Government Week 1

“A Government for the people, and by the people.”

September 20, 2019

By Jim Culp

For the next three to four weeks, my blog will be about our government. I’ll talk about what I feel that we do right, and what we do wrong. I am not a person with a fancy degree (or a degree at all for that matter) or a student of government. What I am is this…I am a retired soldier, a former employee of the federal government, and a Patriot.

In this first week, I will identify the first legislative body of our federal government (the House of Representatives) and identify some of their guidelines, and how I would try to change them.

I will also lay out a short suggestion for both houses that explains to the reader what I believe should be the qualifications for appointment and the terms of tenure.

The U.S. House of Representatives is the largest governing body in the federal government. It has 435 members, because states are assigned by their number of congressional districts. In comparison, an example would be California having 53 Representatives, and Montana only having one. My home state of Texas has 36 reps, but my “growing up” state of New Mexico only has three.

At the present time, the House of Representatives is composed of 235 Democrats, 199 Republicans, and one Independent. At the present time, the leader (called “Speaker”) of the House is Nancy Pelosi, a veteran congresswoman of 34 years. The House is chaired (called a “whip”) by Steny Hoyer, a veteran congressman of 38 years. In my adult life, I have seen these same people, year after year, in the same seats of government. I believe that to be a problem. I also believe it is why nothing changes.

You can research (as I have) all the “leaders” in Washington, their policies, their scandals, and their modus operandi at your leisure, but I’ve come to some conclusions that beg sharing with my readers.

Qualifications for US House of Representatives:

“Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution sets three qualifications for representatives. Each representative must: (1) be at least twenty-five years old; (2) have been a citizen of the United States for the past seven years; and (3) be (at the time of the election) an inhabitant of the state they represent. Members are not required to live in the districts they represent, but they traditionally do.^{” 1}

I would immediately work to change these qualifications. There would be no exceptions to these rules whatsoever.

A) The age range for a person to serve as a House of Representatives member would be 30 to 55.

B) The candidate would have to be a naturally born citizen of the United States.

C) The candidate must be an inhabitant of the state and have domicile in the state.

D) The candidate must have served a minimum of two years in the Armed Forces.

E) The candidate must have attained a master’s degree in Congressional Law.

“Representatives and delegates serve for two-year terms…” ²

I would immediately work to change this rule. There would be no exceptions to these rules whatsoever.

A candidate for the House of Representatives would be Four Years.

The candidate may seek re-election and serve for one more four-year term. At the completion of this eight years, the candidate is not able to be elected to any other legislative office of the federal government.

“As of December 2014, the annual salary of each representative is $174,000.^[27][28] The speaker of the House and the majority and minority leaders earn more: $223,500 for the speaker and $193,400 for their party leaders (the same as Senate leaders).^[28 “

I would immediately work to change these qualifications. There would be no exceptions to these rules whatsoever.

A)    The annual salary for members of the House of Representatives would be equal to GS-9 pay scales for government employees. This rate would fluctuate with changes to the pay scale approved by the President.

B)    The annual salary for the Speaker of the House of Representatives would be equal to GS-10 pay scales for government employees. This rate would fluctuate with changes to the pay scale approved by the President.

“All members of Congress are automatically (without the option of withdrawal) enrolled in the Federal Employees Retirement System, a pension system also used for federal civil servants. They become eligible to receive benefits after five years of service (two and one-half terms in the House). The FERS is composed of three elements:

1.     Social Security

2.     The FERS basic annuity, a monthly pension plan based on the number of years of service and the average of the three highest years of basic pay

3.     The Thrift Savings Plan, a 401(k)-like defined contribution plan for retirement account into which participants can deposit up to a maximum of $19,000 in 2019. Their employing agency matches employee contributions up to 5% of pay.

Members of Congress may retire with full benefits at age 62 after five years of service, at age 50 after twenty years of service, and at any age after twenty-five years of service. They may retire with reduced benefits at ages 55 to 59 after five years of service. Depending on birth year, they may receive a reduced pension after ten years of service if they are between 55 years and 57 years of age.^[31]  “

I would immediately work to change these qualifications. There would be no exceptions to these rules whatsoever.

A)    No member of Congress (either house) would serve as a “career politician.” After a member has served his 4-year or 8-year tour, he is given severance pay equal to one year’s salary.

