Editor,
Representative Frank Kratovil, representing Maryland’s 1st Congressional District is finally waking up from the daze he has been in since January, or so it seems. I received a form letter from him that declared that he would make sure to read and understand the entire health care bill that is currently on the floor of the House before he votes. It is interesting to me that he has embraced this idea now, after he voted for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Stimulus Bill to the rest of us) and the American Clear Energy and Security Act of 2009 (Cap and Trade Bill) without reading either of them. It is quite unsettling to me that he, along with hundreds of other Congressmen and Congresswomen voted to support this legislation knowing what it says. How much money has to be on the line before they will realize how ridiculous this behavior is?
Whether you agree with the idea that government spending will succeed in energizing the economy, or putting a cap on our emissions is right or wrong, it is unreasonable for any individual to sign the dotted line without understanding the contents within. The citizens of Maryland will not stand for this.
Hundreds of local citizens are planning to picket around Rep. Kratovil’s office at 202 S Main Street in Bel Air from 4-6P on August 11. Join us as we show Congressman Kratovil that voting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi 86.1% of the time is not how you show your “fiscal conservatism”.
Patrick McGrady
Cool, —you got a form letter. I guess that means he read the letter requesting him to read the bill. Although, I believe sheep voting –following Nance the shepard is what will happen.
Patrick
I think people should picket arount your place of business. the congressman was voted in by the public to represent their best interests, since he is a democrat, your interest do not represent the ideas of those who voted for him. I think you should concentrate on getting your fellow antigovt folks get in there so that they can keep cutting taxes and keep on spending just like during the past 8 years. Do you know that Iraq has a centralized form of health care? and do you know who has been paying for it since the Iraq war started? That’s right, we pay for other’s health care, and you complain about the congressman reading a bill that is thousands of pages long?
Your indignation with the democratic party would have been better served had you complained when your party leader GW and Darth Vader were in power. May the force be with you!!!
Rocco –
Patrick and anyone else has the right to address, petition and lobby their representatives irrespective of party affiliation. No one has to wait for someone in their party or who is like-minded to be elected in order to demand that their voice be heard. These are public servants not potentates, we do not bow to them. They are in service to all of us.
Are you suggesting that conservatives have to sit idly by while the liberals are in the majority? If you are, you are nuts and sadly misinformed!
Joe
Correct me if I am wrong, but he is the Representative of the entire 1st district, not just the people who voted for him. The same way that President Bush represented all of the citizens of the United States, not just those who voted for him.
I don’t know about you, but it is not acceptable to me for an attorney to sign his name to a bill without knowing the contents. I’m complaining about this because he didn’t know the contents. What if there was an amendment that called for Euthanasia for people with usernames that begin with the letter R?
I didn’t call attention to the fact that Kratovil is a Democrat for a reason. It’s because it doesn’t matter. Nobody read it. Ruppersberger didn’t read it. Cardin didn’t read it. Bartlett, Cummings, Edwards, Hoyer, Sarbanes, and Von Hollen didn’t read it.
Why do you need to resort to personal attacks?
Just being sarcastic….It is kind of ironic that you want a congresperson that you did not vote for, to agree with your ideas and vote according to your wishes. Rush Limbaugh said after GW won the “stolen” election, that GW had a mandate and should be able to govern as he wishes and should not work with the oppossition even if it was a closely contested election.
Sir the shoe is now on the other foot. You had your chance to implement your ideas and you did. It is time for Dems to express and make a reality the platform of their party as they now nave a mandate from the people.
Patrick
I did nto attack you personally, i don’t know you and I don’t have a personal opinion of you.
I was being sarcastic on your need protest regarding the voting record of a person you don’t support. I think you have the right to protest, but It would be best if you used your time electing a person of like minded ideals as yours. I don’t know of any politician in govt that reads every word in every bill before they vote on it. Some of these bills have thousands of pages!!!!
They should read it. Stop and consider the idea that they are spending money on the order of trillions of dollars, and you are willing to overlook the fact that they don’t take the time to read it.
I just don’t get it.
Rocco –
News flash President George W. Bush is no longer in office, President Obama is our current president.
By golly our representatives vote on actual bills that become laws it is incumbent upon them to read, study and consider the ramifications of these bills before they vote.
