TRUTH IN POLITICS

The Tea Party and the Constitution (Rebuttal)
In answer to Mr. Bob Divens, as a conservative and a person who has fully read the Constitution, as well as being a member in good standing in the Tea Party. I can only say that Mr. Divens has interpreted the document to his own aims, beliefs and desires for what he sees as the future we should follow and not the aims intended by the framers of the Constitution. The Constitution gives the federal government the power to taxes, duties, imposts and excises and to pay the debts and provide common defense and welfare and general welfare of the United States and to borrow money on the credit of the country. It does not however give the government the right or power to indebt the country to the point of bankruptcy by spending tax dollars foolishly, or to take our country into a bureaucracy that does not represent the welfare of the people of this nation.

The federal government has the right to collect taxes, but it does not have to be a bureaucracy that supports thousands of employees at taxpayer expense. A flat tax would do very well to supply the central government as he calls it with capital to run our country efficiently, and take away the need for an Internal Revenue Service that has become the gouger of the public at large. Maybe Mr. Divens should look back on the history of this country and find out when the taxation as we know it today was put in place. It was put there in 1862, establishing the Internal Revenue Commission, with powers given to the Commissioner to assess taxes to pay for the high cost of the Civil War.

During the Civil War a person earning from $600 to $10,000 per year paid a flat tax of 3%, while those who made more than $10,000 paid a higher rate of taxes. Sales, excise and inheritance taxes were added in 1866; internal revenue taxes reaching the highest level in the 90 year history of the U S of $210 million, which was not reached again until 1911      It was disbanded for a short time, then the Democrat Party under Woodrow Wilson saw it as a continuing source of money for the pork barrel projects he and the Democrats wanted to promote social programs the Party wanted. Income tax was made permanent in 1913 under Wilson and has continued to grow with time.

Further the central government doesn’t have the power or the authority to change our system to that of a socialist government, nor to put our country in jeopardy with allies that have long been there for many years in the past, unless that government is a detriment to our well being and welfare. Obama has done all these things in the name of protecting the less fortunate, by redistributing the wealth of the United States.

What the Tea Party Stands For
In 1986 the Income Tax Reform Act  under Republican President Ronald Reagan, lowering the income top tax level from 50% to 28%, one of the most far reaching reforms since the adoption of income tax. The Tea Party wants to take us to the flat or 3% tax, or do away with deductions and the IRS. The amount of money paid the employees who work for the IRS as investigators, auditors, etc would then be abolished and the need for higher and higher taxes alleviated. The so called Death tax is a tax one has to pay out of their estate for the privilege of dying and is one of the most idiotic excuses for a tax there is.

Mr. Divens would have everyone believe we want to do away with taxes altogether to the federal government, which is not at all true. We just want to stop the bureaucracy that is promoted by the federal government under the present administration and the re-distribution of wealth. A flat tax (which is the most sensible way to force the balancing of a budget and keep spending within bounds) would be one way for people to pay a fair share of the taxes and close loopholes in the system by doing away with deductions.

I must conclude that Mr. Divens is for raising taxes to the point the government takes all the money and does it out the way the government sees fit. That is called Socialism and the next step is dictatorship. This is not what I and many fellow Americans fought and died for. I would also have to conclude that Mr. Divens does not know as much about the country he lives in as he would let on. To take the Constitution and bend it to his ideas would be to leave out the most important factors available.

He is also judging the Tea Party in Las Cruces as the Tea Party as a whole. We are made up of free thinking individuals and have minds of our own and opinions of our own. Maybe Mr. Divens should read a little more about the tenets and by laws of the Tea Party before he deigns to give open opinions about them, without knowing what they really stand for. I will be the first to say that I am not enthused with the direction the president of the LC Tea Party is taking us, but that is one small cell in a large group of voters that think we have been taxed too much.

Too Much Heat From Voters For Bailout
Many of America’s newspapers are looking for a bailout, but the amount of heat aimed at the federal government for the last few rounds of bailouts has the Senate and Congress backing away from such action. As readers scan newspapers throughout the country, the news is that the Federal Trade Commission is thinking of how they may help save the dying industry. Much newspaper revenue is lost to the blog sites and places like eBay and Craigslist have cut very deeply into advertizing that brought in dollars for the newspapers in the past.

With a few public forums that the FTC has held they are looking at some ways to gather news that would be profitable to the newspapers across the nation. There has been talk of loosening antitrust laws, which would allow newspapers to charge for on line information and place a tax on iPads and other electronic equipment to subsidize the cost of reporting similar to AmeriCorps, which would pay journalists. This will of course come to a battle between the government and the computer industry, which could be a long and harsh battle.

