At least he’s showing that he’s more competent that our current rulers:

January 7, 2008

McGovern: Time to impeach Bush

Posted: 08:42 AM ET

WASHINGTON (CNN) – George McGovern, the Democratic Party’s 1972 nominee for president, is calling on Congress to impeach President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

And in an editorial in Sunday’s Washington Post, McGovern writes the case for impeaching the current president is “far stronger” than the case made against former President Richard Nixon — the man who soundly defeated McGovern in the general election match up.

“Bush and Cheney are clearly guilty of numerous impeachable offenses,” McGovern writes. “They have repeatedly violated the Constitution. They have transgressed national and international law. They have lied to the American people time after time.

“Their conduct and their barbaric policies have reduced our beloved country to a historic low in the eyes of people around the world,” he continued.

McGovern, a former three-term senator who ran for president on a fiercely anti-war platform, also called the administration’s policy in Iraq a “a murderous, illegal, nonsensical war” in violation of international law.

“This reckless disregard for life and property, as well as constitutional law, has been accompanied by the abuse of prisoners, including systematic torture, in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions of 1949,” he added.

But McGovern acknowledged there is little bipartisan support for an impeachment effort, blaming “superficial partisanship” among Republicans, and a “a lack of courage and statesmanship on the part of too many Democratic politicians.”

– CNN Ticker Producer Alexander Mooney

When you talk about tax reform, the common response for most is the creation of a flat tax. I myself have called for a flat tax many times in the past. Today though, my outlook has been altered. I have done a lot of reading on the subject, and the consensus among true experts in the field is that a flat tax is overly burdensome on the poor and lower middle class. The groups that need the most relief.

What most experts say we need is a simplification of the tax code, and a closing of the loop-holes that benefit the uber rich. Doing these two things could provide for the true tax breaks needed by the poor and middle class, while making the wealthy actually pay their share.

I don’t even want to pretend to be an expert on this subject, but I do believe that this issue should be at the forefront of the elections this year. John Edwards is the one politician that has taken a stand on this issue, and proclaimed that he will go head-to-head with big business to do the right thing and institute tax reform.

Here is an article from a real expert, Paul Krugman:

Wobbled by Wealth?

By PAUL KRUGMAN

At just about every stop I’ve made so far on my book tour, what I’ve come to think of as The Question comes up. I talk about the origins of the long right-wing dominance of American politics, and the reasons I believe that dominance is coming to an end. Then someone asks, “How can you be optimistic about the prospects for progressive change, when big money has so much influence on politics?”

It’s a good question.

The public wants change. “If Americans have ever been angrier with the state of the country,” begins a new strategy memo from the polling organization Democracy Corps, “we have not witnessed it.”

Nor is the demand for change solely about Iraq: there has been a strong revival of economic populism. Democracy Corps asked those who believe America is on the wrong track to choose phrases that best described their views of what’s gone wrong. The most commonly chosen were “Big businesses get whatever they want in Washington” and “Leaders have forgotten the middle class.”

So much, by the way, for pundits who claim that Americans don’t care about economic inequality.

Longer-term studies of public opinion suggest a substantial leftward shift. James Stimson, a political scientist who uses data from many polls to construct an index of the overall liberalism or conservatism of the electorate, finds that America is now more liberal than it has been since the early 1960s. And the tactics the right has historically used to distract voters from economic issues, above all the exploitation of racial tensions, have been losing their effectiveness.

But the Democracy Corps memo warns that “Democrats have not yet found their voice as agents of change.” Indeed. What the memo doesn’t say, but is all too obvious, is that one big reason the Democrats are having trouble finding their voice is the influence of big money.

The most conspicuous example of this influence right now is the way Senate Democrats are dithering over whether to close the hedge fund tax loophole — which allows executives at private equity firms and hedge funds to pay a tax rate of only 15 percent on most of their income.

Only a handful of very wealthy people benefit from this loophole, while closing the loophole would yield billions of dollars each year in revenue. Retrieving this revenue is a key ingredient in legislation approved by the House Ways and Means Committee to reform the alternative minimum tax, something that must be done to avoid a de facto tax increase for millions of middle-class Americans.

A handful of superwealthy hedge fund managers versus millions of middle-class Americans — it sounds like a no-brainer.

But as The Financial Times reports, “Key votes have been delayed and time bought after the investment industry hired some of Washington’s most prominent lobbyists to influence lawmakers and spread largesse through campaign donations.” It goes on to describe how Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, was “toasted by industry lobbyists” (and serenaded by Barry Manilow) at a money-raising party for his special fund to help Democrats get elected next year.

