"Before our white brothers arrived to make us civilized men,
we didn't have any kind of prison. Because of this, we had no delinquents.
Without a prison, there can be no delinquents.
We had no locks nor keys and therefore among us there were no thieves.
When someone was so poor that he couldn't afford a horse, a tent or a blanket,
he would, in that case, receive it all as a gift.
We were too uncivilized to give great importance to private property.
We didn't know any kind of money and consequently, the value of a human being
was not determined by his wealth.
We had no written laws laid down, no lawyers, no politicians,
therefore we were not able to cheat and swindle one another.
We were really in bad shape before the white men arrived and I don't know
how to explain how we were able to manage without these fundamental things
that (so they tell us) are so necessary for a civilized society."

John (Fire) Lame Deer
Sioux Lakota - 1903-1976

September 21 2016
I went to the website for the Maricopa County Board of supervisors but the “Contact US “links do not work. Maybe you don’t really want to hear from me, but I just want to let you know how easy you have made it for me to decide who to vote for this November and in future elections.
You seem happy to continue to finance the adventures of Sheriff Joe who constantly victimizes the citizens of Maricopa County with his arrogance, intolerance, self-righteousness and denial of the truth.
You just voted to give 4.4 million dollars to a bunch of lawyers who have already fleeced the taxpayers for more than 60 million. When is this never ending abuse of taxpayer money going to end? Not with you in office, I’m sure. I just got to say that if that was a democratic sheriff, there would be no way Jose that he would ever benefit from you partisan benevolence. But maybe a democrat would be more interested in doing the job and doing it right and wouldn’t need your complicity in ripping off the naïve taxpayers of Maricopa

You appear to have no issue with an elected servant who parades around the country masquerading as the Toughest Sheriff in America, who has devoted the resources of the Sheriff’s office in a fruitless search for Barack Obamas birth certificate. He is not going to find it on top of the Wells Fargo building.
How appropriate that Wells Fargo housed
this sheriff as they are currently dealing with their own billion(s) dollar scandal.

September 16 2016
Other than a few social issues that are used to motivate the electorate, both parties try to appease their corporate sponsors and maintain the status quo. Trump won the primary by appealing to the dumbed down tea party. Now, he is trying to distance himself from his tea party rhetoric, even co-opting some of the democratic rhetoric as if he thought of it himself.
Trump is now saying that he thinks Obama was born in the United States, as if he really cares.
Trump, like Joe Arpaio never really cared where Obama was born. The truth really wasn't important. The birth certificate was a good campaign issue to arouse the fake outrage that makes the deliberately ignorant tattooed tea party famous and it was also a pretty good fund raiser. Anybody that was nearly broke or bankrupt that had a couple of dollars for a full set of green camouflage made in Sri Lanka, and an American flag Made in China, gas money for their Toyota pickup and the latest Chinese cell phone and was willing to and wanted to believe that whatever it was, it must be Obama s fault would surely have a couple of dollars and a vote for anybody who pretended to chase around Obama's birth certificate.
"In a land whee anything goes, nothing matters"

September 16, 2016 ·

Other than a few social issues that are used to motivate the electorate, both parties try to appease their corporate sponsors and maintain the status quo. Trump won the primary by appealing to the dumbed down tea party. Now, he is trying to distance himself from his tea party rhetoric, even co-opting some of the democratic rhetoric as if he thought of it himself.
Trump is now saying that he thinks Obama was born in the United States, as if he really cares.
Trump, like Joe Arpaio never really cared where Obama was born. The truth really wasn't important. The birth certificate was a good campaign issue to arouse the fake outrage that makes the deliberately ignorant tattooed tea party famous and it was also a pretty good fund raiser. Anybody that was nearly broke or bankrupt that had a couple of dollars for a full set of green camouflage made in Sri Lanka, and an American flag Made in China, gas money for their Toyota pickup and the latest Chinese cell phone and was willing to and wanted to believe that whatever it was, it must be Obama s fault would surely have a couple of dollars and a vote for anybody who pretended to chase around Obama's birth certificate.
"In a land whee anything goes, nothing matters"