B)    There will be no “retirement pay” for any member of Congress, nor can any Congressman accept monies or gifts of any form from any person inside or outside of government.

There are other benefits that these vampires receive every year, and I would work to curtail those also. The term “government servant” has lost it’s meaning. I believe that people work to get elected into Congress because they know it is free ride after doing so. They vote themselves pay raises, take bribes from lobbyists, and make a habit out of working for themselves instead of working for the people that they represent.

Next week, we will discuss the Senate…the second part of the Legislative portion of our government.

Cheers,

-Jim  

References:

(1)   "Qualifications of Members of Congress". Onecle Inc. Retrieved January 26, 2013.

(2)   “Wiki”. Retrieved September 20, 2019

3.  "Salaries and Benefits of U.S. Congress Members". Retrieved December 24, 2014.

4.       Jump up to: ^a b c Brudnick, Ida A. (January 4, 2012). "Congressional Salaries and Allowances" (PDF). CRS Report for Congress. United States House of Representatives. Retrieved December 2, 2012.

5.      ³¹ Wiki. Retrieved September 20, 2019

Gun Control…?

By Jim Culp

September 17, 2019

You hear a whole lot about people breaking the law these days. Rapes, murders, robbery…and stuff that will just sicken you (as it does me) like incest and child rape.

Here in the USA, we are unlike any other nation on this planet we call Earth. We are very young (roughly 230 years) for a country when you compare us to ancient countries like Italy, Germany, and the United Kingdom. I’ve been to these places, and 200 years is like yesterday to them.

You also hear a lot today about “this and that” being “Unconstitutional.”

You know what I speak of. There’s abortion, charities, infringement of copyright, and a list as long as my “bills due” sheet.

Well, on December 15, 1791; an Amendment (the 2^nd) to the United States Constitution was ratified. It stated thus:

“A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.^”

The Amendment doesn’t say that the government can infringe firearms of any make or manufacture, but in 1968, our government did just that. A large number of firearms such as sub-machineguns, machineguns, bazookas, recoilless rifles, and grenade launchers were prohibited to be sold to the general public without an expensive license. These were to be strictly monitored by the federal government’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. As always, this was in response to the (then) recent murders of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Strangely, none of these men was killed with a type of weapons that this act was passed for. John F. Kennedy was assassinated with a 6.5×52mm Carcano rifle. He paid $29.95 for it. This weapon was a five shot bolt action rifle. Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated with an Iver Johnson .22 caliber revolver. Its street value was $4.00. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot with a Remington pump action 30.06, and its street value at that time was about $32.00.

The reason you had to endure that last paragraph was this…none of these men were shot with machine guns, bazookas, or automatic weapons. Some people in those days possessed such, because they had brought them home from World War II and Korea. Rarely was anyone shot with them, because them men that owned them weren’t murderers; they were patriots.

On March 30, 1981, President Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinkley. Hinkley employed a Röhm RG-14 .22 caliber revolver. Reagan was wounded, as well as three other men. James, Brady, the White House press secretary, was shot in the head. Mr. Brady was permanently disabled and died in 2014.

The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act was passed in 1993. It had been introduced by Senator Charles Schumer, and mandated background checks, five day waiting periods on all firearms sold in the United States.

Again, I say this to you.

Ignorant politicians can pass all the laws that they wish, but criminals will still have firearms, knives, clubs, and anything else they want. Criminals don’t go to stores and buy guns. They steal them, appropriate them through turf take-overs, and from people they murder. The Brady Act, as well as the Gun Control Act of 1968…did absolutely nothing to regulate gun violence, knife violence, or Columbian neck ties. The next bill that gets passed will result in the same things…law abiding citizens having to wade through red tape to buy something that our Constitution says we can own if we want. Do you want the Federal Government to regulate every single piece of your life? Watch what you say…because it is coming very soon.

-Jim

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Email me at jcgrey2012@gmail.com

September 14, 2019

“Lest we Forget”

It’s that time of year again. The time of year when everyone recalls the “deadly attack on America.” They get together and have candlelight vigils, prayer ceremonies, and every other sort of remembrance gathering that you can imagine. That’s very cool with me, because a whole bunch of good folks died that day…2,996 from the buildings and aircraft alone; and countless others since then of respiratory illnesses and such. 6,000 people were injured; there are countless testimonies of brave people who rescued survivors, saved people from dying, and those of noises and things that they saw and heard that fateful morning.

