When jobs mattered

August 5, 2011 a world of progress, progressive living No comments

I went to Cleveland, Tenn., this week to watch my granddaughter dance in a national competition, and on the way back I decided to do a little sightseeing.

US Route 74 travels along the Oconee River for awhile, the site of three dams built in the 1930s by the Tennessee Valley Authority. The first one (the westernmost) is the biggest, so I stopped to look and take a couple of pictures.

Standing by the map of the TVA dams was an older man who was telling everyone how his father helped to build this and several other dams in the region. He pointed some of the dams out, describing the work his father had done.

“Got to the point he knew as much about building dams as anyone,” he said. “He was gone a lot, but we had food and a place to live.”

Building these dams and other projects, including the Blue Ridge Parkway, were a way to put people back to work during the Great Depression.

The jobless rate now is approaching what it was then, if you count all the people who have been unemployed longer than 99 weeks and aren’t part of the statistics, plus the people who have had their hours cut back from 30 to 10 because they work part-time and have no bargaining rights. And let’s not forget the people who are working at menial jobs for $8 an hour because they can’t find anything in their field.

Last week, Congress and the President made matters worse by codifying the Republican desire to withhold money and services from the people who need them instead of increasing taxes on people who can well afford to pay.

There will be no TVA for this job crisis, no Works Progress Administration, Blue Ridge Parkway or schools construction. The current Congress believes it’s better to squeeze the poor and let our nation’s infrastructure crumble, our electrical grid disintegrate and our people starve.

If we don’t care that people are losing their homes at an alarming rate and that children are going to bed hungry, then we ought to care about national security. How can we as a nation compete in a global market when our roads and bridges are unsafe and our electrical grid antiquated? Our children’s education is lacking and it’s getting worse as budgets are cut at the local, state and national levels.

Once upon a time, we cared that people were out of work and that we needed a better power grid and roads. We spent money on those things and built a great nation that could compete and even excell on every level. We trained engineers and laborers and we built roads, dams and electrical lines. These jobs weren’t just busy-work, they were important, and much of the word done during the 1930s stands today as a testament to the power of government to make people’s lives better.

It’s awe-inspiring to look at the Oconee 1 Dam and know that families were housed and fed because of the honest work its construction provided.

Today, the richest Americans hoard their wealth and ignore the needs of working people as the nation crumbles around them.

Patriotic? I thimk not

The budget deal is a raw deal for Americans

August 1, 2011 a world of progress, progressive living No comments

So, we have a “deal” to precent the United States from defaulting on its debts.

I might be willing to call it a deal made in good faith if the thing had contained any tax increases on the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans, or maybe if it had closed a few tax loopholes on big corporations.

But the last-minute deal to raise the debt ceiling — which many Constitutional scholars say is unconstitutional itself — did nothing for everyday Americans. It tied the hands of those in Congress who do give a damn about the jobless, homeless and sick people in this country, making it nearly impossible to do anything to help those in need.

And the crisis it averted was manufactured by right-wing idealogues to disable the government’s ability to do its job.

They keep talking about the debt as though it’s the most important thing and it isn’t. The most important thing right now is to get the economy back on its feet.

The Tea Party has won another victory in its effort to destroy our Democracy, and the rest of us have nothing to be happy about.

Why President Obama refused to just sign an executive order to raise the debt ceiling using the authority of the 14th Amendment, I don’t know. It seems he’s afraid of offending the very people who are destroying his presidency and this nation.

The economy is a mess because of hedge fund traders and other immoral, greedy Wall Street executives, who continue to make record profits and pay lower tax rates than their secretaries. They manage to villify people who are out of work and those who work harder and harder for less and less of the economic pie, they control the message to the point that many Americans believe they themselves are at fault for the troubles.

And President Obama caves to them as though he’s being blackmailed.

This deal is not good news. It’s more of what’s destroying us. I think it borders on treason.

Who we gonna cut?

July 28, 2011 a world of progress, progressive living No comments
From my friend, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, Matt Davies (http://www.gocomics.com/mattdavies)

I’ve been really dismayed the last week or so as people post on Facebook and Twitter how we need to cut spending, and they insist it can’t come from the “job creators.”  There’s no room for debate: we have to stop carrying the lazy, unemployed bums and others who won’t work and give breaks to the wealthiest on the off chance they’ll somehow find it in their hearts to create jobs.

