Buyer's Remorse...

Buyer's Remorse...

On Tuesday, November 2nd, the United States electorate spoke or at least 41.5% of the spoke.  The Democrats held on to the Senate, barely, and the Republicans took back the House of Representatives. The question now becomes what do the Republicans intend to do with their partial victory.

Tea Party Candidates were elected to both houses of Congress and far-right enthusiasts like Senator Elect Rand Paul from Kentucky want to roll back all of the legislation passed by the last Congress.

For your information, this includes bills on Wall Street Regulation and the Health Care Legislation. Republican Minority Leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell has already made an appearance at the Heritage Foundation (the Republican Think Tank) stating that Cap and Trade, the legislation to prevent Global Warming was DOA.  You can expect attempts to freeze or diminish Social Security, lower payments to Doctors accepting Medicare, an attempt to raise the retirement age, again, as well as a push to privatize the Social Security Program putting it in the hands of Wall Street, the denizens of which did so well with your 401K and pension plans in 2008. You can also expect no more unemployment extensions for those of you who have been out of work since the beginning of the recession and no proposals passed to provide good paying construction jobs by financing public works to improve our aging and failing infrastructure.

The push to have the United States regain technological superiority by funding research into energy alternatives is also up on the chopping block.  The oil and energy companies who funded all those Republican PACs and SUPERPACs will want a return on their millions invested.  The United States Chamber of Commerce will make sure their dollars speak loudly and there will be no hikes in minimum wage. The repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell will be under attack as well as the court decision Roe vrs Wade which gave a woman the right to choose what to do with their own body.  In fact, if enough Blue Dog Democrats in the Senate join with the Republican Party you can basically look forward to a return of the Bush years which brought you two vastly expensive wars, deregulation of any environmental legislation, zero quality control and repeal of  some of the OSHA laws that protect worker safety.

The Department of Education could be dismantled in an era where American Schools trail fifteen countries in math and science.  The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy could be dismantled when all the rest of the globe is worried about climate change.  Did the average American voter realize what they brought upon themselves by a vote for the Republican Party in 2010, probably not.

The fault here lies with the Democratic Party and its nominal head, President Barrack Obama.  The Democrats did a terrible job of marketing their accomplishments and let the Republicans control the message delivered.  Lies like calling the Health Care Legislation, "Death Panels," misrepresenting the cost estimates of programs like the auto bailout which has resulted in a profit for the Government as soon as GM completes their IPO. The President did come out of the Oval Office late in the election cycle, but unfortunately too late to move the electorate back to the Democratic column.  What the Democrats needed was an organized, on message campaign, touting their accomplishments.  What they got was individual races with no central theme where the candidates ran like herds of buffalo away from legislation that was beneficial to the general public. The Democrats need to wake up and learn how to present their successes.  They need to know how to frame the conversation before their opponents do and they need to do this before 2012.

You can follow my blogs on my website www.ackatt.com, or fan my block talk radio show, AC Katt's Books and Politics on Thursdays at noon-eastern, eleven-central, ten-mountain and nine-pacific time at www.blogtalkradio.com/ackatt.

There was a time when...

One more US Institution falls to the politics of greed...

I'm turning sixty in January.  Despite the vagaries of age there are some benefits that accrue, such as a sense of perspective.  When I was in my teens and twenties, growing up in a small town in New Jersey, the Chamber of Commerce stirred a sense of pride in community.  The Chamber of Commerce was your town's biggest booster.  They ran festivals, parades, community charity drives and engineered the continued prosperity of the town's business district.  The members were composed of small business owners, lawyers, bankers and the presidents or CEOs of any factory or large retailer that operated within the limits of the town's borders. To be listed on the rolls of membership of your local Chamber was a source of immense pride both to the member and their family.  A member of the Chamber of Commerce was a well-respected pillar of the community charged with the responsibility of ensuring the success of local business and therefore the success of the town.  My how things have changed.

