1) Earlier this week, the NFL commissioner and league office handed down some very severe penalties for the National Football League's New Orleans Saints. Apparently, the Saints and their coaches had been practicing a "bounty" system over the past few years that rewarded defensive players on the Saints for physically and intentionally injuring players on the opposing teams. Those that inflicted injuries were provided monetary bonuses for their injury producing play.
Now, while football in the NFL is a violent game and many injuries do occur throughout a season, most people, fans, players, and NFL executives alike, all thought this was just a random part of the game. However, when the Saints implemented a system that intentionally meant to maim and injury, and then lied to try and cover up the process, the NFL came down hard on them.
Their head coach was suspended for a year without pay (an action that will cost him millions of salary dollars and possibly end his coaching career), the defensive coach was suspended from the NFL indefinitely, the team lost two second round draft choices, the general manager was suspended, and fines were imposed on the team itself. Very severe, and appropriate punishment, for heinous behavior.
2) Think about where the country is today:
- Gas prices have doubled since President Obama took office.
- Over $5 TRILLION has been added to our crushing national debt in just the past few years.
- We are losing a war in Afghanistan that is costing us lives and money.
- Unemployment and under employment remain stubbornly high.
- The U.S. government received its first ever credit downgrade last year.
- The number of Americans on food stamps is at an all time high.
- We continue to lose the war on drugs and enrich and empower the violent drug cartels of Central and South America.
- Our borders still leak and we still do not have a coherent, fair, and compassionate illegal immigration strategy and policy.
- Iran and North Korea continue to push headlong to having nuclear weapon capabilities.
- We still do not have a coherent and strategic national energy policy.
- Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid continue to lose more than $200 billion a year of taxpayer wealth to fraud, waste, and criminal activity.
- The IRS continues to be so incompetent that it fails to collect over $300 billion a year in taxes owed every year.
- Our 70,000 page tax code is cumbersome, expensive, unfair, and inefficient.
- Obama Care has turned out to be an atrocity that will not curb escalating health care costs, will not provide heath care insurance for tens of millions of Americans, will not solve the root causes of high health care costs, and according to a recent analysis by the head actuary of Medicare and Medicaid, Obama Care will add over $300 billion to the national debt in the next ten years.
- Our nation's infrastructure of roads, bridges, and tunnels is crumbling.
- Recent government economic programs have almost always been abject failures relative to their promises and results (e.g. Economic Stimulus Program, Cash For Clunkers, Cash For Caulkers, Cash For Appliances, HAMP, etc.)
- Recent government alternative energy programs have almost always been abject failures, rife with cronyism, relative to their promises and results ( e.g. Solyndra, Beacon, Spectra, Evergreen, E.ON, Terra-Gen, Iberdrola, etc.)
- Our Washington politicians are more interested in their personal enrichment and furthering their political careers than solving the nation's problems.
- Our overall economic growth has been sluggish, at best, over the past few years.
- Our trade deficit with China and the rest of the world is still sky high.
- Our kids continue to be under educated vs. most of the kids in other countries around the world.
Which gets us to the question of the day: should there be a process in place that would allow us to impeach and remove from office any politician that has priorities that are screwed up beyond belief? Exhibit A in this discussion is the recent actions by Illinois Senator Dick Durbin.
Apparently, the above list of daunting issues and priorities, problems that probably touch just about every American in one way or another, are not important enough in Senator Durbin's view. According to a recent Associated Press report (http://www.courier-journal.com/usatoday/article/38865793?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CSports%7Cs):
Sen. Dick Durbin is setting up a Judiciary Committee hearing about bounties in the NFL and other major sports in the wake of news that New Orleans Saints players received extra cash for hits that hurt particular opponents. The assistant Senate majority leader, an Illinois Democrat, says he wants to examine whether federal law should make such bounty systems a crime.
Never mind that the NFL has already harshly and appropriately handled the situation.
Never mind that gas per gallon prices are rapidly approaching $4.00 a gallon.
Never mind that the government wastes hundreds of billions of dollars a year either through criminal activity, fraud, waste, tax evasion, inefficiency, or ill run and ill thought out programs.
Never mind that our kids are under educated, our debt is over the top, and our border leaks like a sieve.
Never mind that millions of Americans cannot get a job and millions of them need food stamps to survive.
Never mind that the country's fiscal house is in disarray and the financial viability of the country and our democracy is in danger of collapsing.
Never mind that the nuclear arms club is about to expand to include two of the most unstable countries in the world.
No, rather than deal with and address the right priorities, the good Senator would rather expend government and taxpayer resources, time, and money on an issue that affects just about no American outside of the New Orleans Saints organization. There is absolutely no chance at all this bounty behavior will occur again since the league has proven that it will cost future offenders money, time, and their careers.
But no, the Senator wants to have Congressional hearings on something as trivial as this. I am not sure it is because the Senator and his peers do not know how bad life is outside of the Beltway or it is because they really have no clue how to solve our truly serious problems and waste their time on this type of trivial nonsense.
In either case, there should be a process put in place that would remove such politicians in office for wasting our time and our resources and for not focusing on the highest priorities challenging us all. I would suggest that every year when we file our tax returns, we be allowed vote out of office any Washington politician that spent time on trivial matters such as what Senator Durbin is planning to do.
If two thirds of those filing their taxes feel that any politician wasted the country's time on idiotic priorities (like NFL bounties), that politician would be banned from any future Federal political office and would step down when their current term was over. Longer term, implementing Step 39 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" would be the better solution since it would impose term limits on every Federal politician. If a politician knew that he or she had only a limited time to make an impact on Ameircans' lives, hopefully they would not waste that time on NFL bounties and other types of silliness.
I do not mean to single out Senator Durbin. We have previously reported on other acts of stupidity such as when the Federal political class passed a law that regulated the sound volume of television commercials, or when Congress held hearings the process for determining the national champion in Division I college football, or when a Congressman wanted to establish a tax deduction for house pets.
The idiocy is not confined to one politician, it is rampant across many. That is why the answer to the question posed in today's title is a definite "Yes." I bet if you removed just one from office by the process proposed above, you would never have to remove another since finally, we would have a process in place that focused politicians on real issues and not nonsense.
We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:
http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/
The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.
The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/
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