Thank You Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana

Letter to the Lake Charles American Press

Dear editor:

Thank you Governor Jindal. Thank you for proving that you are just another politician who is willing to overlook what is best for the state in the interest of your own programs.

Thank you for making a campaign promise that you would “prohibit” legislators from giving themselves an immediate raise in pay. Thank you for allowing that law to pass without a veto even though you called it “excessive.” Thank you for making our legislators the highest base paid among Southern states. Thank you for making the Louisiana legislature the 14th highest paid in the nation. We finally are not last in a category.

Thank you for ignoring a very vocal grass root unhappiness with a governor that sees, with his blessing, a bill clear both the House and Senate increasing base pay for the currently seated representatives from $16,800 to $37,500. Thank you for not listening to all the radio and TV commentators who spoke out against this fiasco. Thank for ignoring all the emails, phone calls, and regular mail to your office expressing unhappiness.

Thank you for showing you do not care that inflation, sky high gas prices, unemployment, home foreclosures and fear of future financial times is hurting your electorate. Thank you for showing that you and the legislators aren’t worried what the people of this state think and that it will all blow over in a few months, as it usually does.

Here’s hoping that the voters of this state will remember the callousness that they have been shown when the next election comes up. Once again we see that campaign promises mean absolutely nothing. And for that we have to thank you.

Selfish Legislating At Its Worst

Letter to the Lake Charles American Press

Dear editor:

It is said that timing is everything. Evidently our legislators in Baton Rouge have evidently no sense of it.

Do they not realize what is going on in our state, nation and in the world today?

According to the American Automobile Association regular, unleaded gasoline prices nationwide now average $4.05 a gallon, and the future is bleak with a chance of rising to $5.00. As a result, many people are having major problems traveling to work, summer vacations are being cancelled, cities and towns are strapped for cash to fuel their service and police vehicles and people are having to do without other necessities in order to cover the cost of gasoline. On top of this, food prices have sky rocketed, inflation is starting to creep further and further up, unemployment has had its biggest jump in years, home foreclosures have hit an all-time high and the value of the American dollar has plummeted. The average American, lower and middle income class, is hurting.

So what does the Louisiana Senate selfishly do? They triple their pay package for a nearly $34,000 annual raise. Their annual pay, not including annual expense allowances and per-diem, will rise from $16,800 to $50,700. It wasn’t even debated on the Senate floor. On top of that, they have tied their future raises to automatically increase whenever the U.S. Congress increases their inflated pay.

This isn’t a question of value and their worth to the state, but rather one of timing. You don’t help yourself to the public trough when your constituents are worried about the present and the future.

Timing? Our Senate, and probably the House to follow, has no idea what the word means.

Modern American Bigotry

Dear editor:

This morning I was having blood drawn for a test for a small procedure I was to undergo later in the day. While doing this, the lady with the needle in her hand and I were remembering that today, June 6th, was the 64th anniversary of D-Day, symbolizing the landing of Allied troops at Normandy and the beginning of liberating Europe from the Nazi occupation of the continent. We both agreed that it was a sad fact that so many in the younger generation had not learned in school about this important date in history. But, she added one more “fact” that I had not counted on when she said, “But now they will have to learn how to pray kneeling on a carpet.” When pressed by me for an explanation, for which I already knew the answer, she explained that with Barack Obama in the White House we all would have to learn the “Muslim way.” I tried in vain to correct her.

I knew from past research on the subject that Obama, despite his middle name of Hussein (named after his father,) had never been a Muslim and had in fact was a life long Christian, as is his mother. His grandfather had been a Muslim. Obama was born in Hawaii with a mother that came from Protestant Midwestern stock and a father who he has described as an agnostic. He describes himself as a “devout Christian,” and has never been a Muslim. Also, he has said “I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power.” When confronted with this information the nurse was very skeptical, as it was a “good friend” who had supplied her with this so called knowledge.

The past two years has seen a proliferation of emails and lies about Obama’s faith and all have been proven to be lies and distortions. And even if he was a Muslim, the question truly is ‘so what?’ He is not a terrorist and these horrible attacks are an insult to all the good God fearing Muslims of our multi-religious country. This all sounds familiar and is a repeat of the hatred and accusations against John F. Kennedy and earlier against Al Smith in their campaigns for the presidency of the United States. Both were lambasted by the bigots for being Catholics and would take direction from the Vatican. Smith was destroyed by the KKK, but, as we all know, Kennedy was not.

All of this is part of the modern bigotry fed to us by the likes of the KKK, White Supremacists, neo-Nazis, Skin Heads and any other extreme religious fanatics who hide their hatred of people of color under a new blanket. It is today’s form of modern bigotry. They don’t love America, they just want to use it and remake it into their own religious delusion.

And for those who are curious, I have not been a supporter of Obama but rather of Hillary Clinton. But, bigotry and danger to America has to be called out no matter where it sticks up its ugly head.

Time Off With Pay and Privileges

Dear editor:

What would happen if you walked into your boss’s office and told him that you were going to take off the next two years from work to look for a new and better job? Of course you expect him to continue paying your full salary, to keep making payments into your non-contributory retirement plan, to make sure you do not lose your 100% employer paid health insurance plan, maintain all of your seniority rights within the company, and if you don’t find a better job your old one within the company would be waiting for you. Of course you would check in every month or so to keep a handle on things. And by the way, you want him to supply a 24/7 security detail to protect you during this two year quest. What would happen? You would be fired on the spot and it would take your boss about a month to stop laughing at those ridiculous demands.

An impossible scenario you say? Not if you are a U.S. Senator running for the presidency of our country. They do it all the time, we foolishly pay for it, and party affiliation has absolutely nothing to do with it. For them, the “Cardinals of Capitol Hill,” members of “the most exclusive club in the country,” it is a right of office that we, their absentee bosses, have allowed them. They do this with their “base pay” of $169,300 a year.

Observe the current and continuing campaigns of the Senators from Arizona, New York and Illinois. One would think that they were elected to office to run for office. Forget about the fact that the electorate of their respective states expected them to represent them in Washington and do what is best for the country. Instead they took off about a year ago, criss-crossing the country, giving speech after speech, kissing babies, making promises that they have no intention of keeping (if elected), and attacking each other. They have missed no telling how many roll calls, committee meetings, votes, meetings with constituents, drafting legislation (unless done by lobbyists) and just generally doing the nation’s business that they were elected to do. True, their staffs back in D.C. continue to take care of things, but they aren’t the “war hero,” the “most experienced” due to living in the White House for eight years, or the man who will bring about “change.”

And we, the American taxpayer, keep footing the bill. Surely Senators and Congressmen aren’t going to cut their own throats by passing a law that withholds pay on a daily basis for time spent campaigning. Of course not. They like this free time and tax money that we foolishly continue to give them. I guess we deserve what we get. Maybe we should change the Preamble to the Constitution that starts out, “We the people,” and make it “Them the elected.” President Lincoln must be turning over in his grave thinking of his words “of the people, by the people, for the people.”