Is this the shape of things to come? My questioners fear that it is.

Fears of betrayal are often focused on Hillary Clinton. Some people who raise The Question cite an article in The Nation from last summer, which suggested that Hillary Clinton’s commitment to change is suspect. “Not only is Hillary more reliant on large donations and corporate money than her Democratic rivals,” warned the article, “but advisers in her inner circle are closely affiliated with unionbusters, G.O.P. operatives, conservative media and other Democratic Party antagonists.”

O.K., some perspective. I sometimes hear people say that there’s no difference between Democrats and Republicans; that’s foolish. Look at the fight over children’s health insurance, and you can see how different the parties’ philosophies and priorities really are. All of the leading Democratic candidates are offering strongly progressive policy proposals; the Republicans are, if anything, running to the right of the Bush administration.

Also, even history’s greatest progressives had to make compromises to win their victories. F.D.R.’s New Deal depended on the support of Southern segregationists. Compared with that, Senator Clinton’s acceptance of lots of corporate donations doesn’t look so bad — though I’d be reassured if she made her views on tax reform clearer, and matched John Edwards’s focus on corporate reform.

Still, I am worried.

One of the saddest stories I tell in my book is that of Al Smith, the great reformist governor of New York, who gradually turned into a narrow-minded economic conservative and bitter critic of F.D.R. H. L. Mencken explained it thusly: “His association with the rich has apparently wobbled him and changed him. He has become a golf player.”

So, how wobbled are today’s Democrats? I guess we’ll find out.

The Budget Outcome–Everything Was decided and Nothing Was Decided

The Budget agreement, SCHIP, the Medicare Physician Fee Cut, and Medicare Advantage HMO payments.

For months, I have been telling you four things:

* The federal budget impasse would be resolved because Democrats and Republicans weren’t going to go home without their earmarks. In predicting the budget outcome you might recall my telling you to follow the “pork.”
  * SCHIP would not be allowed to expire and would be extended.
  * The 10% Medicare Physician Fee cut would be avoided just as it has been for a number of years in a row.
  * Democrats were adamant about cutting Medicare Advantage payments as a means to pay for the Medicare physician fee cut and seeing the program’s payments ultimately equalized with the traditional Medicare program.

This was a great year for earmarks or “pork-barrel spending.” When the day was done about 9,000 earmarks were inserted in the final bill in addition to about 3,000 more that were in the earlier defense appropriations bill–bringing the total to about 12,000!

The Democrats wanted $22 billion more in domestic money than President Bush wanted–about a 2% difference. The Democrats later offered to “split the difference” looking for $11 billion more–which Bush quickly rejected. In the end Bush got his cap–but they also agreed to about $11 billion more in “emergency funding” above the cap.

The Democrats also made Bush pay by cutting many of his favorite programs to get in under his cap. The alternative minimum tax (AMT) fix had no funding so will add $50 billion to the budget deficit. All told, funding for the war on terror, the AMT gap, and the rest of the spending will give us a whopping budget deficit of $240 billion next year.

If you are wondering just what got decided here, who really won, and what’s different, you aren’t the only one.

On the health issues:

SCHIP has been extended to March 2008. The Congress and the President have allocated enough money that children now covered will be able to stay in the program. There is some disagreement about whether new CMS rules might result in some cuts but CMS is showing no inclination to force any kids off the plan in an election year.

The bipartisan agreement to expand SCHIP from the current six million kids to ten million by spending another $35 billion ended up being shelved after the President vetoed that deal twice and the Democrats fell about 10 House votes short in their attempts to override him.

The docs did not get their January 10% Medicare fee cuts and instead got a half percent increase.

The bad new for the docs is that they only got a six month reprieve this time–until July 1, 2008. I see no reason to believe the Congress won’t again find someplace to get the money it will need to defer the cuts to January 1, 2009.

But on January 1, 2009 the docs will face a whopping 15% cut–the 5% from last year that is funded only until July 1, this year’s 5% cut that was also deferred only until July, and a new 5% cut the Sustainable Growth Rate Formula (SGR) will automatically create on January 1, 2009.

The Congress has fixed nothing for the docs, they have only pushed the pending cuts forward by six months–and most likely twelve months until January 1, 2009.

Just before the holiday recess, we thought we had a twelve month doc fix that would have been funded by taking the extra six months money from the “double dip” payments Medicare Advantage plans pay to teaching hospitals. But it wasn’t the health plan lobby and conservative Republicans that KO’d that Medicare Advantage cut–it was a powerful Democrat looking to protect his local medical centers.

