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Tag Archives: As I see It

Chicago Classic


Chicago has again shown itself to be a classic non changing city-state. The recent revelation of withheld details of LaQuan McDonald’s Murder at the hands of a Chicago police officer has further inflamed the people of Chicago. This video showing the murder was withheld until after the reelection of Mayor Rahm Emmanuel. The mayor was forced into a runoff election with a not so strong candidate and still barely won the election. It is apparent that too many voters have forgotten to exercise the power they have . We have in America forgotten that politicians are more like snake oil salesmen  pushing cures that benefit no one but themselves. “Honest politicians” and “crooked politicians” are the same except in pure definition. The facts of our system of elections is that we wait to hear what each candidate is saying and decide who to vote for based who fires us up. This method of voting is  no different than the excitement we get from movies! The method we need to use is reading about each candidate no matter what they say on the stump as those words are written by people whose sole job is to excite us about the candidate. Lets think about what is being said by the current aspirants, how many of them really know what the ACA is about? How many know all of the facts of our foreign policy? How many understand the full scope of what Planned parenthood does?. These are just a few areas that are highlights of the current political campaigns. Do we want someone whose knowledge at this point is so limited? We need to ask what will happen if they are elected? Will they all of a sudden become well versed in these areas? These are questions that must be answered truthfully even if the answer is “I don’t know”. Our entire focus as voters need to be pay attention to the “man behind the curtain”.

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Not In Our Best Interests


The inexplicable sameness of being different. This is what comes to my mind when I look and listen to the Dupublican aspirants for the privilege of running for the Presidency. Each of them is attempting to create an image of being the best choice while holding to the “party line” of conservatism and other factions within it. Unfortunately their politics seems to be against the interest of the country and many of the people. It has always been my opinion that candidates for any office should be more like the people they are trying to represent, this is not to say that they should be the same ethnicity , race or religion but more like kindred spirits who share the same experiences in some degree of those of their supporters. The modern political arena has more to do with rabble rousing than inspiration using firebrand tactics and explosive rhetoric. If we believe in the candidates who are politically incorrect and inaccurate or worse if we elect them so what does that say about us?  Our dedication to the now standard political machinations of caucuses, polls & ad campaigns has possibly lulled many into the “elect anyone” who isn’t that person  the method of voting. Listening to some of the interviewed attendees of the political rallies lends an insight to how uninformed many of us  are.  It  is well to be in tune with your political choice but blind following is what allowed the overall political climate to exist.

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Law Degree Required?


The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a set of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) regarding the Health Home Medicaid State Plan Option authorized under Section 1945 of the Social Security Act.  The information is posted to the Health Home (HH) Information Resource Center webpage on Medicaid.gov.  In addition to the FAQs, other new documents have been added that include: HH Map; HH Fact Sheet; HH State Plan Amendment (SPA) Overview by state; and a List of Chronic Conditions Targeted by approved HH States.

The above paragraph is the simplest one of thousands that make up the CMS arm of the government Medicare and Medicaid programs. If you look into the programs and the various links you will quickly see why you need an attorney or a knowledgeable advocate to negotiate the regulations in order to get the health care you require. Would it not make sense to have this information published in terms that most people can understand? Is it possible that the information is made to be obtuse so that it is unusable and frustrating to the people who need it the most? What if there were no advocates available to navigate the waters and mine fields of government paperwork? All of us at some point will fall to the paperwork of Government (that is after a law requiring paperwork reduction commonly called :PRA of 1995. If you look this act up you will see that even the explanation of the act is quite an eyeful and a bit of a slog to get through. What we have here is ” a failure to communicate!”. While another act that simplifies the simplification which would actually reduce the paperwork , that will not happen as long as we have the type of Congressional representatives who are less interested in our well being than their own. It is in our best interests to pay attention to everything spoken by these Seat fillers as what they say and what they do are not the same, by extension not always good for us.

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As The world Churns


The Urban League of Springfield has received a grant to set up a “cease fire” program. This program is in place in other communities and is successful. I have only one issue with the program and that is the administrators. The immediate hands on folks are not the issue these are good people with good skills. The administrators have a track record of poor to mismanagement of grant funded programs due a dearth of understanding how these programs actually work. The ordinary work on the many programs administered by the league have been unfortunately side tracked by under or uninformed upper managers who have no apparent faith in the hands on coordinators and causing the programs to fail through their
micro management. Once a program fails, the local recipients are left in limbo and often worse off than before the program. The drop out rate in these programs is nothing to be proud of but the League often touts the few successes as being greater than it actually is. The effort put into securing grants is sizeable but the effort to sustain the programs is not. Given the large number of professional people who left the employ of SUL (voluntary and forced) has indicated all is not well in the kingdom! There are many wonderful people in the organization but the top tier of executives is rife with incompetence and greed. This has been voiced by many former and current employees. This “insider” information has come about by the accidental meeting of former employees who I’ve met around town. The shame is that this branch of the League has the air of  respectability from business friends and outsiders while maintaining the reputation of poor service in the community. Apparently there is a tacit approval of poor service by the State and National Urban League.

