CONGRESS: A COLONY OF BEGGARS

We all knew Citizens United was a catastrophe. 

But who could foresee that--as surely as an atomic bomb—the Supreme Court ruling would scatter deadly fragments in every direction and ultimately destroy our legislative branch of government?       

According to an April 24 story on Sixty Minutes, the United States Congress is fading away before our eyes. This once-illustrious body is now too hamstrung to work normal hours . . . .  too involved elsewhere to spend time crafting laws . . . too anxious about its own survival to meet with constituents. If you demanded the truth, a few members might actually tell you: we no longer have time to do our Congressional  work.   

Instead, these formerly-statesmanlike members are across the street Dialing for Dollars.  And why across the street? Because it’s illegal to make fund-raising calls from a Congressional office. Knowing this, each party has established its own, very handy money-raising building, and official Congressional work is scheduled around this chore. 

New initiates to Congress are quickly given their marching orders: You must spend thirty hours a week raising money . . . some for the party, some for you.  To fail in this task is to bring down a hammer. Senators and House members have no choice: to keep their jobs and maintain standing within their party . . . well, do the math. They now spend six hours of each workday making telephone calls, begging constituents for money.

Before Citizens United, this was not the case . . . back then, members of Congress did their fund-raising a mere one to two hours a day. 

Citizens United, the ruling that allowed billions of secret corporate dollars to flow into Super Pacs that buy influence within the government, currently means that no congressional office is even vaguely secure. If you rudely support a law that one corporation or another doesn’t like, millions will be spent on your opponent. Ultimately it means your job is here today, but gone tomorrow.  So the 100-million that each Congressman spent getting elected is no longer relevant. Today’s members are directed to a tiny telephone booth, where they must take up the phone and are pressured to raise $18,000 a day--make that each and every working day.

Does anyone keep track?

Oh, yes. A billboard in the Republican lobby—crass and huge--posts names of Congressional members and the amount he or she has raised.

No wonder only 14% of the public thinks our Congress is doing a good job.  If only they knew . . . 

Unfortunately Sixty Minutes gave us the facts but didn’t emphasize the consequences--  that American tax money, $174,000  plus benefits--per each member of Congress per year--is now lavished on a representative who works only two hours a day.

If ever there was a need for a Constitutional Amendment to rid ourselves of an onerous Supreme Court ruling, the time is now. 

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As of mid-May—“HIGHER THAN EAGLES” and “DAMN THE REJECTIONS” will both be available in paperback form on Amazon.

Or autographed, through me, on Maralys.com. 

AFTER YOU, ALPHONSE . . .

 AFTER YOU, ALPHONSE . . .

(Old Blog, New Title)

This is the transcript of a radio conversation of a US naval ship with Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland in October, 1995. 

Radio conversation released by the Chief of Naval Operations: 10/10/95.

Americans: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision.

Canadians: Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.

Americans: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again divert YOUR course.

Canadians: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course.

Americans: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS ENTERPRISE, THE LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES’ ATLANTIC FLEET. WE ARE ACCOMPANIED BY THREE DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS, AND NUMEROUS SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES NORTH, THAT’S ONE FIVE DEGREES NORTH, OR COUNTER-MEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF THIS SHIP. 

Canadians:  This is a lighthouse. Your call.  

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Who knows what you’ll find when you clean up your desk. 

BETTER THAN POLITICS

BETTER THAN POLITICS

This is the transcript of a radio conversation of a US naval ship with Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland in October, 1995. 

Radio conversation released by the Chief of Naval Operations: 10/10/95.

Americans: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision.

Canadians: Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.

Americans: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again divert YOUR course.

Canadians: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course.

Americans: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS ENTERPRISE, THE LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES’ ATLANTIC FLEET. WE ARE ACCOMPANIED BY THREE DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS, AND NUMEROUS SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES NORTH, THAT’S ONE FIVE DEGREES NORTH, OR COUNTER-MEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF THIS SHIP. 

Canadians:  This is a lighthouse. Your call.  

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Who knows what you’ll find when you clean up your desk. 

LIKE WATCHING A BLACK WIDOW SPIDER

LIKE WATCHING A BLACK WIDOW SPIDER

I fear and loathe spiders—yet I’m mesmerized by them, drawn somehow by their very repugnance. 

From the first, Trump has held for me that same kind of strange magnetism, a similar brand of weird appeal. As though I can’t believe he’s real, that he’s actually doing what he’s doing. I want to turn away, but I can’t. When I open a newspaper, I see the word TRUMP,  and I read it.

The Los Angeles Times must be similarly, morbidly fascinated; the man appears on page after page.

What is there about his candidacy?  We all know it’s unreal, not remotely possible. He’s about as qualified as my three-year-old grandson, who has never found a wall he won’t climb, a barrier too strong to keep him out. And once in awhile he says something really perceptive. If he gave it a moment’s thought, he, too, might aspire to be president.

Yet there’s Trump, surrounded by crowds . . . real, adult, speaking people, reasonable enough looking, all of them hot on his trail, drawn to a magic presidency which will never exist.  If they gave him a moment’s in-depth thought, they’d see the same impossibility, the same set of failures the rest of us see. 

You wonder—how many defeats would it take to convince them?  Is it not enough that the Trump airline is gone, the Trump steaks and vodka likewise, his university now sued out of existence, four of his casinos dissolved in bankruptcy, two former wives abandoned . . .   

And how about the absurdity of his goals?  An endless wall between two countries that can’t and won’t pay for it, eleven million immigrants jerked from their homes, (how?) foreign prisoners water boarded—“and worse”—(already refuted by the head of the CIA), while the king, with his magic wand, provides jobs for everyone. 

Really?  

I doubt any of us have ever, in our lifetimes, witnessed a presidential candidacy without a single achievable goal, a campaign based solely on two attributes: Nerve and ego.   

In the beginning, he appeared to be another Hitler. One newspaper called him “The Furor.” Now he seems not quite so lofty, more bizarre than menacing. 

Of course I’m fascinated. I’ll keep watching the spider until someone, or several someones, finally squashes it.  

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My mom was unusual, but nothing like this man.  "The Tail on My Mother's Kite" is available on my website: Maralys.com.  Or through Amazon. Try it--you'll like it.