Congress Breaks Billion Dollar Promise

Several nonprofit organizations including World Vision and the ONE Campaign lobbied Congress in 2006 for a billion dollar assistance package to combat AIDS and other diseases. Congress failed to pass the item in December, and now the 110th Congress is signaling it is unwilling to commit the funds.

Should Congress Pay?
Many would argue that we need to fund social programs here to help America's poor, or that the money could be used to better secure our borders, or troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. True, the money is ours, and we do have our own needs. Congress works with a very limited budget, and while America literally could fund the End of World Poverty, it simply isn't a feasible reality considering the thousands of things that also need funding.

America's Reputation - The Government and The People
Regardless of all the reasons why we need to keep the billion dollars for ourselves, Congress should and must approve the extra spending. It should do so because it promised to, and because secular and Christian people alike believe it is the right thing to do. If human beings are the most important thing on this planet, and their health and well being is of importance to the rest of us, we should give the money. A very selfish reason would be that by giving such monies America's image is improved. Let's face it, our foreign policy needs all the help it can get to help rebuild an image of America as the benevolent super power. But, a billion dollars is only going to be a drop in the bucket. We need to do more humanitarian work around the globe.

Congress is not the Answer, but Does Play a Significant Role
World Vision and the ONE Campaign could just as easily get a billion dollars from Bill Gates or from pledges made all over Hollywood from some of the wealthiest people in America who lend their voices and music to the ONE Campaign. They certainly could get the publicity they need. Why are they asking Congress for the money? Because Congress promised it.

Foundations of American Values
America should be known for keeping its promises. Christians should be known for keeping their Commission to follow after the ministry of evangelism AND service to the whole world. Congress is the coercive force in America. It should not be the sole giver of funds to relief efforts. It creates the impression that the only way poor peoples of the earth are going to get money from Americans is to lobby their government to raise taxes and squeeze generosity out of the American people.

Religious Convictions
That is not the kind of image we want other nations to have of us. If Congress forces us to give 1 Billion dollars, we should match the funds ten fold. The Bill Gates, and Bono's of America, the soccer moms/dads, the college students of America should all give towards relief around the world. Whether postmodern in our beliefs or responding to Christ's death on the cross we ALL must help the poor and needy of this world. Together as citizens we should tell Congress to keep its word - for no other reason than that Americans do not break our promises.

Help. Donate, now.
http://donate.wvus.org/OA_HTML/xxwvibeCCtpSctDspRte.jsp?section=10048&section=10024
The Most Effective Way to Tell Your Congressman What You Think
http://www.weakleyreport.com/Write_Your_Representative.html
Tell your Congressman
http://action.one.org/dia/organizationsONE/one/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=1297&t=OneColumn.dwt

President Calderon's struggle to fight a growing black market

Mexico's President Felipe Calderon has had enough problems assuming the office of president after winning an election with only 0.58% more of the vote than his PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolution) rival Andrés Manuel López Obrador. (see below for some historical background notes)

Now, amidst the backdrop of history and troubled current events Calderon is waging war on corruption and the source of its strength, the drug cartels. While he is not above corruption accusations himself Calderon faces significant challenges to combating the control of drug cartel leaders in Mexico. He has sent 17,000 soldiers to Tijuana, across the U.S.-Mexico border from San Diego, California; Calderon's home state of Michoacan; and the southern state of Guerrero, which includes the Pacific resort city of Acapulco.

Fifteen men were extradited to the United States on Friday January 19, 2007, four of which are former leaders of major drug cartels, and eleven of which are all wanted for various murder, drug trafficking, kidnapping, and sex crimes committed in the United States.

The 1978 U.S.-Mexico Treaty of Extradition calls for the extradition of persons if the other country's "laws would provide for the punishment of such an offense committed in similar circumstances." Note that the wording does not say, "provide similar punishment for committed offenses." As recently as 2002 Mexican laws have been changed to consider the death penalty and even life in prison to be cruel and unusual punishments. However, Mexico must logically have some kind of punishment for murder and drug trafficking. Therefore, the mere existence of any punishment would mean the necessary extradition of persons to the U.S. according to the wording of Article 1 of the 1978 treaty.