The big teaching hospitals have always had some of the most powerful allies in Congressional delegations from states like Massachusetts and New York where some of the nation’s leading medical centers are based and some of the most powerful Democrats hail from. That was the case this time as the medical centers prevailed on the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and New York Congressman, Charlie Rangel, to kill that idea.

With the extra money cut by Rangel, and time running out, the only out was to use what money they had for just a six month fix and later try to find more funding by July of 2008.

As a result, the Medicare Advantage (MA) plans suffered no material cuts. It was clear that any real cuts would run into a Bush veto with the same fate as the two SCHIP bill votes. In the Senate, where 60-votes would have been necessary for any bill that contained MA changes, there had already been tacit agreement among Republicans to a one-year doc fix and some MA cuts. The big difference was an intransigent President who wasn’t going to budge on this issue and later objections from Rangel.

Because of these agreements, payments to the MA plans should be safe until January 1, 2010 because CMS will have set the 2009 rates by the time the 2009 budget is dealt with later next year.

Does this mean that Medicare Advantage plans have won and will not have to worry about any big cuts?

Hardly. This was a draw.

Bush held the cuts off. Bush is a lame duck. The Democrats are more intent than ever on getting back on this one and cutting the Medicare Advantage “over payments.”

George Bush may not have to sign the 2009 budget and therefore be a factor in next year’s negotiations. It would be a simple matter for continuing resolutions keep the government going a month longer than they did this year–to inauguration day and a new President in late January.

Late in 2008, the docs will be facing a 15% Medicare fee cut on January 1, 2009, SCHIP will be out of money a few months later on March 1, 2008, the extra payments to Medicare Advantage plans will present the same plump target, and we will know who won the November elections.

I heard someone say recently that with every additional year of the extra Medicare Advantage payments there will be more seniors on the plans and it will be politically more difficult to cut them. That misses an important point–the docs are facing a 15% cut and if they don’t get the money from the HMOs they will get it from other providers. AARP, the AMA, the hospitals, and about every other provider organization can agree on just one thing here–get the money from the Medicare HMOs. AARP can rally a lot more seniors than the insurance industry can.

The Medicare physicians held off some big fee cuts for likely another year, the Medicare Advantage HMOs held off any real cuts to their programs but are far from safe going into 2010, and the kids have their health plan until March.

No one won.

It’s a “do over.”

So How Do We Reduce the Costs of Health Care in our Jails and Communities?

One of the programs I advocate is a community approach to correctional health care. This program was introduced by the sheriff of Hampden County Massachusetts and has received praise from the entire correctional health care community. It has proven to be effective at not only lowering the cost of health care at the jail, but throughout the entire community.

The root cause of the high costs of health care in our communities can be traced directly to a lack of care to our poor and uninsured populations. This population is also the population most likely to end up in our county jails. For most people that go to jail, their appointment with the doctor for their intake screening is the first time they have ever seen a medical professional. Unfortunately, due to the transitory nature of jail inmates (prisoners are released or transferred in very short periods of time, the population in a county jail turns over 36 times/year on average), there is usually no follow up care.

In jail, the infection rates for communicable diseases like Hepatitis, TB, and many STDs is 5 times as great as in the community. Couple that with the short stays, and quick releases, and we are actually pushing disease into our community. These inmates are being released to the same population that does not have health care, and is too poor to afford anything but a trip to the ER. A recent survey found that 46% of the women found to have STDs reported having sex with a male that had been an inmate within the preceding 6 months. This is the root of the extreme costs of health care in our jails and our community.

What the sheriff of Hampden County did, and what has been replicated throughout the country, is a community approach to health care. Instead of hiring private company in the effort to reduce costs, the jail recruited community providers, public health officials, and other professionals to provide services at the jail on a volunteer/discounted basis, and then act as the primary care provider to inmates that have been diagnosed with an issue, back out in the community upon their release. This continuity of care has greatly reduced the overall health care budget for every community that has implemented this program.

In addition to the community health care program, adding treatment programs, housing assistance, and job training has also greatly reduced recidivism rates in these counties. I believe that this type of program is the answer to the rising costs of health care in our jails and communities on a whole.

Throughout our history we have been a nation that has presumed to act as the moral conscience of the nations of the world, a champion for international justice and morality. We viewed it as our destiny to promote peace, to subdue injustice and discipline belligerent nations. We set up tribunals to punish those that we believed to be responsible for inhumane acts against the weak and the helpless. We condemned and executed political and military leaders of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan who we felt were responsible for heinous international acts. When one assumes this posture one had better have clean hands. Don’t look now, but ours are dirty – extremely dirty.