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Tough SEll?


 

   
   
   
 
 
We currently have political candidates for the Presidency uttering extreme and radical comments that often have no context in reality. These jump on, jump off the bandwagon of their parties candidates should be looked at very carefully. Their lies and basic suspect information has caused great harm to innocent people. In Texas the state legislature has created laws restricting Planned Parenthood from operating based on misinformation from the religious zealots who have rewritten the bible to suit their own beliefs (sounds like the Islamic State). Now in Colorado (a crazed gunman) shot up a Planned Parenthood clinic while muttering about baby parts being sold (this is possibly from speeches from Carly Liarina) . This man is a legal
firearms owner(?) who has a history of strangeness when he lived in Carolina yet he still had legally owned firearms which enabled him to shoot people in a clinic, killing a law enforcement officer and  patients while wounding other citizens and law enforcement officers. More gun laws will not do the job but more investigation into buyers (and sometimes owners) might. So here we are with our own home-grown extremists creating horrific situations in America and our aspiring candidates carrying the torch for them. If we as a country want to stop these types of events we need to elect people who “get it”. No one is perfect but an elected official needs to be more like a judge and that is to evaluate ALL of the information (evidence) and make a decision based on that information however unlike judges these are politicians whose focus is get elected and probably create more chaos while doing nothing of benefit to any of us.

 

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Chicago?? Toddling town!


Mayor Rahm Emanuel has relieved the top policeman of his duties and his job. This come 14 months after an officer shot a civilian 16 times and at least 14 times after the civilian was on the ground. From the top, Mr. Emanuel took over the position of mayor of Chicago and immediately alienated most of the residents, thereafter he barely won a second term. It is regrettable that too many political people do not do their homework when running for office. There is no way to know everything that is required but it is possible to look at the long simmering issues and on going long term problems and attempt to  make a plan to resolve them. As usual that did not happen, what did happen is that the rich handlers and more affluent held sway while the neediest and less affluent got squat! schools were closed in the neediest areas, services were lessened but the Mayor espoused a record of doing good work. Well my opinion is Bu****it! I now pronounce Rahm Emanuel to be less effective than Rahmen Noodles.

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Not Just Our Business Now


I would like to start this post by stating that “Democracy is relative to the region it exists in”

We have been too involved on the middle east for too long. This all began after and during WWII, once the war was over the assortment of players in the area returned to their normal ( for them) routines. These routines while not so great to us was what they were used to. We as country attempted to insert “our” democracy into a region that functioned as well as it could after a devastating war. The ruling powers were all for “democracy” in theory in order to continue receiving aid from the U.S. and other major powers. These “leaders” then regressed to their pre war attitudes and again began restrict and place a foot on the necks of the people. Our part was to ignore the situation and continue to import cheap oil, bolstering the  dictatorial leaders by those actions. Our actions led up to “911” because we supported these dictators  by accepting their managing of their countries no matter the effects on the people. After several failed  incursions “for the wrong reasons”  we have now been held up to criticism  for not doing enough. There are speeches and discussions from all sides regarding the U.S lack of force in the Middle and near East yet no one wants to spend the money or send forces to those areas. It is easy to second guess the President, especially since some Congressional members will use any means to discredit or assign blame primarily to gain seats in the Congress so they can have control. Their Control is what got us in this mess so what is that makes them think having control will fix anything? What should have happened and didn’t is the Congress should have been working with the White House instead of being the “dog in the manger” to the detriment of us all, The entire United States of America! Our Business is the repairing of America and not trying to look good to the world, this is the job of the UN which should be taking the lead on these issues and isn’t. We pay dearly to the funding of the UN and other sources so there needs to be pressure from Congress on the UN and not the President and less talk from outsiders whose interests do not include 99% of Americans. We have now had to send more military to assist in the middle East because Russia is attempting a power play to aid their allies, along with Iran and Saudi Arabia. This created a messy web of “mini wars”. The assorted religious and ethnic groups are fighting it out among themselves and at the same time against others so no one knows or recognizes the real enemy. Once The U.S. puts boots on the ground ( I mean thousands of troops) we are in another war we cannot win. It is impossible to determine who the real enemy is since , to use a derogatory phrase “they all look alike”, the differences are ethnic and religious but there are no visible signs of who is who. This creates a situation where the wrong people are being bombed and displaced. This creates a refugee situation for the region and much of Europe and other parts of the mid east in which no one can still sort out who is who. This is not to say the refugees  should not receive refuge but their own countries once stabilized may not offer them a place to return to if the original problems are not resolved. This leaves us with a quandary: what or who should be on deck to repatriate them in a positive way? It certainly appears that the assortment of military ( formal or informal) can only offer limited assistance, so the onus falls (as I see it) is on the more prosperous countries in the region, it should be their job to help the least of them which in turn will help the whole of them. America is looked to as a leader in this but we should not be required to lead the charge only to find that we are cut off without support (UN!). Our current aspiring politicians are spouting about what we should do just to get people fired up and to get votes and not thinking about the long range effect. A proper way for us to assist is limited military (regardless of what Russia does) and as much financial and material aid as we need to provide.

