Find Your Government Representatives, EASY

Wanted to share this useful tool…it’s call My Reps. 

And you can find out YOUR county, state, and federal government elected officials.

All you do is type in your zip code. 

Get the names, address, telephone numbers, and even some emails for contacting your representatives about the issues you care about. 

This is what democracy is all about. 

Your officials represent you and they need to hear from you–let your voice be heard!

Great little app from the Center for Technology and Civic Life…thank you. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal via My Reps website)

Refugees or Terrorists–How Do You Really Know?

The news about the refugee crisis is truly heartwrenching.  

My own parents and grandparents were refugees from the Holocaust who came to this beautiful country to start fresh and live in freedom and peace.  

So one one hand, I like so many others want to do the right thing from a humanitarian perspective and help people in need.  

But on the other hand, with this new wave of refugees something seems vastly different…

– 18 of 31 people identified so far in mass New Year’s Eve attacks (sexual molesting, raping, and robbing) of over 500 women in German…were refugees that had already applied for asylum.

– At least one of the Paris terrorists who killed more than 130 people in November is alleged to have been a Syrian refugee. 

– At least 3 refugees resettled in the U.S. since 9/11 (from Iraq and Uzbek) have been arrested on terrorism charges and there have been dozens of other counter-terrorism investigations for those resettled here. 

– The ISIS suicide bomber that killed 10 German tourists in Istanbul this week was registered as a Syrian refugee “without setting off security alerts.”

– And again this week, a group of refugees with rocks, bats, knives, attack a Frenchman. 

– ISIS is already asserting that they will use the refugee crisis to get attackers into the West and are bragging that already thousands have successfully infiltrated. 

Surely, no refugee vetting process is going to be ironclad–processing mistakes, system errors, and errors of judgement are bound to happen.

Some have also suggested that politics is playing a larger role here in wanting to get as many refugees and immigrants as possible into the country for the purpose of simply getting their cold hard votes…so this is a possible darker side of DC. 

In the end, we need to put politics aside, and figure out how do we help those that really need help and are good people seeking to live peacefully and productively among us, and how do we prevent the next wave of terror from some really bad apples? 

Until we can answer this question substantively, and not by an emotional response of it “is just not who we are,” we need to take this one step at a time and not act rashly and recklessly. 😉

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Luis C. Araujo)

You’re Getting Milked

If you have a pulse and have been to the stores or even shopping online lately (hey, it’s the holidays so of course you have), you know that prices are on the rise.

And this is amazing, because–

Major factors point to pricing that should be driven down:

– Commodities–which are the basic raw materials from agriculture to oil and gas and metals and mining–are at a more than 16-year low!

– Manufacturing has moved to low cost sourcing countries (China, India, Vietnam, Africa, etc.)

– Technology continues to benefit us in terms of cost-efficiencies from the transformation to robotics and automation.

Yet, we keep on seeing prices move ever higher:

Just a few examples…

– “Housing market is on fire” with existing home prices exceeding the pre-recession peak!

– “Car prices at records highs – and rising“

– “Food prices are sky high“–it’s not your imagination.

– Fashion “prices rising so fast“

– Health care spending is “again accelerating”

– “College costs are so high and rising.“

Forget the B.S. of the basket of inflation stats your being feed…you know that your bills are going up, while your income is stagnant.

The real question is why is the middle class always getting milked–whose interest does it serve? 😉

We’re Not Deadbeats

Good book review in the Wall Street Journal on America’s Fiscal Constitution by Bill White.

The main idea is that we have gone from a nation where fiscal discipline and paying off ones debts was a valued tradition to one now where excess rules and profligate borrowing runs through our veins.

Both personal and national debt were viewed as a means of last resort and not something to be proud of, but rather as something done out of necessity to get through tough times.

On a personal level, we only borrowed what we needed and we payed it back on time or even early. Poverty was just one step away or even akin to servitude.

Similarly, on a national level, public debt was viewed as a safety net to preserve the union (i.e. war), territorial integrity (e.g. Louisiana Purchase), or in a severe recession (i.e. to maintain the government’s ability to spend in the short term).

The best option was seen as “pay as you go,” with the alternative, under limited circumstances, to “pay as soon as you can.”

However, the value placed on self and national discipline and sufficiency was replaced with elements of entitlement, greed, and waste.

The problem is once you have inequity in the system, then people feel the unfairness of it all, and give up caring about the system itself and just want to get what they see as their fair share.

Some politicians cater to these feelings of relative deprivation and are no longer viewed positively for fiscal constraint and ensuring our economic security, but rather “politicians gain favor by spending money without having to raise unpopular taxes.”

In essence, the government can give people more now, and they don’t have to pay for it until future generations–hence the ability to buy citizen’s political consent and even win elections by increasing the treasure chest even temporarily.

No, this is not China raising the fortunes of the middle class to keep the Communist Party in power, but rather this is us in the U.S. of A racking up tens of trillions of dollars in debt to keep people happy now (forget the future generations, let them fend for themselves).

Shake hands, kiss babies, and hand out dollar bills–give me, give me give me!

What has happened to us fighting hard and driving into the future on our own feet–together in strength and not as a debtor nation getting handouts from anyone that will lend us.