That the United States has become an aggressor nation cannot be disputed. We claim a right to anticipatory or preemptive military strikes to enforce our will upon nations that are subjectively labeled as rogue. The simple fact is that we deny the same right of self-direction to governments with policies that diverge from ours that we claim as a divine right. The Bush administration has carried subterfuge to new heights. Inventiveness in regard to fabricating justification for a military invasion has become an art form. The president while searching for ways to secure congressional approval for an attack on Iraq changed pretexts as often as he changed shirts, finally settling on weapons of mass destruction. Today almost five years after the inception of the attack on Iraq no signs of weapons of mass destruction have ever been found and the president has had to alter his propagation for a seemingly interminable conflict as a war for democratization.

Where is it written in our laws or our Constitution that we have the authority to bomb a country and kill innocent non-combatants in order to convert them to democracy?

The case he makes is compelling.  I would love to see our president actually act upon the promises made in a campaign.  Fight for change.  Do something.  Improve our lives.

Read the article, and tell me what you think…

I have placed a link on the sidebar of this blog to the cost calculator for the war on drugs.  Take a look at some of the information listed there, and make up yout own mind.

I am also including a couple links to some stories I found in Rolling Stone. The first one is an overview of the war on drugs focus on pot, while the second one is on the the futility of the war on drugs in general.  Both of these stories illustrate how useless our current methods of dealing with drug use in America are.  If we spent the money on treatment that we currently do on trying to squash the drug trade, we’d be a lot further ahead, and we could save money in this fruitless war.

China has already begun construction on a totally Green city near Shanghai.  Dongtan will run on 100% renewable energy (a mixture of wind, solar, and rice husks) and produce  zero CO2 emissions.

This just proves to me that we have become to complacent and full of ourselves.  We are not the leaders of technology that we believe ourselves to be.  These innovations should be happening here first.  The US should be the model for the rest of the world.  Instead, we’re too busy spending all of our money on a lost war.  Check out the article in WIRED about Dongtan.

The following story appeared in The Life Of Colonel David Crockett, published by Porter & Coates in 1884. Now in the public domain. I found it at Cronk. Too bad we don’t have a Davy Crockett around today…

About the Author: Edward S. Ellis

I was one day in the lobby of the House of Representatives when a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support, rather, as I thought, because it afforded the speakers a fine opportunity for display than from the necessity of convincing anybody, for it seemed to me that everybody favored it. The Speaker was just about to put the question, when Crockett arose. Everybody expected, of course, that he was going to make one of his characteristic speeches in support of the bill. He commenced:

“Mr. Speaker — I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the Government was in arrears to him. This Government can owe no debts but for services rendered, and at a stipulated price. If it is a debt, how much is it? Has it been audited, and the amount due ascertained? If it is a debt, this is not the place to present it for payment, or to have its merits examined. If it is a debt, we owe more than we can ever hope to pay, for we owe the widow of every soldier who fought in the war of 1812 precisely the same amount. There is a woman in my neighborhood, the widow of as gallant a man as ever shouldered a musket. He fell in battle. She is as good in every respect as this lady, and is as poor. She is earning her daily bread by her daily labor, and if I were to introduce a bill to appropriate five or ten thousand dollars for her benefit, I should be laughed at, and my bill would not get five votes in this House. There are thousands of widows in the country just such as the one I have spoken of; but we never hear of any of these large debts to them. Sir, this is no debt. The Government did not owe it to the deceased when he was alive; it could not contract it after he died. I do not wish to be rude, but I must be plain. Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as a charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week’s pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks.”

He took his seat. Nobody replied. The bill was put upon its passage, and, instead of passing unanimously, as was generally supposed, and as, no doubt, it would, but for that speech, it received but few votes, and, of course, was lost.

Like many other young men, and old ones too, for that matter, who had not thought upon the subject, I desired the passage of the bill, and felt outraged at its defeat. I determined that I would persuade my friend Crockett to move a reconsideration the next day.

Previous engagements preventing me from seeing Crockett that night, I went early to his room the next morning, and found him engaged in addressing and franking letters, a large pile of which lay upon his table.

I broke in upon him rather abruptly, by asking him what devil had possessed him to make that speech and defeat that bill yesterday. Without turning his head or looking up from his work, he replied:

“You see that I am very busy now; take a seat and cool yourself. I will be through in a few minutes, and then I will tell you all about it.”