Joe
What the $%# are you people saying that they did not read the bills? Where did you get this information? They had ample time to read all legislation that has been presented, the Cap and Trade bill had been debated since January and the Amendments added the morning of the vote were not a surprise to anyone since they were part of the debate. Boehner even read the damn amendments aloud on the house floor prior to the vote?!? Are you people really this dumb??!?!?!???
Well now it’s completely obvious the political leanings of this publication. How the heck to I get unsubscribed from this right wingnut advertising?
“The same way that President Bush represented all of the citizens of the United States, not just those who voted for him.”
When did that happen?????????????????????????????
Not from 2000-2008.
Jim,
There are no political leanings in this publication.
We publish letters from any and all who send them to us – even “right wingnuts.”
Perhaps you’d care to balance the table by submitting a letter of your own political leaning?
Bob –
It is indisputable that George W. Bush in the post 911 era that was his presidency certainly protected all citizens from further terrorist attack. A job well done and we should be forever a grateful nation.
Joe
I maintain that I will show the same amount of respect to the current occupant of my white house that the left showed to mine!
Why is anyone surprised that a press whore like McGrady, who opts to defile patriotic events like 4th of July parades with anti-immigration hate speech and then cloak himself in the protection of the first amendment, would entirely fabricate an attack on a politician of another party in order to draw attention for himself?
I had written to Kratovil during the stimulus debate and received prompt, direct replies on the matters of my inquiries so the claim that Kartovil had read the bill and all the derivative analysis of the bill are baseless.
McGrady has no filter for proper decency. It’s sad to see people mistake his acts of self-gratification within the press for leadership and I’m sure that the voters in his district are very disappointed that he is opting to waste his salary to both cause infighting within the Harford County state delegation and fan hate speech throughout the county.
Joe he did so at the cost of the personal liberties and civil rights of others trampling over the constitution!
ForestHillResident –
If McGrady is as you a “press whore” what does that make President Obama?
It is reprehensible for you malign McGrady by falsely stating that he made and supports “anti-immigration hate speech”. It simply not true, did not happen and is a prevarication by you.
Regarding your assertion that Kratovil actually read the Stimulus Bill (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) is baseless since there is no substantive evidence he read it before voting on it.
Joe
Cdev –
President George W. Bush protected us with the advice and consent of our duly elected representatives. He did not do by fiat or by flouting checks and balances.
Joe
In response to Patrick McGrady’s letter in which he states that Kratovil’s “voting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi 86.1% of the time is not how you show your “fiscal conservatism””, citing a person’s voting record by a percentage that is “in synch” with that of another in order to make a point about a voter’s standing on a particular issue is fuzzy logic.
Michael Stilwell
ForestHillResident,
I believe that you may have me confused with someone else. I didn’t have any part in the parade and I’m not a member of the Maryland Delegation.
Perhaps you mean Delegate Pat McDonough?
Anyway, the reason that I know that Kratovil didn’t read the bill is because of the following message that his office sent in response to my inquiries:
“The American Clean Energy & Security Act was introduced on May 15, six weeks before the floor vote took place. The legislation was then debated extensively in the Energy & Commerce Committee, which approved the measure three weeks later. After that, the Agriculture Committee held additional public hearings on the bill, in which Congressman Kratovil participated. Rep. Kratovil also read extensive, detailed section-by-section analysis of the bill and has sought out neutral, unbiased sources to better understand its provisions. While there were extensive negotiations on the agricultural provisions of this bill right up until the night before the vote, Rep. Kratovil was an active part of these negotiations and was intimately familiar with the substance of these agricultural changes prior to the final vote.”
If he had read the entire bill, this message would say that he did. However, he did not, and the politician speak that is pervasive in the document directs me to that conclusion. He read analysis, but not what he was signing.
“It is indisputable that George W. Bush in the post 911 era that was his presidency certainly protected all citizens from further terrorist attack. A job well done and we should be forever a grateful nation.”
“President George W. Bush protected us with the advice and consent of our duly elected representatives. He did not do by fiat or by flouting checks and balances.”
Joe,
Where were you during the last 8 years?? Apparently not in the United States that George W. Bush tried to destroy by trampling on rights and liberties.
As Ben Frankin said: “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Bob H. –
I was right here…
Joe
Joe,
Apparently Fox News has hypnotized you from the truth of what a miserable embarrassing excuse of a President W was.
The “Patriot Act” and the second iteration of it are awful, horrible offenses toward our liberties. September 11, 2009 brought a terrible tragedy upon our country and the events that proceeded in the following months led to legislation that leads us toward a police state.