From the Associated Press in Mexico City
"Calderon promised to increase the flow of extraditions of drug traffickers to the United States, and to do his share to fight the organized crime that has infiltrated all aspects of Mexican society, including nearly every level of law enforcement and government." - CNN.com

Calderon was sworn into office under a great deal of controversy. A major theme of his campaign was the importance of the rule of law in Mexico. It is my firm belief that the behavior of Mexico's lower legislative house, the Chamber of Deputies, at the inauguration was unbecoming of the way democratic representatives are supposed to behave, and furthermore signals a strong desire of many politicians to protect the status quo. Calderon's inauguration ceremony was drowned out by the riotous behavior of the mob-like Chamber of Deputies.

Many sources have shown Mexico's lawlessness, but one movie in particular depicts just how terrible circumstances have become. Tony Scott's Man on Fire starring Denzel Washington is based upon a true story and in many ways depicts the truth about how corruption has gripped life in Mexico. Families fear for their children as kidnapping has become a lucrative industry.

For the sake of everyone in Mexico and for American families that have yet to be hurt by a failed extradition treaty, and growing tension in U.S.-Mexico relations I hope President Calderon can find the numbers of men necessary to fight the powerful forces of corruption which have pervaded all levels of society in Mexico, and bring the rule of law to Mexico in a way it has never been experienced. Maybe then the benefits of democratic government and fair markets will be among the promises of citizenship in America's southern neighbor.

Historical Background Notes:
Calderon is the second president to be elected from the National Action Party (PAN) after democratic reforms of the early 1990's allowed for such an opportunity. President Ernesto Zedillo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) initiated the more democratic measures which led to opposition party control of the Congress of the Union in 1997. Three years after the historic changes in Congress Vicente Fox became Mexico's first non-PRI president in 72 years. Mexico's government has historically been dominated by the executive branch ever since the overthrow of Porfirio Díaz's dictatorship in 1910. Following the Revolution leaders were overthrown and assassinated during a difficult period of Civil War. In 1928 Plutarco Elías Calles founded the National Revolutionary Party which was later renamed PRI.

Sources
http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0506/06/ldt.01.html
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0328107/
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/01/20/mexico.extraditions.ap/index.html?eref=rss_world
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/01/05/PYSK.calderon/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felipe_Calder%C3%B3n#_note-10
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%B3pez_Obrador
http://www.expedia.com/pub/agent.dll

MSNBC Meet the Press 12-24-06

MSNBC Video

This discussion is very important. Plain and simple, you need to watch it. I am so glad to have been in classes at Palm Beach Atlantic University that focus on issues surrounding this topic.

My favorite theme of this discussion is the issue of "civility" as Rick Warren discusses, and I am glad a Christian was given the opportunity to address it, and took the opportunity to do so.

American Empire: The colony of Bolivia

Bolivian miners fought to the death the week of October 6, 2006 over access to that nation’s tin mines. These tin mines have been Bolivia’s single most important resource in the last 100 years. Therefore the nation’s economy has ebbed and flowed with the world price of tin. The miners are obviously fighting for the chance to stay alive with what little income they can get.

I encourage you to read the following information, it will certainly open your eyes to what the underlying problems are in that nation and region.

COMIBOL and the Triangular Plan: A case study in dependency

Bolivia - history

Country Studies - Bolivia

Union Federation of Bolivian Mine Workers

Mark Foley

Who has not read the ABC releases of he instant messages he wrote to the then 16 year old boy? What Mark Foley did is disgusting and he deserves to be held accountable to the law. Yet I must admit that I struggle to say that he needs forgiveness, and he needs the help of his family to become a better person. Scandal does not help anyone, but rebuilding someone's life does. [I edited this comment because I thought about how I would want to be treated in his case]

What gets me about the whole thing is that Congress wants Foley held accountable but screams bloody murder when William Jefferson (not Clinton) had charges brought against him for money that was found in his freezer.

I was in Borders Bookstore last weekend and saw how many books there were about the Bush Adminsitration, how he and others in the administration have lied to the country, and then I saw other books like Bankrupt that detail how morally and intelligently inept the Democratic Party is. My question is, "where are all the books detailing how morally bankrupt the party leadership is on both sides of the aisle?" Who is writing the New York Times bestseller about how we can't trust any of the elected officials? When are we going to realize that the party system as we know it is destroying this nation? WHEN?

Someone has to innitiate a process of change. Either two candidates vow to run their campaigns in a clean manner, or the press starts publishing articles on the full history and policy plans the candidates have, or we need to demand it ourselves. Something needs to change, or this country isn't going to be able to survive for much longer. Domestically we are corrupted, and internationally we are an empire. No nation has ever survived long with internal corruption and a far reaching empire.