Facts and history aren’t persuading these folks that we can’t keep on this way. In fact, there’s a sizeable chunk of people out there who think it would be good to default on our debt so we would have to cut programs that help people in need.

The debt ceiling wasn’t such an issue when Congress voted to raise it seven times during the George W. Bush administration. In fact, Vice President Dick Cheney said, “Debt doesn’t matter,” as he and his cronies started two wars with no idea how they would be paid for, and then cut taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

Now, all of a sudden, debt matters. That’s because we’re running out of money from the debt THEY ran up. We have to cut spending, they say, not increase taxes.

So, who do we cut?

Medicaid is pretty much pared to the bone already. Come 2014, it’s supposed to cover all Americans who earn up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level; I’m hoping it still will be around then.

Already, most single adults are excluded from Medicaid. Even with Stage 3 cancer, my son Mike wasn’t eligible until he and his wife split. I was asked to write and sign a letter saying they had split and had no intention of getting back together when we thought Mike’s only option was to live with me (his best friend invited him to live with him, offering him somewhat more of a sense of independence).

People who use Medicaid often are denied the best drugs and treatments because Medicaid doesn’t cover it. If you have diabetes, you will get medication, but not the newest meds that really help control blood glucose. If you have a psychiatric illness, you won’t get the drugs that work the best, so your illness will be more difficult to stabilize.

The people served by Medicaid aren’t just “welfare mothers” and “bums” as so many Americans lucky enough to have jobs and good health believe. People with serious disabilities get services such as physical, occupational and speech therapy. Even the places they live, which offer the skilled care they need, are paid for by Medicaid. If we cut more, some of them will be placed in nursing homes with no therapy, no activities, surrounded by people with whom they have nothing in common.

OK, so do we cut unemployment compensation? Does it really keep people from looking for jobs?

Historically, no one has objected to helping people who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. We give tax breaks to huge corporations when they ship jobs overseas and then criticize the people who lose their jobs as a result, plotting to punish them instead of the corporate bigwigs who took the jobs away.

So, let’s shave some dollars from the Pentagon budget. I think Halliburton and their ilk can afford to lose some revenues, especially since the’ve been allowed to wantonly rip off the American people with shoddy workmanship and overpriced, no-bid contracts for a decade now. Those billions could have fed the nation’s hungry children or fixed our crumbling national infrastructure.

Let’s cut some of the benefits we give members of Congress. No more free ride on health care. No more lifelong pensions — or jobs, for that matter. If we limit the amount of time people can spend there, maybe we can go back to citizen rule instead of a country run by corrupt corporate shills.

I’m really angry about how many Americans believe the lies they’re being fed by a bought-and-paid-for media, and how many really think it’s OK to let the Right have its way and destroy our lives and our country.

No more cuts to programs ordinary people need to get by. None. Not one cent. Tell your member of Congress today.

 

 

Let’s talk Constitution and the Founders

July 21, 2011 a world of progress, progressive living One comment

In the Preamble to the US Constitution, its authors wrote that the purpose of the document was to:

* Form a more perfect Union,
* Establish Justice,
* Insure domestic Tranquility,
* Provide for the common defence,
* Promote the general Welfare, and
* Secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.

So, what does that mean?

I think the Founders knew they weren’t perfect and that the nation would evolve. Our simple and elegant Constitution was designed to grow and evolve with the nation as it matured into a more perfect union. It never was meant to be unchanging. Our Founders knew that times would change, that nothing is ever static.

As for establishing justice, our court system was intended to allow access to all. People are created equal. Of course, in the original document, only men who owned property were considered equal. There were no rights for African-Americans, Native Americans or women. Since the Constitution was written, justice has become available to them as well, although people with better resources tend to have better outcomes in the system than do the poor. Still, the aim is to evolve so that access and outcomes are more equal.

Of course, justice in my mind includes social and economic justice. There’s little of that in this nation today as working Americans face a jobless economic “recovery” that has offered record profits to corporations that, in turn, refuse to hire new workers. And as far as paying taxes, the Center for Tax Justice, a nonprofit research and advocacy group, says “the U.S. is already one of the least taxed countries for corporations in the developed world,”  as a percentage of gross domestic product. Who’s worse? Only Iceland.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says that the United States has the worst income inequality of the 24 industrialized nations that belong to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. We’re even behind Pakistan and Ethiopia.