He continued his employment for about ten minutes, and when he had finished it turned to me and said:

“Now, sir, I will answer your question. But thereby hangs a tale, and one of considerable length, to which you will have to listen.”

I listened, and this is the tale which I heard:

“Several years ago I was one evening standing on the steps of the Capitol with some other members of Congress, when our attention was attracted by a great light over in Georgetown. It was evidently a large fire. We jumped into a hack and drove over as fast as we could. When we got there I went to work, and I never worked as hard in my life as I did there for several hours. But, in spite of all that could be done, many houses were burned and many families made houseless, and, besides, some of them had lost all but the clothes they had on. The weather was very cold, and when I saw so many women and children suffering, I felt that something ought to be done for them, and everybody else seemed to feel the same way.”

“The next morning a bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 for their relief. We put aside all other business, and rushed it through as soon as it could be done. I said everybody felt as I did. That was not quite so; for, though they perhaps sympathized as deeply with the sufferers as I did, there were a few of the members who did not think we had the right to indulge our sympathy or excite our charity at the expense of anybody but ourselves. They opposed the bill, and upon its passage demanded the yeas and nays. There were not enough of them to sustain the call, but many of us wanted our names to appear in favor of what we considered a Praiseworthy measure, and we voted with them to sustain it. So the yeas and nays were recorded, and my name appeared on the journals in favor of the bill.”

“The next summer, when it began to be time to think about the election, I concluded I would take a scout around among the boys of my district. I had no opposition there, but, as the election was some time off, I did not know what might turn up, and I thought it was best to let the boys know that I had not forgot them, and that going to Congress had not made me too proud to go to see them.”

“So I put a couple of shirts and a few twists of tobacco into my saddle-bags, and put out. I had been out about a week, and had found things going very smoothly, when, riding one day in a part of my district in which I was more of a stranger than any other, I saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. I gauged my gait so that we should meet as he came to the fence. As he came up I spoke to the man. He replied politely, but, as I thought, rather coldly, and was about turning his horse for another furrow, when I asked him if he could give me a chew of tobacco.”

“Yes,” said he, “such as we make and use in this part of the country; but it may not suit your taste, as you are probably in the habit of using better.”

“With that he pulled out of his pocket part of a twist in its natural state, and handed it to me. I took a chew, and handed it back to him. He turned to his plow, and was about to start off. I said to him: “Don’t be in such a hurry, my friend; I want to have a little talk with you, and get better acquainted,” He replied:

“I am very busy, and have but little time to talk, but if it does not take too long, I will listen to what you have to say.”

“I began: “Well, friend, I am one of those unfortunate beings called candidates, and—”

“Yes, I know you; you are Colonel Crockett. I have seen you once before, and voted for you the last time you were elected. I suppose you are out electioneering now, but you had better not waste your time or mine. I shall not vote for you again.”

“This was a sockdologer. I had been making up my mind that he was one of those churlish fellows who care for nobody but themselves, and take bluntness for independence. I had seen enough of them to know there is a way to reach them, and was satisfied that if I could get him to talk to me I would soon have him straight. But this was entirely a different bundle of sticks. He knew me, had voted for me before, and did not intend to do it again. Something must be the matter; I could not imagine what it was. I had heard of no complaints against me, except that some of the dandies about the village ridiculed some of the wild and foolish things that I too often say and do, and said that I was not enough of a gentleman to go to Congress. I begged him to tell me what was the matter.

“Well, Colonel, it is hardly worth while to waste time or words upon it. I do not see how it can be mended, but you gave a vote last winter which shows that either you have not capacity to understand the Constitution, or that you are wanting in the honesty and firmness to be guided by it. In either case you are not the man to represent me. But I beg your pardon for expressing it in that way. I did not intend to avail myself of the privilege of the constituent to speak plainly to a candidate for the purpose of insulting or wounding you. I intend by it only to say that your understanding of the Constitution is very different from mine; and I will say to you what, but for my rudeness, I should not have said, that I believe you to be honest.”

“Thank you for that, but you find fault with only one vote. You know the story of Henry Clay, the old huntsman and the rifle; you wouldn’t break your gun for one snap.”

“No, nor for a dozen. As the story goes, that tack served Mr. Clay’s purpose admirably, though it really had nothing to do with the case. I would not break the gun, nor would I discard an honest representative for a mistake in judgment as a mere matter of policy. But an understanding of the Constitution different from mine I cannot overlook, because the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions. The man who wields power and misinterprets it is the more dangerous the more honest he is.”

