NEWS NOTES ON SEVERAL IMPORTANT TOPICS

An important  bill in the House this past week would make major cuts in the Food Stamps program…putting many thousands of Kentuckians, who depend on that program, at serious risk.  How would our new Republican Congressman Andy Barr vote? 

 

A Yes vote would favor the billions in cuts; a No vote would keep the program essentially the same as now.

Here’s the statement Barr’s office released after his vote: 

“Today I voted to restore accountability and much needed fiscal responsibility to an important federal program that has grown to unsustainable levels. These common sense reforms to our food stamp  program will achieve nearly $40 billion in savings while increasing funding to food banks.

“The bill will provide a full $725 billion to food assistance to families and children in need over the next ten years. This legislation is the most compassionate policy because it encourages people who are capable of work to move from dependency to self-sufficiency.”

Is that a “Yes” vote or a “No” vote?  Answer below.

I was surprised, but very pleased, that the US and Russia worked out a diplomatic agreement that halted, at least for now, the spiral towards war the US was pursuing towards Syria…and that, so far, Syria has lived up to the agreement..sending a list of its chemical weapons to an international agency.

War should be our last resort..not, as the U-S has done in recent years, often near our first resort.

War has consequences usually not foreseen. That was brought home by some other news stories…a Fort Campbell soldier’s family finally learning his fate..from the Vietnam war, when his remains were identified…49 years later. Who knew, when they sent him away proudly, such anguish would follow for a half century?

Or the story that told us an atomic bomb almost exploded in North Carolina in 1961 when an accident occurred to one of our bombers, forcing it to jettison two bombs. The four safety devices on one worked; three of the four on the second bomb failed and only one switch prevented a nuclear explosion that would have spread radioactive fallout as far  north as Washington and New York. We here in Kentucky would have felt the effects, too. A very “lucky” if UN-intended consequence  when you embark on war…whether “cold” or “hot.”

Despite the political speak, Mr. Barr voted to cut food stamps to his fellow Kentuckians.

I'm just sayin'...

 

THANKS, EDWARD SNOWDEN!!!

The world learned recently that our National Security Agency (NSA) has been eavesdropping on your and my medical records, our bank accounts, and all sorts of mundane credit card and e-mails.

NSA had previously denied this…but the evidence from leaked NSA records, made public by Edward Snowden, and published in several papers seems pretty conclusive…that and the lack of denials by NSA or any responsible government official.

Are you a terrorist? I thought not. Nor am I. Nor are 250 million other Americans. So why would NSA spend billions (with a B) to check into our accounts? Because some mid-level NSA employee convinced higher-ups that some terrorist in Yemen, or Wurziristan had a medical condition and a cash flow problem  that would help us track him…so to find that one SOB NSA set out to crack ALL the world’s medical and banking records..all.

That’s the way the “intelligence community” thinks.  Never mind your right to privacy; never mind our civil rights, never mind the rule of law, never mind it would take (and did apparently)  billions and billions of dollars to accomplish this..what’s mere money when we might…might…find a nascent Osama bin Laden out there.

Nothing apparently, and “so let it be done.”

The NSA is supposed, under our law, to report major activities like these to various committees of the Congress. To judge from the reaction, either it didn’t, or the committees didn’t think through this idiotic scheme and rein NSA in..which is what “oversight” means. Once again those elected officials who were supposed to work on our behalf failed.

And the NSA’s activities mean that no encryption system is safe..which puts every medical and banking activity at risk..all paid for with our money.

Think about what those billions could have paid for. Have you a road project in mind? A school needing aid? A water system that needs upgrading?

Snowden may well have broken the law, that’s yet to be determined. But there can be no doubt that his latest revelations have done a great public service...and put us all on notice that Big Brother’s name is the U.S. government.

I'm just sayin'...

THE PRESIDENT IS RIGHT…AND VERY WRONG!!

President Obama was absolutely correct in seeking Congress’s views on such an important matter as war with Syria. And it is War. Anytime you fire weapons into a sovereign nation’s territory---that’s war.  

While we wait for the U-N report (not available at this writing) you have to wonder why a century old treaty, signed by 90 plus nations including Syria, outlawing chemical weapons seems to have no enforcement provisions.  That's what the U-N and NATO and the Arab States ought to be able to support...but if the U-S has to go it alone, so be it.

However, our Constitution is very clear. Congress declares war, not the President.  This has been “bypassed” by the President and Congress at least five times since the Vietnam war and it’s about time our “rule of law” was adhered to...by a man who is both a lawyer and teacher of constitutional law, and by an assembly made up largely of lawyers.