That isn’t justice, although those who claim to want to follow the intentions of the Founders are the very ones fighting to give corporations more and more power. Something’s bass-ackwards here.

As for insuring domestic tranqulity, our gun laws do little on that front. I’m not saying no one should ever own a gun, but no one needs to own an assault rifle. The Second Amendment has been taken to its limits and beyond in allowing too many people who shouldn’t own guns to get their hands on one (or more).

In addition, our own political leaders do little to promote donestic tranquilty with their confrontational, less-than-truthful approach to public policy. It’s in-your-face and to hell with the consequences. The rhetoric promotes discord, even violence, not domestic tranquility.

And how do we rate at providing for the common defence? Well, we’re good at starting wars, although not many of them have anything to do with protecting Americans. We send American soldiers on deployment after deployment, and when they come home damaged physically and emotionally, we abandon them. The wars we wage enrich big corporations that snag no-bid contracts to provide substandard, even dangerous, services and housing, but they leave families shattered and impoverished.

Promote the general welfare. Let’s see, we’re slashing every social safety net out there so we don’t have to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans or close corporate tax loopholes. People are dying for lack of health care, they’re forced into homelessness because of the greed of Wall Street, whose executives have prospered from the misery they’ve caused.

Promoting the general welfare might mean getting health care to all Americans, regulating the greed of Wall Street and the huge corporations and, actually creating jobs instead of killing them. The Tea Party darlings in Congress have taken us to the precipice of disaster in their so-called negotiations over the debt ceiling, and we might well topple off the edge because of their desire to see President Obama fail.

We are not doing anything to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, at least not for most of us. I suppose if you happen to be the progeny of a fabulously wealthy corporate executive, you’ll have plenty of “blessings,” but not if you’re the child of a working American.

Those of us on whose backs this country was built are now watrching it crumble.

This is hardly the nation the people who wrote our Comstitution envisioned.

 

 

‘What about the children?’

July 18, 2011 a world of progress, progressive living No comments

That’s a question I recall hearing again and again during the 1980s and 90s as a reporter covering family issues, social justice issues and education. It came mostly from upper-middle class people in good school districts who were concerned about their children’s welfare, class size, access to computers at school and with limiting kids’ access to such horrible things as dirty words and suggestive song lyrics.

They were genuinely concerned about their own children, especially the ones who decided to run for the school board. All of them claimed they were running “for the children.” One even said, “I’m doing it for the kiddles.” I asked if she really wanted that quote to go under her photo alongside “Reason for running:”

Some ran so they could work to get their Evangelical views into the classroom. I usually recognized the buzzwords they used, such as “intellectual freedom to teach different ideas,” and of course, “intelligent design.”

One of my colleagues once said in the midst of the campaign season, “I wish just one person would be honest and tell us he’s running so he can have power over something.”

At least people wanted to be involved. Today, some school boards have vacancies they can’t fill. Schools are being attacked, as are most other institutions that help children.

While some of the nation’s wealthy seem to see public education as a form of welfare, programs that protect the welfare of children in every respect are being slashed.

Medicaid, which offers health care to the nation’s most needy, is about to be cut, compromising the health of millions of children; subsidized children’s health care for families that can’t afford insurance now has waiting lists so long it’s effectively shut down to new people in several states.

After-school programs, which keep children in a safe place until their parents can be home with them, are being defunded.

Parents are working several part-time or two full-time jobs just to make ends meet while child care subsidies are being slashed. That’s because in every city in the United States it takes at least two full-time jobs at minimum wage to make ends meet on even the most modest budget (no cable TV, no meals out …).

A few years ago, here in Western North Carolina, a working mother left her child in the car because she had no other option to care for him and she needed her job as a CNA in a nursing home to keep their small apartment. Her shifts were not the same as most child care center hours, so she had nowhere to leave him safely. She opted to leave him in the car and check on him periodically, rather than leave him home alone. The child died and the mother was villified. Most of my colleagues were outraged that a mother would endanger her 4-year-old like that.

