Congressional Retirement Plans

Posted: December 1, 2011 in News and politics
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The Love Chronicles

By John Love

This is an article written by Martin Frost, a former congressman and contributor to Fox News, an organization who has no problem slanting the news or just not reporting on what they do not like, but jumping all over another candidate or politician for exactly the same thing. I have however researched this info before, found it to be true and am using this article because it explains the House and Senate retirement packages very well and how they work.

Members of Congress (House and Senate) take part in a defined benefit plan (once retired, they receive a specific monthly benefit based on years of service). They do not retire at full pay and their pension is a contributory plan — that is, they have a significant amount deducted from their salary each month to help defray the cost of their pension benefits. This defined benefit plan is comparable to pensions offered by big companies like General Motors except that in some instances the companies underwrite the entire cost of the plan.

Members of Congress are eligible for one of two plans, depending on when they were first elected. Members elected before 1983 take part in the CSRS plan which has more generous defined benefits. Members elected after 1983 take part in the FERS plan available to all federal employees. It has a smaller defined benefit but a more generous 401(k) (described more fully below).

Members under the old CSRS plan receive a pension equal to 2.5 percent of their highest salary for each year of service. Thus, a member who serves 10 years would receive a pension equal to 25 percent of his salary. Members under the new FERS plan receive pension equal to 1.5 percent of their highest salary for each year of service. Thus a Member serving 10 years would receive a pension equal to 15 percent of his salary.

In addition, all members, starting in 1983, now pay into Social Security and receive Social Security benefits. For members under the old CSRS plan, their Social Security benefits are offset (subtracted from) their pension. For members under the new FERS plan, there is no Social Security offset. It is not unusual for retired workers to receive a pension from their private employer and to also receive Social Security. Somehow, many people think members of Congress should not be eligible for the exact same treatment that employees in private industry receive.

Members under the old more generous CSRS plan are eligible for participation in a separate 401(k) plan under which a certain amount is deducted from their salary each month and is not taxed until after they retire. This 401(k) deduction is not matched by their employer, the federal government. Members under the new FERS plan also can take part in a 401(k) plan and they receive a partial match from their employer.

Generally, members are not eligible to receive their pension until age 60 and their pensions vest after five years of service.

I know this is a lot of information but don’t be afraid of being armed with the facts. The misconceptions that float around on the internet — retirement at full pay after one term and no payment into Social Security — are false and unfair to public servants who devote a significant amount of their lives to making this a better country.

Having said all this, I realize that some people will resent the fact that members of the House and Senate receive any pension at all. I can’t do anything for people who take this view.

I can, however, give you information about what is true and what is false. You can then at least make a rational judgment on whether or not you approve of the Congressional pension system. Improvements can be made. Convicted criminals like former Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-Calif.) should forfeit their pensions when they are convicted of felonies like taking a bribe.

Also, it is legitimate to question whether or not these pensions should be indexed for inflation each year. Many private pensions are not indexed though military pensions and Social Security are.

So there are several posts out there that want you to repost and join a movement for supporting a movement that would end with a new 28th Amendment which states that “Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the Citizens of the United States.”

End of the Martin Frost Statement 

I am one of those that believe that serving your country as a Senator or Representative is an honor and duty, not a career. Term limits should be enforced, keeping entrenched politicians from making it their life’s work. With that being said I am also one of those that think they should not receive any pension whatsoever, they should put in a set term, maybe a longer six year term but only one, and then return to the private sector where they will receive retirement and 401k plans from their employers just like the rest of us. I do think they need to receive a salary commensurate with the very important job they are asked to do. I think they should be given fair allowance to staff an office, but all Senators and Representatives should get the same amount of allowance. If, for example you are on a committee that is going to take more staff and more hours, a fair increase to the allowance can be made, but not in the amount of salary that the politician makes.  The paramount change I think most important, no politician should be allowed to have contact with any lobbyist for any reason. He/or she should not be allowed contributions by any companies, corporations, or countries, only individual voters. Lobbyists who have legitimate claims can take them to congress as a whole, just like everyone else. It should be made to be a considerable infraction of the law to lobby any politician for any reason, or for that politician to accept a job from any company he was not associated with before taking office if said politician was involved in any legislation that would directly or indirectly benefit said company from his/or her  vote. I also believe that each politician should be limited to how much he/or she can spend getting elected. Any surplus funds donated to a campaign will go into a fund that helps pay for office personnel or other costs of running the government in Washington. We now will have people in Washington who are not going to be worried about being re-elected, who are not beholden to anyone, so they should be able to vote intelligently instead of spending their entire career name calling and playing the blame game.

If we as voters want to be taken seriously, then we have to have serious reasons, backed up by fact, not fiction, or politicians will never take us seriously, and even worse neither will our constituents. Most requests claim that politicians can serve one term and get retirement at whatever their full wage came to. As is shown above this is not true. As I stated, I do not believe politicians should get any retirement from service as our representative to Washington, but we have to be careful to post facts not fiction or we become the fairy tale of the Boy Who Cried Wolf!

The Love Chronicles: My Dream for Politics in America

Posted: July 27, 2011 in News and politics
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The Love Chronicles
My Dream for Politics in America

