Dear George,
When you were president the budding republic of 13 original colonies [that became states] would be considered far more manageable by a 21st Century comparison. Then at the writing of the Declaration of Independence you only had an estimated 2.5 million [opinionated] people to govern.
If you've been 'watching' over us and puzzled by our rather messy 'progress' since 1776--you know there are 50 states [somewhat united] and five territories [Puerto Rico, Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa & Northern Marina Islands] with a revised 2021 estimate of 331+ million [opinionated] people to govern. [I use revised numbers due to a steady southern border invasion of 7,400+ people daily after the calendar flipped over to 2022.] Moving on...
Since June marked the halfway point and 18 months of a new administration with our 46th President and 117th Congress--what have these people been doing about some of the major headlines?
Well, the President revoked 65 of Trumps Executive Orders then signed 77 of his own Executive Orders and Congress has passed 85 of the 9,633 bills introduced--of which 42 made it to the President's desk for signature... And since this is a mid-term election year--IF--you hear an incumbent politician brag about the bills they introduced or voted for, don't be too impressed. Because--as you can tell by the math 93% of each typical 15-page bill never makes it off the House floor.
And of equal note most proposed legislation does not make the news either unless IT IS news like...
INFRASTRUCTURE: Virtually all of our aging and vulnerable infrastructure that was 'new' post WWII and Woodstock--is still aging and vulnerable.
In my January 20, 2021 Blog titled "Infrastructure In America" I highlighted AIRPORTS--MASS TRANSIT--U.S. SEA PORTS--WATER--BRIDGES -and- INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY directly tied to: Federal Defense, Unemployment Insurance Benefits, Internal Revenue Service, Social Security Administration, Medicare, State Department & Transportation Department.
What I selected 18 months ago [as Biden took office] was only the tip of a very tall pyramid of a seriously neglected 50 years of general maintenance. And - Fellow-Travelers 18 months ago every item then was beyond critical.
Bush and Chaney wasted time and spent our money chasing weapons-of-mass-destruction. But, Obama attempted to address this [federal & state governmental] negligence with a 2015 Executive Order. However, key Democrats and 'progressive' groups objected to "permitting provisions as a possible erosion of environmental protections". Trump tried again several times, first when he had both the House and the Senate in May 2018. But his 1.5 trillion infrastructure investment plan faced major objection by his own Republican Senate as too costly. They should have done their homework then because five years ago more than that was needed, and the money would have gone farther. In April 2019, Trump and Democrats agreed on a $2 trillion plan, but for some reason the Dems objected to a local, state, federal and free enterprise cost sharing structure. There was a $1 trillion pared down version that surfaced in February 2020, revised back up to $2 trillion in April--then everything shutdown due to Covid.
Okay. Short-sighted-self-serving-bureaucrats aside--where is the $1.2 trillion bipartisan November 5, 2021 Infrastructure Bill now?
Funding was slow. [No surprise there because securing loans took longer.] By April, 2022 - of the $110 billion actually released only $52.5 billion went to federal highways and $20.5 billion for public transit leaving $73 billion, still unspent [supposedly] for some high-speed broadband infrastructure. An additional $27 billion for bridges, airports, drought resilience and rural highways is to be released over the next five years. Really? Everything I identified and more is still aging and frankly a national security threat - like our water supply and our electrical grid. But there seems to be no end of funds to subsidize wind, solar, EVs and various war/military actions - why is that? And, has some of the attention/funding toward updating our infrastructure list been hijacked by the new Computer Chip Bill? Gosh, didn't that happen in a blink....
Dear George, please come back or at least send sober reason from the Cloud......Anyway...
INFLATION: Our 2022 inflation of 9.1% is tied to a convoluted fraud exploiting fear of an entirely human-compromised environment. Remember warning the deterioration of our ozone layer was due to the use of aerosol sprays? Well that trendy-villain has since been replaced by claims of lawless and immoral fossil fuels.
For a resource that quite frankly launched the American economy and revolutionized so much international industry everywhere on Earth [after he left federal politics] Al Gore began to systematically target any fossil fuel as singularly responsible for harming Earth's entire environment. The focused campaign for which he was a nationally and internationally recognizable spokesperson was initially labelled Global Warming, but more recently in the last few years, it's now Climate Change.