Revelations this week have astounded Americans like myself who remember the old Chamber and its charter.  The new Chamber of Commerce is a multi-national organization no longer charged with local interest, but seriously invested in the welfare of multi-national corporations to the detriment of local and United States businesses.  Recent revelations show that the Chamber solicited and accepted at least $885,000 disclosed donations from over eighty foreign corporations.  Some of the countries involved were India, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Germany, Dubai, Singapore, the Kingdom of Bahrain and Canada.  This money was to be used to promote unrestrained free trade, policies that outsource American jobs overseas to these countries.

In a world where corporate donations to political campaigns through political action committees (PACS), run in the hundreds of millions $885,000 does not seem to be a lot of money.  But, since the Chamber of Commerce and many PACs are not required to name their donors, this amount is likely to be just the tip of the international monetary iceberg that is in the process of sinking the American Political System.  Seriously, does any American citizen want their congressman, senator or President elected due to the impact of money contributed by businessmen and politicians in India, Bahrain, Israel, etc?

The Supreme Court ruled this past year in the Citizens United case that corporations had all the rights and privileges of individuals. And, there was no distinction between local US corporations and multi-national corporations in the court's decision. One effect of this ruling is that large - in some cases multi-billion dollar - corporations are encouraged to think of their ability to make political donations as equal to that of an individual US citizen.  Think millions of dollars worth of contributions versus the hundred dollar donation of the average citizen to a political campaign and all of their dollars promote their interests, not yours.

As an example, the US Chamber of Commerce is using donations from foreign countries to promote foreign interests by paying for nation-wide attack ads on political figures that stand against legislative policies that are designed to ship millions of jobs overseas.

In general, during the midterm elections, donations to Republican politicians' reelection coffers overflowed making passage of good laws that would benefit the health and welfare of United States citizens impossible to enact because those politicians are owned by their corporate friends.

Together with the Chamber of Commerce, many well placed Republican PACs are funding deadly attack ads against congressional proponents of such issues as: universal health care legislation, mine safety legislation, oil drilling lease and drilling regulation reform legislation, government services legislation which ensure and promote the well being of hundreds of millions of US citizens.

For instance, during the last thirty years of mainly Republican administrations, the US Congress quietly repealed the Glas-Stegall Act, rolled back environmental protection legislation, and loosened restrictions on oil and gas regulation.  This was all done to promote the special interests of multi-national corporate, financial, mining, and oil company profit objectives. Now, after all these years of bad legislation and rule-making, any attempt to right these policies runs straight into the jaws of the Citizens United court ruling.  Pity the Congressman or Senator who chooses to cross swords with an involved corporate interest. Now, in 2010, they face the funding realities of the current election cycle with millions of dollars in attack ads being donated to their opponent.  However, after the Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case those dollars have become virtually unlimited.  The campaign coffers of radical right wing conservative candidates have been the chief beneficiaries of both corporate and foreign influences, bought and paid for by undisclosed donors.  This, the first election since the Supreme Court decision, is floating in contributions from undisclosed donors whose agenda may not be in the best interests of United States citizens.


Finally, consider that, as Republicans stuff their reelection campaign pockets with foreign and corporate money, the average unemployment rate in this country in the United States is over nine percent.  If these Radical Conservatives win their proposed agenda, taking the country back to the Bush policies, two-hundred fifty plus million ordinary citizens will suffer greatly. Some of the prospects that loom are the elimination of minimum wage, privatization of Social Security and Medicare, removal of the remaining regulations and restrictions in such agencies as the Federal Food and Drug Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Funding initiatives such as green energy technology, stem cell research, renewal of our aging infrastructure, social programs such as unemployment, food stamps will all go under the axe.  Is this the forward direction our country should take, or is a trip back to Dickensonian England where Oliver dared to ask for more?

If you wish additional information on this blog or my books, I am debuting a fifteen minute segment on Blogtalk Radio (http://www.Blogtalkradio.com/ackatt) on Thursday, October 21 at 10:00 am Mountain Time.  In this segment I will be discussing my book, Shattered Glass, the creative process and how some of its themes relate to contemporary life.