I have a few thoughts on how we as Americans need to change the basic way we get our candidates nominated and elected, then how they should run a campaign after they are selected.
Let’s start by changing how we pick our elected officials. Jim Mahon, a very good friend and a fellow blogger put forth this idea when responding to something I wrote and I have been thinking about it in the back of my mind ever since. He stated that he would like candidates to post resumes for the office or position that they are interested in. He did not specify exactly how the process would evolve, but this is a rough idea that I have been kicking around. Everyone in this day and age should have access to the internet, for the purpose of this proposal; we will assume this is true. Then I would like to see a resume submitted to a site set up for the purpose, along with a paper outlining more in depth why the candidate wants the job, what they think the job really is, and why they think they are qualified along with their plans and designs if elected. There would not be any party affiliations, each candidate can state his or her preferred party in the resume, along with why, but the paper they submit would be restricted to statements about the position or office they were seeking, no party politics allowed. They also would not be allowed to mention their competitors in any way, only what and how they would do the job if elected. After a reasonable amount of time has been allowed for the American people to review this information, a preliminary vote would be taken. The ballot would contain only the names of the candidates, no party, no affiliations allowed. The top four vote getters would then be officially nominated by the public, regardless of their stated party affiliations.
The candidates would not hit the campaign trail; this is where all of the he said she said lies and innuendo start. Instead, based on the resume and the paper submitted for the initial vote, the public will start formulating and sending in questions they want answered by the candidates on live television. This will also be limited in that questions about religion, sexual orientation, or questions of a personal nature would not be allowed. If, for example, the candidate was running for congress, questions about his or her feelings on abortion, right to life, the debt, social issues, crime, term limits, pretty much everything will be on the agenda. Questions will be ranked by popularity, so the question that was asked the most will be the first question asked the candidates as the live telecast and webcast starts. The candidate will be given two hour segments to answer on live television on two adjacent nights. If the candidate decides to go off on a tangent and proceeds to frame an answer that was not what was asked, he or she will be admonished once to restrict answers to the questions asked, if this is ignored they will immediately be cut off and informed that they must wait for the next question. This will keep the candidate from spouting out canned messages that have been rehearsed. No questions will be allowed that asks for candidates to make any statements about their competitors. None of the candidates would be allowed to hear what the others reply is and they would all be asked the same questions. Candidates would not be allowed to make commercials, buy ads or any other form of media. This way, all candidates are on an even keel, there would be no campaign chests, no donations by big business to garner favor after the election. No muck raking or character assassination. After each candidate has gone through this process, one last speech of their own design will be allowed, with only one proviso, they still cannot mention their opponents, only what they are about, what they have to offer, what they stand for, and why we should vote for them. Then it goes to a final election vote and ballot, still with just their names on it, no party affiliation. The largest vote getter is elected.
I know lots of things still need to be worked out, such as how do you keep a party from flooding the question site with just the questions that favor their candidate or from everyone on the planet from trying to participate. One idea is when you register and vote in the primary, your ballot will have an identifying number or code, which you will have to input to submit a question. Maybe each ballot will come with more than one identifier, if more than one question per voter is thought to be necessary. With all of the different voters in different areas and with different interests, a very wide set of questions should appear, the most popular of course accumulating the higher ask ratio, and so making it onto the candidates question and answer portion of this process.
Now comes the biggest problem as I see it, how to limit the candidate pool to people actually qualified to run for the office or job. We have, I hope you noticed, eliminated the need for huge amounts of campaign funds to run, opening up politics at the national level to a huge segment of individuals who could not have afforded to run before. This however does open the door for every crack pot and know it all on the planet to get involved. So this is how I see it going. Just like any job you would apply for in corporate America in upper management, you either must have already proven yourself in a job that reflects the skills you will need to accomplish your goals in politics, or a degree that says you are qualified to try! But, and here comes the hard part, in order to even qualify to enter your resume, you will have had to pass a test. Yes a test, much as lawyers have to pass a BAR examination in a state in order to practice, a potential candidate will have to pass a Political Science Aptitude Test or a Psat in order to qualify. This test would be very in depth and designed to make sure the candidate has the basic knowledge it would take to help run a state, a country, or administer an office he is running for. There might be a general test for all politicians, and then certain offices, say the Attorney General, would require a secondary more specialized test to run for that office.
All this and there still might be term limits, no provided health care except a group plan you can join and pay premiums just like the rest of us. In my new world there would definitely be no retirement benefits. You would get these either from the company you own or work for in the private sector, but not paid for with tax dollars. Serving your country in public office would be a privilege and a sacrifice on your part, not a career. You would get a salary commensurate with the responsibilities that the job required, and like now, you would be given an allowance to set up and run your personal office and pay for office personnel. I think it should not be overly extravagant, and the same for every candidate, no royalty of politics allowed!
Every politician should have an open forum with his constituents where the people he or she represents are making their wishes known as issues come up. In the case of congress and the senate, the speeches, voting records, and all work on any committee, etc, will all be posted and available for his constituents to evaluate how well their representative is actually representing them. All lobbyists will be proclaimed illegal and forbidden to contact a public official. Any official taking a trip not paid for by themselves, accepting a dinner they did not pay for, is out of the question and may lose them their jobs. There will be no campaigning, no fund raisers, as the only avenue they have to reelection is the path laid out in this article.
Ok, anything like this is going to have some drawbacks you are going to see right away, I get that. I am just trying to show you a way to rid ourselves of party politics, at least in the selection and voting process that gets a candidate into office. This fact alone will free up a politician to work with others in getting things done because he or she does not depend on the party to get reelected. I would think after a while, most politicians would not even claim a party affiliation. Although I am sure there will always be special interest groups, but like everyone else they will have to address themselves to congress as a whole, and not as a lobbyist behind closed doors.
So this is what has been floating around in my head the past few weeks, what do you think? I think that anybody fool enough to still want to be a politician will be an individual who loves his or her country and want to see America flourish and thinks they can help it do so. Hopefully this will end the trend to elect only what Jim Mahon and I call American Royalty who are tied to big business, banks, and powerful special interest! Feel free to comment on Facebook, email, or post your opposition paper! I welcome any and all input, positive or negative, it is all educational!
In my next blog I want to introduce you to a new way to treat those individuals who have fought for their country, with an emphasis on the wounded vet, see you then!

