Monday, June 30, 2014

To suggest that the bus shelter be removed because of the actions of a few is absurd.  To suggest that the Sheriff’s Office cannot be bothered to control this area is also absurd.  It took coordinated efforts of several months work on the part of another local government entity with the parties involved, to get that shelter put in place for the riders.  They are not cheap.  The members of our community who ride that bus every day to work, college classes, and doctor appointments in Key West were screaming for a shelter.  Now they want to yank it out and throw everyone into the sun and rain with no way to sit down for the long wait for the bus.

Bus riders are not “marginal people”, not worthy of your concern or respect as you incorrectly believe.  They are people who work in Key West, people going to school, young mothers with kids and babies, and the elderly going to doctor appointments, etc.  I am one major car repair away from riding that bus every day to work in Marathon myself from Big Pine. I’ve got a great job, just don’t have a pile of money available for a big car repair, nor can I afford to get a new car right now.  Marathon City Council, you can do better than this for your community, all the members of your community, stretch your mind open a bit for this. Do not ignore the people who don’t have cars, or who cannot drive anymore, or do not want to drive their car every day such distances to work, or might be a one-car family, and hubby takes the car to his job.  The people who ride this bus 4-6 hours a day from Homestead to a job here in the Marathon area are serving you in our stores, restaurants, etc.  They are working people who can’t afford to live down here, but are supporting their families and working for a living.  They also deserve a sheltered place and a bench to sit on after a long day’s work while they wait for the bus for the long ride home.  Are you turning your backs on the elderly living on fixed incomes of your community that ride the bus? Do you want to make them stand in the hot Sun and rain to wait for the bus?  Mothers with babies, and young children in tow, waiting on the edge of the highway?  What you are proposing is a very draconian, and may I add small-minded, remedy to a small problem, and I really hope you rethink this and find a better way.  I will be doing everything I can with the people I know in local government to stop you from removing that shelter, behind the scenes as always.  I was personally involved in the work that went into getting that shelter put in a few years ago, so I can’t come before the Council to address you, or I certainly would.  This is very bad idea, and I don’t like to see progress and civilization pushed backward bit by bit for all because of a small group of abusers.  This is the trend of the day to push civilization backwards, and its not good at all.  This is the worst element of socialism, that everyone should suffer in an equal fashion, in this case because it’s too much trouble to preserve the community convenience of a bus shelter for the abuses of a few.  Shame on you.

Let’s think about a disturbing trend in law enforcement under the Obama administration. We have only recently become aware of their obsession for spying on Americans, they excuse their intrusion into our private lives as being in the name of security. Meta data is buzz words that simply means the governments gathering up everything that there is to know about you. We now are watching the melt down of the IRS because of it being used as a political weapon for the Obama administration. We have seen Team Obama illegally spying on and persecuting members of the media who are critical of Team Obama. We now know that Team Obama has engaged in the illegal delivery of guns to narco terrorists in operation Fast and Furious. We know that Team Obama has no respect for our Vets. We know that Team Obama has required the purchase of mega amounts of ammo and paramilitary equipment for federal agencies that have little or no law enforcement responsibilities, i.e. the Department of Agriculture is purchasing genuine assault rifles and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammo. We know that the major media are Obama’s functional equivalent of Goebbels Third Reich propaganda colossus.

Obama most certainly is the most power hungry president that this nation has ever endured. Obama has steered our nation into an age of oligarchy. A new class of super-wealthy oligarchs keeps getting more powerful while the country’s middle class shrinks. History will judge him very harshly.

We are now enjoying the fact that violent crime has hit a 50-year low. But many of the nation’s police departments are gearing up as if the country were expecting invasion, or as if they were an occupying force in a conquered nation.

The ACLU reported recently that SWAT teams in the United States conduct around 45,000 raids each year, only 7 percent of which have anything whatsoever to do with the hostage situations with which SWAT teams were assembled to contend. Paramilitary operations, the ACLU concluded, are “happening in about 124 homes every day — or more likely every night” — and four in five of those are performed in order that authorities might “search homes, usually for drugs.” Such raids routinely involve “armored personnel carriers,” “military equipment like battering rams,” and “flashbang grenades.”

Deer Friends, much if not most, of the military equipment comes from the federal government. Please remember that I’m a retired cop, very conservative, and I am a serious law and order supporter, but the militarizing of our law enforcement has me deeply concerned.

Our current government and its obsession with domestic spying and hyper control is very much reminiscent of the Third Reich.

Part 2) Mr. Obama has been an instructor at the law school level for constitutional matters. We also know that he holds the constitution in some disdain. We know that because he has told us that in his view the constitution is nothing but a list of “negative liberties”. It should be no surprise to learn that Team Obama’s edicts have been overturned by the Supreme Court, unanimously, 13 times since January 2012.   Obama has taken such extreme position on key issues that the Court has uncharacteristically slapped them down time and time again. Historically, the Justice Department has won about 70 percent of its cases before the high court. But in each of the last three terms, the Court has ruled against the administration a majority of the time.