Write your local paper and congressman. Tell them you want your country back and lay out the steps they need to take.

Israel overreacting?

As I watch the news about Israel and Lebanon I wonder who is really to blame for the conflict. We all know that Iran is supporting terrorism against Israel, and that Syria and Iran are allied in this effort. But is Israel really overreacting, or is there something more to this? I would speculate that Israel recognizes America's weakened position, and feeling the effects of our poor ability to maintain an effective State Department, they are going out and acting on their own. We haven't seen this kind of action by Israel since the Six Days War.

I am not trying to knock Condi Rice, I know she is capable and is trying to change the State Department - it’s a worthy task but can’t be done by only the Secretary of State. The problem is that we have a complete idiot for president. He has no creativity, or foresight. Yet it’s not just his fault, previous presidents have been inept at evaluating government bureaucracy and streamlining it to perform like a well oiled machine. The most obvious example of this failure by our presidents is the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. It seems that every time a president doesn’t understand the bureaucracy he creates another arm of it that makes sense to him. I have a suspicion that the National Security Agency was created to do the job a president wanted, but now we live with it, and a host of other intelligence agencies, all not cooperating and sharing information so that we have events like September 11^th.

Poor Israel is caught in our own nation’s demise. With us, so too goes the Jewish State. I don’t blame them for bombing the hell out of those terrorist groups. Do you think for one second that if the Ku Klux Klan was as well armed as Hezbollah and occupying the southern states along the Mexican border that Mexico would not one day attack American cities in the southwest in order to protect themselves from the racists to their north? Israel does have a right to defend itself, yes, but President Bush does not have the right to use that statement as a crutch for his failure to do something with our foreign policy bureaucracy. Just because you have the oil and defense industries in your pockets does not mean that you can blindly ignore the international community and destroy the career of one of America’s celebrated commanders. Colin Powell was sacrificed on the alter of presidential ego, but at the same time, we are now beginning to see that Bush has been sending our diplomatic abilities and tradition to the slaughter houses ever since he got into office. Idiots like him believe that America’s military and economic strength are unchallengeable, but yet look what happened. You ignore our diplomatic strength, our tradition of being rational people who think first and shoot later, and the whole world goes kaput and now our military and economic strength are nothing to speak of. Iran and North Korea know it and are running all over us like a tennis court.

After I run for Congress I am going to run for President as soon as I turn 35 years old – if we still have a United States by then!

I Need to Run for Congress

My government has failed me! I am governed by ignorant, corrupt, and uncreative morons. We have a State Department and intelligence community that can’t speak the languages of the world. We can’t maintain relations with countries to prevent problems like the current Middle East crisis between Israel and Lebanon-Syria-Iran. Iran and North Korea are playing the United States like a ping pong game. The most the U.S. can deliver are words. Our national borders are broken, millions of illegal aliens are abusing the social services granted to American citizens, and billions of dollars leave the country every year for Mexico. America is Mexico’s #1 source of revenue – out performing their oil market. Not to mention we have untold numbers of sleeper agents in the U.S. and all I need to know that is common sense. What else to you expect from 20 plus years of no border security and ineffectual customs, border, and FBI agents? What is the root cause of this crippling position? Why are we under attack from all directions, including Chinese espionage and a national debt now almost 9 trillion dollars? I know it like a nursery rhyme, except this one is dark and R-rated. Corruption. The pursuit of power by the wealthy, God bless their souls to save them from eternal damnation. Their ambition makes them blind to the real needs of Americans. They have failed to be responsible governors of this country and it is time for them all to go! I fear that we may not be around for another 20 years unless something happens in this nation and the people wake up, stop playing their stupid game of party politics and start electing average Americans to represent us. We need economists and certified public accountants to be elected to turn our fiscal troubles around. We need college professors and high school teachers to get elected to turn our public schools around. We need small business owners to get elected to create an atmosphere for competition and growth. Above all we need people who will be honest and use common sense and go after the facts and pursue solutions and damn the consequences to their precious political career.

I am dead serious about running for Congress. If you are serious about getting people elected who have what it takes to run a country, I need your help. The system is exclusive, and I am not one to back down to hat kind of challenge. I’ll wage war against it with the kind of tactics I know will work, the kind no one has ever thought to use before… a direct appeal to the population, though distracted by the process, know there has to be something better. I know why Congress has had low approval ratings for over a decade, it’s because people are sick and tired of getting idiots who they wouldn’t trust in a room alone with their checkbook. Aren’t you sick of it? Is America finally tired of this corruption yet? Are you ready to save the country before it bleeds to death? Then let’s find some people to run for congress and take back our country damn it!