But I am the guy that is always what my Mom used to call “a fly in the ointment.” That little analogy simply means that I’m a person that is never satisfied when I get an explanation about something, and all my nose can smell is bullshit.

I’m nowhere near finished with my 9/11 research; some of it involves travel and expenses that I can’t afford. But in this article, I am going to let you know what I have revealed, what I have meticulously studied, and what is common knowledge among scientists…not drunks standing around a campfire drinking tequila.

On the fateful morning of 9/11, things were going on that few people hear about. One of them was a joint service exercise being conducted in the Northern borders of the United States, with several scenarios. NORAD (the North American Aerospace Defense Command) … the U.S. defense against air attacks, was holding an exercise called Vigilant Guardian. It involved several scenarios…one being a stolen Soviet bomber flying into U.S. airspace and bombing targets. One of the others was a scenario of terrorists capturing jet airliners and flying them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and another unidentified target. There’s no fiction here…this is documented in military records that have been unearthed by people like me that just don’t buy our government’s versions of 9/11. On separate occasions, three U.S, leaders made the statement (or one very close to it) that “we certainly had no idea that people would fly planes into buildings.” These three leaders were George W. Bush, Richard “Dick” Cheney, and Condoleezza Rice. I’m pretty sure that’s call perjury in a court of law.

That brings my second point.

The 9/11 Commission was organized shortly after September 11, 2001. The commission was chaired by a republican (the governor of New Jersey at the time, Thomas Kean. He was appointed by Henry Kissinger, one of the most questionable characters in U.S. history. The commission’s members were appointed by George W. Bush, and members of Congress meticulously selected over a long period of time. It was given one of the lowest budgets of all time for a congressional inquiry (especially one of this magnitude), and the way it was organized and conducted was a It was a farce to say the least. A number of people testified before the 9/11 Commission, but the largest injustice paid to the people of the United States was that of George “Dubya” Bush and Tricky Dickey Cheney. First, these two evaded the calls to testify for months. Then, when they realized that so many people were lying and giving false testimonies, they agreed to testify under these terms:

1.      They had to testify together.

2.      They were not required to take an oath before they testified.

3.      Their testimonies would not be recorded electronically or transcribed.

4.      The only record would be notes taken from one of the staff that they controlled.

5.      No notes would be made public.

6.      No audio or video recording.

Have you ever heard such bullshit in your entire life? How in the hells did anyone agree to that crap? Bush and Cheney… along with the Secretaries of Defense, State, and the Attorney General should have been raked over the coals. So, no one knows anything about what they guys said during that hearing. It’s apparent that Bush needed Cheney to do the talking, because we all know what kind of idiotic things he said to reporters that year. Bush frequently said “Saddam Hussein” when he was talking about bin Laden. That’s because Bush was focused on doing what his Dad didn’t do in 1991. The Republicans in this country wanted Iraq to be a puppet state of the United States, and to control its oil and its way of life. The Iraqis didn’t have a goddamn thing to do with 9/11, but her citizens would pay dearly for it. George Bush would have his revenge. One of the largest insurgencies in modern times would begin in 2004 in Iraq.

Let’s move on… and talk about Building 7. World Trade Center Building 7 was a sky- scraper in her own right, but far less a magnificent structure like buildings 1 and 2. WTC-7 was a 47-story building, and much larger longitudinally than the others. It sustained no aerial strike; but did have some damage to the South side of it. This was reported to have been caused by strikes from “heavy debris,” and I don’t have an issue with that. I am sure it did receive some strikes from debris when the other towers were hit. However, at sometime between 5:00 and 5:30 EST, the building collapsed in “free fall” fashion just like Towers 1 and 2 did. There was no justification for this collapse, and certainly not in a free fall method exactly like buildings that are collapsed using highly technical demolition techniques. Anyone that has ever had anything to do with explosives will recognize this when they see it happen. It takes a specialized crew led by an engineer and an explosives expert to make it work right. Engineers all over the country (most notably at Brigham Young University) commented on several interviews that they found the entire story of 9/11 (as reported by the 9/11 Commission) highly questionable, and some of it “down-right impossible.”

