Brick’s Blog

     Here’s a laugher. This was a press release from January 18, 2006:

          Democrats from across the country today unveiled their Honest Leadership and Open Government Act. In the Great Hall of the Library of Congress, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, were joined by Senator Barack Obama and Congresswoman Louise Slaughter and their Senate and House colleagues to shine a spotlight on the Republican “pay for play” politics that put special interests first at the expense of the priorities of the American people and signed a pledge to restore honest leadership and open government.

     Hey, but that was almost 4 years ago. That’s ancient history. Besides Obama wasn’t even President then; I know, so you’ll love this one. And I’ve even got a “talkie” for you. Here’s the back story:

On January 21, 2009, his first full day in office, the President issued a Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government and called for recommendations for making the Federal government more transparent, participatory, and collaborative.

On May 21, 2009, the Administration kicked off an unprecedented process for public engagement in policymaking on the White House website. As Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to the President said, we are proud to announce an important next step in this historic call to action one that will help us achieve a new foundation for our government a foundation built on the values of transparency, accountability and responsibility.

And now for the talkie:

Valerie Jarrett on Open Government

     Gosh, I thought I had been making my opinions known. And by the polls, it looks like the American public has been making their opinion known on healthcare “reform”. I guess I didn’t get the memo on the Era of Open Government being over.

     As Washington gets more tone deaf to the country, I find myself e-mailing our 2 Senators several times a week. I’ve commented before on how easy I find their contact pages, since the contact program “autofills” your personal information from prior contacts. Of course, my wife, has jokingly remarked that it makes it easier for the “authorities” to come find me when they need to.  Please don’t think I am opposed to healthcare reform. There was a time when my premiums were over $2,500 @ month with a $10,000 deductible.  Chew on those numbers for awhile for someone self-employed. Reform is drastically needed, but what is advancing through the Senate and already passed by the House of Representatives isn’t the answer. Below is an example of this morning’s love note to my Senators.

If I can believe the accounts in the media, a vote on the Senate’s version of healthcare “reform” is slated for within the week. Yet, you have no legislative text for what you may be voting on. You have no cost analysis of what you may be voting one. Let’s see; it’s okay for President Obama to take almost 11 months to make a decision on Afghanistan, because that was a measured, studied, and informed course of action. Now the Senate is ready to vote on a measure, which accounts for almost 20 % of our economy not knowing what the legislation calls for or costs. This is not the Christmas present the country wants. Country, before party.  

     My old buddy, Webbie, sure is getting the hang of being a senator who is responsive to his constituents. Whenever I contact our senators, I send them identical e-mails. Ah, the efficiency of cut and paste. Once again Webb’s response was received before any from Warner, which is a pleasant development from earlier this year. Check it out here.  

     Webbie’s recent reply was to my e-mail sent Sunday morning after the House passed their so-called healthcare reform bill. Once again Jim proved he’s the hardest working man in the U.S. Senate, since the time stamp on his e-mail carried 9:50 p.m. last evening. Jim, please go be with your family. Oh, wait a minute, you guys only work 3 days (Tuesday – Thursday); maybe it’s good if you really did burn some midnight oil.  

     Clown Boy’s response ran almost 500 words. I didn’t read it all at first because initially I didn’t get passed the 2^nd paragraph which reads as follows:

“For this reason, I joined seven of my Senate colleagues in urging that legislative text and cost estimates from the Congressional Budget Office be posted for public viewing at least 72 hours before the measure is debated or voted on in the full Senate.  This will allow our constituents to evaluate the proposal in detail and make their views known.  It is important for us to be very deliberate on an issue of such importance to the lives of so many Americans.”

      Let me just go through these 3 sentences to explain why it took some Coleridgian “suspension of disbelief” to read the rest of Webb’s response.

 1.)    Wow, Jim, 8 of our 100 senators want the legislative text and COB’s estimates posted for public viewing 72 hours before debate or vote on the legislation. Way to put together a huge 12 % coalition of your colleagues. What about the other 92 clowns?

