Who Cares Who Wins

By Rose Pedenko

Sorting the good candidates from the bad is hard work few citizens are willing to undertake. Most prefer to remain blissfully ignorant hoping to remain unscathed while the country falls apart around them. These are the same people that expect you to share your emergency supplies after a natural disaster because they couldn’t be bothered to prepare themselves.

All politicians are alike!

What difference does it make if we vote or not?

Nothing ever changes anyway.

These are the frequently heard responses when you ask friends or acquaintances if they plan to vote. They do not follow politics closely, and sadly, this represents a majority of potential voters. There are those that say “I’m glad everyone doesn’t vote because it keeps stupid voters away from the polls.” That may no longer be a consolation to even the most cynical among us, as we witness both parties paint themselves into a corner that once again has us choosing between the proverbial lesser of two evils, or worse, not choosing at all.

How then do we educate ourselves to make wise leadership choices and exercise our most precious right to vote in a democracy?

We often form opinions from an assortment of unreliable sources: slanted print media, cable news that places more weight on celebrity than fact for ratings, or even well-meaning friends who load our email boxes with disparaging information about candidates. Generally it consists of misinformation, disinformation, innuendo or bad jokes. Even clever socio-political commentary of questionable attribution from Andy Rooney, George Carlin or Jay Leno – gets circulated across the internet from the politically semi-ignorant to the totally ignorant where the rhetoric exponentially takes on a life of its own. This quasi-factual information often denigrates current or former administrations, high profile politicians or their spouses, outspoken celebrities (okay they have a point about them) and now even our ministers.

Speculation and opinion by pundits, bloggers and Drudgenuts alike permeates the media: Will Republicans regain the majority in Congress, will Hillary beat Obama , is McCain too old to even beat up his mother, or will Bill Clinton be Co-President and/or First Philanderer. The list goes on and with each passing day, news clips, sound bites and electronic water cooler conversations (i.e., e-mail) spin like nobody’s business. You end up certain no one knows what they are talking about. Dick Morris can’t even stick to his Hillary will win the nomination theory from one day to the next.

There are two schools of thought on the value of the internet in politics. Thanks to the punishing verisimilitude of YouTube videos and vigilant bloggers, career journalists and well-paid pundits’ feet are now being held to the fire. They need to be right to remain relevant and thus citizens can rely with increasing assurance that, like Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction, they will not be ignored. On the other hand, too much information can give even the most ardent political junkies the jitters.

Of course not all candidates will resonate with voters, but this has been a particularly unusual year chock full of no-rhyme-or-reason choices. It was okay to eviscerate Mitt Romney for his faith when he had never previously injected religion into his politics, yet the left praises Barack Obama for his blind loyalty to Trinity Church and his pastor.

One recent glimmer of hope in sorting fair from far-out was the Democratic candidates’ rejection of the far left blogs in favor of Fox News interviews. Whether it was a strategic decision or an act of desperation matters not. I prefer to see it as light at the end of the political tunnel.

In a time when Americans spoke out in record numbers to stop the ill-conceived comprehensive immigration reform bill, we then chose one of its strongest proponents as the presumptive Republican nominee. Many of us conservatives are still reeling from that inconvenient turn of events.

Our President and elected representatives have spent our money like drunken Democrats on leave of their senses and now Senator McCain confirms, much to the vexation of fellow sitting Senators, it was spending, not the war in Iraq, that cost Republicans their control of Congress in 2006 . George Bush abandoned his base and reached out so far across the aisle with amnesty and a prescription drug program he seems completely baffled the Left still hates him. Perhaps Karl Rove forgot to remind him no man is an island. Never abandon your base. Voters, like the elephant that is our party symbol, never forget.

Political mavericks and rogues gambled with Republican principles and lost. We now have a wholly disillusioned citizenry in both parties ready to abandon their core principles just for the sake of change. Democrats will vote as if they live in some ethereal world where the “first black” or the “first woman” president is more important than what each brings to the White House table.

The truth, although not particularly palatable, is that we have the politicians we deserve. We need to care because millions of Americans have died to preserve our freedoms, and those freedoms will ultimately be ensured by an informed and proactive electorate.

http://www.lowdowncentral.com/feature-article/2008/5/5/who-cares-who-wins.html

The Senate is a Trough for Personal Ambition

By Rose Pedenko and Tanya Simon

Far too many people are under the misguided notion that a U.S. senator shepherds legislative policies that are best for Americans and this country.