But I remember being a single mom, struggling to pay my bills and find a safe place for my children while I worked. I had a boss who would let me bring them to the office with me if I had to work late or on Saturday. I had an upstairs neighbor who would look after my older son if he needed anything — he was a latchkey kid when he was 8 because I couldn’t afford to pay for care for both my boys and I couldn’t get a subsidy unless I quit work and went on welfare.

Today, one in five children lives in poverty, likely not getting the nutrition they need to stay healthy or the intellectual stimulation they need to overcome poverty when they get older. They are less likely to have access to a computer, or even good books. They are more likely to have health and/or behavioral problems, to drop out of school, to turn to crime and to remain poor as adults.

Even so, as we “negotiate” how to cut government spending, children’s needs once again are on the table, but not the wants of the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans who control a staggering 40 percent of the nation’s wealth. Heaven forbid we ask for shared sacrifice from them or from behemouth corporations that pay little or no tax.

So, what about the children?

 

July 4 isn’t for chest-thumping

July 5, 2011 a world of progress, progressive living No comments

I celebrated the Fourth by going to a baseball game, which was followed by fireworks. Seemed like a good, all-American evening, and it included a tribute to veterans, which I found quite moving.

During the seventh inning, the Rev. Scott Rogers to0k to the field to talk about the vets who didn’t come back. He named the people from our area who have died on foreign soil, and introduced a flag-folding ceremony.

I always get emotional at flag-folding ceremonies because I’ve seen far too many of them as a newspaper reporter covering the funerals of fallen soldiers. Every time I see the ceremony, I’m reminded of the mother who insisted her son’s casket remain open, even though his face was replaced by a mask because it had been blown away. She kept reaching into the casket to touch his gloved hand. I’m reminded of the devastated young wife trying to comfort her weeping child who just wants his Daddy. I’m reminded of families and friends whose lives will never again be whole because of their loss. I’m reminded of the lost potential of this life cut short on a battlefield halfway around the world.

I know first-hand what it is to lose a child, but I can’t comprehend losing one in a war. I at least got to say goodbye to my son.

As the flag was being folded, a woman near me started chanting “USA!” She stopped pretty quilckly. I’m hoping it was because someone gave her the reality slap she deserved.

This ceremony was to honor the dead, not to chest-thump as though the whole thing was a sports event. Patriotism is about a lot more than chanting simplistic slogans. It’s not about, “America, right or wrong,” nor is it about allowing our freedoms to be swallowed up by a war on terrorism that does little more than kill innocent people and enrich corporations.

Part of our problem in the world is that we’re arrogant; we’re convinced we’re better than anyone else, and we impose our will whether our way is appropriate or not. Those in power — the very wealthy and huge corporations — love war, and their sons and daughters are rarely the ones who are maimed or killed in these conflicts.

The people who serve in our military believe they are doing what’s right for their country. They are honorable and brave, and they deserve our respect, although many come home wounded and emotionally damaged and we don’t give them what they need. They become homeless, and often become addicted to drugs and or alcohol in an attempt to numb the pain. We slash veterans’ programs and figure they should just buck up and get on with their lives after repeated deployments. But when we see someone in uniform, we thank them for their service as though that’s all we need to do.

This nebulous thing they’re fighting for, “freedom,” isn’t about competition and us being Number One. When we say freedom isn’t free, it shouldn’t be about spending innocent lives on the battlefield, but about participating in Democracy. We need to learn about the issues, understand and see through the crap that’s being thrown at us by the media and our politicians, and take our country back.

Democracy is participatory. If we the people are too lazy to vote intelligently, our country loses its greatness. We are at the threshhold of disaster now. It’s time to stop chanting stupid slogans and work to really understand the issues. That’s the price of freedom, and if we don’t pay that price, we will lose our freedoms.

Distractions, distractions

June 29, 2011 a world of progress, progressive living No comments

Weiner’s weiner, Bachman’s bumblings, Charlie Sheen’s shenannigans, Palin’s pussyfooting wherever another Republican wants to announce a run for the Presidency …

These are all you hear about on the “news” lately. Even MSNBC had wall-to-wall coverage of Rep. Anthony Weiner’s indescressions.