Additionally, you could subscribe to my political blog by RSS feed at http://www.ackattspolitics.blogspot.com or to my book blog at http://www.ackattsjournal.blogspot.com.  Links to my website at http://www.ackatt.com are welcome as well as "follows" for my blog.  I have two new blog outlets at http://Blogs.FanBox.com/ShatteredGlass1, and http://www.ackatt.weebly.com.  I have also created a Ning Network at http://ackatonning.ning.com which you are invited to join.

Please remember that Shattered Glass is available from Captiva Press at www.captivapress.com and from the Kindle Store at Amazon.com.  A Matter of Trust is available from XOXO Publishing at www.XOXOpublishing.com.

Look for the re-release of my first novel, The Sarran Plague which has been re-worked and re-edited to be released by Captiva Press late fall or early winter.

No Defense Necessary...

A List of Presidential    Accomplishments

I can't see why Democrats are running from the Congress and Presidential accomplishments of the last eighteen months.  Perhaps if we look at those accomplishments, we can see exactly how effective the Obama legislative agenda has been.

Consider the conditions under which President Obama took office.  The banks and mortgage companies were failing underneath a pile of bad debt and even worse business decisions.  The automotive industry was going under for the last time. Wall Street had devised such complicated investment instruments that even the brokers who traded and sold these instruments had no clear understanding of their worth.  We were heavily involved in two wars, one of which upon we never should have embarked.  The President promised change and a new direction, he delivered. Just consider the following (partial) list of political accomplishments:

• TARP - This program was created by the outgoing Bush administration and supported by Republicans. It was (largely) managed by the Obama administration.  And, to date, the banks and AIG have paid back most of the money loaned to them. There may even be a profit for the taxpayers in the near future.
• Automotive Bailout - This program was proposed by the Bush administration and enacted by the (mainly) democratic congress allied with the Obama administration.  This initiative directly saved 100s of thousands of jobs for the big three automakers plus indirectly saved millions of jobs for at the auto industry suppliers.  As a result of this program, only 18 months after its inception, GM has paid back the American public and Chrysler is on its way to a payback.  More importantly, the restructuring of both GM and Chrysler under the guidance of the Obama administration has seen both companies thriving in the highly competitive international auto market space.
• Iraq War - Troop levels in Iraq have been drawn down to 1/3 of 2009 levels and the US mission in-country has been recast to concentrate on: Iraq troop training; providing logistics and support for the Iraq army; combating anti-terrorism operations.

• The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – During Q1/2009, the Obama and the democratic congress crafter this (Stimulus) plan to save and/or create 3.5 million jobs.  As of October 1, 2010, the Congressional Office of Management and Budget reported that the Stimulus plan is close to meeting this objective by saving and/or creating 3.2 million jobs.     
• Health Care – The (mainly) democratic party members of congress and the President worked ceaselessly, all through 2009, to deliver healthcare reform legislation to the American public.  The final bill wasn’t perfect, but it did close down the most blatant abuses practiced by the health insurance industry.  The reform legislation also set in place national pricing evaluation rules that will bring healthcare costs under control in the future.

The same bill enabled parents to keep their children on their health insurance policy until the age of twenty six.  It also forced insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions, lifted the ceiling for lifetime expense for an illness and provided incentives for small businesses to provide health coverage for their employees.  The legislation also moved to gradually decrease the “donut hole” in prescription coverage for seniors.

·        Wall Street Reform -- This legislation provided existing regulatory agencies with a set of laws that will foster a much healthier and more effective regulatory environment for Wall Street’s investment banking community.

·        Consumer Protection Legislation – As part of the Wall Street Reform act, congress created an independent consumer protection agency.  This agency will ensure that the design of financial products don’t threaten the well being of the consumers they are sold to.  This covers consumer loans (personal, mortgage, etc.), credit cards, bank accounts, etc.

·        Student Loan Reform – Congress passed legislation that revamped the system for distributing and managing student loans and Pell grants.  Prior to this legislation, these services were handled by banks making huge profits for not much effort on their part.  This legislative action will free up more than $60 billion over the next 10 years to be folded back into more student loans and Pell grants.