“I admit the truth of all you say, but there must be some mistake about it, for I do not remember that I gave any vote last winter upon any constitutional question.”

“No, Colonel, there’s no mistake. Though I live here in the backwoods and seldom go from home, I take the papers from Washington and read very carefully all the proceedings of Congress. My papers say that last winter you voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000 to some sufferers by a fire in Georgetown. Is that true!”

“Certainly it is, and I thought that was the last vote for which anybody in the world would have found fault with.”

“Well, Colonel, where do you find in the Constitution any authority to give away the public money in charity!”

“Here was another sockdologer; for, when I began to think about it, I could not remember a thing in the Constitution that authorized it. I found I must take another tack, so I said:

“Well, my friend; I may as well own up. You have got me there. But certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give the insignificant sum of $20,000 to relieve its suffering women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing Treasury, and I am sure, if you had been there, you would have done just as I did.”

“It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the Government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing to do with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means. What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the Government. So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he. If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right: to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and, as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive, what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. If twice as many houses had been burned in this county as in Georgetown, neither you nor any other member of Congress would have thought of appropriating a dollar for our relief. There are about two hundred and forty members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the sufferers by contributing each one week’s pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of wealthy men in and around Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life. The Congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be true, some of them spend not very creditably; and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from the necessity of giving by giving what was not yours to give. The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution.”

“I have given you,” continued Crockett, “an imperfect account of what he said. Long before he was through, I was convinced that I had done wrong. He wound up by saying:

“So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people. I have no doubt you acted honestly, but that does not make it any better, except as far as you are personally concerned, and you see that I cannot vote for you.”

“I tell you I felt streaked. I saw if I should have opposition, and this man should go to talking, he would set others to talking, and in that district I was a gone fawn-skin. I could not answer him, and the fact is I was so fully convinced that he was right, I did not want to. But I must satisfy him, and I said to him:

“Well, my friend, you hit the nail upon the head when you said I had not sense enough to understand the Constitution. I intended to be guided by it, and thought I had studied it fully. I have heard many speeches in Congress about the powers of Congress, but what you have said here at your plow has got more hard, sound sense in it, than all the fine speeches I ever heard. If I had ever taken the view of it that you have, I would have put my head into the fire before I would have given that vote, and if you will forgive me and vote for me again, if I ever vote for another unconstitutional law I wish I may be shot.”

“He laughingly replied: “Yes, Colonel, you have sworn to that once before, but I will trust you again upon one condition. You say that you are convinced that your vote was wrong. Your acknowledgment of it will do more good than beating you for it. If, as you go round the district, you will tell the people about this vote, and that you are satisfied it was wrong, J will not only vote for you, but will do what I can to keep down opposition, and, perhaps, I may exert some little influence in that way.”

“If I don’t,” said I, “I wish I may be shot; and to convince you that I am in earnest in what I say I will come back this way in a week or ten days, and if you will get up a gathering of the people, I will make a speech to them. Get up a barbecue, and I will pay for it.”

“No, Colonel, we are not rich people in this section, but we have plenty of provisions to contribute for a barbecue, and some to spare for those who have none. The push of crops will be over in a few days, and we can then afford a day for a barbecue. This is Thursday; I will see to getting it up on Saturday week. Come to my house on Friday, and we will go together, and I promise you a very respectable crowd to see and hear you.”

“Well, I will be here. But one thing more before I say good-by. I must know your name.”

“My name is Bunce.”

“Not Horatio Bunce?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Mr. Bunce, I never saw you before, though you say you have seen me, but I know you very well. I am glad that I have met you, and very proud that I may hope to have you for my friend. You must let me shake your hand before I go.”

“We shook hands and parted. “It was one of the luckiest hits of my life that I met him. He mingled but little with the public, but was widely known for his remarkable intelligence and incorruptible integrity, and for a heart brimful and running over with kindness and benevolence, which showed themselves not only in words but in acts. He was the oracle of the whole country around him, and his fame had extended far beyond the circle of his immediate acquaintance. Though I had never met him before, I had heard much of him, and but for this meeting it is very likely I should have had opposition, and been beaten. One thing is very certain, no man could now stand up in that district under such a vote.

“At the appointed time I was at his house, having told our conversation to every crowd I had met, and to every man I stayed all night with, and I found that it gave the people an interest and a confidence in me stronger than I had ever seen manifested before.

“Though I was considerably fatigued when I reached his house, and, under ordinary circumstances, should have gone early to bed, I kept him up until midnight, talking about the principles and affairs of government, and got more real, true knowledge of them than I had got all my life before.