The Love Chronicles, An Economy Destroyed

Posted: July 25, 2011 in News and politics
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An Economy Destroyed: The Enemy is
Washington

I had the good fortune to have a story sent to me that perfectly
describes how I feel and what I think is going on. I did not have the words to
say it as eloquently, or the knowledge to put the ideas together as well as Dr.
Paul Craig Roberts, the author of the article that is to follow:

“Recently, the bond rating agencies that gave junk derivatives
triple-A ratings threatened to downgrade US Treasury bonds if the White House
and Congress did not reach a deficit reduction deal and debt ceiling
increase. The downgrade threat is not credible, and neither is the default
threat. Both are make-believe crises that are being hyped in order to force
cutbacks in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.If the rating agencies downgraded Treasuries, the company executives
would be arrested for the fraudulent ratings that they gave to the junk that
Wall Street peddled to the rest of the world. The companies would be
destroyed and their ratings discredited. The US government will never default
on its bonds, because the bonds, unlike those of Greece, Spain, and Ireland,
are payable in its own currency. Regardless of whether the debt ceiling is
raised, the Federal Reserve will continue to purchase the Treasury’s debt. If
Goldman Sachs is too big to fail, then so is the US government.There is no budget focus on the illegal wars and military
occupations that the US government has underway in at least six countries or
the 66-year old US occupations of Japan and Germany and the ring of military
bases being constructed around Russia.The total military/security budget is in the vicinity of
$1.1-$1.2 trillion, or 70% -75% of the federal budget deficit.In contrast, Social Security is solvent. Medicare expenditures
are coming close to exceeding the 2.3% payroll tax that funds Medicare, but
it is dishonest for politicians and pundits to blame the US budget deficit on
“entitlement programs.”

Entitlements are funded with a payroll tax. Wars are not funded.
The criminal Bush regime lied to Americans and claimed that the Iraq war would
only cost $70 billion at the most and would be paid for with Iraq oil
revenues. When Bush’s chief economic advisor, Larry Lindsay, said the Iraq
invasion would cost $200 billion, the White House Moron fired him. In fact,
Lindsay was off by a factor of 20. Economic and budget experts have
calculated that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have consumed $4,000 billion in
out-of-pocket and already incurred future costs. In other words, the ongoing
wars and occupations have already eaten up the $4 trillion by which Obama
hopes to cut federal spending over the next ten years. Bomb now, pay later.

As taxing the rich is not part of the political solution, the
focus is on rewarding the insurance companies by privatizing Medicare at some
future date with government subsidized insurance premiums, by capping
Medicaid, and by loading the diminishing middle class with additional Social
Security tax.

Washington’s priorities and those of its presstitutes could not
be clearer. President Obama, like George W. Bush before him, both parties in
Congress, the print and TV media, and National Public Radio have made it
clear that war is a far more important priority than health care and old age
pensions for Americans.

The American people and their wants and needs are not represented
in Washington. Washington serves powerful interest groups, such as the
military/security complex, Wall Street and the banksters, agribusiness, the
oil companies, the insurance companies, pharmaceuticals, and the mining and
timber industries. Washington endows these interests with excess profits by
committing war crimes and terrorizing foreign populations with bombs, drones,
and invasions, by deregulating the financial sector and bailing it out of its
greed-driven mistakes after it has stolen Americans’ pensions, homes, and
jobs, by refusing to protect the land, air, water, oceans and wildlife from
polluters and despoilers, and by constructing a health care system with the
highest costs and highest profits in the world.

The way to reduce health care costs is to take out gobs of costs
and profits with a single payer system. A private health care system can
continue to operate alongside for those who can afford it.

The way to get the budget under control is to stop the
gratuitous hegemonic wars, wars that will end in a nuclear confrontation.

The US economy is in a deepening recession from which recovery
is not possible, because American middle class jobs in manufacturing and
professional services have been offshored and given to foreigners. US GDP,
consumer purchasing power, and tax base have been handed over to China,
India, and Indonesia in order that Wall Street, shareholders, and corporate
CEOs can earn more.

When the goods and services produced offshore come back into America,
they arrive as imports. The trade balance worsens, the US dollar declines
further in exchange value, and prices rise for Americans, whose incomes are
stagnant or falling.

This is economic destruction. It always occurs when an oligarchy
seizes control of a government. The short-run profits of the powerful are
maximized at the expense of the viability of the economy.

The US economy is driven by consumer demand, but with 22.3%
unemployment, stagnant and declining wages and salaries, and consumer debt
burdens so high that consumers cannot borrow to spend, there is nothing to
drive the economy.

Washington’s response to this dilemma is to increase the
austerity! Cutting back Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, forcing down
wages by destroying unions and offshoring jobs (which results in a labor
surplus and lower wages), and driving up the prices of food and energy by
depreciating the dollar further erodes consumer purchasing power. The Federal
Reserve can print money to rescue the crooked financial institutions, but it
cannot rescue the American consumer.

As a final point, confront the fact that you are even lied to
about “deficit reduction.” Even if Obama gets his $4 trillion “deficit
reduction” over the next decade, it does not mean that the current national
debt will be $4 trillion less than it currently is. The “reduction” merely
means that the growth in the national debt will be $4 trillion less than
otherwise. Regardless of any “deficit reduction,” the national debt ten years
from now will be much higher than it presently is.”

Dr. Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury, Associate Editor of
the Wall Street Journal, and professor of economics in six universities.

This is the best article I have read so far, stating what I believe to be the unvarnished truth. This reasoning is one reason why I have always balked at the idea that we need to kick back entitlements, they are not the reason we are in debt, as a matter of fact, as was stated, Social Security is solvent and will continue to be. Medicare has been and is solvent, but will have some problems in the
future, but this does mean that entitlements are not in any way responsible for the national debt. They are funded, let’s say that again, they are funded with a payroll tax. It is the crime perpetrated by Wall Street, the pork barrel politics, the wars which
fatten the purses of the elite rich, and put us in debt. Any politician who makes any remark about entitlements being responsible in any way for our present debt situation is either in on it and a liar and a thief, or so ignorant he or she actually believes and eats at the trough this swill is poured into, in both cases making them totally unsatisfactory representatives of the American people.  This is presented by a man who is eminently qualified, just look at the past job history I provided for you at the end of his article. To me this is common sense and should not be up for debate, the facts have always spoken for themselves, why we put up with it is complicated. Mostly because we are used to being controlled and told what to do by the wealthy around us who spend a lot of money to prove to us they are above average honest folk who have our best interests at heart. Ok, if you believe that, I have an Aunt who owns a Gingerbread house in the Black Forest and wants all of you to visit as soon as possible! I hope you got the point, if not I am just wasting my time.  Vote, and vote them all out, and be vocal, write your state representatives, all of them, not just your senators or your chosen party, if you have one. There are 65% of you who are not voting. First we need to let politicians know we get it and they had better get it if they want to get elected. To start, we need to vote out all incumbents as a testament to our disgust at how they do not represent us.  Then we need to change how we get qualified candidates on the ballot, but that is a blog of another day!