Next, this big it job was supposedly master minded by Osama bin Laden, a resident of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. There are so many holes in this theory, but the best one I have heard is that Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda developed this whole plan and engineered it to perfection in a cave in Afghanistan. Yeah, and I am frickin’ Santa Clause.

I have never believed that Osama Bin Laden was even alive during the 9/11 attacks, but I’m still on the trail of research on that part. What I do know, and what is well documented, is that a portion of the bin Laden family were in the USA that day and were allowed to fly home as soon as the airports were functioning again. This is due to the business relationship between the Bush Family, the House of Saud, and the Carlyle Group. The Bush dynasty controlled the U.S. government for 20 years and has business dealings with the Saudis and the bin Laden family for decades. If you don’t think there is a serious connection there, think again.

In 2002, George W. Bush claimed that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. This was a fabricated lie, and the United States’ second longest war of all time was started. Some of the Iraqis were some really bad folks under Saddam Hussein… and wanted revenge for the embarrassment of the Gulf War. However, the Iraqis did not have WMDs, and whatever chemical weapons they did possess could have been destroyed with air strikes. There was no need for invasion, but it happened through a series of lies and deception, and I believe that is exactly how 9/11 was conceived and developed as well. This is my opinion, and no one has to agree with me.

Lastly, I’ve debated this with college professors, ministers, drunks, bums, and every member of my family. I’ve lost friends because of it.

I’m still waiting for someone to answer any of the following 10 questions:

1.      Why did WTC’s 1, 2, and 7 (all) fall in pancake fashion at free-fall speed?

2.      Why was there no aircraft debris at the site in Shanksville?

3.      Why was there no Air Marshal on any of the flights?

4.      Why is there still no solid evidence linking Osama in Laden to Al Qaeda or 9/11?

5.      Why were all but two cameras in a one-mile perimeter around the Pentagon shut off prior to 8:00 a.m. on September 11, 2001?

6.      Why did we invade Iraq when it was clearly not necessary?

7.      Why were Bush and Cheney allowed to dictate the terms of the 9/11 Commission inquiries?

8.      Why weren’t 11 members of the Bush Administration charged with perjury?

9.      Why wasn’t Osama bin Laden ID’d by DNA when he was killed?

10.  Why were hundreds of data tapes in airport towers destroyed by supervisors?

To the men and women that died in 9/11 and the resulting illegal wars, may your spirits find peace. There are those of us that will not allow you to die in vain.

Peace.

-Jim 

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Email me at jcgrey2012@gmail.com

The Dignity of an Officer

The Dignity of an Officer

September 3, 2019

By Jim Culp

As I watched the news in the last two years, one instance caught my attention over many others. It was the swearing in of General James Mattis as Secretary of Defense under the Trump Administration. I couldn’t believe that a general that I had admired for years was taking a retirement job from an idiot like Donald Trump.

I was on my way to Iraq in 2003 when General Mattis relieved an officer for not doing his duty, which in this case was relieving junior officers that could not do their jobs. Mattis was a two-star (called a Major General) general in Iraq and relieved Lieutenant Colonel Joe D. Dowdy, a full bird colonel that disagreed with Mattis’ “charge forward and take Bagdad” plan.

I was astonished at the time to read about this while I was sitting in a deployment camp in Kuwait waiting for the “GO” to cross the border. The reason it hit home for me is that I knew at least ten field grade officers in Kuwait and Iraq that should have been relieved; and it never happened to them. I personally witnessed officers that were pulled from the Army Reserves and place in positions that they knew nothing about, and the results were disastrous. These officers didn’t ask for help, they tried to “John Wayne” their way through. Mattis recognized that (at least in the Marines) that sorry ass officers need to be relieved. No one in the Army had the balls for that, and that is why the Army became a place I no longer wanted to be when I returned home.

Being an NCO now meant treating troops like they were in pre-school, checking the “excellent” block on their evaluation reports when they were worthless, and assigning them to tasks that were so simple that a first grader could accomplish them.

In 2018, when Secretary of State James Mattis disagreed with President Trump on military issues and climate control, he respectfully resigned his post. To this day, he has not spoken ill of the president while he remains in office; the true mark of a gentleman and a career soldier. My faith was restored. I quietly spoke “that-a-boy Mad Dog” to the TV screen.

All is not lost.

-Jim  

Follow Me at: jimculp.blogspot.com