·        As part of managing the effects of the BP oil spill, the President negotiated with British Petroleum for a more than $20 billion settlement for the people of the Gulf Coast who lost income and property from the horrendous oil spill.

These and many other achievements benefited the American public despite the Republican Party's opposition and use of the Senate filibuster against each and every piece of proposed legislation.  I wonder what could be accomplished without the Republican threat to halt every piece of Progressive Legislation. 

The Hidden Agenda of the "New" Republican Party

Minimum Wage

Watch out! For those of you who are currently depending on minimum wage jobs to feed your families during the current economic crisis, be aware that if certain Republican candidates have their way, your wages will go well below the poverty line.

Joe Miller, Republican candidate for the Alaskan senate seat wants to eliminate minimum wage.  He has company.  Linda McMahon, the millionaire owner of the WWE and the Republican candidate for the Senate seat in Connecticut; Dino Rossi, Republican candidate in Washington State; Rand Paul, Republican candidate for the Senate from Kentucky, all agree with Mr. Miller.  With no federally set minimum wage, your take home pay could seriously diminish.

For Senior Citizens in the future, the news is just as bad.  The Republican Party has designs on your Social Security Payments.  Future Senior Citizens will have to work longer hours, in addition to a sharp raise in the retirement age.  While the trend in retirement age throughout the world is for the age of retirees to decrease, the Republican party has plans to raise the retirement age for future seniors.  As if that isn't bad enough, there are also plans afoot to privatize Social Security.  For those of you who think this is a good thing, think about what happened to your 401K during this latest economic crisis.  And, for those of you living close to the poverty line, the reduction in minimum wage and the elimination of Social Security in its present form could leave you destitute when you are no longer capable of work.

As a point of general information, Social Security does not only provide income for retirees.  The disabled and orphaned children also collect Social Security.  The Republican Party would have us return to the age of Dickensonian work houses and orphanages for the indigent.

Additional horrors also await those who do not read between the lines of the so-called Pledge to America. Women are especially at risk.  The Republican Party would seek to overturn Roe vs. Wade and make abortion illegal for even those victims of rape and incest taking away completely a woman's right to choose.  Thus making her twice a victim.

These draconian measures are only some of the tenets of the new Republican Agenda.  Unlimited campaign financing by mega corporations sits squarely as a giant roadblock to democracy.  Current regulations do not even require the disclosure of where the PAC money originates that goes into candidates war chests.  PACS with innocuous sounding names front money for corporations whose agenda is not favorable to the general public.  For example, a PAC named Citizens for Clean Energy may be a front for the same mine owners who ignored safety violations and that caused the collapse of the coal mine that killed and injured miners recently.

For those of you who are now benefiting from sections of the new health care bill, by the relaxation of restrictions on pre-existing conditions, the inclusion of children under twenty-six on the family health policy and the help small business will receive to insure their employees, be assured that this will vanish under a Republican Congress and Senate.  The propaganda war against health care reform will continue and be financed by the insurance companies who want to continue to earn obscene profits by only insuring the healthy and dropping anyone who actually uses health insurance from their rolls. Unlike the lies told by the GOP about death panels you can be assured that your mega insurance company will be dropping grannies like hot potatoes once their condition warrants expensive care.

Is this the type of America you want to sign up for, then vote Republican in November.  If not, get off your sofa and vote for your local Democratic candidates.

As always, I encourage comments.  To find out more about my ideas and opinions visit my website at www.ackatt.com.  To investigate my books look for Shattered Glass from Captiva Press at www.captivapress.com and A Matter of Trust from XOXO Publishing at www.xoxopublishing.com.  My first novel, The Sarran Plague will be re-released later this fall from Captiva Press. Additional information can be found on my blogs at www.ackattsjournal.blogspot.com, www.ackattspolitics.blogspot.com, www.thesarrans.blogspot.com.

