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Omissions, Ronald Reagan, and death

President Ronald Reagan died on June 5th at the age 93. It is never a good thing when someone dies.

The worst thing about being human is we have a life cycle. We are born, we live, then we die. The second worst thing about being human is we don’t know how our lives will turn out or how or when we will die. That lack of knowledge and control strikes fear in all of us. Although we know we have a finite life cycle we really don’t want it to come to an end. Even most Christians who claim their actions are so they will get to heaven in an “afterlife” aren’t all that anxious to get there.

Reagan found out he had Alzheimer’s disease about 10 years ago. The end of his life came in a fog to him where he didn’t remember his loved ones or the events of his life. It was if he was a lost person wondering around. Not much of a life to live for him or his loved ones who were shut out.

All of the media and political leaders have been saying many kind things about Reagan. It is traditional to say kind words about someone who has just died even if they are enemies.

As President, Reagan was a dyed blue conservative. When he was elected in 1980, he got the conservative movement on to the “A” list and that begat the lack of compassion and the “we’ve got ours so screw you” form of politics that we have had to put up with for 24 years. Talk radio, the loss of Union influence, NAFTA, and the continued efforts to mix religion and politics all started with Reagan.

In all the gushing words heard this weekend, some facts about Reagan were not expressed. In the early 1950’s as President of the Screen Actors Guild, he was an informant to the House Un-American Committee, naming names of suspected Communists in Hollywood; as Governor of California, sent the National Guard to UC Berkeley to quell student riots and said “If they want a blood bath I’ll give them a blood bath”; traded weapons for Hostages; began the fantasy StarWars defense system; made ketchup a vegetable for school lunch programs; got very cozy with the Moral Majority and started the so-called “culture war”; and wrongly took credit for having “won” the Cold War.

Biographer Lou Cannon also said that by the time Reagan ascended to the presidency, “his mind was filled with movie scenes more vivid to him than many actual events.” Reagan judged stories to be told “by their impact rather than their accuracy.”

At best he was a cheerleader and host rather than a leader.

By the end of the 2nd term you could tell he was not all there.

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Why the US is an 8,000 lbs Gorilla

It has been over a year since the US invaded Iraq and removed Saddam from power. The President and his inner circle continue to say that the action will make us safer from terrorism.

The Iraq war and somewhat the Afghanistan operation in October 2001 are parts of a new post 9/11 policy of preemptive strike against nations and groups that pose a threat to the US.

We were also told by President Bush recently, as detailed in Bob Woodward’s book Plan of Attack, that the US is suppose to free people and spread democracy around the world.

Actually the policy isn’t new. It was first purposed in 1992 by then Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz who is a neo-conservative, someone who believes the US should create an empire.

In 2000, a think tank, Project for the New American Century, drafted a similar proposal. That report was copied almost word for word into President Bush’s National Security Strategy report released on 9/20/2002.

It calls for increased defense spending, the placement of troops in all areas of the world, and imposing US will and keeping world peace through military and economic power without any input from our allies.

The terrorist attacks on 9/11 became the Neo-conservatives “Gulf of Tonkin” when the US Congress gave away its oversight over the use of US power allowing the President, with the influence of Neo-conservtives like Wolfowitz, I. Lewis Libby, John Bolton, and Stephen Cambone, to implement the National Security Policy. We have seen the results so far in Iraq, the naming of the “Axis of Evil”, and rushing troops to Georgia and the Philippines.

Since the Congress has given the President a blank check to piss off everyone in the world by changing the traditional operation of this country in relation to the world, the ONLY answer is to remove the President come November. Our security depends on it.

For further reading:
The president’s real goal in Iraq

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When it comes to community needs, Wachtmann and Gilb don’t care

For the past three years Ohio has had issues with state funding the various things it funds from schools, to roads, to social service agencies.

Hancock county social service providers held a forum on May 11th and invited the county’s two state representatives. The events at the meeting were published in The Courier on May 18th (Agencies plead for state funding)

State Rep. Mike Gilb and State Sen. Lynn Wachtmann attended the meeting but I could not help but think from reading the text of the article published in the Courier that both elected officials weren’t listening and held on to their tired “too much spending” mantra.

The providers asked the two men not to support cuts in the state funding they need to help the people in Hancock county who need the help.

Gilb said: “but neither I nor the senator have proposed cutting them.” They just wouldn’t support any increase in funding.

But I need to point out that not increasing funding to meet the increasing costs of providing the services is the same as cutting the funding.

But then Wachtmann turns logic on its ear when he said: “We cannot afford to continue to drive jobs out of Ohio by raising taxes.” and then he stated he would be against increasing the financial burden on businesses that are trying to provide insurance that pays for alcohol, drug, and mental illness treatments.

A simple look at the facts prove both Gilb and Wachtmann wrong in their reasoning.

Business’ don’t have an unfair burden of supporting social services. A majority of funding comes from private donations, the state, and from levies passed in the local communities. Rarely has an ADAMHS levy been turned down at the polls. Obviously a majority consistently feels that such services are important.

