One Party Rule and Where It Gets You

When you hear pundits and politicians berating the ‘other side’ as the cause of all this country’s problems, consider that we’ve had one party rule of the three branches of our government for some time now.

Ask yourself, where has it gotten us? One party in power. The other with no capacity to contribute but scream from the peanut gallery. There’s no accountability, no oversight.

Our governmental system works best with checks and balances.

One party rule, for as long as we’ve had it, has left us in a state that serves only to re-elect those already in office, and for them to gather more power as a matter of course.

There’s no question that this is the most corrupt Congress ever. It serves only to rubber stamp anything the Administration puts its way.

That’s not the way the founders of this country intended it. And it needs to stop now.

I’m voting straight Democrat on Tuesday. That’s not something I typically would endorse. But we live in a time where our government no longer answers to its people. That has to change.

While I’m not one to throw around conspiracy theories, there’s a good deal of early evidence that would lead one to expect plenty of voting problems on Tuesday. It’s going to be up to all of us to keep an eye out and and spread word when or if that happens.

Unbelievable: you must be loyal to the President with your heart and soul

Or no contracts for you! Dallas Business Journal: “HUD secretary’s blunt warning”:

Once the color barrier has been broken, minority contractors seeking government work may need to overcome the Bush barrier.

That’s the message U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson seemed to send during an April 28 talk in Dallas.

Jackson, a former president and CEO of the Dallas Housing Authority, was among the featured speakers at a forum sponsored by the Real Estate Executive Council, a national minority real estate consortium.

After discussing the huge strides the agency has made in doing business with minority-owned companies, Jackson closed with a cautionary tale, relaying a conversation he had with a prospective advertising contractor.

“He had made every effort to get a contract with HUD for 10 years,” Jackson said of the prospective contractor. “He made a heck of a proposal and was on the (General Services Administration) list, so we selected him. He came to see me and thank me for selecting him. Then he said something … he said, ‘I have a problem with your president.’

“I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He said, ‘I don’t like President Bush.’ I thought to myself, ‘Brother, you have a disconnect — the president is elected, I was selected. You wouldn’t be getting the contract unless I was sitting here. If you have a problem with the president, don’t tell the secretary.’

“He didn’t get the contract,” Jackson continued. “Why should I reward someone who doesn’t like the president, so they can use funds to try to campaign against the president? Logic says they don’t get the contract. That’s the way I believe.”

Now he’s denying he ever said that. More at Google News.

Progress: Case Bringing New Scrutiny To a System and a Profession

Washington Post: Jack Abramoff pleads guilty: The biggest corruption scandal to infect Congress in a generation took down one of the best-connected lobbyists in Washington yesterday. The questions echoing around the capital were what other careers — and what other familiar ways of doing business — are endangered.

Related: Think Progress: The House That Jack Built: A Comprehensive Look At The Abramoff Scandal.