September 16  2015
The 60-day period that the U.S. Congress gave itself to vote against the international deal with Iran over its nuclear program ends on Sept. 17, a White House spokesman said on Thursday.
"They essentially had 60 days to play the spoiler," said White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest. "Congress' opportunity to play that role will expire next week. And that will be good news and it will mean the international community can move forward with implementing the agreement

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-usa-whitehouse/white-house-congress-opportunity-to-nix-iran-nuclear-deal-ends-september-17-idUSKCN0RA25020150910

Since there is no pledge or oath in the Constitution or Bylaws for Local Union officers, it would be fair to say that there is no requirement that it be performed at all. Consequently, when it is performed, it is just a harmless ceremony that lacks any binding of its own or accountability from the membership when it may be judged that an officer is devoid of honor and/or principle.

An officer like all members would still be bound by the members oath and adherence to the Constitution and bylaws.

There is no oath or pledge in the Constitution or Bylaws that elevates the integrity, principle or honor of an officer of a Local Union officer above the rank and file.

Should there be?

The LMRDA (1959) does impose some special restrictions and/or legal thresholds on officers such as bonding requirements that are not imposed on the rank and file.

September 2016
Unfortunately, a third party candidate will not win the Presidential race in November.

They never will if we keep thinking they cant.

Reality is, this election cycle, a third party has a snowballs chance in hell.

But the issues facing this country will not be resolved in one election cycle.

If Donald wins, he will not build his wall. He will not send all of the illegals back home. He wont defeat ISIS in thirty days and he wont end crime in Chicago.

Hilary will not raise the minimum wage to 15 dollars an hour. She wont make college free. She wont do much for Medicare and Social Security and she wont take away anybody's guns.

She wont change much in the way of campaign finances and she wont change the climate.

She will probably screw the middle class on TPP and she wont raise the taxes on the rich.

A president is just not that powerful.

There is a congress and a supreme court.that are collectively more powerful than any president.

If we want to change the political landscape, we need to see the big picture and focus on long term, not just one election cycle.

If more people were willing to consider candidates other than the two major parties, then we could begin to influence the political landscape.

A vote for a third party will not be a winning pick, but it could create a trend and that's the most we can be hopeful for in any election cycle is to create trends. Do we want to trend away from the two party system or do we want to reinforce the status quo by voting democratic or republican? The two parties usually only give us two choices, both which preserve the status quo no matter who we pick.

Its not about one election and one party or one candidate.

It never has been. But that's what they got us believing. And thats how we are about to vote, anyway.

 https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/09/11/great-flood

Presidential candidate Debs understood that for the worker movement to be successful, that the most important element for the rank and file workers was not to follow or even to lead, but to know and understand. There are many who walk among us who pledge allegiance to OMOV and NO CW/CE and other such slogans. While these are noble and worthy causes, without a fundamental knowledge of the Constitution, bylaws, CBA.s, Roberts rules, etc, substantially shared and taught among us, they are not likely to ever be achieved and if they were granted to us tomorrow, we would not be ready to grasp them firmly enough and try as we may could not maintain our grip.

This is up for discussion.
Please consider the following and offer you opinion or share info that you may know.
In the IBEW, we elect delegates by secret ballot every 5 years and send them to the IBEW Convention.
These delegates elect our International officers.
All of the delegates vote for the office of International President.
But we have 11 Vice Presidents.
There is one Vice President for each IBEW district.
These are called Vice Presidential districts.

Only the delegates sent from Local Unions in a VP District can cast ballots for the Vice President for that District.
So, is it fair to say that a person selected as a Vice President is not a vice president of the entire IBEW. He is only a Vice President of a district?

The Vice Presidential district is the intermediary body that a member from a local union in that district would appeal to when she or he is dissatisfied with a local union finding or the conduct of local union officers or other affairs.
The Vice Presidential District is a step below the International and a step above the Local Union.

