Our senator and the VA mess

Our Senator, Patty Murray, has been in the senate for 23 or so years. Following is a copy of an email I sent to her official contact site on May 21, 2014.

Dear Senator Murray,

What started out for me as a simple question for you has, after visiting your official web site, turned into more than one question.

How is it that a senator of 23 years who purportedly is a staunch supporter of our veterans didn’t know about the horrendous treatment going on in the VA hospitals? Surely in talking to veterans (you do talk to them don’t you?) you would have run across more than one horror story of the treatment the VA has been providing? As a senior member of the Veteran’s Affairs Committee I would have expected that you would never allow such a situation to ever develop in the first place.

And after visiting your official website I find the first item on your list is protecting a woman’s right to an abortion from the evil GOP? A right you say is somewhere embedded in the Constitution of the United States? I have yet to find it there. I find your stance on this and your willingness to abort nearly three million babies a year a moral disgrace on your part. This alone should be sufficient for the moral people of your district to insure you don’t return to office after the next election. Add to this that the item is number one on your list despite the current uproar over veteran’s medical benefits and the outrage increases.

Checking the next item on your official website I find a map of the state of Washington. Kudos to you and your staff as this appears to be the only thing you got right. And thanks for the 6 new public busses. I’ll just mention that I believe $333,333.00 is a bit steep for a bus but hey, it’s not like it’s your money.

Moving on to item number three I find you are sponsoring legislation to help our vets. Is legislation really necessary? It would seem some common sense and justifiable public outrage, not at the service our vets are getting, but at those who are supposed to be providing it would be in order. I get the impression it’s easier in Washington to hide behind more legislation than it is to hold people accountable for their performance. Is that what the people of Washington state sent you to DC to do, add to the already unmanageable mountain of legislation? Or were there no laws or contracts broken in the outrageous service being provided to vets?

Which brings us to item number four, the saving of a cherished local landmark and critical tours attraction, the Green Mountain Lookout. Since my wife and I really enjoy the outdoor opportunities available in Washington State I thought this might be an opportunity for some small amount of praise but I quickly came upon this Seattlepi article, dated April 15, 2014:

“The four-mile trail up to the Green Mountain Lookout is reached by the Suiattle River Road, northeast of Darrington. The upper reaches of the road were washed out in places by a great late fall storm in 2003.
The Suiattle Road is gated at the 11-mile point. From there, it is six miles to a turnoff to the road up lower slopes of Green Mountain, and four miles from the turnoff to the trailhead.
Hence, getting to the Green Mountain Lookout is — at the moment — a 28-mile round trip. The Suiattle Road blockage also lengthens access to several famous trails into the Glacier Peak Wilderness, from fabled Image Lake to the southern end of the Ptarmigan Traverse.
A lawsuit by the extreme wing of Washington’s environmental movement blocked initial plans to rebuild the road, and forced extensive environmental studies.”

It would seem this issue has been going on for 11 years. But thanks for saving the lookout. Perhaps you could look into the extreme environmental groups in the state that not only cut off recreational access to our state but also kill jobs in an effort to stop ‘global climate change’, an item I found curiously missing from your web site.

And the last item on your list, number five, deals with another piece of legislation to curb harassment and bullying at colleges and universities across the country. Is this a federal responsibility now, stopping bullying and harassment? After reading of the issues at the colleges and universities across this nation in regard to commencement speakers I would strongly suggest you let the colleges deal with this. It seems the students and faculty are fully aware of what bullying and harassment are and how to use them to prevent being subjected to a diversity of opinion.

Afraid of another war?

The US has a former marine wasting away in a Mexican prison because of a lousy highway design and, evidently, the lack of a turn-around point on I-5 South before entering the lands of our good neighbor to the south. Complicating the issue is that this former marine evidently had three firearms in his vehicle at the time which resulted in his arrest and imprisonment by the Mexican authorities. Unwilling to allow him the courtesy of turning around and leaving these good neighbors decided to put him in a Mexican federal prison to await trial which is estimated to take as long as two years. Now this is bad enough, but now add the spinelessness of our current administration in not demanding this man's immediate return to the US unharmed and we welcome you to Obamaworld. Just another step in the outrageous, dishonesty of our current administration and its minions, Eric Holder and John Kerry, two of the most useless men ever to grace the earth with their presence. If the Mexican authorities were concerned about gun running they would have arrested Holder long ago (although I suspect he stays well North of the border). And if our administration is concerned about starting a shooting war with Mexico I would submit that it has already started and looks a lot like the war on drugs. And while I know few if anyone reads this irregular, often forgotten blog, I feel better for having typed this out.

Leading from behind...

Our President has left for yet another vacation. And the market dropped another 400 points. Is this his idea of 'leading from behind'?

Or is that a metaphor for where he gets his ideas about leadership?


Never have I seen or read about a President as incompetent and totally lost as this man we have now.

Pray for him.

From the error in the White House

"If they show me a serious plan, I'm ready to move, even if it requires some tough sacrifices on my part," Obama said.

What might those sacrifices be? Perhaps only golfing a couple of times a week?

This man is a total waste of time and effort. He doesn't have a clue and will lie about anything to cover himself. That the American people are stupid enough to elect him in the first place does not bode well for our country.

The more things change....

the more they stay the same.

Turned on the TV to check the movies. Rosebud is on. See if this synopsis sounds at all familiar...

In a seemingly bold move, a Palestinian terrorist group kidnaps five daughters from a yacht, and then demand that film clips be shown on major European television stations. It is up to one undercover agent to hunt them down and save the day.

The movie was made in 1975. The only things that change are the actors - Peter O'Toole and Richard Attenborough.

It makes no difference...

...which party is in the power. I think they are all corrupted and should be replaced. Vote out all incumbents for at least two cycles and then perhaps we can make some progress in this nation.

Harvard and Yale

Now here is a sad story for those of you who went far enough in school to actually read and comprehend. Harvard and Yale have taken some serious hits to their endowments. Harvard's endowment is down 30% to a mere $26 billion. No, that's not a typo - that's billion with a B. How do they expect to run a school with only that much money sitting off to the side to be used to supplement their tuition fees? Yale is down to a mere $16 billion. My heart bleeds for them and the bleeding heart liberals that have taken them over.

You can read the sad, full story here.