We are going to try to describe what is actually required of a U.S. senator so that we all are au fait with the thin cloak of qualifications, especially when any of them decides to make a run at the Presidency.

The post of a United States senator has been, and always will be, a tax-subsidized ego trip – a position that thus far calls for no defined aptitudes other than a knack for schmoozing the right constituents and an ability to fill that abysmal pork barrel. The only true requirements are reaching the ripe old age of 30, being a citizen of the United States for at least nine years, and an inhabitant of the state they seek to represent, except if you’re Hillary Clinton.

Unlike most of us working stiffs, the position of senator has no enforced hours of work or standards of accomplishment. Senators rely solely on their ability to make John Q Public believe, through their gift of gab, their intentions to carry out campaign promises.

In actuality, senators, for the most part, are hidebound blusterers or bellicose busybodies who expect everyone to take them and what they say seriously. In addition, they readily acquire a sense of entitlement to hefty salaries (which they vote to increase), top-of-the line healthcare benefits, and a goody bag of perquisites – all subsidized by taxpayers. The six year term automatically ensures eligibility for lifetime benefits, to include a federal pension, health and social security benefits. Not too bad for a job you charm your way into.

Since we are on the topic of taxpayer extortion, in our opinion, they should not have the liberty to vote their own pay increases. A fairer method would be to appoint a non-partisan, independent oversight and compensation committee. It would act much like the Roman Censors. A Censor’s authority could include the following, based entirely on the ancient blueprint:

One of the primary functions of the Censors is to review the Senate rolls and expel members for improper practices … membership in the Senate could be stripped by the Censor if a Senator has been found guilty of disregard of the mores majorum (public morals, literally: the ways of the forefathers), e.g., corruption, disregard of a colleague’s veto, abuse of capital punishment, severe domestic violence … and bankrupts or is an adulterer, or if auspices demanded to.

The committee would have the power to conduct a yearly performance review of each senator (based on achievements and failures) to establish whether a pay raise, a pay cut, or the boot is given – a meritocracy that strips away indolence, incompetence or high-mindedness and reminds them that their reward is to be of service to their country, not to him or herself.

This would be ideal because Senators, for the most part, prove repeatedly that they are least expert when it comes to understanding or reading the pulse of the electorate on high-level political, economic and moral issues. Instead, they huddle in teams, drawing from each other’s weaknesses, then deliberate and caucus with their colleagues in that non-collegial rarified air of Washington – to appear like they really care, which they do not. As often as possible, they whore themselves in front of the media, and for the benefit of the sheep that voted them in, to claim they have the right answers to those complex issues, which is almost never.

On the infrequent occasions senators actually do comprehend the People’s will, they more likely refuse to bend to the will of the electorate in favor of some imagined sense of their place in history, and more importantly, their place in corporate America after they leave office. Case in point: The People’s collective and ear-shattering “No!” in 2007 to the Senate’s attempt to pass a scurrilous comprehensive immigration bill – Z-visas, free driver licenses, free medical, free social security benefits, and everything else under the sun to be handed over gratis – for the millions who crossed into America illegally.

In case you were not aware, and you probably are not because senators are sneaky little devils when it comes to withholding crucial information the People are entitled to know: the total per-year dollar amount to support these criminals exceeds the total per-year cost of the war in Iraq (which, by the way, we are winning).

Which brings us, would you believe, to the subject of the three presidential candidates, who are (by gosh, by golly) U.S. senators. Let us begin with Barack “Two Years in the Senate and I Know Everything” Obama, who is fast becoming a handful to his own party and, if elected, to the entire nation. Then there is Senator Hillary “Would I Lie?” Clinton and Senator John “These are God’s Children” McCain. As Senators they have accomplished little, save John McCain (who accomplished everything the Democrats had hoped for).

To be fair, there are more than a handful of faithful elected officials that deserve the title of “Honorable.” Unfortunately, you won’t hear their names in the mainstream media because those good public servants are busy actually serving the People.

http://www.lowdowncentral.com/feature-article/2008/3/27/the-senate-is-a-trough-for-personal-ambition.html