As was noted earlier, we elect our Vice Presidents every 5 years

We do this according to the IBEW Constitution which states

Article III Sec. 3. The elections of the International President, International Secretary-Treasurer, and International Executive Council Chairman shall be by secret ballot, per capita tax vote when there is more than one candidate, and shall require a majority of all votes cast to constitute an election. When there are more than two candidates for the same office, at every unsuccessful balloting the one receiving the lowest number of votes shall be dropped, the voting then to continue until one has received a majority over all.

However, the choice for International Vice Presidents, the International Executive Council (except the I.E.C. Chairman) and delegates to other Conventions shall be recommended to the Convention by each district. The Convention shall adopt the district's recommendation as its own action, by the I.S.T casting one ballot for the district's choice. The choice of each district shall be decided by a majority of the L.U.'s of the district represented at the Convention-and present at the time the choice is made - on the basis of one vote for each L.U., by secret ballot, not by a delegate or per capita tax vote. If the district is unable to determine its choice, then the Convention shall decide any contest by a roll call, per capita tax vote.
The vote of each L.U. shall be decided by a majority of its delegates. If the delegates of a L.U. are equally divided, then the L.U. shall have no vote. When there are more than two candidates for the same office in the district, at every unsuccessful balloting the one receiving the lowest number of votes shall be dropped, the voting then to continue until one has received a majority over all.
(Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to conflict with the above section.)

But, and this is a big but
The LMRDA which was passed in 1959 and is current Federal Law states the following

TITLE IV - ELECTIONS
Terms of Office; Election Procedures
(29 U.S.C. 481)
SEC. 401.
(d) Officers of intermediate bodies, such as general committees, system boards, joint boards, or joint councils, shall be elected not less often than once EVERY FOUR YEARS by secret ballot among the members in good standing or by labor organization officers representative of such members who have been elected by secret ballot.

According to the Federal Law, officers of intermediary bodies are required to be elected every FOUR years.

So, then, are our VP Districts intermediary bodies and, if so, then are not our Vice Presidents the described officers of these intermediary bodies?

And if we can answer yes to both of these questions, should we not be electing our VP's every FOUR years?

 Im coming from a different direction these days, down a different path.
We don’t have to stand up. We don’t have to fight. We can sit down and pass the peace pipe. Everybody lives and walks away happy..
Let’s try that for a while. Aren’t we a war weary people, anyway? What has fighting ever solved?
I see a big red flag, I see it as a warning
“when Im watchin my tv, and a man comes on a tellin me”
how hes gonna go to Washington, DC,
and how he's gonna fight for you and me.

I don’t want anybody fightin for me, especially some guy stuffed in a blue or red suit with an American flag pin made in China, prominently displayed for the camera to see, with a suitcase full of corporate money.
I want somebody whos gonna make peace, smoke the peace pipe.

Im a slow learner, lots of issues and stuff, keeps me so busy, but what I have learned, is it’s not about issues or parties. It’s about money and the power it represents.
So, Im not going to stand up for anything and I aint gonna fight for nothing, honey.
Im gonna sit here and try to figure the less funded most obscure candidates I can find , the ones with no strings attached.
If they don’t have an agenda or a platform and they are not obsessed with some single issue, even better.
If they just wanna go to DC and be part of a reasonable conversation and willin to listen and learn and develop policies that are good for the many, instead of the few, that’s my man ... or woman, dammit.

I wish I knew all of this when I was 18 or had the good sense to listen if somebody tried to tell me. I wish we all did, cause it aint about just one person.

From Robert Reich

This morning Trump tweeted: "We are the highest taxed nation in the world - that will change."
Baloney. The most meaningful measure is taxes paid as a percentage of GDP. As you can see from the graph below, the U.S. has the 4th lowest is taxes of any major economy. (Only South Korea, Chile, and Mexico ranking lower.)
And the wealthiest 1 percent in the U.S. pay the lowest taxes as a percent of their income and total wealth of any country anywhere – and lower than they’ve ever paid even in the U.S.
Once again, Trump and the Republicans are dealing with a non-problem, while ignoring the biggest problems.
What do you think?

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