Environmental concern began from a sincere base then became deceptive, so stay with me...
Just as industry abuses of factory workers spawned the creation of unions--early government/military and industry abuses of our environment created environmentalists...Specifically Sierra Club founded, 1892 and Greenpeace formed in 1969.
Initially and for several decades' unions played a valuable role in improving working conditions and wages, but by the 1980s unions had evolved into more of a hindrance than a help. Unions ceased focusing on their 'members' in favor of flexing major influence to justify their continued relevance then pervasive corruption caused trust to decline.
The Sierra Club's original focus was the national parks and preservation of unspoiled natural resources. Greenpeace got its foothold initially in 1971 when founders managed to organize 7,000 protestors to block the Peace Arch Border Crossing between British Columbia and Washington. The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission planned a test of its Cannikin underground nuclear weapon in a tectonically unstable island off Alaska called Amchitka. [Obviously, no one at the department of Atomic Energy consulted with anyone at the U.S. Geologic Survey or Army Corp of Engineers--because the possibility of triggering multiple earthquakes causing a tsunami didn't occur to any of the excited nuclear physicists.]
Success, typically, breeds more success and it can also breed a sense of not just justified power, but too often it can breed as sense of entitled authority. And so, from a justified halt of an unnecessary and dangerous experiment grew 50 years of blocking, new nuclear power plants, new hydroelectric dams and water reservoirs, routine sabotage and protests of oil drilling, mining, fertilizer farming, anything genetically modified - regardless of benefit.
As union leaders expanded their influence and became bullies - so has the environmental lobby. I explained in even more detail several major contradictions with policies and subsidies that assert 'saving' our environment in my October 13, 2021 Blog "Green And Clean In America" then a follow up Blog June 2, 2022 "Fossil Fuels In America".
N.A.T.O. MEMBERSHIP: And the point is? And the point of the U.N. is?
While Russian tanks spent literally months lining up along the Ukraine border - Putin was 'testing' just how far he could go 'this-time' as he had been successful capturing Crimea with really no Global consequences. NATO and the UN failed that test. So, what if Ukraine wasn't [still isn't] a NATO Member it was a sovereign nation of progressive hardworking people intent on continuing an evolution to full democracy. [Isn't this the form of government we sought to push on Iraq and Afghanistan?]
NATO with the UN could have resolved to put out the 'fire' Putin started before it spread. Instead, Putin's bold invasion and NATO's reluctance along with an inept U.N. sends exactly that message to China and Iran and North Korea and others which has a high possibility to escalate even greater military actions. Now what?
GUN SAFETY: Oh, George, there's that pesky 2nd Amendment again. But when you and the rest of our founders entrenched "the right to bear arms" into our Constitution - citizens and the military only used single shot muskets. So, 300 years later those [now] entrusted with the responsibility to lead do need to amend some of this Amendment because the intention and the original meaning of the-right-to-bear-arms is being abused...
RIGHTS TO CONTRACEPTION: Who invited any of our 'elected' public servants into the nation's bedrooms? Nowhere in our Constitution anywhere does any governing body have the authority to dictate reproduction...
And speaking of the U.S. Constitution the original concept of the new Republic was of a single party that consisted of both liberal and conservative ideas and policies structured to benefit the majority of citizens. Further, the intent was for the central government in the District of Colombia to play a minor administrative role with major governing settled at the feet of each state legislature. What has evolved since WWII is more and more and more federal oversight and infringement - everywhere.
IMMIGRATION: The unregulated, steady flow of people we-know-not-who may finally get attention since the governors of Arizona and Texas began to bus the thousands of illegal immigrants from their states to DC. After struggling to cope with the financial and resource drain with no help from federal legislators or current cabinet members, finding these thousands of people on their doorstep changes the picture substantially.
Besides the primary crime of innocent migrants dealing with human smugglers the secondary crime of these same folks vacuuming shelter and food and other resources from our homeless citizens is an extension of our broken immigration...
Because this is a Mid-Term Election year - we can get the attention of people who want to keep their elected jobs - so make sure they 'do' their jobs...Call and or email and call again and email again...
Sherrie Todd-Beshore is an award-winning novelist and former journalist...
