Let’s have facts, not factions

Every year the Senate reads George Washington’s Farewell Address, and every year they ignore it.  This also leads to the break-down of the deliberate designation of three INDEPENDENT branches of government.

The quiescent Republicans seem to have ignored Washington’s warning agains factions more than any Congress in decades.

“All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations under whatever plausible character with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle and of fatal tendency.

They serve to organize faction; to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphsof different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common councils and modified by mutual interests. However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves theeins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

Please send this to your Senators and Representatives, regardless of party.  Your letters may give them some backbone to take action on George Washington's warning.

Quote of the day: Why vote?

"Hillary Clinton didn’t inspire anyone. Why the hell stand in line if it’s just to vote for more of the same?"
- Unnamed union official
"Can the Democratic Party Find New Voters?", Timothy B. Edsall, New York Times, 2017-06-15

The only reason I voted for Clinton was that she was not Trump.  I can name several female politicians I would rather have seen on the ballot.  Maybe we'll see one of them on the presidential ballot in 2020.

"The people" want town meetings?

"Duluth gets its wish…a meeting with [Rep.] Cravaack" - headline in today's Duluth News Tribune

Wait a minute!  I'm in Duluth and I didn't really want a meeting with Rep. Chip Cravaack.  OK! OK!  I might have gone to yesterday's "Town Meeting" at the Duluth Airport if I hadn't had other things I wanted to do and other places I wanted to be.  But even then, would I have gotten one of the 200 seats or would I have been one of the 12 speakers selected?  In retrospect, why bother?

I don't understand this mania for having "Town Meetings" with constituents when such a small minority would be interested and be able to attend.  Duluth has over 80,000 residents and only 200 attended the meeting yesterday.  Granted, it was arranged on short notice after many complaints of Cravaack meeting with business groups but not the general citizenry. See Rep. Cravaack is in touch with his constituents?
http://magree.blogspot.com/2011/08/rep-cravaack-is-in-touch-with-his.html Even then, what would it been like if over 1,000 had showed up?  How much true conversation will be going on between each attendee and the Representative.

Given all the communication means available to reach a politician, many better ways exist to express a view.  The postal service is still working for those who want to write letters.  Phone calls are cheap for those who want to leave a message or speak to a staffer.  And every politician can be reached on the internet, either by email or by a web form.

What is missing?  In a town meeting, those who do get to speak get an instant audience and may even get their question printed in the newspaper.  They also get the politician to address their question in front of many other people.

I think the best way for a politician to communicate is through a newsletter to every household.  The best of these I've seen is from Bill Frenzel, R., 3rd District, Minnesota in the 70s and 80s.  He didn't tout what he voted for or what groups he had appeared before; he told what Congress was doing, sometimes in a straight-forward manner, sometimes in a bit of befuddlement as in "What were they thinking?"  Bill Frenzel is one of a kind threatened with extinction, an independently-minded Republican.

OK, Mel, you really wanted to be one of the speakers, right?  What would you have said that was so important?

Did Abraham Lincoln tax and spend to build the transcontinental railroad?  Or did he tax and borrow to invest in transforming the country?  Good paying jobs were created and fortunes were made in the new economic environment.

Did Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman tax and spend for the G.I Bill of Rights?   Or did they tax and borrow to invest in increasing opportunities for veterans who got higher paying jobs and paid more taxes.

Did Dwight Eisenhower tax and spend for the interstate highway system?  Or did he tax and borrow to invest in transforming the country?  Good paying jobs were created and fortunes were made in the new economic environment.

Did John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon tax and spend to put man on the moon?  Or did they tax and borrow to invest in transforming the country? New technologies were created, good paying jobs were created, and fortunes were made.

Now it seems we have a hard-nosed political culture that wants to cut taxes, eliminate regulations, and let Ponzi schemes destroy the investments of President Lincoln, Presidents Roosevelt and Truman,  President Eisenhower, and Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon.