Call to Sen. Al Franken

I recited the message below to Sen. Al Franken's Duluth office.  Supposedly, a call is more effective than a letter or an email.  Surprisingly, the office worker didn't take my name or address.  Maybe the caller ID on her screen showed that I was local.

I hope you can keep up your opposition to Donald Trump.

I hope you can convince some of your more realistic Republican colleagues that it is not in their interest to give Trump carte blanche.

I enjoyed your books “Lies and the Liars Who Tell Them” and “Why Not Me”.  When I finished the latter I thought that a comedian would make a far better President than a clown.

I hope you, dear reader, can think of something similar to send to your Representative or Senators.

I plan to call something similar Rep. Rick Nolan and Sen. Amy Klobuchar later.  It kind of exhausted me just to say the above.

See also http://magree.blogspot.com/2017/01/thousands-of-phone-calls-are-better.html.

Syria: Fighting evil with evil?

My following letter to the editor of the Duluth News Tribune was published 2013-09-08.  I also sent it to President Obama, Senator Klobuchar, and Senator Franken.

Thanks to U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan and the News Tribune for their opposition to an attack on Syria (“Nolan is steadfast against Syria strike,” Sept. 4, and, “Our View: Nolan listening, leading on Syria”).

I read somewhere that evil is treating people as things. Someone in Syria treated 300 or 1,400 people as things with a poison gas attack. The first figure is from some in the opposition; the second is from the U.S. government.

Now the U.S. government is threatening to be evil by treating several hundred or even several thousand people as things. Will the victims of Tomahawk missiles be those who ordered or carried out the gas attack or will they be office workers and pedestrians who were in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Comment on SOPA/PROTECT-IP

I sent this on Facebook to a relative who was calling for opposition to SOPA/PROTECT-IP.

I think this is one of the issues where we need a Constitutional amendment that no bill can be any larger than the original Constitution. Or we need to require a law degree to even vote. There are so many twists and turns in many bills that few are even certain what's in them. And unfortunately, many voting in Congress don't even read the entire bills, much less understand them.

I was going to foam at the keyboard at Franken, but I poked around a bit and found "Legal Analysis of SOPA / PROTECT-IP: No, It's Not Censorship" http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2011/11/legal-analysis-of-sopa-protect.php.

I'd really have to read SOPA and PROTECT-IP myself to be sure what they said, but right now I'm working slowly through Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" and hope to start in the spring on the "Federalist Papers".

Coffee Party's call-in "Who's your Daddy?"

The Coffee Party suggested today, Nov. 9, as a day to call our senators and representatives asking them "Who's financing your campaign?" They were hoping to flood the switchboard. I don't know if they did, because when I called at 1:00 CST, I had an answer on the first ring from the switchboard, and was politely and cheerfully forwarded to the office of my Representative Chip Cravaack, Rep. MN-8.

The young man who answered on the first or second ring listened to my question, "What percentage of his contributors can vote for him, and what percentage of his campaign dollars came from voters in his district?" Before he answered, he asked my name and ZIP code. Fair enough. He asked me to hold while he conferred with somebody else. When he came back he referred me to the Federal Election Commission site and to the campaign headquarters.

I chose the first. Now two hours later I have some results on a spreadsheet. For 2011 through September, Rep. Cravaack has raised $539,748 with $270,517 from 352 named individuals and $146,567 from 106 other than party committees. There was also $122,664 unitemized individual contributions, probably less than $100.

Of named individual contributors, 11.65% were from out of state, but 82.08% of PACs were from out of state. Of dollars raised from individuals, 17.32% were from out of state, but 81.73% of PAC dollars were from out of state.

Of the total itemized dollars, 39.95% were from out of state, and 35.14% were from PACs, both in and out of state.

I didn't check on Senators Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken. It wouldn't surprise me that they had similar PAC and out-of-state contributions.

You can find the finances of all currently declared Congressional candidates at www.fec.gov. It can make for some interesting and time-consuming reading and calculations.

How can we fight too much money in campaigns?

One, don't watch TV. That is probably where most of the declared and undeclared money goes.

Two, let candidates who you think are too dependent on outside donors that you don't like such dependence and might not vote for them.

Three, be sure to vote, even if it has to be for Wright In. Staying away like nearly half the eligible voters do only helps the big bucks people get into office.