The Love Chronicles, Political Darwinism

Posted: July 22, 2011 in News and politics
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Political Darwinism, by John Love
First let us review the theory of evolution. There are a lot of misconceptions, and we need to understand that Darwinism started a study of evolutionary functions and science, which has in itself evolved as science evolved. The following is a definition I like because it does not use the language of scientists to explain itself. We are going to be discussing Political Darwinism, not evolution, so let the hackles at the back of your neck subside and bear with me, we need to start with the basics. Evolution is a fact I would very much like to debate with you, but not practical for this article. I think a review is necessary before I try and describe to you what Political Darwinism is, and how it manifests itself in today’s politics.
“Evolution is the process of change in all forms of life over generations, and evolutionary biology is the study of how evolution occurs. The biodiversity of life evolves by means of mutations, genetic drift and natural selection.”
The process of natural selection is based on three conditions. First, every individual is supplied with hereditary material in the form of genes that are received from their parents then passed on to their offspring. Second, organisms tend to produce more offspring than the environment can support. Third, there are variations among offspring as a consequence of either the introduction of new genes via random changes called mutations or reshuffling of existing genes during sexual reproduction.
When these three conditions hold true, natural selection will occur. Scientists now have a good understanding of the origin of new species (speciation) and have observed the speciation process in the laboratory and in the wild. Evolution is the principal theory that biologists use to understand life and is used in many disciplines, including medicine, psychology, conservation biology, anthropology, forensics, agriculture and other social-cultural applications.

It is the one of the social-cultural applications I wish to discuss with you now. Darwin put forth, among others, the theory of survival of the fittest. This has been adopted by certain political segments of society and applied in different, usually vile and repugnant ways. The most commonly used doctrine in Political Darwinism states that races and groups are subject to the same laws of natural selection as Darwin stated was the case for plants and animals. It was, and may still be by some, believed that the life of humans in any society was a struggle for existence ruled by survival of the fittest. Wealth was considered to be a sign of natural superiority, and its absence a sign of unfitness to exist. This was popular throughout the 19th century to support capitalism as way of life unimpeded by any rules by government or populace. It was also used to promote political conservatism. It was, as is always the case, subverted to fit the needs of the powerful to become more powerful. The term survival of the fittest, in this case meant that those who could wield the largest army and arsenal is proven to be the superior race or segment of a race, and therefore has every right to subjugate the weak and unfit populations they have conquered. Hitler and his Nazi Party is a perfect example of subverted Political Darwinism!
So, finally to my point, I believe Political Darwinism is alive and well, I believe it exists in our very own political system, and is practiced by our politicians, mostly without their even being aware of its true nature. You have read other articles by me, Jim Mahon, and some others who are involved in our attempt to change how politics is managed, complain and bark about all of the contracts and perks our representatives have written and voted in for themselves over the years. They have exempted themselves from certain laws and taxes. They have supplied themselves with some of the most lavish retirement and medical plans, paid for by you and me. They lie and misrepresent facts that get thousands killed and affect the lives of billions, and think this is perfectly acceptable for them, a crime for us. So how do you explain this, only one way, they believe themselves to be superior to the people they represent. They believe wealth and power prove them to be superior and better suited to survive. They believe that they should not be held accountable by the same laws and rules as you or I.
This is why you have people who will decimate Health Care, Social Security, food programs, and others which have no impact on the lives they lead, just to keep the status quo as is. It is complicated, but the rich do get richer, and the poor do get poorer, and our political representatives say one thing, because they can’t get around needing to get reelected by us, but then actually do something else behind closed doors. We are starting to put some pressure on them, but they will never give up the preferred status they have given themselves until we have made it abundantly clear they will not get elected if they are not agreeing to live as we live, buy insurance from the same vendors we do, paid out of their own pockets, not ours. That they should only get retirement from the companies they work for or own in the private sector, not from us, the taxpayer. If you saw the Congressional Act of 2011 that was being passed around last week, you will get the idea. It was well written and very logically based. I was going to say who started it, but she may not want me spreading her name around. If you look for it, I am sure you can find it.
The short if it is, I believe that our politicians are Political Darwinists at heart. They believe they are better, more qualified, and have a moral right to wield power. I know that a lot of them believe because they have wealth this somehow proves their superiority. Well how many people do you know that are wealthy but could not put two fence posts in a straight line? A wealthy hotel heiress comes to mind, but there are many, many examples, and not hard to find. This means, if I am right, that your politician’s actual agenda is not going to be what he or she spouts in speeches, letters or books. They will tell you what they think you need to hear to vote for them. They will give you what they can, as long as it does not take anything of value away from the others they think share their superiority and who support them as they in return protect their interests. Whether or not you and I die from lack of competent treatment, lose our house, live on dog food, if we are so fortunate, or are treated fairly by our courts and laws is really of no consequence to most. I do not want to say that all politicians fall into this category, but you can bet the ones that do keep a tight rein on the ones that don’t, and those that don’t will also experience a very short stay on Capitol Hill as a result. Think about it. Do you really believe that any Senator you can think of knows what it is like to sit down at the kitchen table, with the household bills spread out before you, trying to decide which ones you are going to pay, and which ones will do you and your family the least amount of damage when you do not pay them. These same Senators will label you a dead beat in private, and classify you as that unfit member of society when you lost your job to someone in a foreign country because your senator enabled another of his “superior” supporters to send your job overseas. Our politicians well continue to do what is best for them and those that can most effectively keep them in power unless we force them to do otherwise. Right now all we have is our vote, so we need to use it, and we need to use it wisely. Only 35% of voters who could vote, actually did in 2010. The percentage varies a little, but it is always very low. Just think how much power we would have if we could just get the other 65% to the polls! Then imagine if they were there because of an agenda we start. Talk about revolution. Whooooeeee!