2.)    Where did this 72 hour viewing period come from? 3 days to voice an opinion? What if I lived in California and wanted to “write” a letter to Senator Boxer or Feinstein. Can you guarantee the U.S. Postal Service could deliver a 1^st class letter in that 3 day period?

3.)    It really is nice that your constituents are being “allowed” to “evaluate” this proposal in detail. If I remember correctly, the Baucus senate version of the healthcare bill runs some 1,500 pages. Thanks, Jim, for getting 3 whole days for the common man to wade through 1,500 pages of legalese.

4.)    “It is important for us to be very deliberate on an issue of such importance…” No kidding, Clown Boy, but 3 days is deliberate? Hey, if you haven’t noticed, Obama is approaching 11 weeks in his deliberation on troop levels in Afghanistan. You and your imperial colleagues might consider holding some Town Halls with your constituents.

      Oh, I could rant on, but I’ve vented; so I feel better. Thanks for reading.

     This morning I was writing our senators about a defeated amendment proposed in Senate Finance Committee. This particular amendment proposed that the revised Health Reform bill be posted on the internet for 72 hours prior to it being voted on by the Finance Committee. The Finance Committee is chaired by Max Baucus who said about the defeated amendment “This probably sounds a little crazy to some people that we are voting on something before we have seen legislative language.” Do you think?

     Anyway, I am pretty sure that neither of Virginia’s senators sit on the Finance Committee. In fact, I know Warner doesn’t, since all his committee assignments are posted on his website. I wish I could say the same for Webbie. See although Webb is our senior senator, I can’t seem to find his committee assignments posted anywhere on his website. Since all these guys do all day is attend committee meetings, don’t you think Virginians deserve to know how Webbie spends his day?

      As one of those domestic racist gun totin’ astroturfed Nazi terrorists who was in DC on September 12th, I find the grandeur of our Capitol complex spine tingling. Every American should experience it very few years. The last time I had visited the Capitol prior to September 12th was when Gerald Ford laid in state under the Capitol dome. My daughter, Lucy Gordon, and I went on a rainy Labor Day weekend.  As I age, I realize my chances to participate in such an event wanes; and despite Ford’s unelected status, he was still President.  Lucy Gordon and I were both awed by the solemn pomp and ceremony of the occasion which was only amplified by the magnificence of our Capitol.

     Since the events of the 12th were held outdoors, my attention this time was turned to the buildings surrounding the Capitol. In my treks back and forth to the Metro station, I saw numerous legislative office buildings lining the edges of the Capitol complex whose existence for me had been previously unknown. Being of curious mind, when I got home, I looked up what these buildings were and what I discovered floored me.

     Our legislature is comprised of 435 representatives and 100 senators. So how much office space do you the American taxpayer think each of these employees deserves? Well, each of our representatives has over 8,000 square feet allocated to his use. I arrived at this number by taking the square footage of each of the 3 House office buildings and dividing it by our 435 representatives. Of course, in this number is underground parking, but it is still a huge number. Personally, I am delighted with my 10′ x 12′ private office; and frankly, I could get by with one of the 6′ x 8′ cubicles also available at my office. And don’t forget these officials also have local office space in their districts, while our senators have numerous local offices scattered across their states.

     Yet this wasn’t the number that enraged me. Want to take a guess how much office space each senator has? Com’ on, take a guess. After all, our senators are just men of the people, even though some of them have spent millions of their own (or wife’s) money to land one of these $175,000 jobs. Oh, these servants of the people require only 23,000 plus square feet to accomplish your work. With all this square footage available, you would think each could have just one reading room where they could actually read the legislation they mandate upon us.

     Yesterday, I attended the 912 Project’s March on Washington. Although I had attended the Richmond Tea Party on April 15th downtown, I went unaffiliated. Obviously, a whole lot of other folks went unaffiliated, too; because the U.S. Capital police, by their own admission, were caught woefully unprepared for the size of the crowd. You knew that by the 50-100 people deep lines for Porta Potties. The overflowing trash cans. The hastily erected barricades and snow fences to direct and manage crowd control and traffic.  