The FTC could decide to keep a low profile, without invoking its powers or making any recommendations to Congress. They could issue an opinion and analysis of any answer they may decide on. With the economy being what it is at the present time, it could become a very hot potato to handle. The final analysis of the study will come sometime later in the year.

FTC Reluctant to Make Any Recommendation
The FTC is reluctant to say at what point they are in the decision about what to do about propping up the newspaper industry or just how to go about saving one of the oldest medias in the country. It would not be an unusual situation for the FTC to end the sessions with no recommendations or actions.

Chairman Lievowitz said in a Senate hearing last week that the commission had a strong allergy toward giving any leeway in the antitrust laws to exempt journalism and though a journalism tax would be a terrible idea. Although both ideas were in the draft the FTC issued last month and were like most of the ideas in the draft met with strong grumbling, though the commission did not endorse any of them, with a lot of the criticism coming from the conservatives on Capital Hill giving their reasoning the government should not meddle in the workings of the freedoms of the press.

The newspaper industry is looking into ways to charge the public when they access the news on line but many journalists would find this a little uncomfortable since the government is now looking into ways to subsidize the work do the journalists. There will probably not be anything of significance done to change the present policy  because there is no public outcry for government intervention to save the newspaper industry.

Other critics thing the free market is the way to go, not government intervention in deciding which industries survive. Jeff Jarvis, Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Journalism for New York City University in New York thinks the future should be entrepreneurial and not institutional.”But those entrepreneurs don’t need help from the government and need to be left alone with the assurance they won’t be interfered with by the FTC.

Be aware of Laws Passed in Other States
I have read many articles and laws in different states that have been passed over the last 5 years and find that a number of states have passed laws that are more stringent than the immigration law that was passed in the state of Arizona. It is hard to understand the furor that has evolved over the immigration law that was passed in Arizona, except to wonder if the people who are against the law are not the people who want to break the laws of this country, especially the laws of states that border with Mexico.

Much rhetoric is spewed into the atmosphere about not having such laws to stop people from illegally crossing into the United States from Canada for instance. There are so few who cross illegally from that corridor that it would be foolish to mount the deterrent factors to keep them out that we use on the Mexican border. No one in Canada is knocking down our doors to get into the U S, simply because the economic standards in Canada are equal to ours.  If it ever becomes a major problem with drugs or aliens being smuggled into the U S from Canada, I am sure the people of this country will be just as adamant about stopping the flow.

The danger along the southern border is such that entry into Mexico from other countries is not enforced as strictly as entry into the U S, which gives rise to the dangers of many border-jumpers are from countries in the Middle East that would do our country harm. The flow of drugs into the U S is prevalent along the Mexican border and not along the Canadian border. The wars for supremacy of territory are in Mexico, not in Canada and the danger of this violence spilling into the U S is high along the southern border, not along the Canadian border. The complete loss of control in Mexico is another problem that we cannot interfere in, since it is a sovereign nation, but the problems just described exist for all Americans.

Take for example, what would happen if the cartels become stronger than the government of Mexico, (which is close to happening) and a coup by one or more of the drug cartels create a coup that would place in power a drug lord. What would that do to our country, since we are so very close to Mexico? Many deny that this could happen, but we have to be realistic, to realize that it very well could happen and may be at the very staging area at this moment. This is the reason to strengthen our border with Mexico; this is one reason to stop illegals from crossing our borders and the other is that all border-jumpers are not of Mexican descent, creating attacks on our country by entry by agents from enemy countries.

Laws of Other States
California has a law that allows its law enforcement officers to stop anyone with or without justification or race to ascertain if they are in this country illegally or not. The law is enforced in a haphazard manner, but it could be enforced with much vigor if they so decided at Sacramento. Yet no one has marched against the law that is there on their books. They know that the law will not be enforced because of the state’s need for people to pick the crops in California, so they turn a blind eye to the illegal flow of migrant workers and the policing of illegals is much too large for the Border Patrol to do alone since the cost would be tremendous without the co-operation of the state law enforcement.

Missouri has had a law more stringent than Arizona for more than three years, and restricts system that issues aid to anyone not a citizen or in this country legally. Their law even states that you must communicate in the English language to receive any co-operation within their system. The Missouri law even allows any person coming in contact with state or local law enforcement to ascertain if the person is in the U S legally or not and to detain them for the federal authorities if found to be illegal, yet no furor over the law, nor marches to protest the law in that state.

There are a few states that have passed similar laws to protect the economy of their state and the safety of its citizens, yet since they are not Border States it is overlooked by illegals and people afraid of profiling. The answer should be obvious to all that the protests are funded by people who have ulterior motives. People who scream the loudest have the most to hide, such as relatives that are still in Mexico, people who are here from other countries that would like to open our borders via Mexico and of course the drug cartels and criminals that want free run across our border.

