Crude Politics

3/15/2013 CRUDE POLITICS The Constitution of the USA requires the President to “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution of the USA. It is part of the oath the new President commits to. So, keeping this fundamental commitment in focus can we truly say that our present incumbent has faithfully adhered to this pledge?? I think not. Actually, the rules of the Senate were allowed to be ignored whenever the President needed a decision that might not be readily approvable. Individual Senatorial loyalty to their own oath of office didn’t seem to count anymore. Recess appointments are the least of these transgressions. Although the House has primary responsibility to introduce budgets, the Senate must approve them before the President can sign off. So far, the Senate mostly reneged, so we plod along without budgets. Our Democrat controlled Senate never objected when the President commanded one stimulus bill after another, knowingly leading us to eventual national bankruptcy. There are many other instances of these irresponsible yet deliberate actions by our senior Government officials demanded by the President. The most shameful part of this charade has been the fact that Democratic Senators, with few exceptions, have allowed themselves to be taken advantage of by this President’s political maneuvers. Neither the Media nor critical observers have made much noise about these happenings, which suggests that a large part of the voting public apparently doesn’t mind our governmental operations to be treated just like another Chicago political power play. Who is scared of whom? Obviously key Senators have lost their honor and good sense the moment they became party to this illegal conduct of our Congressional operations. Unless WE, the American people, have decided to allow this “playful” but unconstitutional mode of Congressional activities to continue, we should call the President to order and if necessary consider impeaching him. After more than 4 years of this political boondoggling we should have enough evidence to question the real intentions of this government. We all know that this government needs: -to fix the economy, meaning growth and not stagnation, -to reduce unemployment from more than 9% to less than 6%, -to improve business conditions and not penalize success, -to improve our energy situation, but not by throwing money at green energy boondoggles, shutting down 30% of our coal fired power plants and denying permits for building pipelines and more nuclear power plants and drilling on Federal land for fossil fuels, -to adhere to well established Constitutional mandates in governing the Country in a bi-partisan way. And not in a brazen policy of ignoring history and legitimacy but essentially operating in single-party mode, by fiat and crony-politics, etc. etc. To this you might add the USA’s serious loss of international status together with its quick march to national insolvency. The results to date have been calamitous and are getting worse, notwithstanding a stock-market rise based on the gamble of “hope and change”, but not on serious expectations. Also don’t forget the false claims of things the President cannot claim credit for but are still taken up by the Media as truths. You would think that, instead of showing some mature responsibility for its mistakes, the current Administration could not blithely asked voters for 4 more years of the same “leadership”, thereby showing an uncanny disrespect for a majority of American voters’ ability to be fooled twice. The “Leadership” we need now should be steeped in the lessons of our past 236 years of existence. Compared to any other country we should be proud of our history, just ask those who would love to immigrate here if they could. But we failed to elect a successful “Leader”, a really qualified and patriotic individual with a relevant and credible managerial background. While for many voters the past 4 years may well have been a painful disappointment it is time for all of us, Americans, to realize the critical shape our Nation is in right now. The election results of this last November demonstrate clearly that large segments of our voting public do not appear to understand basic economics, nor know American history nor world history to appreciate that re-electing this President to a second term would be foolish in the extreme. The only advantage of our current Governmental situation is that it shows our Constitution has seen better days, while the concept of bi-partisan Presidential leadership is totally unpopular with the current incumbent of the White House. We have a President with a vision essentially contrary to what America expected and needs. But at least we now know that Washington is run the way politics is run in Chicago, winner takes all. This is also insane. Frederik Engel Redding, CT.