The Love Chronicles, Crimes against Americans

Posted: July 9, 2011 in Health and wellness
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Dear state Senator,
I believe there are war crimes being committed against citizens of the United States, and some of them by entities right here in the USA! I will give you an example of one such crime.
Civilians who work for companies in war zones in support of U.S. troops are guaranteed under the Defense Base Act of 1941 to be supplied medical and disability insurance. This supposes that the insurance company selected and paid premiums to will actually perform said services. This is not the case, and it is not the case for almost all Civilian casualties who work or worked for private contractors in combat areas in support of our troops. Case in point, a Spokane area woman who worked for what was then called Blackwater as a helicopter mechanic was wounded with other soldiers and civilian workers when a mortar exploded just yards from where she was standing. She suffers from traumatic brain injury; the therapy which was recommended by eight different physicians and psychiatrists was denied her. The denial was based on one man’s opinion, a Doctor who was selected by the insurance company, Chartis WorldSource, he decided she was experiencing all of this pain, tremors, migraines, seizures, memory loss, and problems with her balance all in her head and that there was no physical trauma! He made this decision without ever examining this poor women. You and I both know he came to the conclusion he was paid to come to. A nurse was also hired by Chartis to go and evaluate the patient. She met with the patient six times; her report was the same as the other eight professionals before her, which was that this condition was from physical damage, not a mental or psychiatric one. She was terminated and her report was not used! From what I have been able to determine, this kind of rampant disregard is the status quo, not the isolated incident.
The War Hazards Compensation Act reimburses the employer or insurer for injuries or death to a worker caused by an act of war. The federal government has paid more to insurers for expenses than they have paid out in compensation under this act. So not do they only get paid back for their expenses, insurance companies have collected 1.5 billion in premiums while only paying out 900 million in compensation and expenses combined. This is according to a congressional investigation that took place in 2009. So the government is aware of what is happening to these people, aware of the federal laws and Acts which pertain to this dilemma. So my question is, do you not think that this represents a war crime perpetrated on a citizen of the these United States, and furthermore, does your inaction to force these companies to adhere to the letter as well as the intent of what they were paid to do makes you complicit. The profits are staggering, and all paid by you and me, so an even greater crime in my book, a crime you are partially responsible for as the person who is supposed to be looking out for me and those of us who cannot fight big companies or big government, which is a description of your job.
I would appreciate a response detailing just what you have done or are going to do to help this woman and those like her. I would appreciate a real response, not the canned variety I have gotten in the past. This is something you need to put your hands on, it is shameful. It is exactly the same tactic the Veterans Administration and the military tried when this type of injury first started to be prevalent among our fighting men and women. The only reason they finally changed directions and started to give some help was because families hocked their futures to get private care which in almost all cases vastly improved the lives of the individuals involved and shamed the Veterans Administration to stop telling the lie and start actually helping the people they were supposedly sworn to help.

Information from: The Spokesman-Review, http://www.spokesman.com
Also opinions formulated in my own mind, and in any mind that has an honest respect for the truth!

Respectfully,

John Love

The Love Chronicles, The Crime in American Politics

Posted: June 10, 2011 in News and politics
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The Crime in American Politics
By John Love

Outed CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband, former ambassador Joe Wilson, had their careers and lives ruined because they told the truth while the Bush administration was trying to convince the American people to let it go to war against Saddam Hussein and Iraq.
In Bush’s State of the Union address, he misrepresented, no he just made stuff up about weapons of mass destruction, about buying yellow cake, about rods, uranium, hell it was all a lie. Then they had the brass to lay it all on the CIA when they did not find anything. This after an investigation by Valerie Plame of the CIA which came to the conclusion the rods were not designed for use in uranium enrichment, but were rocket tubes, that the science team that was working on WMD’s had been disbanded after the plants and factories had been carpet bombed into dust in our first attacks on Irag! Her husband, who had many contacts in Africa, where the yellow cake and other black market uranium enrichment products were supposed to have come from, was asked by the CIA to go on a fact finding mission. He came to the conclusion that no such transactions had taken place. This was not what President Bush wanted to hear. You can say what you will, blame who you will, Libby, Rove, Cheney, any number of people, but I am saying that Valerie Plame Wilsons being outed as a CIA operative, and then the lack of CIA protection or backing after, all of it came about at the behest of President Bush. Our government destroyed two people’s lives, put them in physical jeopardy, got people executed or worse overseas who were associated with Valerie Plame, all because their reports did not back up the lie they needed to go to war! The CIA even refused to protect one of their own because her superiors were afraid to do anything that might get them under the same microscope from the White House as Valerie Plame Wilson, who had been a valued and valuable asset for twenty years, but who now had become an ineffective agent overnight!
The Wilsons were forced to leave their lives, move far away, as their lives are still in danger and protection never given. All of their attempts to get satisfaction through the courts were blocked, even by a refusal by the upper courts to even consider the case.
According to a statement issued by CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington), the Supreme Court decision brings “the case to a close.” In a statement, Melanie Sloan, the CREW executive director responded to the ruling as follows:
“The Wilsons and their counsel are disappointed by the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the case, but more significantly, this is a setback for our democracy. This decision means that government officials can abuse their power for political purposes without fear of repercussion. Private Citizens like the Wilsons, who see their careers destroyed and their lives placed in jeopardy by administration officials seeking to score political points and silence opposition, have no recourse.”

So in conclusion, I believe that we went to war because two men, a father and a son, had a hatred for another man, and abused the power they had been entrusted with in order to pursue that hatred. This means that the lives lost in Iraq were lost based on lies and falsehoods. That a very large portion of the debt this nation has accrued is a direct result of those lies and falsehoods. I say that big government, big business, and a controlled media all conspired to start a war based on facts they knew to be untrue long before they ever told us they were the so called facts. I believe that they should have been held accountable, but they never will be. An article was just pointed out to me by a friend that appeared in Rolling Stone, describing Fox News and its biased reporting which was controlled by memos from the top instructing them how to present news that would favor Bush on this issue, as one example. Free speech isn’t free, just still possible, barely!

