Mr. Trenk
Owning property in Cave Creek does not make you a Cave Creek resident. “Intending” to move to Cave Creek does not make you a Cave Creek resident. Boarding your horses in Cave Creek does not make you a Cave Creek resident. Sleeping off a weekend drunk in Cave Creek does not make you a Cave Creek resident. You are not a Cave Creek resident and you should resign from the Cave Creek Town Council.
Melanie Williams
Cave Creek
Dumb, dumber, dumbest
It now appears to be official; Cave Creek is the dumbest city, in the officially certified dumbest state in the nation. This final point was hammered home when the town government wankers chose to deny the normal, already budgeted grant to the local Desert Foothills Library. Clearly, the leaders, 'pillars' of the community, apparently felt tax funds should be used to support those who contribute to culture by starting a cowboy bar, or more to the issue, have a lot of juice, or at the least retain the 'right' law firm.
Cave Creek has precious little to recommend. Most telling is the fact that after one visit few choose to pay a return visit. Pawn shops, gun shops and dreadful phony western watering holes do not entice seasoned tourists ... these are rarely hogs on hogs hanging onto their guns, longnecks, and Bibles.
Fortunately, the library will hang on, and in retrospect this may jar the Library Board to focus on those with the resources and will to support a library more in tune with adult interests. This will mean a shakeup of the Board and fewer prerequisites such as childcare, dicey lectures, and free use of meeting use by phony 'non-profits,' like AARP.
This will mean emphasis on learning and use of professionals who can, and will, share their considerable talent, often also adding to the revenue flow.
Steve Lowen
Scottsdale
Droolers
One has to simply peruse the minutes of the March 3 Cave Creek Town Council retreat and the March 17 Cave Creek Town Council meeting to understand just how ‘out to lunch’ these council slate members (Trenk, Durkin, Monachino and Spitzer) really are.
The deep thinking Durkin is still trying to figure out how much money the town needs before he will commit to any economic development. How much money to do what is unknown, of course, and if he ever believes he has an answer, it will change before the sun sets. Such are the dynamics of municipalities. This is the same Durkin who announced during the campaign that he had already redrafted the town’s General Plan to suit his view of the world without a clue as to the community involvement required as well as a public vote to approve it. It is also the same Durkin who carried the flag for Carefree’s referendum against a Cave Creek project, which the Cave Creek public promptly stuffed up his nose.
Trenk, who would not recognize a budget if one bit him in the fanny, said they needed to tighten their belt and he did not want to see a budget that looked like last year’s. Not sure why he is concerned because he totally ignored the current budget with all of his spending on his unqualified buddy Glassman, all of his other unnecessary pet projects and the crushing legal expenses he personally caused. He should understand that given the scarcity of actual discretionary dollars, the budget will look a whole lot like it has for the past several years.
Monachino, the financial genius, seems to be waking up to the fact that they frittered away so much money on useless endeavors, they cannot pay some budgeted debt and evidently, the totally unnecessary $80,000 pavement software program has already delayed or derailed an actual $30,000 joint pavement project with Carefree - and Spitzer wants more software studies.
These droolers, who hired Trenk’s unqualified buddy Glassman, protected him, and gifted him $100,000 are now moving into the town manager’s exclusive realm by talking about firing competent staff to save money (for more shiny horses?). Let’s hope Mr. Jankowski has the cojones to get these droolers out of his business.
It goes on and on – no plan, no agenda, no expertise, no rational approach, and incredibly poor judgment. The only fix is to remove them by recall before their damage is irreparable. If you haven’t signed recall petitions for these four low wattage trolls, please do so before April 17. It’s our town.
Bob Williams
Cave Creek
Disclosing M.S. always a tough decision
March is "Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Month" and a flurry of press releases from MS organizations has bounced into reporter's inboxes all across the country. I've covered dozens of similar stories in my years in radio and television news, and wound up becoming no more "aware" of the rarer diseases in question than I was before I wrote the story.
Like most other women in the newsroom I was definitely aware of the facts of, say, breast cancer. We're all at risk and each of us knows someone who has survived it, or not. This holds true for any disease that cuts a statistically wide swath through our circle of friends or family and may someday pose a risk to us, as well.
But the ones that don't, like MS? If awareness constitutes a personal familiarity with something, I was not aware.
