Month: July 2014

          “I Am Not A Crook” -Oh Yes You Were

Over forty years ago the nation was shaken by allegations that the Watergate complex was broken into and the trail led back to the President of the United States, Richard Nixon.

From the Washington Post 1973:

Declaring that “I am not a crook,” President Nixon vigorously defended his record in the Watergate case tonight and said he had never profited from his public service.

“I have earned every cent. And in all of my years of public life I have never obstructed justice,” Mr. Nixon said.

“People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook. I’ve earned everything I’ve got.”

So how did that turn out?

With that, the beleaguered commander-in-chief painted himself into a corner from which resignation offered his only escape less than a year later.

It was Hoover’s death in 1972 that led directly to Nixon’s downfall. He felt helpless and alone with Hoover gone. He no longer had access to either the Director or the Director’s bank of Personal Files on almost everybody in Washington.

For Nixon, the loss of Hoover led inevitably to the disaster of Watergate. It meant hiring a New Director — who turned out to be an unfortunate pick named L. Patrick Gray, who squealed like a pig in hot oil the first time Nixon leaned on him. Gray panicked and fingered White House Counsel John Dean, who refused to take the rap and rolled over, instead, on Nixon, who was trapped like a rat by Dean’s relentless, vengeful testimony and went all to pieces right in front of our eyes on TV.

It is not new to have a President act in shameful ways.

The opinions in this blog are those of Tom Knuppel

Corporate Deserters ?

In the next few weeks, the Walgreens drug store chain may decide to pick up their corporation from its Illinois roots and head off to another country and set up headquarters. President Obama referred to them as corporate deserters? Are they?

Walgreens is considering a merger with Alliance-Boots, a company from Switzerland, after they purchased 45% in it. They would then consider moving their headquarters to the low-taxed country and still maintain their present operations in the United States.

This is called “inversion” and 47 American corporations have done this over the past decade which reeks of no loyalty to the United States. They are only bottom line feeders.

What would this move mean to the bottom line of Walgreens?

Over the next five years, the company could save over $4 billion in taxes that would go to the United States government.  The major reason that the firm could buy a huge stake in a foreign drug chain was its profitability — $2.5 billion last year alone – most of which resulted from its U.S. operations.

This company has benefitting from the U.S. citizens for many years and now want to “take their money and run.” The “inversion” scheme generally involves profitable U.S. corporations buying smaller overseas firms in lower tax countries and then declaring that their headquarters for tax purposes is in the low tax country – even though most of its operations remain in the United States. This trick is exactly the kind of move that is intended to drive down the fraction of overall taxes that are paid from big corporations and other owners of capital and raise the share paid by working people from income earned through their labor.

And to those who excuse the actions of these companies by saying that these companies are just making a “smart” use of the American tax code there are two answers:

ü  Change the tax code to eliminate this outrageous loophole;

ü  Punish the “corporate deserters” who have built their companies with the benefit of American support and know-how and now want to abandon America so they can avoid paying their fair share of our tax burden.

How do you punish “corporate deserters”? Government can do it by cutting off access to federal subsidies and contracts. Consumers can do it – especially with companies like Walgreens – by voting with their dollars and refusing to shop there. Walgreens might be a good place to start, since the company is still contemplating whether the value of its status as an American corporation is worth the money it would forgo by paying its fair share of taxes in the United States.

The opinions in this blog belong to Tom Knuppel

      Now Starring as Robin Hood-  Illinois Governor Pat Quinn

Democrat Gov. Pat Quinn today signed into law a measure to put a non-binding referendum on the fall ballot asking voters whether millionaires should be taxed at a higher rate.

I know we are looking for avenues to put money into the coffers of the State of Illinois. This proposal is expected to raise over $1 billion and it is promised to help education. That is great, fine and dandy.

Three thoughts that come to mind on this law. A non-binding referendum is diddly-squat. Michael Madigan wanted to propose this as a constitutional amendment but couldn’t muster the votes. There probably was a reason for that.

I have heard this mantra from several former governors that the money is going to education. The lottery certainly failed to find its way into that realm after it was promised.

There is a final thought. This referendum is expected to drive up the number of Democratic voters in the election which is likely to help Quinn, if that is a fact.

Source: Illinois Times

The opinions in this blog belong to Tom Knuppel

     National Security is Threated By Not Filling Ambassadorships

Currently, more than 40 U.S. embassies around the world are without ambassadors, threatening national security, according to Seattle  Times guest columnists Claudia Kennedy and Stephen A. Cheney.

National security should never be a partisan issue. During our years of service, we worked with diplomats appointed by Democratic and Republican presidents. The Senate has gone away from traditional cooperation along party lines and is holding up the confirmations of multiple nominees that are well qualified.

Recently, Democrats and Republicans have traded charges and countercharges about the long delays in confirming ambassadors. But there is no doubt that the problem stems from a polarized and broken Senate confirmation system. Many of the nominees for ambassador positions are career diplomats as opposed to political appointees. A start to dislodging the logjam would be to confirm those appointments quickly. That isn’t to say, of course, that the Senate shouldn’t move to confirm all of the nominees. Presidents of both parties have always appointed a mix of career foreign service personnel and political supporters to ambassadorships. But starting with the career diplomats might get things moving.

As Republicans and Democrats have said over the years, political differences end at our shores. It is time for Senate Republicans and Democrats alike to prove that these are more than empty words. It is time for them to revisit the oath of office they took when they were sworn in, and to faithfully discharge the duties of their office. It is time for them to approve our ambassadors and restore the stature of our foreign missions.