Why "We the People" elect Senators

I do not believe Senators should be elected by the people. Why, you might ask me do I support an idea that seems so contrary to democratic principles - ideas which I supposedly support on WeakleyReport.com?

Because the U.S. Senate was not designed to be a branch of Congress that was directly responsible to the public. The people are prone to be emotional and the Congressmen are prone to do anything not to upset their electorate. Take for example the Immigration issue currently tearing this nation apart. Lets say a bill is proposed in the House of Representatives that says we must grant citizenship to all illegal aliens currently in the country, and the registration process is due to begin 6 months after the signing of the bill, and continue on for a total 4 months.

Now, I have issue with this, and I hope everyone else does too, because you can see that every illegal is going to do his best to get to America sometime in the next 10 months. It will be chaos at the border! Well, in our scenario the House of Representatives is swamped with letters and emails and public demonstrations by those who support it. While they are not responsible to these people, because many of them do not vote, the Congress still fears the mob surrounding the capitol building. So the House votes it in. Now, if we had a Senate which was elected by the state legislatures as it was originally designed, we could rest assured that this group of 100 men and women will deliberate their very best on a course of action.

Now let me tell you why I think we would have a different class of people serving in the Senate if they were appointed by the legislatures and not popularly elected. We are somewhat familiar with the judicial appointments Bush made, and how much of a hot button issue the nominations were. Well, I can tell you with absolute certainly that the nomination and appointment process of Senators would come nothing close to being that controversial. And that means we would have, on average, qualified and intelligent people serving in the Senate.

Local legislators do not run their elections on who they plan to vote for to be a Senator. Also, the appointment of only two people to a body of 100 is of no major significance. While Presidential elections never really revolve around Supreme Court appointments, the national controversy and public pressure comes around only because it is an appointment to a body of nine members. Two votes out of 100 is nothing, and and so the issue of Senatorial appointments would never be an issue in local elections, not really would the time come when the appointments raised much public interest. If anything the people of the states would demand professional, qualified, and educated people to serve. I cant imagine people writing their state legislators demanding that a billionaire from the state's largest agricultural company be appointed to the Senate, yet we elect people just like that every six years, and we elect them without term limits.

There is another issue: I think the terms to which people are elected to the Senate would change, mostly because there are term limits on the State legislatures, and a new group means a chance for new Senators. But also, you remove somewhat the public perception of a Senator, or at least you remove the nagging problem of people voting for someone simply because they know his name - a real travesty in a democratic nation. And I think that spells out the true purpose for why we used to have a senate that was elected by the State legislatures...

The public is often times too ill-informed. We are emotional, our moods change with the winds. That is why the Senate was removed from the people by one degree and each given a six year term. They enjoyed some autonomy, a little bit of what the Supreme Court members enjoy, having life terms. ... Oh, and just in case your wondering why the President enjoys so much power, and appears to control the more powerful branch of government... Its because of public opinion, and the fact that for some reason the popular will of the people has had some bearing on how the Electoral College makes its decisions on who should be president. Our constitution would work if we just allowed it to.

"You are Here"

A Washington Times article today detailed the disturbing results of surveys conducted with 510 persons from Dec-Jan of this academic year. Geographical illiteracy is becoming a major problem in the United States.

It is very sad to see the state of the education young people are getting. Being a product of the public education system in Florida I know all too well how poor education is. I practically taught myself throughout high school.

The new initiative being launched by National Geographic is called “My Wonderful World” and it is meant to help teachers educate students about geography. National Geographic is coming together with 4-H, American Federation of Teachers, Asia Society, Association of American Geographers, National Basketball Association, National Council of La Raza, National PTA and the Smithsonian Institution and hopes to enlist businesses, all to help promote this important goal of teaching America’s children about geography.

WeakleyReport.com is thrilled to announce that (well I am thrilled to announce) that I will be helping to promote these important educational goals on my website and in my local community. I encourage you to do the same. I will be launching a new segment of my website, since this story has given me the kick in the pants to actually get motivated to doing it. The section of my website will be devoted to education, and its importance to a strong democratic society. If we do not know our history, we do not know our freedoms, and we will loose them.

I appreciate your support of WeakleyReport.com and your support for “My Wonderful World.” Help educate America!