The “consent of the governed” needs to be sought on such an important matter as war. Britain called its parliament back in 2 days; what’s taking ours so long—if we really care about the sufferings of the Syrian people? Britain’s MPs were doing just what our “MCs” are doing..vacationing but going back to their districts to meet with voters.

When the Commons voted against War with Syria, Prime Minister Cameron said “he got it” and would pursue War no more. And Britain has an UN-written constitution.

Ours is written..and Article 1, Section 8 says concisely…"Congress shall have the power…to declare war.”  As Commander-in-Chief the President prosecutes the war, after Congress declares it.

If Congress agrees, we know the President is ready to prosecute..tho I wish he wouldn’t keep talking about a “surgical strike” which in any war does NOT exist.

But if the Congress says ”No” - President Obama is duty bound to follow that decision..by his oath of office and the Constitution. He cannot have it both ways…seek Congress’s advice, and then ignore it.

If Congress does turn his war request down..there is still room for diplomacy, or getting NATO or some other regional defense group..authorized by the U-N but not subject to Security Council vetoes..to go ahead. That may yet be the better way.

The worse way of all would be for the Congress to say “No” and the President to go ahead, violating our Constitution. Two wrongs would still not make it right.

I'm just sayin'...

AREA 51 WHERE ARE YOU???

In two major cases recently the veracity of our government has been found wanting.  Our government has lied to us…and has done so for years.

Nope, this is not about NSA—though we have been lied to there already.

This is history..but important history.

In one case, the infamous Area 51, the government denied, in court, that such an area by that name, existed. This was crucial because federal employees, the governments own, were suing to get records that might prove the US had put their lives in great danger by using toxic  chemicals on the job at Area 51.  That area was a top secret Nevada test base for advanced airplanes such as the Stealth Fighter and the B-2 bombers.

It’s understandable why the government would want to keep this a secret. But “No comment” is one thing; denying it to a judge is quite another. And especially after Russia published satellite pictures of Area 51, offering them for sale to anyone. Still the denials continued.  When the employees’ lawyer offered to take the judge to a mountaintop nearby and show him Area 51 in the distance, the US bought the mountain, with your money, and put it off limits.

In the second case, the CIA has ‘fessed up…as almost everyone suspected.  It illegally conspired to overthrow the democratically elected government of Iran in 1953, because the new prime minister was going to nationalize its oil industry, then owned..not by American firms, but by the British.

Small wonder when Iran citizens revolted later against the Shah, (who sided with the CIA against the new PM) it was our embassy The revolution seized, and held our staff hostage---remember. And can you see why Iran now has little trust in the U-S when we take part in an international inspection of charges its nuclear industry is not to generate power, but to generate weapons?  That bad decision of 1953 has come home to roost in what could be an even more important crisis. Atomic.

The CIA lied about its role to Congress and the American people for years..but, as with Area 51, was made to tell the truth by journalists and academic institutions seeking, and finally getting the records needed.

Now, when our government says..”Trust us..we have safeguards in place”, we won’t read your mail, or e mails, or listen in on our phone calls, any citizen ought to say…”Prove it..now. I don’t want to wait another 40-60 years to find out, as with Iran and Area 51, you were lying to me all the time back in 2013.”

Let me add those committees in Congress who were charged with overseeing Iran and Area 51 didn’t find out the truth and tell us. They didn’t do their job, as they haven’t in the NSA situation.

Everyday citizens did..for as the famed abolitionist and liberal activist Wendell Phillips reminds us..”Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty.”

I'm just sayin'...

THE BLOOD ON MY HANDS…AND YOURS

Checking the news each day  from Egypt I would say to myself “It can’t get any worse”, but it always did.

There are many reasons for this tragic state of affairs, but one factor is U-S foreign policy, and in that you and I are culpable. We, and our country, have blood on our hands.

For years the U-S has supported an “even handed” approach in the Middle East..support for Israel, support for Arab states, too—a policy I support. Israel gets more foreign aid from us than any nation; Egypt is second—about $2 Billion a year. (That would pave a lot of roads, help build a lot of schools, support many health programs throughout America, but I think foreign aid is a defensible policy).

Less so in Egypt in recent years than before.  Too much of our aid goes to military weapons, since Egypt has sworn off  attacking Israel.  Too much of that goes to the military  caste, including fraud and kickbacks galore. Most people don’t realize Egypt’s military owns about a third of the civilian economy—(plants and factories and the like), with the “profits” going not to the “general fund” but back to the military. This makes them the single most powerful group in the land.