We would all do well to check out the laws of other states before deciding to take sides on issues that no one has the slightest inkling of what is intended or what the laws might entail concerning profiling or abuse of privilege. To boycott a state or any other entity without full knowledge of what the laws of our other states have on the books and the fact that our federal government has dropped the ball big time, forcing those states to resort to their own legislative system to protect the people and economy is ludicrous to say the least and foolish on the whole.

Our nation is a sovereign nation the same as Mexico and we do not complain when they slap us in the face, so why does Calderon or anyone in Mexico have the right to agree with any law passed in this country or not to agree. When Mexico has clean skirts, then and only then do they have a right to complain about our laws. If we listen to Calderon and Mexico, we may become what they are, a third world government. Is this what the American people would want? As an American citizen from one prospective view, I would have to say HELL NO.

Tying Up Land Under Federal Designation Doesn't Help Anyone
In the Wednesday paper Diane Alba wrote that the Wilderness area was being revisited by Senators Bingaman and Udall, revisiting the bill they introduced last year to declare 30,000 acres between the International Border and the southernmost tip of the proposed Wilderness Area. According to the Senators this would create a wider buffer that could be patrolled on a regular basis by the Border Patrol and would be designated as a restricted use area.

When only law enforcement and Border Patrol have access with vehicles, what is to happen to the ranchers in the area, and the leases they have with the BLM. According to her story, Alba and the Senators make a good case for curtailing the dangers of smuggling routes, etc. But what is to become of the ranchers in the area who spent many years conserving and building up the land to a better state than it was before they came? How are they to maintain the area and work their ranches without the use of motorized vehicles in the area not open to the public? Does this mean they will not be allowed to lease the land or maintain their ranches?

There are many questions that need answers before tying up the land by a federal designation. Nothing was wrong with the land before the esteemed Senators decided to go along with a group of admitted eco-terrorists and tree huggers, ( the Wilderness Alliance) who think that man should be relegated to a small patch of land and that the rest  of the world should be tied up for all time by Bingaman, Nathan Small, Jeff Steinborn and others who have been elected to care for the interests of the people. It would be better if we just left the land as it is. we

The land was in worse shape before the ranchers, (the true conservators of the land) reclaimed what was a tangle of tumbleweed, creosote and many other undesirable growths. They brought water to the land by creating water tanks for their cattle and other animals, controlled the use of the land by rotating cattle, allowing native grasses to grow, clearing much of the useless underbrush that was a fire hazard. If they do not maintain these things they will disappear.

Bingaman and the Wilderness Alliance (the only constituents he or any other elected officials seem to represent) want to drive the ranchers into obscurity by tying up the land so no one has access. This is detrimental to the people as a whole, since the ranchers help to feed us. Does the Wilderness Alliance or Bingaman think the people are so dense that they would destroy the environment as the timber companies did many years ago? Are they trying to tell the people they cannot govern the problems at the local or even state level because they are stupid? If so Bingaman may want remember that he and the rest have all started as representatives within the state.

I lived in California close to 30 years and have seen a lot in my 75 years; the mountains that are southwest of San Diego were a playground for people like me, who liked to hike and explore the mysteries of the area and a few old ghost towns. It was not trashed, nor was there much traffic by smugglers in the area back then, since the terrain is extremely rugged and the Border Patrol was very much in evidence, which helped discouraged smuggling of humans and drugs. Smuggling has increased to a much higher level now. The area as I saw it a few years ago doesn’t compare to the destruction of desert areas of Arizona, and New Mexico where the mountains are not so rugged and smuggling is rampant.

Where the land is left open, like in Texas, and privately owned, the smuggling problems are not as bad. It is largely controlled by the ranchers along the border and the access granted by Border Patrol and law enforcement.

The Pot Calling the Kettle Black
I listened to the attack released about Susana Martinez plea bargaining 800 DUI cases that is claimed by Diane Denish that was posted on Heath Haussamen’s blog, http://www.nmpolitics.net/index/ and had to laugh. It is one thing to bring up a record from old newspapers that cannot tell the reasons behind the actions taken by another, but for a woman of dubious background to attack on the premise that it would mean corruption in politics is a ludicrous attack on Martinez. Denish has sat silently by and condoned the corruption that has been rampant in Santa Fe and New Mexico politics for the last eight years.

Why has she not opened her mouth about any of the problems that plagued our state until now, when she wants to fill the Governor’s seat? Why did she not speak out before this, when their were plenty of scandals to attack? Is she so naïve as to believe that intelligent people in this state cannot see the truth? Does she believe that we are all stupid or dumb enough to believe the everything she says about being spotless?

Denish has been painted with the same brush and from the same bucket that Richardson has been using to whitewash the corruption that is in our state government.

