Fall Election Wrap Up
Part One
People like Rush Limbaugh love to point at the election results and say, “Wow, we won.” However; we at Sutter Lies just wonder if we really won? Let us look at the figures.
With regards to National offices (i.e., House of Representatives and United States Senate), 87 % of incumbents were re-elected. Individuals like Harry Reid of Nevada and our very own U.S. Senator, Barbara Boxer were re-elected (thanks to the strong union get out the vote efforts), although it cost those people millions of dollars to run very expensive television and radio ads. One incumbent who spent very little money for re-election is Representative Charles Rangel, whose district in New York includes everything north of 115th Street was re-elected; receiving over 80% of the vote. Why: Because Rangel brings home the bacon, pork, ear-marks or just plain old bribe money. This re-election happened while he was facing corruption charges. It just goes to show what type of people voted for the highly esteemed Mr. Rangel. Just before we started this piece, Rangel was found guilty of corruption charges by the Congressional Ethics Committee in December 2010. We imagine the 20% that did not vote for Mr. Rangel were not recipients of the "walking around" money distributed by his campaign workers.
With Rangel’s position in the House of Representatives, the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee (where all spending bills originate) and all the money Rangel has funneled into Harlem, one would hope that Borough of New York would have streets paved with gold; the neighborhoods would be clean and safe. Au contraire. A member of our group visited New York last summer and everything north of 96th Street, from the East River to the Hudson River is a wasteland. Even Astor Row is a neighborhood one does not venture into after dark. Gang graffiti on walls, raw smelly garbage in the streets and sidewalks and run down Brownstones. Just where did all the money Rangel funneled into his Congressional District go? We have our opinion, which is that the money was probably laundered through various foundations/dummy corporations and shells and funneled right back into one of Rangel’s many off shore accounts, located in the Grand Cayman Islands. These funds, according to the Congressional Ethics Committee report, was used to purchase homes Rangel owns in the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica. Although a House Ethics Committee is NOT a court of law, Rangel’s sentence is this; “Representative Rangel will receive a letter of reprimand.” According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, there are no criminal prosecutions being considered in the case of Rangel. So the only “punishment” Rangel is going to receive is to read a bunch of sentences in a letter of reprimand.
Now we are sure this letter will not be written in comic sans font, it will probably be written in a font like New Times Roman, with a couple really bad words in bold type font and maybe an italics word or two for added measure.
The United States Congress (the House of Representatives and Senate), is like a grocery store in the old Soviet Union. If you do not like the quality of the food or selection you do not have much choice. What do you do? Go to a different store. The "different" store which is still run by the Government. It is exactly the same with Congress. The Rasmussen poll, in September 2010 rated the "confidence" of the American people in Congress. The results: only 15% of Americans polled actually liked the job Congress is performing! That means 85% of the people either felt Congress was doing a bad job (55%) or had no opinion, at 30%. Congress could have a rating of ZERO. and if no one single voter/citizen liked the job Congress is performing; what choice do we have? Well, none! Yet, these same people, returned the likes of Doris Matsui, John Garamendi, Dan Lungren, Nancy Pelosi and the Queen of facelifts, Barbera Boxer.
Locally, the Yuba City Council race saw two of three incumbents re-elected. Evidently the race between Gill and Maan is a power grab which has something to do with a real life “family feud” and control of a Temple in Terra Buena, rather than a race of competing visions of how Yuba City should be governed. The three incumbents ran a rather expensive campaign, replete with huge yard signs, slick mailers, and even one “greeting card” with a voice recording urging a vote for a particular candidate. That greeting card mailer cost big bucks. The devices were made in China. We know how much those yard signs cost. Our question is this, just where did the money come from? Spending tens of thousands of dollars on a seat which pays little, if no more than $500 per month. It's not the money....it's the power and prestige of the job. A person could go around and say, "Wow, I am a member of the Yuba City Council....or "I'm the Mayor." It should be noted, none of these people ran as "Fiscal Conservatives," this observation is based upon the reams of campaign material which was culled from our mail boxes and after a quick glance graced the recycle bin. Members of our group are acquainted with one of the few print shops remaining in Yuba City/Sutter County and we know this for a fact, none of the incumbents used his shop (or gave him a chance for a bid) for the printing project. It was all money spent out of town. So next time you hear one of the re-elected incumbents opine “Shop Local” remember this, they went outside the Yuba/Sutter area for printing, mailing and campaign consultants.
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