Pay Increases for elected officials?

Letter to Leonard Pitts, columnist for the Miami Herald.

Mr. Pitts-

I have long been an admirer of your writing and read it in the Lake Charles American Press, locally known as the “American Mess.” With this in mind I must tell you that I am amazed at your latest column suggesting that the President and members of Congress should receive major pay increases. You suggested that the president should receive a million a year with Senators and Congressmen paid a half million a year. I would hope that this is tongue in cheek.

If you are trying to say that people run for national office for the money, you forget that none of them retire poor, have huge retirements that they haven’t contributed to, unbelievable perks while in office and offers from companies that boggle the mind thanks to their “connections” and accessibility. Their pay while in office is secondary and wouldn’t change a thing.

Let’s face it, they run for office and re-election only for the power, prestige and everything that I mentioned in the previous paragraph. If that wasn’t so, why is their primary job and interest to have as many terms in office as they can? That is always their number one concern, with party being second and nation being last. Hate to be such a pessimist but I am also a realist.

McCain Changes Position and Principles

Well, up until now I have been trying to figure out who the "lesser of two evils" would be to vote for in the upcoming presidential election. Senator McCain has now made that decision for me.

I have always felt, until recently, that he was an honorable man of principles who I quite often agreed with, even though he has been promising an American presence in Iraq for a possible 100 years. But today's story in the Washington Post, quoting a speech he gave yesterday, has pushed me over the edge and told me never to vote for him.

I know that Senators, Congressmen, and Presidents always say the "necessary," but now McCain has gone too far. He has done so many flip flops and turnarounds to cater to the religious right wing of the Republican Party that he has now shown that he no longer has any firm beliefs and will say anything to get elected. Well, today was the "anything." See the following:

From the Washington Post, May 15, 2008.
In a speech in the heart of Ohio, a major battleground state in the fall election, Mr. McCain set forth a sweeping, extraordinarily positive vision of what the world will look like 2013, when he says he will have been in the White House for four years.

“By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom,’’ Mr. McCain said at the Columbus Convention Center. “The Iraq War has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is spasmodic and much reduced.’’

Hooray....Mission Accomplished. What ever happened to "no timetable?"

Why is that these guys (ala GWB) always set goals that will be accomplished after their term in office? Talk about flip-flopping, he has now surpassed all candidates that were running this time. He obviously cannot be trusted.

Occupied Territory? Not Hardly!

Dear editor:

“Occupied Territory.” That is a favorite saying spouted by many politicians, pundits, news reporters and haters of the State of Israel, the country created by the United Nations in 1948, that rose from the ashes of Auschwitz, Sobibor, Bergen-Belsen, Dachau and other killing camps. That tag, used in almost every news story description of the Gaza Strip and by Jimmy Carter, is not only a misnomer, but wrong and a bias used against a country that has defended itself time and again against a region filled with hatred and threat.

In 1899 the Hague Convention on the Laws and Customs of War on Land stated that “territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. The occupation applies only to the territory where such authority is established, and in a position to assert itself.” This description was used and recognized by the United States and its allies during the prosecution of the Nuremberg Trials at the end of the Second World War.

Does this describe the Gaza Strip? Not at all. Sounds more like Iraq and U.S. Forces than Gaza.

The Gaza Strip, home of millions of Palestinians, at one time was occupied by the State of Israel as a result of its War of Independence, the Six Day War, and the Yom Kippur War. But today Israel’s troops do not occupy the territory and its government has no rule or government function over it. Whether we like it or not, Hamas, which the United States and others consider a “terrorist organization,” is the duly elected government of Gaza. It has its own army, police force and a representative government. The only time the Israeli Defense Force is involved is with an incursion to counter the Hamas controlled daily missiles shot from Gaza into nearby cities within Israel. But these defensive moves by Israel do not qualify as “occupation” by any standard, including the Hague Convention. One could same the very same things about Fatah and the West Bank. “Occupied territory? Hardly.

And if you want to talk about closing borders, Israel has not closed Gaza’s, but rather its own for safety and protection, which any country is free to do. Egypt has done the same with its border crossings into Gaza. Has anyone accused Egypt of “occupation?” And what about the fence being constructed along the U.S. border with Mexico protecting its border? Is it “occupying” our Southern neighbor?

Let’s face it. If Israel was oil rich the world would treat it differently, and kiss up or make nice as it does with the potentates and rogue states of the Gulf Region.

Maybe Israel should follow the example set by the United States, which took and occupied most of our country from Native Americans. (The only legally purchased property bought would be Manhattan Island which was sold for $24 worth of beads. One cannot include the Louisiana Purchase, for this was buying conquered and stolen property from a third party, France.) Following America’s lead they would conquer all Palestinian territory and then years later “allow” them to open casinos.

It's Amazing

Dear editor:

It’s amazing.

Today, May 2nd, the stock market went up again. Since mid-March the Dow has gone from a low of 11,300, to today over 13,000. And that’s just in six weeks. It forces one to ask if those who work on Wall Street live in a different universe than the rest of the country. Today was the perfect example of this absolute disconnect between “The Street” and Main Street, and proof that the stock market bears no relationship to the rest of America.

The Labor Department came out with the jobs and unemployment reports for April, neither of which was anything to celebrate. But Wall Street did. Take jobs. The so-called experts predicted that job losses for April would be 80,000 positions lost. But, the actual loss was ONLY 20,000, giving rise to happiness in the market to the fact that it was better than predicted. That’s because they were not one of the 20,000 plus who lost their jobs. As a result of this third month in a row of job losses the market opened sharply and gained 190 points in the early going. The market softened as the day progressed, but still finished in the black. Let’s all go out and celebrate ‘beating the prediction.’

And what about the unemployment rate? Washington is talking up the fact that unemployment dropped from 5.1 to 5%, which sounded wonderful to the stock market. But, let’s face it. As has been proven before, the longer jobs are cut back and work becomes harder to find, people reach the end of their unemployment benefits and fall off the charts. So what is the true unemployment figure? We’ll never know.

How can a stock market keep going up when food is being priced out of the mouths of many families, gasoline is heading towards $4.00 a gallon nationwide, people are losing their homes to foreclosure, credit has become impossible to get for many, and there are those having to choose between paying for utilities, food and gasoline and buying much needed prescriptions, which have also become impossibly priced?

Wall Street is in no way, shape or form a barometer of what the average American is facing financially today. Main Street is counting pennies and the bulls of the street are looking forward to their commissions, bonuses and rewards for the CEOs who are taking credit for their stock price rising. John Edwards was right when he said “There are two Americas.”

It truly is amazing.