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Is It Possible


Is it possible, could we as people become color, race and religious blind? How important are the divisions that separate us? American being a microcosm of the world should be an example of how a diverse group should work together. We have always had the capability to be the example beyond our other problems of financial, political and manufacturing malfeasance. In spite of the past 200 plus years of learning to be a world power, we still have a way to go. We should have no place in our mainstream for political misdeeds, tacit bigotry and financial cheats. It is odd that other countries have figured out how to educate their citizens without a mountain of  debt, provided healthcare that works for all without debt. It appears that proper taxing of the citizens and correct use of the taxes is the key. We currently have several  (too many) aspirants to be a candidate for the Presidency, each brings his own baggage yet we are fascinated by their speeches and ranting’s. When the speeches and debates are over we really need to understand what the President can actually do and keeping in mind that there is still the issue (no mistake, issue is the correct word) of Congress. Our Congress has become no more than a group of people who have begun to see themselves as better than the people who placed them in office (repeatedly). With that thought in mind, isn’t it time to decide that our Congress is our real problem and not the President (no matter who it is). None of us would trust anyone who would lie to our faces and then pretend to help yet we have 535 people who have raised that activity to an art form. These seat fillers have avoided action on healthcare so that it fails the people it is designed to help, our 535 could have acted in a statesmanlike manner and made changes that would be even more beneficial to us all however politics took over and we all lost. Now it is election season and  time for the politricks to begin along with the blatant lies about everything and done in our names.

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What We Hear


 
 

Buzzwords, sound bites and catch phrases are not facts. The current political debates are popularity contests disguised as real information. These aspirants use what they can to excite , arouse and enthuse us with what they believe we want to hear. The reality is , when whoever gets the job is actually sitting in the Oval office the promises, sound bites, buzz words, etc. no longer apply. The reality of the job kicks in like an overdose of caffeine. It will take the first four years to understand the job and act on things that were already in the works. There will be no repealing, revoking or deleting because they will have to be the CIC with military activities occurring in other countries, UN members that need attention aside from their immediate family’s needs. He or she will need to hit the ground running since time stops for no one nor does the country’s business. The question is who do we rally want or who do we really need? There are no perfect candidates but we need to dismiss  the debates as  so much fluff or as we would a schoolyard scuffle between second graders. Our job as voters is to determine beyond the debates and oratory of the campaign who feel will do the job if we do not perform this exercise we will not have fulfilled our duty as voters and we can only blame our selves if we end up less than the best we can get. There is no such thing as “no matter who I vote for nothing will change”. This is why Illinois has the Governor they currently have and why we have the Congress we have. Remember Congress will be in place after the Presidential elections so who will we blame then?- Ourselves if we become complacent and place our trust in Politrickers.

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Billions


Why is it that billions can be spent on campaigning but none is spent for infrastructure. It is understood that these billions are provided by external sources yet the roads and bridges still need funding. While the politicians argue and jostle for position, the legislation to fund the government for an extended time is  going undone. Suppose these statesman wannabes actually tried to be? The modern political climate is pretty much bought and sold by big money donors whose agenda does not include anything good for the voters of America no matter what they say in the media. In my opinion  anyone , voters, elected officials or even external sources who does not see the always present “handwriting on the wall” is either blind or they do not care that we as a country could have a serious problem. The current political and business climate harkens back to the time of the railroad and steel magnates who helped build this country but some totally disrespected their workers and kept them in virtual poverty and at the so called “lower rungs of society”. It is important to remember that this is not as much a racial issue as a class one. When the clouds roll by and the sky is clear one can readily see that most of us who are not millionaires have been pushed into the same leaky boat no matter what our religion, race or ethnicity is. This is class warfare on a grand scale with a sprinkling of Racism and religious outrage thrown in to muddy the waters. It is unfortunate that some of the folks who are in this boat have allowed their biases  to blind them to the greater problem which is the electorate and Billionaire rulers.

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