George Bush is not as great as some diehard republicans would like to believe. Along with the spending and deficit growth due to the wars and the GM and Chrysler bailouts that George Bush signed off on, GW contributed to the slide toward socialism that BO and the Democrats are accelerating.
Socialism??
I think using buzzwords such as that one only obscure and take focus away to the real truth that our present health insurance sytem needs to be regulated so that insurance companies don’t gauge the consumer.
As far a kratovil not reading the bill? Can you let me know were the congresman has admitted to this? I think to just allege that someone has not done their due diligence is disingeneous just because you don’t agree with his vote. Perhaps you should concentrate on getting your person elected and stop whinning about democrats in power. We know that the republicans did not care what democrats thought when they were in power.
Had the republicans actually chosen a candidate such as Mitt Romney they could have a competent ticket to compete with the dems. Mitt was clearly the best candidate, but he happens to be a Mormon and the right wing evangelical base did not want him in there.
Bob H and Sleeeeaaazy –
I am a conservative first and foremost. I don’t need someone else’s doctrine since being a conservative is self-evident. The media as whole is partisan and in many ways supportive of a populist social agenda for which I am adamantly opposed.
President George W. Bush without apology kept us safe post 911 in keeping with our Constitution. However, he was not as conservative as I would have liked. Obama has a social platform that is anathema to individual responsibilty and what the founding fathers envisaged for our country. We are not a weak-kneed European nation nor are we “banana republic”, we are the United States of America for which I am proud. We cannot sit idly by while our leaders take us down a path of ruin.
Many people scoff at describing President Obama’s takeover of GM. Chrysler, significant parts of the financial sector, energy and potentially health care as fascist or socialist but it is what it is. The essence of what is America is a private and free enterprise system and not a supreme government apparatus.
Citizens must be forever vigilant in keeping government subservient to the people. As a citizen I know I will, what about you?
Joe
joe,
I am proud to be an American too. I think that the govt is doing what the mandate from the people through the election told our elected officials to do. Obama campanigned on this platform, and guess what, he won. I believe that past govt allowed the people to be subsirvient to an administration that saw no problem with spying on its citizens, wire tapping americans at home by the CIA, that clearly violates our laws. I guess you want a govt that does not respect the rule of law on security matters?
Rocco –
You may not agree with the Patriot Act, however it is law. So what about the “Rule of Law are talking about.
Joe
the Patriot Act did not empower the bush adm to allow the CIA to spy on Americans on american soil. Doesn’t that bother you, you guys keep spoutting about keeping big brother small and keeping govt out of our lives. I think you have a double standard.
Rocco –
I am confused? What specifically are you talking about?
Joe
Bush expanded the role of govt. in our lives. It was more then the patriot act. It was the creation of a whole new dept of govt. It was the passing and attempted passing of laws applying to single people. It was the intrusion into our lives under the patriot act which contained provisions which have been ruled unconstitutional. Many unfunded Mandates such as NCLB which removed control from our local govt over certian things which are their’s. You expect some of these things from a democrat not from a republican!
I feel I have enough sense to choose my own health care prpovider and to make the decisions related to my health care . I do not need the government telling me what is best for me. I feel they are trying to push something on us to fast .
I was always taught to beware of fast talking sales people and that includes the government. I also feel that when those people in America that are citizens of another country start paying into the system and joining our military THEN they are welcome to our benifits.
Helen we have citizens of other countries in our military and we deny them benifits they pay into!
Thank you Mr Kratovil for supporting the president’s health bill. In the riches(not just in cash) country in the world and the high cost of health care every citizen deserves health care insurance not just you and me!
Cap and Trade Frank – Cap his term at one and Trade him for somebody else. He doesn’t vote the way I do – then I as one of his employers I say – so long to my vote. Higher gas, utility, food prices coming – sanctimony and pompus save the world statements will not put food in my kids mouths. It did my heart good to see so many protesting outside Cap and Trade Frank’s Bel Air Office. This health care is just as scary. We allow Congress and Obama to turn our health care system on end for the uninsured American now -just wait. Amnesty for illegal immigrants is next. Then as Americans – bam – instant mandated government healthcare. Then the Latino vote goes even further to the Democratic party. This debate is not about healthcare – it is about POWER – how to get it – how to keep it.