Mama Grizzly's Cubs

Mama Grizzly's Cubs

Sarah Palin's Radical Right "Tea Party" protégées, Sharon Angle and Christine O'Donnell will both be running as the Republican nominees for Senate in their respective states, Nevada and Delaware.


The disturbing trend of shooting from the hip without considering the welfare of all the citizens of the United States, begun by Ms. Palin, continues.  In both states for these candidates, "We the People" means fundamentalist white Christians who want to repeal Roe vs. Wade even in case of rape and incest, dismantle the social security system, turn back the clock on health care reform, and put religion squarely into the governmental mix.  Although the candidates, including Palin who may be looking at a White House Run in 2012 are physically appealing, their positions are repellent. 


Most citizens of the United States put their money in private mutual funds and investment instruments suggested by people like Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers, or in 401Ks through their jobs that were managed by investment groups.  These investments lost thirty-three percent of their value due to the bank debacle.  I suggest that Ms. Angle, the most vocal candidate on the proposed demise of Social Security, if recent retirees wish they had more money in the stock market.


 Perhaps the young female victim of incest or rape would like to speak to Ms. O'Donnell about abstinence, in a situation where she had no choice and is now about to bear the child of her abuser.  


Do we want to go back to the era where you lose your job, run out of Cobra and find exclusions in your new health care policy for pre-existing conditions.


I think that the Original Mama Grizzly is out padding her own cave and is busily carrying Sarah Clones on her back, so they can later support her in her own run for the presidency.  I also believe that if the electorate of Nevada and Delaware do their homework and check the positions of Sarah's cubs, they will find that their stump speeches have been sanitized by the Republican Party to appeal to the less radical element of the party.  A candidate whose stump speech needs to be cleaned must hold views that even the party of "no" finds offensive.  Bear that in mind when you pull that lever.

I am the author of A Matter of Trust from XOXO Publications at www.xoxopublishing.com and Shattered Glass, my newest novel from Captiva Press at www.captivapress.com.  Please check out my blogs at www.ackattsjournal.blogspot.com; my website at www.ackatt.com.  I also can be reached on Twitter, Facebook, Live Journal and Google Buzz.

I welcome comments from my readers who can post on my website  or submit their comments through blogspot.

Watch for the re-release of my first novel, The Sarran Plague, from Captiva Press.

Pointing the Gun...

The Reverend Terry Jones down in Florida has cocked a loaded gun. Unfortunately, the weapon is pointed directly at the head of members of the United States Military and Foreign Service Personnel serving abroad.

To understand the enormity of the insult of his proposed book burning to adherents of the Islamic faith, one has to understand that to Muslims, the Koran is not only a holy book, but is also viewed as the highest form of the Muslim art of calligraphy.

The western equivalent of this act would be the burning of Leonardo's "Last Supper" along with a incredibly rare copy of the Hebrew Torah and a copy of Guttenberg's original printed bible. This one crazy man's act is the equivalent of declaring war on Islam, not on radical terrorists, but on Islam itself.

Book burning in itself is a hideous act. Books are the means by which this civilization passes the knowledge of our past to future generations. I am reminded of Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451. In this classic novel, the government burned all books and to preserve the knowledge, individual memorized books to pass on to future generations.

Exactly what is Terry Jones trying to accomplish? Will burning the Koran make the United States safer from radical Islamists? No, it will actually make it easier for that militant faction to recruit new terrorists by convincing young men that we, in the United States, are looking to eradicate their religion and culture. Will the burning of the Koran make terrorists less likely to attack the United States? No, according to the Pentagon, the State Department and the President of the United States it is an act guaranteed to bring retaliation upon our own vulnerable troops posted throughout the Middle East. Will this bring us better relations in the Arab world? No, it will make relationships with the allies we do have in that area of the world more fragile.

The only persons who benefit from this proposed horrendous act is the Reverend Terry Jones, the head of a small community church with less than fifty congregants and the sly politicians who want to ride his coattails. This mail order minister is looking to make a name for himself by putting his country at risk and making a mockery of the intent of first amendment rights. It is one thing to call fire on a street corner. It is quite another to yell fire in a crowded theater.