The opinions in this blog are those of Tom Knuppel

          The United States: Forgetting What History Can Teach Us

Think back to your U. S. History class and think about what you learn about the Sedition Act. I think you just smiled and told me you don’t remember anything about it or just that you know it deals with espionage. So let’s review what the Sedition Act involves.

“An act for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States.” Approved July 14, 1798. Wikipedia lists it as:

SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled. That if any persons shall unlawfully combine or conspire together, with intent to oppose any measure or measures of the government of the United States, which are or shall be directed by proper authority, or to impede the operation of any law of the United States, or to intimidate or prevent any person holding a place or office in or under the government of the United States, from undertaking, performing, or executing his trust or duty: and if any person or persons, with intent as aforesaid, shall counsel, advise, or attempt to procure any insurrection, riot, unlawful assembly, or combination, whether such conspiracy, threatening, counsel, advice, or attempt shall have the proposed effect or not, he or they shall be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanour, and on conviction before any court of the United States having jurisdiction thereof, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, and by imprisonment during a term of not less than six months, nor exceeding five years; and further, at the discretion of the court, may be holden to find sureties for his good behaviour, in such sum, and for such time, as the said court may direct.

SECT. 2. And be it further enacted, That if any person shall write, print, utter, or publish, or shall cause or procure to be written, printed, uttered, or published, or shall knowingly and willingly assist or aid in writing, printing, uttering, or publishing any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, or either House of the Congress of the United States, or the President of the United States, with intent to defame the said government, or either House of the said Congress, or the said President, or to bring them, or either of them, into contempt or disrepute; or to excite against them, or either or any of them, the hatred of the good people of the United States, or to stir up sedition within the United States; or to excite any unlawful combinations therein, for opposing or resisting any law of the United States, or any act of the President of the United States, done in pursuance of any such law, or of the powers in him vested by the Constitution of the United States; or to resist, oppose, or defeat any such law or act; or to aid, encourage or abet any hostile designs of any foreign nation against the United States, their people or government, then such person, being thereof convicted before any court of the United States having jurisdiction thereof, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, and by imprisonment not exceeding two years.

SECT. 3. And be it further enacted and declared, That if any person shall be prosecuted under this act for the writing or publishing any libel aforesaid, it shall be lawful for the defendant, upon the trial of the cause, to give in evidence in his defence, the truth of the matter contained in the publication charged as a libel. And the jury who shall try the cause shall have a right to determine the law and the fact, under the direction of the court, as in other cases.

SECT. 4. And be it further enacted, That this act shall continue and be in force until the third day of March, one thousand eight hundred and one, and no longer: Provided, That the expiration of the act shall not prevent or defeat a prosecution and punishment of any offence against the law, during the time it shall be in force.

We just passed the 216^th anniversary year of this Act. With any law, rule or act, they are there to improve the country and many expect it to change the spectrum of the country. But let’s face it, we have learned NOTHING.

The History Channel has been providing stories dealing with the Sedition Act all week.

The story begins with the prosecution of Samuel Jordan Cabell, an event that prompted Thomas Jefferson to set down on paper the principles of nullification in the Kentucky Resolutions. Cabell was a congressman representing Thomas Jefferson’s home district in Virginia. In May 1797, a grand jury returned a presentment of libel against Cabell (incidentally, as a delegate to the Virginia ratifying convention, Cabell voted against ratification of the Constitution). What was Cabell’s crime? He sent a letter to constituents criticizing the administration of John Adams. That’s it. That was the sum of his seditious plot. A letter to voters in his district calling out some act of the president with which he disagreed. For this effrontery to his authority, John Adams charged Cabell with “endeavoring at a time of real public danger to disseminate unfounded calumnies against the happy government of the United States.”

Are you paying attention? Does this sound like today? This could have happened last week according to the way it is written. It’s probably because we live in a time when the three branches of the federal government have managed to place themselves above reproach and above the law.

To help them reach that lofty perch, public schools and media have trained generations of Americans to believe that we must look to Washington, D.C. for our salvation. If the federal government ignores the plea, we must meekly accept the decision without question, especially when the Supreme Court rules that the federal position is now “settled law.”

This is not new as it has been going on for over 200 years.

Remember, “we the people”

Transgenders Create New Questions

What decides a person’s gender? For that matter, who gets to decide? This, along with a few other problems, have emerged for college officials as a growing number of transgender students are attempting to force the question.

A growing number of openly transgender students have forced schools around the country to address questions so basic that they were rarely asked just a few years ago, much less answered: What defines a person’s gender, and who gets to decide?

There was an article that caught my attention as I was reading the Atlanta Journal Constitution on Friday, July 25^th. It shared some of the issues colleges are facing that didn’t exist a few years ago.

In Oregon, there is a small Christian College that has told a student that was born anatomically a female, and calls himself a man, that he/she can’t be housed in the male dorm and must be in the female dorm. He has legally had his sex changed by the State. With the refusal, the college did offer him a single-person apartment on campus, or off-campus housing.

Another case involves a student in California that was settled when the federal government adopted the position that under Title IX, they barred sex-abuse discrimination and the school must accept a student’s gender self-identification.

In Maine, the highest court ruled that state law requires the same thing but other courts have disagreed. In 2009, the courts ruled a school could ban a transgender woman from using the women’s restroom because the intent was to protect the privacy of other women not to discriminate.

It soon will be time to send college students back to their dorms for another year. How do you think colleges should handle this delicate issue?

The opinions in this blog belong to Tom Knuppel