Soon, the Fed will be raising interest rates, and with a greater and greater national deficit to pay on, interest payments have the real potential to spiral out of control and leave our economy in shambles.

Like a credit card with interest payments that eclipse the principle borrowed, soon you are in over your head and there is nowhere to go but Chapter 11.

We’re not an inherently debtor nation, and we sure don’t want to be a deadbeat nation–isn’t it better to have what we really have financially and be who we really are and value?

Let’s leave our children and grandchildren economic and national security and not a towering pile of shameless debt, from mom and dad with love.

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Choosing Between Democracy and Freedom

This is a photo I took in the Metro in Washington D.C.

It is an advertisement for a cessation of hostilities in Syria where estimates are over 100,000 people killed in civil war, so far.

Now in Egypt, you have about 1,000 killed in the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood and violence continues there as well.

What is really confusing is that in both cases you have terrorists and extremists fighting more secular societies–yet, we do not unequivocally support the secularists in their battle again Jihadists.

At the same time, we went to war for a decade in Iraq and Afghanistan to fight a “war on terror” and to this day it continues with somewhat regular drone attacks.

While I understand that as a Democracy we need to support fair and free elections, does this mean we have to buttress up fundamentalists, extremists, and terrorists–just because they got voted in.

Sometimes, people don’t know or understand what they are voting for until its too late, which seems to be what happened in Egypt when the people elected the Muslim Brotherhood.

Similarly, the Nazi party in Germany in the 1930’s won many seats in the Reichstag, and we know the ten of millions murdered and the destruction that this led to.

Democracy, does not mean good always prevails, but when evil is rightfully elected what are we to do–simply support free elections or support good over evil?

Perhaps, the notion of good and evil is a little simplistic (especially when neither side may be very good), but the idea is the same, are we fighting for free elections or the better candidate in terms of overall freedom, human rights, and world peace.

Can we really afford to straddle the fence here? 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

You Can Better The World

I am really excited about this new Social Media application called Betterific.

It looks a lot like Twitter but is focused on ideas to better the world. 

Every Betterific starts under the heading of “Wouldn’t it be better if” and you fill in the rest. 

Whether you have ideas for improving products, companies, policies, or even the way we treat each other–this is a great way to get your ideas out there. 

You also add tags (metadata) to make the ideas more easily searchable by others. 

Like Twitter you can follow topics or other innovative people, friends, and family members. 

A great feature is that you can actually vote–thumbs up or down–for the ideas, and through crowdsourcing great ideas can rise to the top.

There is also a bar at the top where you can look up better ideas by search term–so individuals, organizations, or brands can harvest this information and hopefully act on them.

One of the featured Betterifics when you sign in online is from someone who suggested that toilet seats come with a pedal lift lid (like a garbage can)–being a little germophobic myself, I vote definitely yes to this one!

I hope this type of app catches on so we can all innovate and get our ideas out there simply and clearly.

This has the potential to become a tremendous archive for great ideas that can be accessed, prioritized and most importantly implemented–so we can all really make a difference for the better. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Leadership Now!

There is a very good interview in the Wall Street Journal today (14-15 July 2012) with George Shultz, former Secretary of State, Treasury, and Labor.

Shultz talks primarily about our countries devastating financial situation today.

On the economy, he states bluntly: “We have some big problems in this country.”

But according to the interview “the policies for revival are obvious with the right leadership.”

Shultz gives an example of former President Reagan (who I blogged about previously (24 June 2012) in It’s The Right Thing To Do] as someone who had what it took to lead us out of difficult times.

“It took long-term thinking…[Reagan] knew and we advised him you can’t have a decent economy with the kind of inflation we’ve got…The political people would come in and say ‘You’ve fot to be careful Mr. President…You’re gonna lose seats in the mid-term election.”

And as Shultz reminds us, what was Reagan’s response?

“And he basically said, ‘If not us who? If not now when?”

The article goes on that “it took a politician with an ability to take a short-term hit in order to get the long-term results that we needed.”

Reagans words and deeds remind me of the Jewish teaching from the Book of Avot (“Ethics of Our Fathers”) from more than 2,000 years ago which reads in 1:14–

“If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
And if I am [only] for myself, what am I?
And if not now, when?”

Reagan was in tune with this ancient wisdom of our forefathers, that we have an obligation to take the appropriate actions to care for ourselves and others and not to put off these actions unto others or for later.

This is one of those true leadership qualities that made Reagan one of the most popular and favorite leaders on the 20th century.

Reagan acted based on principle and not based on votes–the long-term health and outcomes for the country was more important than the minute-by-minute polling.

Of course a leader needs to represent the will and wishes of the people, but he must do so with the bigger-picture and long-term view in mind for the nation to survive and thrive.

Similarly Peggy Noonan writes today about how we need a “political genius” to get us out of the mess we are in as a nation.

She too uses Reagan as an example and explains how he used to state about congress that: “when they feel the heat [from voters], they see the light,” and it is the President’s job to help the people understand and “galvanize them.”

As Ms. Noonan states about a real leader: “he’s direct and doesn’t hide his meaning in obfuscation, abstraction, cliches and dead words.”

A leader who knows and believes as in the wisdom of fathers, and like Ronald Reagan, “If not us who? If not now when?”

(Source photo: here with attribution to Tom Magliery)