Source for article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_Plame, other links provided at above source
Rolling Stone Magazine–JUNE 9,2011 issue, page 64-65

The Love Chronicles, Still Elitist Bastards

Posted: June 8, 2011 in News and politics
4

Congress and the Military Brass
Still Elitist Bastards

If you are in the service receiving pay, if you are a wounded veteran, if you are receiving any kind of benefits or retirement package, you are about to get what congress always gives you after they don’t need you anymore. Still don’t have a picture in your mind? They think that this time if they don’t yell “bend over” first, maybe no one will notice! Is the picture getting any clearer?

Admiral Mullen said in his opinion, and I quote:
“The Pentagon’s top officer said Thursday that service members will likely see cuts in pay and benefits as the military plumbs its budget for nearly half a trillion dollars in savings over the next 12 years.  Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen warned against taking the “relatively easy” choice of cutting hardware while maintaining the increasing costs of paying and providing ongoing health care to troops and retirees. “Two of the big places the money is, is in pay and benefits,” Mullen told defense reporters at a June 2 breakfast meeting in Washington. “And so when I say all things are on the table, all things are on the table.”

I have said this before, but I will say it again. If you ask men and women to risk their lives to protect our way of life, then if and when they are wounded in that endeavor, they deserve and should get the best medical care available on the planet for as long as it is needed. If you are receiving benefits because of service given or wounds received, these should be adequate for the individual to live a comfortable life, and this too should be left alone regardless of our economic needs. Servicemen should not have to receive food stamps to survive if they have a family. These are things I know from experience are promised you when they recruit you. As soon as the need for your service starts to wind down, the pay, the benefits, the retirement start to dwindle or evaporate altogether.. This is partly because the congressman who allows this to happen has never served, his children likewise. If they have, it was in some job that did not require them to risk their lives in combat, and they are independently wealthy and will not be affected by any loss of benefits. The John McCain’s of this world are few and far between. The congressman who understands or cares about the average enlisted men and womens needs are even rarer still, if they even exist. Obviously our top military officers would rather keep as much hardware as possible and cut what little the average Joe is getting. The treatment of servicemen while serving is already shameful , they are not being taken care of or compensated as they should be, even worse after he or she is released from active duty. To take away any services, any pay, any benefit, medical or otherwise is criminal. Hell, the pay, benefits, and medical care are a travesty now! Taking anything from the rank and file cannot be allowed. I urge everyone to call, email, blog, protest, and at the very minimum make sure your representatives know how you feel. I accepted substandard care and benefits after Nam because it was not a popular war and I felt I could not make a difference. As a result men rotted on the streets of America and could get no help for their disabilities! Men and women sat in hospitals with little or no proper care provided, sometimes in squalor, witnessed by me personally. Certain illnesses caused by Agent Orange, a Nam era problem for example, were denied to even exist for years until private medical teams finally came up with so much proof that the government was forced to admit there was a problem. The same thing has happened again, and only because of pressure by you and me did any of these get even a modicum of attention by the people who sent our men and women into harms way. Yes, in this I am partly to blame because I did or said nothing, along with a whole lot of other people just like me. So this time, we cannot allow our returning vets to suffer this indignity. You cannot ask men and women to give their all, and then not do the same yourself. You want to stop waging war, fine, you want to cut down on waste, fine, you want to cut down on the size of the military war machine, I say fine also. But do not, because you have been ordered to cut your budget, dare to say the big cuts are to be found in the pay and benefits of those that have and are serving, and in the same breath say you need to keep all the hardware of war at the expense of the fighting forces. Hardware that is supplied, by the way, by people who can afford to contribute large sums of money to the coffers of the elitist few, unlike the common fighting men and women of our various services. This is a blatant disregard of the men and women who serve. I would like to end with a poem I saw circulating on Facebook, it has no known author, but says a lot with a few well chosen works. I changed it a little from the way it was originally written, I hope it conveys to you the same message it did to me!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        THE FINAL INSPECTION

The Soldier stood and faced his God,
Which must always come to pass.
He hoped his shoes were shining,
Just as brightly as his brass..

‘Step forward now, Soldier ,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To my teachings have you been true?’
The soldier squared his shoulders and said,
‘No, Sir, I guess I ain’t.
Because those of us who carry guns,
Can’t always be a saint.

I’ve had to work most Sundays,
And at times my talk was tough.
And sometimes I’ve been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.

But, I never took a penny,
That wasn’t mine to keep…
Though I worked a lot of overtime,
When the bills got just too steep.

And I never passed a cry for help,
Though at times I shook with fear..
And sometimes, Sir, forgive me,
I’ve wept unmanly tears.

I know I don’t deserve a place,
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around,
Except to calm their fears

If you’ve a place for me here, Sir,
It needn’t be so grand.
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don’t, I’ll understand.

There was silence at this holy command post,
Where the saints had often trod.
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.

“Step forward now, you Soldier,
You’ve borne your burdens well.
Walk peacefully on these heavenly streets,
You’ve already done your time in Hell.”