Until my friend, CBS journalist Jan Chorlton Petersen, developed Alzheimer's in her mid-50s, I not aware of early-onset Alzheimer's.
Until I volunteered at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and became friends with patients and their families, I was not aware of leukemia.
Until I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, I was not aware of MS.
Unlike those who suffer from Alzheimer's who, by necessity, retreat from public contact or those struggling with leukemia in hospitals, we with MS are out and about and living our lives. Many of us struggle to walk or are in wheelchairs, it's true. But for most, our impairments are not visible and you will not initially know we are sick unless we tell you.
And that's the thing: we generally don't tell you.
Statistics and data will not by themselves make you aware of MS, but there is this: Seattle is the unofficial MS capital of the U.S., two-thirds of people with MS are women and the disease usually strikes us in our 20s and 30s. I was 32, living in Israel and working for NBC News when I experienced my first symptoms. The MS was well-advanced when I was finally diagnosed in 2002. That's a common story.
I'm writing now because I believe that for people who don't have MS to become "aware," some of us who do have to reveal ourselves. Many are doing just that this month throughout the U.S.
I've known several young women who have kept their diagnoses secret. The stigma attached to the disease and the wariness it inspires in others is real and unfortunate. Fearful of the potential loss of friends or jobs, their silence makes sense.
March is Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Month. There are approximately 350,000 or more people living with MS in the U.S., thousands of us right here in Seattle. Many are young and vital and have no idea what will happen to them. Those of us who've had the disease for decades can tell them that life will be different than they imagined, but there is still much joy ahead.
Kathleen Durkan
Seattle and Cave Creek
Dear Friends of Veterans Heritage Project
On Sunday, April 13, students, veterans, and family will gather to celebrate the debut of this year's incredible set of veterans stories in our 10th Volume of Since You Asked (Phoenix edition), and the impressive accomplishments of our students and teachers.
We hope you will join us for a memorable afternoon, including a Keynote speech by Ted Vogt, Director of Arizona Department of Veterans' Services!
When: Sunday, April 13, from 3 – 6 p.m.
Where: Arizona State University West
4701 West Thunderbird Road
Glendale, AZ 85306
There will be signage on the road and a welcoming group of students ready to show you the way once you park!
Please see the attached invitation and map for details, or check out our website at www.VeteransHeritage.org for additional information.
We look forward to seeing you on April 13!
Kindly,
The Veterans Heritage Project Family
Dear Patriot
We created the Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund to help give Tea Party candidates a fighting chance against entrenched big-government "Republicans" and crazed Obama-loving liberals. And our opponents have taken notice.
Especially within the Republican Party, the consultants and professional politicians are attacking our movement almost daily. They are promising to "crush" us and ruin our candidates. Their goal is to divide our movement and demoralize grassroots conservatives like you.
We must not let them get away with it!
The Tea Party movement has and always will be bigger than one individual or group. Ours is a citizen-led movement dedicated to saving this country. We're not agents of any political party. We're not slaves to any particular candidate.
Every single Tea Party activist is involved in this crusade because he or she believes in the cause of limited government, and that infuriates the Washington, D.C. political establishment.
The professional consultants in D.C. want to pick Republican nominees and collect fat fees for silly TV commercials. They can't stand grassroots activists.
The entrenched incumbents want to make sure that no one ever runs against them. So they despise ordinary Americans who do.
Let there be no doubt. We are in the middle of a massive political war. A war to save America.
Thank you for standing with us. The next several months are going to be tough. Our candidates will be attacked. They will be massively outspent. Groups like the Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund will be savaged in the media. We are going to need you more than ever.
So, please prepare yourself for what is coming. The Ruling Class won't give up without a fight.
And, if you can, will you please make a generous contribution to the Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund today?
Thank you for everything you do.
For freedom,
Jenny Beth Martin
Chairman
Contributions to the Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund are not tax deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes.
HOORAY - 53-46 vote
The U.N. Resolution 2117 lists 21 points dealing with firearms control, but perhaps of most interest is point number 11: “CALLS FOR MEMBER STATES TO SUPPORT WEAPONS COLLECTION, DISARMAMENT ---” HOORAY - 53-46 vote - The U.S. Senate voted against the U.N. resolution.
This is that brief, glorious moment in history when everyone stands around...reloading.
