The U.S. House and it's silly punishments

Representative Charles B. Rangel was censured by The House because of some unethical conduct. He was chairman of the Ways and Means Committee which is heavily involved in writing tax law. His unethical behavior included things like, attending conferences in the Caribbean payed for by corporations, not paying taxes on $75,000 of income from rental properties, not paying mortgage interest for 10 years, and using his office for fundraising activities for the Charlie P. Rangel Center for Public Service including seeking donations from companies that had business before his ways and means committee. In total there were 11 charges he was found guilty on.

From the way he speaks in defense of himself it sounds like he thinks this is all an overreaction and nothing should happen to him, and that his service in the military should count for something. It is clear that he committed these crimes and should be punished for them.

So here's the houses punishment. A censure. A censure is a very serious punishment and is rarely used. It entails his charges being read by the speaker of the house in front of the entire house of representatives (Though from what I've heard she only read one charge). Can you believe the severity! Can you believe people are debating the death penalty and all the while something as horrific as censure is going on!

This is a joke. They could easily remove this guy from office and even put him in prison (I believe Wesley Snipes just got put in prison for not paying taxes). Instead the house basically decided not to do anything. He even got standing applause after he gave his defense.

Miller's Justice - Throw him out of office and put him in prison for 2 years. Throw anyone who applauded him out of office. Revoke voting rights from the people in New York that re-elected him despite the charges until they have taken some basic courses on ethics and how to do some research before casting a vote.

I'm telling you where to shop

Here's a few businesses you can feel good about purchasing from. If you don't need what they sell it may at least brighten your day to know what they do. Enjoy!

Verymeri.com - T-Shirts that are designed by kids. You can buy these for your kids, and 3% of the sale price goes to the kid that designed it and another 3% goes to a charity of that kid's choice.

M&E Painting - This painting company is in Colorado so it may not be practical for you to use them, but at least we aware of them. They were supposed to paint an old woman's house but she had to cancel the job because her husband died. The returned her deposit and felt bad for her. So they then decided to paint her house for free, to the suprise of the owners all of their employees were willing to donate their time to do the job. Now they seek out people in need of a free paint job and try to do more free jobs each year. Here's a link to the story in Entrepreneur Magazine.

HivesforLives - At ages 10 and 12 these two girls started a business harvesting their own honey and selling it to raise money for cancer research. When their grandfather died of throat cancer they wanted to do something significant to help find a cure, 6 years later they find their honey being sold in a wide variety of retail outlets including Whole Foods. Check out their website for more of their story or if you would like to buy honey, lip balm or candles.

As I find more cool businesses I'll be sure to post about them.

Post Election Commentary

So Elections were Tuesday and I've put together some of my takes on what went on. Some of these thoughts are related to issues that came up in the elections and some are on the candidates and results. You're welcome to comment with your own thoughts, I'd love to hear your analysis.

Where were the issues? Instead of Meg being called a whore and employing an illegal immigrant, why not clear plans on things like water distribution, job creation, budgeting problems, prison expenses, businesses and residents leaving our state, the state deficit?

Campaign Spending! Outrageous! Here's my suggestion. Limit candidates to 1 debate televised and put on the Internet, a website, and a one page summary of why they are a good choice distributed in the sample ballot.

Boo Barbara Boxer! I was really hoping Boxer would lose. If I were running Fiorina's campaign I would have played over and over again the video of her insisting that a general refer to her as "Senator" because she worked really hard to get there. Attention Barbara! You are a democrat from California, did it really take that much work to win? I'd say at the least she didn't work any harder than the man she was addressing.

Fiorina oversaw layoffs at HP! Is it really that difficult to understand the difference between a Senator's responsibilities and those of a CEO at a public company. She has to produce profit or the company goes under, sometimes layoffs are a part of that.

Education - Why all the comparisons to other countries? Isn't the core concern more along the lines of "We want our kids to finish school and be well-equipped to enter the work force or go to college to continue learning" rather than "We want our kids to have better test scores than the kids in Japan."

President Obama - On Wednesday morning the President made a statement and answered some questions. At one point he basically said that moving forward the two parties will need to work together to give Americans what they want. Rational people probably already determined this back when the two party system was established.

Republicans - The party leadership has already come out and essentially said they want to make sure the President is not re-elected. How is that conducive to making progress and helping out our country? Even if that is your aim, what is the value in telling the whole country? Why polarize when now is a chance to start working together.

In closing I hope you all voted even if there weren't great options for you. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the elections, you're welcome to comment on the propositions as well.