Saturday, January 24, 2009

The Mockery of a Senate Confirmation

January 24, 2009
 
To: The U.S. Taxpayer
From: Donald Thomas Regan (The Ghost of)
Re.: U.S. Treasury Secretary Appointment
 
Greetings America, I am the Spirit of Donald Thomas Regan. I served during the Reagan Administration. While working in Washington during the 1980’s I witnessed a travesty against the American political process. The dismissal of the Robert Bork appointment was based not on character, nor qualifications but solely on political ideology. And today we are witnessing the opposite perversion of the Presidential appointment process.

It has been reported this last week that Timothy Geithner is President Obama’s choice as Cabinet Secretary for the U.S. Treasury. Mr. Geithner has some impressive experience in the financial stage, he was a Director for Policy Development and Review Department at the International Monetary Fund from 2001 to 2003. He was named president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 2003. At the New York Fed, he became Vice Chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee component. In 2006, he also became a member of the Washington-based financial advisory body, the Group of Thirty.
He earned his undergraduate degree at Dartmouth, and his Masters’ at John Hopkins. From his work background and education one may assume quickly that this nominee is the right man for the job as is needed.

Oh, but uhm it appears that there is this one small thing,…….. He tends to neglect to pay his own taxes! From 2001 to present this impressive “Titan of Finance” accumulated $48,268 in back taxes and penalties.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D- ILL.)
“ No, I don’t think this is a problem.”…..” I think these were errors but innocent errors.”

Rep. Barney Frank (D Mass)
‘No, I don’t think Geithner should be disqualified”

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D- NY)
“I think he is a very, very fine nominee and I think, while he admitted these were mistakes, and I think he will be confirmed.”

What may I ask are the absolute minimum standards for this job if not to pay your own taxes? If Bud the electrician is to answer Joe Biden’s call to step up and be more patriotic to pay more taxes where does that leave the Treasury Secretary?

I may be too simplistic in this desire: My Fireman not be arsonists, My Teachers not be pedophiles and my Treasury Secretary be not a Tax Thief!
 
From the Great Beyond,
 
 
 
Donald Thomas Regan

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Criminal Aliens skipping due process

Jan. 17, 2009
 
 
To: The Citizenry of Washington State
From: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Re.: tax budget, immigration, justice
 
 
 
I am the ghost of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. I was born on March 8, 1841, I laid to rest on March 6, 1935. I was an American jurist who served on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1902 to 1932.

Governor Gregoire of Washington State has proposed that a way to save tax dollars in an attempt to rescue a miserable budget crisis is to modify the current method of dealing with Illegal Alien criminals. The term Illegal Alien Criminals is in itself redundant. To be in this country illegally is to be a criminal by definition. However, we are addressing those who enter illegally then commit more crimes once they are here as undocumented residents.

These folks are currently picked up by the local police agents just as anyone else and processed just as anyone else. After they are in the local jail they are then encountered and interviewed by either a Border Patrol Agent or an ICE agent. When this interview reveals they are in the country out of status they are then processed by this federal authority to proceed with deportation or at least an immigration hearing after they have satisfied all local legal concerns.

Apparently, the Washington State Governor wishes to skip a little step to save some money to help her failing economic house of cards. To implement a plan that deports these criminal aliens before they appear in local court and serve their local time I submit everyone loses.
How could everyone lose you ask?

Well first there is the criminal alien (shouldn’t he come first?) he is being denied time to prepare his immigration case. Yes, sports fans that’s right -- quite often while he is sitting in jail, after his interview with La Migra and before his sentencing on local charges, he is conferencing with his free legal counsel offered for free by the U.S. taxpayers to fight his immigration case in immigration court.

Second, the State of Washington (I mean the actual citizens -- not its office holders). They lose because there is suddenly this huge hole in the Justice System. For example, Joe and Bud are out drinking. After they are both blitzed they get in their large SUV’s and drive off. Both drunk idiots hit and kill a child.
Joe was born in Skagit County and is now looking at felony charges leading to a jail sentence, criminal record, loss of job and bankruptcy. (Before Joe joined Bud in acting the stupid criminal he paid his taxes as a state and federal citizen).
Bud is deported back to Crazystan and is free to sneak back into the country 2 weeks later with a new fraudulent ID (Bud has never paid any taxes in the U.S. and has benefited from the state school system and used free “Emergency care” for his family and -he works under the table). Where is the Justice for the family who fell victim to Bud’s actions?

Third, the federal agents who encounter, interview, and transport these illegal aliens from the local jail to the federal facility also use the time that the criminal aliens are in local jail on local charges to process their case files and prepare them to be deported or presented to court. If they become ready for deportation as soon as they are recognized to be out of status they will still have to wait in jail until their file is prepared. So federal taxes pay for that. Are not Washington State taxpayers also federal taxpayers? So if they are also criminals at the state or local level shouldn’t they be presented for that too? If Bud the Criminal alien wrongs you as a federal citizen then takes a deep breath and wrongs you as a state citizen don’t you deserve justice on two fronts?