     Here’s my video on the 9.12 Project March on Washington. This is all my own footage shot yesterday. What a great way to spend a day – surrounded by several hundred thousand folks who love their country, love its military, love the American spirit of free enterprise, believe in God, and think less government is good.

     Just emailed our 2 Senators about my concerns with all the Czars we have in the O administration. Just seemed like the thing to do on a Labor Day weekend. Gosh, I feel horrible now, because I got an immediate response back from Webbie. Can you imagine that? Webbie, in there slaving away in his office on Labor Day, when he could have been in solidarity with O addressing the AFL CIO; actually took the time to write me back. Hey Jim, you might get your staff to reset that response time on that autoresponder. Change the message, too. I already knew how many of your constituents avail themselves of email. I’ll see you Saturday with all the rest of us extremist wing nuts.

      Well, I have to admit that our senior senator is starting to catch on to this e-mail stuff. I got another correspondence_reply from Jim yesterday. It was in response to my  recent complaint against “cap and trade.” It appears Webbie will be bucking his party, if I can believe his response. Yeah, right, when hasn’t a politician said one thing and done another, but we will see. This is the second “personalize” e-mail I’ve gotten from Clown Boy. Sure glad to see his staff knows how to use mail merge. I am still waiting to hear from Mark. He’s plummeting in my polls; and he may soon be Clown Boy.

     You know I have an infinity to e-mail our Senators with my thoughts. Recently, I have corresponded twice about “cap and trade”. Here’s what I THINK is going on. I have gotten no response from Senator Warner. This is unusual. From Day 1, his office has been well managed. Usually within a few days of my terse epistles, I’d receive a response. While this response might not directly address my concerns, it would generally spell out his position. Well, does his non response this time indicate he’s opposed to cap and trade? I sure hope so.

     Now, let’s turn our attention to our wonderful SENIOR senator. In mid June, I got an “out of blue” e-mail from Senator Webb addressing my concerns about limits on charitable and interest deductions. I had written Clown Boy sometime in March on this issue. While this response was “very personalize” to this specific issue, the from line in e-mail was correspondence_reply@webb.senate.gov. When I get responses from Senator Warner, the from line reads “Office of Senator Mark Warner”. See, Mark and I are tight; and he knows how much I relish official looking correspondence.

    Now I don’t want to be too tough on old Webbie. In my inbox this morning was a correspondence_reply@webb.senate.gov. It looks like to me that Webb’s staff has now learned about autoresponders, since the gist of the response was to let me know that over 100,000 Virginians will avail themselves of corresponding with the Senator via the internet this year. Woohoo! Way to go, Jim. You da’ man. But here’s a suggestion. Get your staff to change the from line on your autoresponder. Yes, this can be done. Personally, you know what I’d like – “Clown Boy – US Senate”.

    I will admit one thing. At least our junior senator, Mark Warner, changes his message when a response is sent to a constituent. I got an e-mail this a.m. from this office in response to my recent complaint about the Omnibus Bill. The bad news is what the response was. Oh yeah, how about higher taxes? That’s at least what I interpret the following to say:

Our current tax code needs a comprehensive review.  It is too complex and has contradictory goals. Some experts estimate that the federal government loses almost $300 billion dollars a year through inefficient collection, offshore tax havens, and other loopholes.  At a time of rising federal deficits these items should be examined; I am working with my colleagues in the Senate to ensure that we lay the groundwork to accomplish this goal.  We ought to similarly begin to review how we are going to conduct meaningful reform of our entitlement system.

 I take the above from Warner to be that he believes the government is being deprived of $300 billion. It’s their money not yours. From a guy who made his fortune from insider knowledge gained in Senator Dodd’s office, what more can you expect. They are all crooks.