Now, which 46 senators voted to destroy us? Well, let their names become known!! See below. If you vote in one of the states listed with these 46 “legis..traitors”… vote against them.
In a 53-46 vote, the senate narrowly passed a measure that will stop the United States from entering into the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty. The Statement of Purpose from the Bill reads: "To uphold Second Amendment rights and prevent the United States from entering into the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty." The U.N. Small Arms Treaty, which has been championed by the Obama Administration, would have effectively placed a global ban on the import and export of small firearms. The ban would have affected all private gun owners in the U.S. and had language that would have implemented an international gun registry, now get this, on all private guns and ammo.
Astonishingly, 46 out of our 100 United States Senators were willing to give away our Constitutional rights to a foreign power.
Here are the 46 senators who voted to give your rights to the U.N.:
Baldwin (D-WI)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bennett (D-CO)
Blumenthal (D-CT)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Cardin (D-MD)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Coons (D-DE)
Cowan (D-MA)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Franken (D-MN)
Harkin (D-IA)
Hirono (D-HI)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kaine (D-VA)
King (I-ME)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Merkley (D-OR)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murphy (D-CT)
Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Sanders (I-VT)
Schatz (D-HI)
Shaheen (D-NH)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Udall (D-CO)
Udall (D-NM)
Warner (D-VA)
Warren (D-MA)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR)
Folks: These senators voted to let the U.N. take OUR guns. They need to lose their next election. We have been betrayed. 46 senators voted to give your 2nd Amendment Constitutional Rights to the U.N.
Joe Naley
Email
Fixing Congress
These are hard times for Congress. Our democracy’s keystone political institution is widely derided as ineffective, unproductive, irrelevant, and sadly out of touch.
It is no coincidence that at the same time, Congress has developed a taste for so-called “unorthodox lawmaking,” wandering far outside its traditional procedures. That’s why I would argue that as grim as things seem now, there is a fix for what ails Congress.
Broadly speaking, it involves congressional process. In legislative bodies, whoever controls the process controls the result. If it wants to restore itself, Congress must make its processes exemplary and fair.
They should begin by opening the floor to more amendments. At the moment amendments are tightly limited, if not banned outright, in an effort by the leadership to control the outcome. This restricts debate, impedes the free flow of ideas, and strengthens leaders while disempowering ordinary members.
The leadership also needs to give up its concentrated power and hand more authority to congressional committees to hold hearings and inquire deeply into issues. Congress seems to devote less and less time to crafting and then passing legislation; it is losing the habit and the necessary skills, and its work product suffers. It needs to work harder at the job Americans expect of it.
To make this possible, the Senate should do more of its business by simple majority vote of the senators present and voting. It’s important for the majority to assure fair procedures that take minority views fully into account, but at the end of the day Congress needs to work, not be hamstrung by loyalty to a filibuster rule that has outlived its purpose.
Other key processes also need mending. The confirmation of presidential appointees is absurdly slow, seriously jeopardizing a president’s ability to govern. The congressional ethics committees are dormant. Travel privileges are routinely abused. The crucial oversight process has become a political sideshow. Campaign expenditures should be limited and donors should be disclosed.
The point of all this is that Congress is listing, but it can right itself. It may not be able to tackle all of these proposed fixes at once, but each is within its power. Members should quit throwing up their hands and protesting that they can’t do anything about their own institution’s problems. It’s their job to put Congress back in working order and they have the power to do it.
Lee Hamilton
Director of the Center on Congress at Indiana University
Hell bent on keeping the war machine lubricated
It would be one thing if we had the financial resources to bully the rest of the world. It's another thing to have the likes like Sen. McCain trying to pick a fight with Vladamir Putin and put the world at the brink of WW III regarding Syria and Ukraine. Meanwhile, Obama continues to violate the sovereignty of Pakistan and takes out wedding parties and the like with our patriotic predator missiles. Both GW Bush and Obama have eliminated the rights mankind gained with the Magna Carta in 1215 BC.
Our food supply is contaminated with the herbicide Roundup and GMO crops and we are being dumbed-down by the fluorides in our toothpaste, mouthwash and water supply.
And all the public cares about is if Justin Bieber is being treated fairly for throwing eggs a neighbor's house. Where the Hell are we going?
Sincerely,
Joseph DuPont
Towanda, Pennsylvania