Meanwhile, the Democrats are about to negotiate permanent tax cuts for the wealthy and huge cuts to Medicare and Medicaid just to get the Republicans to agree to raise the debt ceiling.

Anybody heard about that?

Not if you’re relying on the mainstream media.

This week, Sen. Joe Lieberman and Sen. Tom Clyburn unveiled their plan to slash Medicare, and although it got a pretty cool reception, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said it would be a good negotiating point in the battle to raise the debt ceiling.

The Republicans in Washington would rather see our nation’s economy utterly destroyed than to raise taxes on the wealthy or the super-huge corporations that pay to keep them in office. And if the debt ceiling isn’t raised — and soon — believe me, our economy will collapse. Then they can point the finger at the Denocrats and insist they’re the ones who wouldn’t play ball.

In reality, it’s the policies of these Tea Party darlings that will bring us down. When we have to default on our debts because the ceiling isn’t raised, China can call its loans due. The we’re done. No one will lend money to us, government programs will close. We won’t even have money to pay our representatives in Congress (most of whom don’t need the money, anyway).

All to make the Democrats look bad.

Our national economy and our national security are nothing to be playing a game of Chicken with.

And what do I hear on the mainstream news?

Well, Newsweek has on its cover a computer-generated photo of what Princess Diana would like on her 50th birthday that some are calling ghoulish. Why, she’s still stunning. I wonder if she’s had work done. Apparently, the photo is sparking a HUGE controversy over whether the photoshopped cover is respectful enough of the late princess.

We’re all held rapt by the Casey Anthony trial. Did she drown her daughter?  According to ABC news, Caylee’s grandfather attempted suicide to be reunited with the child, and he said Casey was the last one to see Caylee alive. Screw the debt-ceiling talks; I need to know more about this.

CBS News has that story in its top headlines too, plus a prediction by Andrew Breitbart that Sarah Palin will run for President, as though his opinion about it matters. CBS also has a confession from Charlie Sheen that he used steroids while he was filming “Major League.”

NBC has a heartwarming story about how two British tourists braved a train wreck, tornado and an insect invasion before their wedding.

These stories are taking up valuable time and space that would be used to explain why the debt ceiling needs to be raised, why we’re still fighting in Afghanistan, how Big Oil has twisted the facts to deny global warming, the real harm still being caused by the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and how much radiation is escaping the Fukashima Nuclear Plant (thye US has stopped monitoring the radiation from the plant).

And CNN is asking the question: “Can you follow Ayn Rand and Jesus?” My answer would be no.

There are no limits to violence in entertainment

June 27, 2011 a world of progress, progressive living No comments

The US Supreme Court has decided that there are no limits to the violence in video games for children. A 6-year-old can walk into a store and buy the most gruesome, bloody game on the shelf.

The decision was based on First Amendment free speech rights, but other types of obscene materials, such as sexually explicit content, animal cruelty and child pornography are off-limits. Children can’t walk into an X-rated movie, so why should they be able to play a game where they can behead someone and watch the blood spurt?

California’s law was vague, unfortunately, but states are allowed to regulate sexually explicit material, so why not excessive violence?

I’m a strong proponent of the First Amendment, but children need to be protected from violence as much as they need to be protected from porn.

Studies have shown that children become enured to violence when they see too much of it, and some video games are incredibly graphic and realistic.

Maybe I’m dreaming up a conspiracy where there isn’t one here, but the games are a great way to train children to serve in our endless wars.Violence is a game to them, so you don’t need a draft to get young people to fight wars for the profit of Halliburton and the like. The video game insustry itself is a $10 billion a year business. And the US Army has a video war game, “Americva’s Army,” that kids can play on the Web (http://www.americasarmy.com/aa3.php.)

According to the Washington Post and CBS News, the game is doing its job; people are playing and then lining up at recruitment centers to play the real thing after being conditioned online.

So, if California’s law is too vague, it’s up to state legislatures to write something less vague.

Some would say it’s up to parents to monitor what games their children can play and what movies they can see. Violent games and movies were forbidden in my house, but my boys had friends whose parents let them play the games or rented violent movies for them. There was a way to get around my prohibitions. I did model a disapproval of violence, but that’s not the strongest weapon when society says violence is fun.