Perhaps Governor Gregoire of Washington State should use this energy to try to get more Border Patrol and ICE agents assigned to her state to continue to do more of the current program to get people out of her state that drain its economic resources without paying taxes.
Two heavy words to ponder in context of this topic: due process and equality.
 
 
 
From the Afterlife,
 
 
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

January 10, 2009
 
 
To: The taxpaying legal residence of the United States
From: Alexis de Tocqueville
Re.: a compromised secondary education system
 
 
 
Hello. I am the spirit of Alexis de Tocqueville. I was a French Socio- Political Philosopher who lived from 1805 to 1859. I toured the United States and visited in depth with the leaders of the nation at that time. I also visited and interviewed many commoners as well. I researched your country as it had never been before. I compared your state- based experiment to the societies of Europe and what I found was its imminent fall to mediocrity and its complete inability to escape from mediocrity. Never to soar to its full potential and never to burn hot enough to explode into ruin so it may embrace a re-birth.


This week I read an article from CNSNEWS.com which caught my interest on two fronts. It addressed state college tuition standards and illegal immigration. From this article I offer you these three quotes:

First.

The states of Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and Washington provide discounted college tuition to illegal aliens.” (CNSNews.com)


This first quote concerns me as to what fiscal responsibility standard is being established for their legal taxpaying state residents? Are they telling their constituents “All things being equal,……We value the education of the illegal alien more than that of our fellow citizens who happen to reside one state away within the United States.”
 
Second.
The 1996 federal illegal Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act says,’ an alien who is not lawfully present in the United States shall not be eligible on the basis of residence within a state (or political division) for any post- secondary education benefit unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such benefit.’(CNSNews.com)


This quote explains to me that your federal legislators addressed this issue and voiced that those who legally belong abroad are not entitled to a state subsidized tuition discount paid for by the lawful taxpayers of your country. Should a child born in the state of Florida, schooled in Florida and accepted to a college in Washington state be expected to pay more tuition than a child born in a foreign land who broke the U.S. laws by sneaking into the U.S. to reap the benefits of our school system? The U.S. child is not only a citizen, his or her family paid federal taxes.

In short, if you legally have a child in the United States who is ready to go off to college, you shouldn’t be expected to pay MORE than a college bound child who is doing so illegally.

And third.

“The state of California argued that its tuition discount was not a benefit because it did not provide monetary payments, and that it was based on the students having attended a California high school for three or more and having graduated from the school. Thus, it wasn’t a special benefit just for immigrants.”(CNSNews.com)


What happened? Oh, ………. if the higher court comes down against your wishes you simply modify the definition of the words or terms used to walk-around that silly U.S. Supreme Court. Who are they anyway?
The word “benefit” means what we say it means if it helps us do what we want. As long as you legal taxpayer types who live in funny places like Mississippi pay more to go to college here.
You who snuck-in under the fence and work under the table without Social Security numbers and such, come on in and get that degree. Heck, you didn’t pay taxes for those first 12 years of school, why shouldn’t you get the best rate possible for your college?”.
 
 
From the Afterlife,
 
 
Alexis de Tocqueville
 

Monday, January 5, 2009

Jan. 05, 2009 


TO: The Free Citizenry

FROM: The Ghost of Thomas Jefferson

RE.: Reflections of 2008 and Expectations of 2009 

Greetings my fellow Americans, Legal Permanent Residents, and Undocumented Immigrants. I am The Ghost of Thomas Jefferson.I was the third American elected to the Office of the Presidency, the Chief author of the Declaration of Independence, and the youngest member of the Continental Congress. My fellows recruited me primarily for my literary skills ( I could write well). Tommy Paine was also a fair writer. I must give him props for that “Common Sense” bit.

Need I digress, I couldn’t help but notice that in this last year or so our current President has turned around a terrible defeat into a victory at hand! Yet our press scolds him as a failure until his approval rating is so low only the current U.S. Congress can look up to it.

We depend on despots abroad who loath us for our energy when we could supply our own and export it abroad as their competitors. Our mercantile exchange platform (Stock Market) seems to be all a mess and our current leaders wish to answer this call by implementing a model of Social commerce like that to the failed governments of Russia and China. How then are our leaders leading, if they wish to follow a proven broken model?

And finally, I cannot ignore the acts of the citizenry itself. The populous seem to desire a fellow of the least experience for the grandest position in the most dire time. He is to lead the greatest Nation ever to exist on this globe by his personal resource as a “Community Organizer”, and protect us all by verbal prose and not bloodshed. I did some “Community Organizing” of my own in the 1700’s, and the verbal prose has no meaning without the willingness to engage in the bloodshed. But what do I know? I am just the ghost of one of those scared and bitter people who cling to their religion and guns.




Yours in the Afterlife,   



Thomas Jefferson