Intelligent people in this state will not fall for the cover-up of her past like it never happened. She is running scared like all the people who have turned blind eyes to the corruption, committed malfeasance of office against the people of this state; some being convicted while others slipped through the dirty fingers of the governmental system, thanks to our present officials.

Susana Martinez has yet to go on full attack against her Democrat opponent, and I think this shows her to be a class act person who respects the office to which she aspires. The test of it all will be when the votes are counted in November. How many intelligent people we have in this state and how much they want a strong and honest Governor will then be known. Are the majority sheep to follow along blindly, or are we free thinkers who will see the light. We need to 'REMEMBER IN NOVEMBER!'

So far all anyone has heard from Denish is rhetoric, attacks, trying to distance herself from Richardson and the same old politics in New Mexico as usual and little about her own poor record as the Lieutenant Governor. How many cases of fraud has she been instrumental in sending to prison; how many child molesters and abusers; how many battered women? How many DUI cases has she dealt with in her entire life? And last of all, how many cartel members, gang members; drive by shootings has she brought to justice? How can she call someone to task for the great job her record shows, when she has no record of abolishing corruption in her own house?

A Great Analogy on Arizona Law
The letter below was sent to me by a friend in Douglas Arizona. After reading it I decided it was the best analogy of the problem people seem to have with the Arizona immigration bill. I sat for some time thinking about it and decided to include it in my blog and since I don’t know who the author was, nor does it matter, it goes to the very point of common sense.

People might wish to ask the singers (boycotting Arizona), what they would do if someone, without a ticket, attempted to steal a seat in one of their concerts?  Would they welcome them and give them a seat, free hotdogs and beer, or would they have them thrown out? Without a doubt they would be ejected from the concert in question with little formality or niceties.
The only thing I can see that was left out of the letter in the last paragraph was the rape of women and young girls who paid some sleazy coyote to smuggle them into this country as an additional price of entry. I have personally seen many of the rape trees in New Mexico and Arizona, with panties and bras hanging from the branches of mesquite and chaparral as trophies of these rapes. To think that anyone would take advantage of another human being in this way is hard for the human mind to encompass, much less when it is committed on the people who trusted them. In my mind if the culprits should be caught and sent to prison for the crime, is that they suffer the same degradation they imposed on their victims, as are many prisoners of this country convicted of rape.

This is probably the only thing that has come from the Middle Eastern culture that I would think is of benefit to humanity. It is called the ‘law of Hammurabi’ and the punishment is meant to befit the crime committed. Anyone who condones any of the actions describe in the letter below should not be allowed to associate with society in this or any other country and never allowed access into the United States, legally or illegally, but should be shot when apprehended. 

Got Your Ticket?
This was written by a Mexican who is now a naturalized US Citizen, and I think it's a great explanation of the illegal immigration issue.  Good analogy!

The quote:

If you had tickets to a sports event, concert, Disneyland, or for an airline flight, and when you got to your assigned seat you found someone else was in that seat, what would you do? You would call for a person in charge of ticket checking and have the person in your seat removed. You would properly be asked to show your ticket, and you would gladly and proudly do so, for you have bought and paid for that seat. The person in your seat would also be asked for a ticket, which they would not be able to produce. They would be called "gate crashers" and they would properly be removed.

Now in this huge stadium called the USA we have had millions of gate crashers. We have been asking security to check for tickets and remove the gate crashers. We have been asking security to have better controls in checking at the door. We have asked security to lock the back doors. Security has failed us. They are still looking the other way. They are afraid to ask to see the tickets. Many people say there is unlimited seating, and whether there is or not, no one should be allowed in for free while the rest of us pay full price!

In "section AZ", of "Stadium USA", we have had enough of the failures of Security. We have decided to do our own ticket checking, and properly remove those who do not have tickets. Now it seems very strange to me that so many people in the other 49 "sections", and even many in our own "section" do not want tickets checked, or even to be asked to show their ticket! Even the head of Security is chastising us, while not doing his own job which he has sworn to do.

My own ticket has been bought and paid for, so I am proudly going to show it when asked to do so. I have a right to my seat, and I want the gate crashers to be asked to show their tickets too. The only reason that I can imagine anyone objecting to being asked for their ticket is that they are in favor of gate crashing, and all of the illegal activities that go with it, such as drug smuggling, gang wars, murder, human smuggling for profit, and many more illegal and inhumane acts that we are trying to prevent with our new legislation. Is that what I am hearing from all of the protestors such as Phoenix Mayor Gordon, US Rep. Grijalva, even President Obama? If you are not in favor of showing tickets, (proof of citizenship, passport, green card, or other legal document) when asked, as I would do proudly, then you must be condoning those illegal activities."

Written by a US Citizen from Globe, Arizona.