If we ever want to get to a time of peace, we need to limit children’s access to violence. If we can keep the3m from these violent games, then real violence will shock them, and they’re less likely to line up willingly to be cannon fodder for the benefit of huge corporations.

 

700 more newspaper jobs cut

June 22, 2011 a world of progress, progressive living No comments

Just in case you’re wondering why newspapers are looking so bad, it’s because of greed.

Newspapers insist on a bottom line that’s above almost any other industry, and when it falls below about 30 percent, they make cuts. Big cuts.

Yesterday, Gannett Corp. laid off another 700 people across the company’s newspapers.

When I joined Gannett, at the Journal News in Rockland County, NY, in 1986, it was considered one of the top family-friendly companies to work for. Health benefits were excellent and time off was better than at most other newspaper companies. If you worked hard, you got ahead; there were incentives; there were rewards for people who did good work.

It was an ugly scene at newspapers across the company as people who had been loyal employees for decades were cut loose.

So, why are newspapers losing so much revenue and readership?

The company line is that newspapers are a dying industry because people get their news online.

But Gannett is cutting its online staff too. Here in Asheville there was a separate department dedicated to Web content. That got cut in the last round. The company spent millions on top-of-the-line video equipment and software and training four years ago, and then pretty much abandoned it.

As newsrooms get smaller, the people who are left have fewer and fewer opportunities for any investigative reporting. More time is spent processing press releases and covering events to fill what little space is left.

It used to be that ads filled in the spaces around editorial content; now editorial content is the filler for the spaces around the ads. The ever-shrinking news hole leaves less and less space for real news.

That means government and big business have no one watching what they’re up to. It makes it that much easier for Fox Noise to spread its lies about government takeovers and death panels and how we “need” to gut Social Secutity and Medicaid. They spread the fallacy of us being broke and no one is here to explain that we’re not.

Add that to the consistent de-funding of education over the last 30 years and you have the Koch Brothers’ dream scenario.

Newspapers don’t have to die; they need to become nonprofits. Then Craig Dubow, the CEO of Gannett will have to live on less than $10 million a year and people who cost the company $40,000 can have their jobs back and we can save our Democracy.

 

A mad dash to the right

June 17, 2011 a world of progress, progressive living No comments

The NC legislative session isn’t even finished yet and I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck. As the effects of this disastrous session begin to be felt across the state, I’m sure other North Carolinians will feel the same way.

Across the state, thousands of classroom personnel — teachers and teacher assistants, will lose their jobs, even though the Republican leadership denies it’s happening. As usual, if they say something isn’t real, then it must not be happening. That’s what you get when you live in your own little bubble where you don’t have to have compassion for anyone else.

Women who seek to end their pregnancies will have to listen to an anti-abortion lecture and wait 24 hours, even if they’re pregnant by an abusive partner who would beat the crap out of them if he found out. It’s as though we shouldn’t be allowed to make decisions about our own bodies unless the right agrees with those decisions.

The new “austerity” budget, which contains deep, deep cuts to education and health care programs, wasn’t about money, according to Rep. Tim Moffit, whose district includes Arden and Candler, “it’s about policy.”

Well, policy follows the money. Your priorities are where you put — or take away — the dollars, and it’s clear that this legislature prefers corporations to humans and right-wing “moral” values to compassion.

Medicaid will lose some of its “optional” services, such as specialized housing and other necessary services for people with severe disabilities. Instead of living in intermediate care facilities, they will be moved to nursing homes, where they won’t get the occupational, physical and speech therapy and other amenities that make their lives worth living. They’ll be warehoused.

People on Medicaid will lose their eye and hearing care. No glasses, no hearing aids.

I don’t see these things as optional, but the people in the North Carolina General Assembly do.

They have gutted environmental protections and made it harder for the state to collect taxes from corporations.

They have made it harder to vote, eliminating same-day registration, shortening early voting and requiring a photo ID from every voter. These measures affect poor and minority populations the most — those who would be most likely to vote against the right.

And if you get really pissed off and want to yell at one of these cads? Well, they’re trying to pass a law that allows them to carry guns into the legislative parking lot, so you don’t want to make them feel threatened.

But you don’t have to vote for them again. Remember this session come Election Day, and you might want to shoot an e-mail to your representative and senator to let him or her know you’ve been watching.

 

 

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