“It is not exactly pertinent to my story, but I must tell you more about him. When I saw him with his family around him, I was not surprised that he loved to stay at home. I have never in any other family seen a manifestation of so much confidence, familiarity and freedom of manner of children toward their parents mingled with such unbounded love and respect.

“He was not at the house when I arrived, but his wife received and welcomed me with all the ease and cordiality of an old friend. She told me that her husband was engaged in some out-door business, but would be in shortly. She is a woman of fine person; her face is not what the world would at first sight esteem beautiful. In a state of rest there was too much strength and character in it for that, but when she engaged in conversation, and especially when she smiled, it softened into an expression of mingled kindness, goodness, and strength that was beautiful beyond anything I have ever seen.

“Pretty soon her husband came in, and she left us and went about her household affairs. Toward night the children–he had about seven of them– began to drop in; some from work, some from school, and the little ones from play. They were introduced to me, and met me with the same ease and grace that marked the manner of their mother. Supper came on, and then was exhibited the loveliness of the family circle in all its glow. The father turned the conversation to the matters in which the children had been interested during the day, and all, from the oldest to the youngest, took part in it. They spoke to their parents with as much familiarity and confidence as if they had been friends of their own age, yet every word and every look manifested as much respect as the humblest courtier could manifest for a king; aye, more, for it was all sincere, and strengthened by love. Verily it was the Happy Family.

“I have told you Mr. Bunce converted me politically. He came nearer converting me religiously than I had ever been before. When supper was over, one of the children brought him a Bible and hymn-book. He turned to me and said:

“Colonel, I have for many years been in the habit of family worship night and morning. I adopt this time for it that all may be present. If I postpone it some of us get engaged in one thing and some in another, and the little ones drop off to sleep, so that it is often difficult to get all together.”

“He then opened the Bible, and read the Twenty-third Psalm, commencing: “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.” It is a beautiful composition, and his manner of reading it gave it new beauties. We then sang a hymn, and we all knelt down. He commenced his prayer “Our Father who art in Heaven.” No one who has not heard him pronounce those words can conceive how they thrilled through me, for I do not believe that they were ever pronounced by human lips as by him. I had heard them a thousand times from the lips of preachers of every grade and denomination, and by all sorts of professing Christians, until they had become words of course with me, but his enunciation of them gave them an import and a power of which I had never conceived. There was a grandeur of reverence, a depth of humility, a fullness of confidence and an overflowing of love which told that his spirit was communing face to face with its God. An overwhelming feeling of awe came over me, for I felt that I was in the invisible presence of Jehovah. The whole prayer was grand–grand in its simplicity, in the purity of the spirit it breathed, in its faith, its truth, and its love. I have told you he came nearer converting me religiously than I had ever been before. He did not make a very good Christian of me, as you know; but he has wrought upon my mind a conviction of the truth of Christianity, and upon my feelings a reverence for its purifying and elevating power such as I had never felt before.

“I have known and seen much of him since, for I respect him–no, that is not the word–I reverence and love him more than any living man, and I go to see him two or three times every year; and I will tell you, sir, if every one who professes to be a Christian lived and acted and enjoyed it as he does, the religion of Christ would take the world by storm.

“But to return to my story. The next morning we went to the barbecue, and, to my surprise, found about a thousand men there. I met a good many whom I had not known before, and they and my friend introduced me around until I had got pretty well acquainted–at least, they all knew me.

“In due time notice was given that I would speak to them. They gathered up around a stand that had been erected. I opened my speech by saying:

“Fellow-citizens–I present myself before you today feeling like a new man. My eyes have lately been opened to truths which ignorance or prejudice, or both, had heretofore hidden from my view. I feel that I can to-day offer you the ability to render you more valuable service than I have ever been able to render before. I am here today more for the purpose of acknowledging my error than to seek your votes. That I should make this acknowledgment is due to myself as well as to you. Whether you will vote for me is a matter for your consideration only.”

“I went on to tell them about the fire and my vote for the appropriation as I have told it to you, and then told them why I was satisfied it was wrong. I closed by saying:

“And now, fellow-citizens, it remains only for me to tell you that the most of the speech you have listened to with so much interest was simply a repetition of the arguments by which your neighbor, Mr. Bunce, convinced me of my error.”

“It is the best speech I ever made in my life, but he is entitled to the credit of it. And now I hope he is satisfied with his convert and that he will get up here and tell you so.”

“He came upon the stand and said:

“Fellow-citizens–It affords me great pleasure to comply with the request of Colonel Crockett. I have always considered him a thoroughly honest man, and I am satisfied that he will faithfully perform all that he has promised you today.”