Former Sgt John Love USMC and Viet Nam vet

Friends

Posted: May 23, 2011 in Life
1

Friends, we all have them, but do you realize just how lucky you are. I have been lucky enough to have friends who have stayed with me since high school, and some who were overseas with me, but I have let countless people fall by the wayside over the years, just because I was busy and my life seemed full. It was, but as I have more time to reflect, I realize just how important friends are and that I was remiss in my responsibility to keep in contact and stay engaged. I always intended to go to every class reunion, but each time, I let my love of racing boats, motorcycles, buggies, and 4×4’s interfere. I always thought I would be less busy next year, and then I would go. Well I am coming up on 63 yrs and still have not gone. So this fall, I am going to combine my love of adventure, travel, and motorcycles into what I hope will be a successful trip to try and make up for past short falls in the area of friendship. Jim Mahon and I are preparing to take what we have dubbed as a Mobile Class Reunion! We are taking Jim’s motorhome, both of our bikes on a trailer, and we plan to spend a couple of months, or so, travelling the Northwest and visiting as many people as we can find who want to see us. We will be in Boise the week of September 16th on our first leg, then to Council, up to Northern Idaho, across to Washington, swinging through Oregon. We do not know who we will be able to find and visit as of yet. To be honest with you, because I have not been good about staying in contact, Jim will probably have a much better idea of where people are and how to find them.
My point is, if you have friends, treasure them always, do not wait, thinking there is always time to catch up later. I had a heart problem a year ago on the 14th of this month, which got me motivated to get on with my life and make a few changes. Nothing like driving yourself to the emergency room in the middle of the night thinking, is this it, have I done all I am going to do? Well I have tried not to put off anything anymore. Some of you have noticed I have been way more accessible this last year than ever before. I apologize that I have not always had such an attitude. At any rate, I am writing this in a blog because it will post to Facebook. If you are still living anywhere in the Northwest and would like Jim and I to stop by, send us a message with contact info and location, so we can plan our route. We don’t care if you were in our class or just know us because we are so famous, we want to see you! I am hoping that the people who are in contact with the two of us will know how to contact others from Council who have scattered out through the countryside and maybe help us find as many people as we can before this fall. In this way we can see more people, and plan our trip accordingly. Also we should then be able to give you estimates on when we will be in your area, and of course updates as we travel. We will of course take lots of pictures, so that all of you can be a part of the entire trip. Both of us will post on Facebook.
If any of you have the space and do not mind us parking our motorhome and trailer while we visit you or while we travel locally in the state on our bikes, please let us know. We already have the Boise area and Council handled. We may need a place in Council to leave the bikes only, as we probably will not want to ride them down the dirt road out of Drue Reynolds place, where we plan to park the motorhome. Helen Rice has also suggested to me that it might be nice to have a picnic or something and invite anyone who wants to visit or participate while we are in Council. I think that would be great, but all of that will come in the future. My main goal here is to find as many addresses and people who think they would like a visit this fall from the pair of us. We would not expect to be put up or wined and dined. Just the pleasure of your company will be all we require. Jim has a lot of info from the All 60’s reunion, but if you see this, please respond anyway.
I have also written a blog called a letter to Council, when you access this blog, you might want to read it. It was my way of thanking all of you for being my friend and in a way, saving my life. I have no doubt my life was enriched and my course altered by the years I spent growing up with a lot of you in Council. I am looking forward to seeing as many of you as I can; I think this will be the greatest adventure of my life.

Your friend,

John Love

Debt

Posted: May 2, 2011 in News and politics
3

The Debt
Who owes Who
By
John Love

The United States currently has a total outstanding public debt load of nearly $12 trillion dollars ($11,827,966,342,208.43 depending on the date).

This means that every man, woman and child in the United States currently owes $38,930 as their share of the total national debt.

Many people see this staggering figure and ask the question – who does the United States owe all of this money to?

To start to answer this question, let’s first divide up the total national debt into two different categories – public debt and intragovernmental holdings.

As of September 17th, the US government had $7.52 trillion dollars in public debt, and an additional $4.3 trillion dollars in intragovernmental holdings.

Intragovernmental holdings represents money that the federal government has borrowed from various agencies, such as Social Security.

For instance, in the case of Social Security, the federal government has borrowed over $2 trillion dollars from the program in the form of special series, non-marketable US bonds. If the Social Security program takes in more money than it pays out, then the federal government will borrow the difference.

The government also borrows money from other programs, but Social Security is its favorite source of funding.
Ok, who is it that has been complaining and wailing to anyone who would listen that Social Security is not broke. Oh yeah, that would be me! Of the 4.2 trillion borrowed from intergovernmental holdings, 2 trillion of that was directly borrowed from Social Security. The government still to this day borrows every penny Social Security takes in over what it spends. Their gripe is that in 2015 it will even out and they will have to start paying out. They have 2 trillion of our dollars they owe to SS. The baby boomers will be long gone before that money is used. The only reason there was a huge surplus in the SS was because of the boomers. After they are gone, if administered correctly, it will pay for itself again, just without all of the surpluses as no glut of baby boomers will be out there to pay into it. What the Government wants to do is legislate less pay out to the extent they never have to pay back their debt; we boomers are expected to pay back money that was taken from us in the first place by living, in most cases, below the poverty line.