Meanwhile the business inventory tax is being phased out, utility poll taxes were eliminated sometime ago, 81% of Ohio companies pay no more than $2000 a year in income tax, you are more likely to see tax breaks given to businesses for negligible requirements on their part, and Workers compensation taxes have been quite low for several years. I think businesses can afford to provide better mental insurance coverage for their workers.

Yet, ignoring those facts, Wachtmann said the state could trim expenses in other areas — like eliminating collective bargaining agreements with teachers’ unions. Why he wants to pit a group (who is on the low end of the income scale and who have little enough to give up in the first place) against another group in need of community help is anyone’s guess.

How about state legislators and other state elected officials taking a pay cut. That would allow for more funding for social service agencies. Or just increasing business taxes a few percentage points.

I think it is in the community’s best interests to see that those not able to afford it, get as much help as possible and the state plays a part as well.

One really has to ask if Wachtmann, and somewhat Gilb, is playing with a full deck. Have they become so detached from the community they were elected to serve that their decisions and actions have grown suspect? I think they have.

Originally posted on the blog “Hancock County Politics Unfiltered”

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Sometimes conservatives just don’t get it and it has nothing do with liberal elitism

I read the May 19th Cal Thomas column that appeared in the May 25th Dispatch (“Marriage Massachusetts-style“)

He comments that the so-called moral and cultural boundaries have been removed since the move to consumption and pleasure replaced restraint and acting on behalf of the general welfare after World War II. He thinks that the decision to allow same sex marriage in Massachusetts was just a wave in that movement.

I have not heard a single rational objective reason, from any conservative commentator, why there should not be same sex marriages allowed in this country. Hearing them drone on one would think that if heterosexual marriage was such a load bearing pillar of civilization there would be a good reason to keep gays out of it.

Instead we get the tired slippy slope that if same sex marriage is allowed then polygamy, incest, and statutory rape would be made legal. It is these tasteless conclusions Thomas would like you to draw from giving a group of people the right to marry.

The question has been about rights and who gets to establish those rights. I don’t have to read off the groups of people who have been denied their rights over the history of the country but the argument against giving those rights seem to always include the slippery slope doom and gloom collapse of civilization if those people are granted those rights.

Thomas, like many conservatives, claims that heterosexual marriage is an immutable truth. Immutable means unchangeable. But as marriage is a social construction, that has gone through many changes since it became part of human culture, Thomas’ claim is simply hot air.

The only part of his column that I sort of agree with is his statement:

If conservative religious people wish to exert maximum influence on culture, they will redirect their attention to repairing their own cracked foundation. An improved heterosexual family structure will do more for those families and the greater good than attempts to halt the inevitable.

Hypocrisy never wins an argument and religious conservatives who champion hetero marriage while having issues with divorce are being hypocritical. Several conservative Republicans, like Newt Gingrich, who have argued against gay marriage are on their second or third marriage.

Of course the result of fight on divorce has lead to draconian measures in at least one state where couples wanting to divorce are forced to try and save the marriage.

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Poor Findlay City Councilman David Cliffe

All Councilman Cliffe wanted was to chair a public hearing on a proposal to ban smoking in public areas in the city of Findlay. A group of students from Glenwood Middle School were to present their ideas on the ban as part of a class project.

The proposed smoking ban has been a hot topic of late in the city and an ad hoc committee chaired by Cliffe has been holding a series of public meetings to get community opinion on the issue. The committee has mostly private citizens participating.

Crews from several Toledo television stations showed up to cover the hearing and the students presentation. Toledo’s council passed a smoking ban that has caused a lot of reaction from the bar and restaurant owners there.

Councilman Cliffe, acting on a misunderstanding, decided to kick out the news crews after the student presentation. The city law director had advised Cliffe that the city shouldn’t record the meeting but Cliffe took it to mean that he could close it to the media as well.

He found that wasn’t the case.

A reporter from WTOL 11 in Toledo refused to leave. It was a public meeting concerning a topic of interest to the public. Councilman Cliffe then adjourned the rest of the meeting.

In the Courier report of the incident Cliffe tried to justify his action. He said, “I think it’s very sad that a media group from Toledo has come down and undermined Findlay folks’ opportunity to express their opinion.” and he also thought since the ad hoc committee is mainly comprised of private citizens they shouldn’t have their faces publicized.

He is wrong on both issues.

One great thing about our democracy is that we require our governmental bodies to have their meetings open to the public. The media is part of the public and they report on the meetings for those who can’t attend. Ohio has an open meetings law, aka the “Sunshine Law”, that has been on the books for 30 years. The only governmental meetings that can be closed to the public are those dealing with personnel matters or competitive bids.

If you are a private citizen and don’t want your face in public then don’t participate on governmental committees.

Councilman snuffs out smoking ban hearing

Access spat shuts down forum on smoke ban

Findlay Leaders Back Away from Dispute

Originally posted on the blog “Hancock County Politics Unfiltered”

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