“He went down, and there went up from that crowd such a shout for Davy Crockett as his name never called forth before.

“I am not much given to tears, but I was taken with a choking then and felt some big drops rolling down my cheeks. And I tell you now that the remembrance of those few words spoken by such a man, and the honest, hearty shout they produced, is worth more to me than all the honors I have received and all the reputation I have ever made, or ever shall make, as a member of Congress.

“Now, sir,” concluded Crockett, “you know why I made that speech yesterday. I have had several thousand copies of it printed, and was directing them to my constituents when you came in.

“There is one thing now to which I will call your attention. You remember that I proposed to give a week’s pay. There are in that House many very wealthy men–men who think nothing of spending a week’s pay, or a dozen of them, for a dinner or a wine party when they have something to accomplish by it. Some of those same men made beautiful speeches upon the great debt of gratitude which the country owed the deceased–a debt which could not be paid by money–and the insignificance and worthlessness of money, particularly so insignificant a sum as $10,000, when weighed against the honor of the nation. Yet not one of them responded to my proposition. Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it.”

The hour for the meeting of the House had by this time arrived. We walked up to the Capitol together, but I said not a word to him about moving a reconsideration. I would as soon have asked a sincere Christian to abjure his religion.

I had listened to his story with an interest which was greatly increased by his manner of telling it, for, no matter what we may say of the merits of a story, a speech, or a sermon, it is a very rare production which does not derive its interest more from the manner than the matter, as some of my readers have doubtless, like the writer, proved to their cost.

Just ask George W. Bush. Let’s take a look at the growing list of lies we have endured from this president.

Weapons of Mass Destruction? There aren’t any in Iraq now, and there certainly weren’t any when “W” was telling us about his proof that they did exist. We now know that that was a bold faced lie, one that was spread to scare the public into supporting his case for war.

Saddam Hussein and the Al-Qaeda link. Yet another lie intended to scare the public and try to keep support going for a war that has clearly lost favor with the citizens of this great country.

The latest lie may be the only one that contains a sliver of truth. While campaigning for republican candidates, he stated “We need to stay in Iraq in order to keep gas prices close to $2 a gallon.” If I remember correctly, when we started down this path, he assured us it had nothing to do with oil…

Worse even than those public declarations, is the work he has spawned behind the scenes. Legislation has been passed that has eroded essential liberties that our country was founded on, the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act. These laws, passed under auspices of protecting the public from the terrorist threat facing the country, are more dangerous to our country than the enemy they were “designed” to protect us from.

Benjamin Franklin said “They who can give up essential liberty in order to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

I place a lot of the blame on the political climate that got “W” elected in the first place. Partisan politics has destroyed our leaders’ ability to think and act independently. Anyone that didn’t support the president initially was labeled a “liberal”, a “traitor”, or “un-American”. Since when did having an original thought or opinion make you un-American?

I reject labels; I am neither a republican nor a democrat. I have my own opinions and beliefs, and prefer to evaluate the issues of the day on a case by case basis. I’d like to see some leaders emerge over the next few years that have the same ideas on public service. I don’t care if they have my same opinions on all subjects; I just want them to have their own opinions, not those of the people holding the purse strings.

I support our troops. They are the biggest victims of the lies told by this administration. As of today, our troops have been at war for a longer period of time than they were for all of WWII. For what? Almost 4,000 Americans deaths, and countless Iraqi civilian deaths. More than 60,000 Americans wounded.  Almost 500 Billion Dollars spent so far.

 What have we accomplished? Did we not learn anything from our experience in Vietnam? We are locked in a struggle in a country whose government is not supported by its people, and there is no end in sight. There can be no victory here, and we now know we should never have been there to begin with.

Is it any wonder I don’t trust our leaders today. It’s not just George W. Bush, I don’t trust any of them. Not because I think there is some big conspiracy, but because I don’t think any of the people supported by the leaders of today’s political parties have any personal convictions. They have sold out for political contributions, and only look to further their careers. They are willing to lie in an effort to further their own agendas.

What happened to you John McCain? You used to do your own thing, not caring whether it followed party lines. I guess getting beat by “W” destroyed your spirit. Maybe you have given up on the American people’s ability to think independently, just as I have given up on today’s politicians.

Well now is the time for us to hold our leaders accountable for these lies. We impeached a president for lying to the public about having an affair. I think “W” has committed a far worse crime than fooling around with an intern. His lies have cost the lives of American men and women. It’s time he be held accountable.