthy are trying to control the elections (PACs), the privatization of schools (ALEC, Gates, deVos, K12inc), women’s rights (Romney and Ryan issues and local legislator Chuck Winder), the state legislatures (ALECexposed) and the laws of our land. Of course, they already control banks, insurance, oil and gas, federal reserve, and on and on. 

One reason I support the Occupy movement is that at least those people are speaking out against injustice, the secrecy of politics, the crippling of the middle class and the poor, among other issues.  Because of their example, for several weeks, a few of us in Boise picketed a local Walgreens to drop out of ALEC (ALECexposed). Our concern was that ALEC puts big money behind lowering minimum wage, the stand-your-ground laws, privatization of schools, writing cookie-cutter legislation for states and you can Google the rest of their manipulations. 

Our group also went with the Boise Occupy to Sun Valley (ID) to protest the Allen & Co. gathering of corporate media moguls. One of our goals was to spotlight big money’s secrecy and self-interest. I am lying on the sidewalk in the picture at the beginning of this blog. 

Has our group or Occupy made any difference? Well, Walgreens did drop out of ALEC, we were the first protestors of Allen & Company, and our Idaho state legislators are having to look at their biases of allowing state grounds to be occupied by the public. 

What if we don’t do anything? What if I don’t care what happens to my children and grandchildren? What happens when good people are content to shop and overeat and watch inane television?

The wealthy will have no trouble enslaving us. I know that sounds insane, but project into the near future. When only the rich are educated and the lower classes have NOT been taught to recognize the lies of persuasive speakers and stand against them, it will be very easy for a plutocracy to assume control over our country. Our founders cautioned against allowing the wealthy to become too powerful and strongly advocated the education of all people in order to preserve our republic.

What can you do? Please become passionate about preserving our country. Find an issue that needs your attention and then find ways to help in that area. The issues are too numerous to list but you know the ones that nag at you telling you that something is wrong here. Google the areas that I have mentioned in this blog or Google your own issue. If you don’t Google, you probably know someone who does or you can use the library. They are wonderful tools that gives you access to immediate information.  

Together we can make a difference because we care.  Thanks for reading this.  

Till next time......Lois

E-mail: becauseicare