Ok, now to my second point. The rest of the debt is owned by several entities in the form of:
Pension funds
Foreign governments
Mutual funds
Foreign investors
American investors
Hedge funds
See, there is Wall Street again, they run up more than just gas prices. Get rid of Wall Street and the Fed, hell we are debt free. It is all on paper anyway. Problem is, no one would trade with us if we default, but I am not sure that is a bad thing, of course that is another argument and I do not have any ammunition for that fight, to bad someone put the gag on President Reagan, he had some definite opinions on that subject!
Back to the subject at hand, we are catering to China now, based on the debt owed, and the fact that we need to borrow another 10 trillion over the next decade from anyone willing to cover our deficit spending. You can see that by the time our grandchildren are grown, there will be no super power called the United States. We will just be in a debtor’s prison of our own making, and powerless to ever get out. If you follow Jim Mahon’s blogs you know how adamant he is about deficit spending, this is why. Deficit spending will be what brings America down. It makes the fat cats fatter, and you and I less and less until we are just the fodder of a government run by the few, for the few.
I could not find current info on money that is owed by foreign countries to the United States, but I did find some that date up to 1992 from the Library of Congress. I am sure there are better updated reports, but I did not find them. Still I can give you an idea of how lopsided world finances are. We are stilled owed money that we loaned at the end of WWI. We loaned Germany, France, and other western European countries huge amounts of money after WWII. If you take all the money that we have loaned and have either forgiven or written off as uncollectible, well it would put a huge hole in our current debt. Plus there is debt owed us by countries such as China for the help we gave long before WWII broke out, and also during and after the war that they have never even admitted they owed. So maybe we get some people with some sharp pencils, allow the old debt to assume today’s value, and let’s see how much of our debt they really own. Japan, second largest debt owner, just how much reconstruction money did we throw at that country due to our conscience over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I am not saying that we should have not had a conscience, or that Japan was not deserving of our help, but I will bet you that that debt was forgiven or forgotten, or just ignored, so again, just how much debt do we actually owe. We still pay out huge amounts of money in foreign aid. Some of the biggest recipients of our largess are Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt, and Indonesia, to name a few, and guess who also has had the most debt forgiven by the United States. The point I am trying to make, we have forgiven a lot of old debt that by today’s standards would be an obscene amount of money. According to the figures I found in the Library of Congress;
In fiscal 1992 alone, the U.S. foreign aid program obligated $693 million in grants for Western
Europe (mostly military aid for Turkey, Portugal, and Greece), $719 million for Eastern Europe,
$5.399 billion for the Middle East (mostly military aid for Israel and Egypt), $937 million for Asia,
$1.812 billion for Africa, and $$1.369 billion for Latin America
Now you look at how much we are spending since 9-11 to current, the amount has to be staggering. To finally get to the point, when it comes right down to it, we are owed a lot of money by the world around us; we spend money we can’t afford in grants and other forms of aid. We wage wars in the most expensive formats possible. We take on policing the world at great expense while countries like China do nothing and reap the rewards of our efforts. We have to cut out deficit spending; we have to learn where our money does us as a nation the most good. I say it is not in the coffers of dictators or governments that funnel that money in some form to our enemies or to their own pockets. I say that we cannot afford to prop up countries and regimes until we get our own on an even keel, with a balanced budget, no hungry children, no elderly in jeopardy, no one going without basic healthcare, and no raging unemployment! Until then, we need to take care of ourselves, change how we do business on Wall Street and how much control the Fed has over our lives. We need to have a no deficit spending plan in effect. We need people in Washington who are of the people and for the people. As of now, they are not, and what is most astounding, they are so far gone; they do not know they are not. It is up to us to make the change. I am not sure how, but one way to at least let them know we want change is to vote all incumbents out of office. We need a national referendum stating what it is we do want. We of course need leaders ready and willing to take on such a task. They will be far and few between, so we need to recognize them when they appear. You can bet this candidate will not be getting any money for his campaign from oil companies or the like. At the same time, we need our big business to thrive, just not at the expense of the majority, you and me!
I just learned we finally got Osama Bin Laden, so at least that was a buck spent that I approve of. This method of fighting war is where we need to excel, not trying to tame whole countries that will revert to type as soon as we leave, making us the worlds biggest chumps!

OORAH!

A PAY AS YOU GO DRINKER

Posted: March 24, 2011 in News and politics
2

A PAY AS YOU GO DRINKER
By
John Love

Understanding Derivatives: adjective – a financial contract whose value derives from the value of underlying stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities, etc.

I found a perfect description which explains Derivatives and the effect they have had on our economy, it goes like this;

Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Detroit. She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar. To solve this problem, she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later.

Heidi keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers’ loans). Word gets around about Heidi’s “drink now, pay later” marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Heidi’s bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in Detroit.

By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Heidi gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages.
Consequently, Heidi’s gross sales volume increases massively.
A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Heidi’s borrowing limit. He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral.

At the bank’s corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS. These securities then are bundled and traded on international securities markets.
Naive investors don’t really understand that the securities being sold to them as AAA secured bonds really are debts of unemployed alcoholics. Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb, and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation’s leading brokerage houses.

One day, even though the bond prices still are climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi’s bar. He so informs Heidi.
Heidi then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons, but being unemployed alcoholics they cannot pay back their drinking debts. Since Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and Heidi’s 11 employees lose their jobs.

Overnight, DRINKBOND prices drop by 90%. The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank’s liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community. The suppliers of Heidi’s bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms’ pension funds in the BOND securities. They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds. Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.
Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multibillion dollar no-strings attached cash infusion from their cronies in government.
The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, non-drinkers who have never been in Heidi’s bar.

Now do you understand? Write your congressman and see if you can get them to understand. Then threaten to vote them out office if they do not do something to change how business is done on Wall St. and in our banks. Right now they think we do not matter, we have no punch, no clout as things stand. But if we ever wise up and rise up as a group and start voting as a block, well you can and will be in control for once. At least consider voting in blocks for controls of how our money is invested on Wall St. How banks handle mortgages, and who gave credit card companies the power to pretty much do as they please? If you are a baby boomer, anyone long in the tooth, you need to convince your peers that your congressman keep saying that social security will fail in the near future. Social Security did not and has not failed. It actually made huge surpluses. Big government took the trillion dollars and then some surplus and spent it, promising to pay it back with bonds it issued for that purpose. But since they have continued to pork belly the debt into oblivion, they do not want to honor the bonds that are now coming due for the money taken, they think if they don’t mention it, or tell the lie often enough, we will all just starve to death and quit bothering them. Combined with allowing the privileged few to prey on the many and depleting our 401k’s, other savings and investments, taking advantage of people desperately wanting a home, removing services and payments we deserve and earned, our government is guilty of theft at the very least, and I say genocide of the poor and elderly! So hope you understand now that if you sit on your proverbial ass, you will get will exactly what you deserve!
Again, Social Security funds itself. It is the only successful program that if left alone by the federal govt. operates at a surplus. It is not broke. It just has to many politicians sucking at its teats. I finally heard a senator from California, a democrat; tell the truth about Social Security publicly. First one I ever heard do so! Now if we could stop our supposed representatives from only supporting their cronies and bailing out the same people who ripped us off in the first place, well we would be getting somewhere.
I support the notion that we should all vote out every incumbent, and keep it up until our elected officials get the idea that business as usual is not acceptable.
I welcome any feedback!

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