Something has been gnawing at me since I attended Pete Visclosky’s Town Hall in Chesterton Indiana. Pete represents District 1 (Indiana’s First Congressional District which includes Lake, Porter, Jasper, Newton and Benton Counties). He has been in office since 1984, serving 12 terms. (26 years come 2010). His daddy was a politician and I guess the dog doesn’t stray too far from the leash so Pete decided he wanted a similar career. Considering that ‘serving’ the people as a congressman is a SERVICE to the people and not a career, this brings up the topic of Term Limits. No politician should be making ‘serving the people’ a career as that concept by itself fosters decisions being made by politicians that center on holding onto the career/ jobs rather than listening to and carrying out the wishes of the people they ‘serve’. The priorities are backwards and the career politician’s decisions are influenced by his Party affiliation, big business (read $$ for campaigns), lobby groups (see $$ again). On the list of the pork barrel / earmarks, Visclosky ranks 8th, out of 435. His ‘war chest’ for re-election is much larger than any challenger. Sing it with me, “Money makes politicians go-round, politicians go-round, politicians go-round.”
See: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/earmarks.php?cid=N00003813
“Pete Visclosky sponsored or co-sponsored 68 earmarks totaling $113,653,000 in fiscal year 2008 ranking 8th out of 435 representatives. To learn more about earmarks, visit Big Picture – Earmarks”
Pete Visclosky comes back to Northwest Indiana bribing and intimidating us with our own money and we are supposed to thank him for his hard work.
Back to Chesterton and the Town Hall. This town hall meeting was setup by the Democratic Alliance of Northwest Indiana (DANI). Evidently that same group is in tight with the paid to play protest groups such as MoveOn, Acorn, AFL-CIO, SEIU and the list goes on. Now how is it that the Democratic Party, not only in Indiana, but across the nation is working closely with leftist socialist groups? The paid-to-protest groups come out to support the Dems at every turn. The Indiana Tea Party Patriots, ordinary citizens who are nothing more than concerned citizens attended and outnumbered the paid protestors approx. 4 to 1.
Read here for the giddy blow by blow as told by Don Briggs who engineered the town hall event and called for Acorn, MoveOn and all of their ilk to attend and support socialism.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/8/4/761608/-Tea-Baggers-FAIL-to-disrupt-Health-Care-meeting,-lessons-shared.
#8 “The DANI executive board consulted closely with Visclosky’s office to draft the Public Service Announcement and to set up ground rules for the meeting. So, we opened the meeting by laying down the ground rules.”
- And then in opening remarks, I blew the Tea Baggers’ cover. Roughly, it went like this:
“Meetings like this one continue a democratic tradition more than 2500 years old, that of the ancient Greek “Ecclesia.” The term means “those called out”—called out to discuss and decide civic matters, and to defend their ancient Greek city-states, to defend their democracy. And you all were called out by notices in the local papers, radio stations, by e-mail and internet, to discuss Health Care Reform and Clean Energy with our Representative tonight.
So know this: efforts to disrupt and thwart public discourse on civic matters are profoundly anti-democratic. But, that’s an obstacle we face tonight. It’s public knowledge that groups known as Tea Baggers intend to disrupt and thwart the public discourse on Health Care Reform in meetings like this during this month’s Congressional Recess. They want Democracy to fail. So, let’s face this obstacle together.
The Tea Baggers’ instructions are also public knowledge. If some people stand up, shout out and sit down; if some try to rattle us and the Congressman; if some pretend numeric superiority; if some try to stifle intelligent debate; then we can compare that behavior to the Tea Baggers’ instructions and draw our own conclusions.”
So, the self appointed dragon slayer of the people, the flealess leader Don Briggs of DANI, collaborated with VISCLOSKY in preparing his speech given to the attendees and approved calling the attendees ‘Tea Baggers’. One would think that Pete would tell Biggs, Mano e Mano, that the use of Tea Bagger is juvenile, completely disrespectful and offensive, especially at a town hall meeting with patriots in ages ranging from toddler to 90+ years old. You would think that Pete Visclosky and his office, during this co-writing of this town hall introduction would have injected some adult stylized class and dignity and not taken low class shots at their constituents. Such was not the case. Pete Visclosky and his representatives APPROVED the use of the phrase Tea Bagger and from what I hear (I was outside), Pete smirked when the word was used, showed no objection nor did he stand and correct Bigg’s classless attack on the people of Northwest Indiana.
Who does this? Well, a politician so embedded with special interest groups, bribery tactics, and lobbyists does this as he has no need to respect and serve the people. The World According to Pete says that the people did not elect him, money elected him and Acorn, SEIU, Unions groups, lobby groups, THOSE are the money people and those are the people he caters to.
Go here to Acorn’s Report Card pdf where they rank Visclosky according to how well he has voted in favor of Acorn.
http://www.acorn.org/fileadmin/Centers/Press/Report/ACORN_Scorecard-ltr.pdf.
See Visclosky’s 89% approval rating with Acorn. He voted the way they wanted him to vote. This is just one example of one group that Pete caters to. If we could get him to actually tell us the truth, we would know much more regarding who is pulling his strings.
What are we doing sending a huge chuck of our money to DC only to have to beg to get it back? The State of Indiana wants us to think they are doing a great job when they ‘win’ some of our money back via a stimulus, grant or some other project funding? How about just keeping our money in the State in the first place? That would greatly reduce our dependence on ‘begging for Federal help’.
The Northwest Indiana Republican Party is in sedentary collusion with Visclosky and the Democratic Party.
I’m beginning to think that the Republican Party, at least when it comes to the 1st District of Indiana is in collusion with the Democratic Party. This may stand as the reason for the repubs holding up Leyva as their man. They knew from the get-go back in 2006 when they endorsed him he wouldn’t win and couldn’t win the 1st Congressional seat in Indiana. (Mark has actually stumped as a Republican Party candidate for House, Indiana, 1st District, since 2002.)
Do you keep running the same horse if he loses big every time, comes in last in every race? No, you don’t. Who does that? People who don’t want to win do that. They will put a loser in the race. Hello, this is what the Republican Party has done to northwest Indiana. They have abandoned us and are working with Visclosky and the Democratic Party. They are in sedentary collusion with the Democratic Party. With that knowledge we can draw the parallel between the socialist bent of the Democratic Party, the Big Government mentality of the Dems and equate the Republican Party as being of the same mindset. As long as Visclosky brings in the pork and funds the Republican’s special interests the GOP is more than happy to have Visclosky carry the water. Nowhere in this equation do The People enter into the equation and this is a serious matter because it leaves the citizens of northwest Indiana without representation from either party.
If you disagree, show me the difference. Show me the Republican Party in NWI that does NOT want the government to control every movement of the citizens, all the while growing government while ignoring the Constitution.
Note: Don’t forget to make travel plans for the 9-12 Project. Cars, charter coaches and caravans are leaving northwest Indiana for the March on Washington, DC. Check the web for details from any number of sites.