U-S policy has not helped, over the years, to democratize Egypt---so when Mubarak was overthrown, the U-S  (and a lot of us) hoped for a new day. It didn’t work out that way. The military continued to pull the strings, and when the Muslim Brotherhood’s Morsi won the first ever democratic election, and then screwed up his ruling, the military pounced. Despite our  law to the contrary, the U-S declared this coup was not a coup---which it was--- hoping the military would  see the light. Again, it didn’t work out that way.  Secretary of State John Kerry, himself a veteran and opponent of ‘Nam,  where the U-S supported another military dictatorship, declared it “wasn’t a military takeover.” Wrong again..and with each U-S decision, flouting our own laws and traditions, the body count rose in the streets of Cairo, Alexandria, and Port Said.

It rose in large part because the military is using weapons we paid for, supplied and built for Egypt’s defense against its own people. See those sand-colored APCs—armored personnel carriers..lined up along Cairo streets? I know them well; I helped break the story when the U-S sank hundreds of millions into an old plant in West Virginia to make them for the war in Vietnam, where they became the troops’ vehicle of choice.

Our policy, well meaning or not, has failed. Our government has ignored our own laws; its attempts to get the military to end its repressive measures has failed….and the body count goes higher and higher. (And Egypt is a simple matter compared to Syria)!

In a democratic country we elect the people who make our laws (and ignore them), who set our foreign policy—for good or ill. And when our officials fail us, we the people are also responsible.

Uncle Sam has blood on his hands..and so do every one of us.

I'm just sayin'...

SOME KENTUCKY POLITICAL NOTES…

#1---Senator McConnell’s campaign manager…the TOP man in his re-election campaign..is “holding his nose” about Mitch’s candidacy. This is going to hurt our senior senator, how much I don’t know..but all the “funny” pictures in the world..of the two of them holding their noses together, won’t help. This is a serious matter and I expect it to be used over and over again by both GOP and Democratic opponents.

It’s far more serious that the senator’s leaving very early in the Fancy Farm doings--- and taking 5 bus loads of supporters with him. That certainly didn’t help support other Republican candidates there, especially Agriculture Comm. Comer, who may be the party’s top nod for governor.

#2---Gov. Beshear acted correctly, if a bit late, is forcing out the head of the state emergency management agency, John Heltzel, after an auditor's report showed both extravagant spending on “entertainment”…and, what was worse, an attempt to cover it up by intimidating state employees.

But it’s also against the law for vendors to the state, in the major case here, the Galt House in Louisville, to change its invoices to make the agency’s books seem correct. I hope the attorney-general or other appropriate official will also pursue a probe and possible indictments against the civilian vendors as well. It takes two to tango with taxpayers’ money here.

#3---May I add my personal regrets on the passing of former Lexington vice-mayor Ann Ross, one of the nicest politicians I ever covered. Lexington’s city elections are non-partisan, but Ann was a Republican, as we all knew. She was knowledgeable, articulate, and gracious.  She would debate the issues with you but never raise her voice.  If there were more politicians like Ann Ross both of our Old Parties would be Grand.

I'm just sayin'...

WHAT WOULD MR. LINCOLN THINK???

I think it’s always risky to go back into history and, from our own perspective, say what would have happened…If…

And yet, watching Fancy Farm over the weekend on KET, where the modern descendants of Mr. Lincoln’s party (and Tom Jefferson’s) comported themselves, I suspect our 16^th president would have wept.

Here were grown men and women, many bused in for the occasion, yelling and screaming, all designed to drown out the views of another person with whom they disagreed. Un-Democratic in the extreme…and un-Republican, too.

Lincoln and, at the time, the much better known, Stephen Douglas debated the issues of the day, especially Slavery, in 7 debates in a state not so far away, Illinois. Many were outdoors, like Fancy Farm. Many were at night, the area lit by giant torches. From the platform they spoke..with no public address system to carry their voices and their arguments.  Can you imagine what it would have meant to these two men..and to the idea of our democracy,---and History--- had there been the din we witnessed at Fancy Farm?

It is possible to disagree without being disagreeable. That line has been crossed at Fancy Farm many times, and I have heard worse..but that does not mean it was right. Something needs to be done by the organizers to restore sanity---and common  courtesy---to what is a great Kentucky (and American) tradition. Steps were taken some time back when portable bullhorns were banned, and other noisemakers. (The Bevin supporters violated this rule by ringing bells, but that was but a minor distraction).

After all why are we there? To hear from candidates for public office, some quite important (including even a  possible President down the line..) Hear them out, then disagree. The organizers must try to get a handle on this before next year.

After all, Mr. Lincoln was a Kentuckian. 

Let us continue this proud tradition as he would have us do so.

I'm just sayin'...