mlentz's blog

The news this week that Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch resigned from her ledership position, followed by a press conference the following day that members of the leadership team had "confronted"  her with "allegations" of an "inapropriate relationship" with a male staffer must have the media cruising the Twin Cities chasing Amy for the real scoop. The media coverage and the talk in the political world warrants a word of caution for all.

Last week President Obama was in Honalulu and spoke at an APEC event at which he said America has been kind of lazy these past couple decades. He claimed America has just expected people to come here and do business and just didn't work very hard to attract that business. Now if your indegestian just got worse and your reaching for the Tums, I can understand. Let's review from whom this criticism comes.

Here is the quote:

I am someone who tries to avoid the mainstream media news because a daily diet of murder tabulations on top of twisted propaganda about how Republicans are wont to feed grandma dog food, make the sky black with smog and the land barren and rotted is, frankly, hazardous for my health. But even amidst my intentional self censoring, I have heard more than I care to about Occupy Wall Street protests.

America, Meet the TEA Party

There are few news articles that are more disgusting to me than the ones that show Washington Elites pretending to be normal American's in order to manipulate public opinion.

Thomas Paine said, "Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."

Nearly every American will think about the 9/11 attacks today. Some will watch tributes and share thoughts, many will pray for our country and the families of the fallen. No matter how uninterested, distracted or busy they are it is nearly impossible to go through this day without a reminder that 10 years ago today America was attacked and America responded. It is true, we will never forget.

Our state Senator Sean Nienow introduced 9 bills last session to resolve the problem of lack of transparency and accountability in the administration of Medicaid and Prepaid Medical Assistance Programs (PMAP) by the HMOs in Minnesota. Currently there is very little independent oversight of these programs and some say millions of dollars of tax payer revenue could be misappropriated due to this lack of oversight. Where is the roughly 3 billion dollars per year that is reimbursed to the four HMO providers going? No one really knows because no one can look into the HMOs proverbial black box.

This weekend was abuzz with news that Michele Bachmann won the Ames, Iowa Straw Poll with Ron Paul just 200 votes behind her. Today former Governor Tim Pawlenty withdrew from the presidential race after coming in a distant third.

There have been helpful and informative messages going around the internet. I was sent this common sense analogy of the current spending crises in Washington. Take a gander:
"If the US Government was a family, they would be making $58,000 a year, they spend $75,000 a year, & are $327,000 in credit card debt. They are currently proposing BIG spending cuts to reduce their spending to $72,000 a year. These are the actual proportions of the federal budget & debt, reduced to a level that we can understand." - Dave Ramsey

The thesis of this brief essay posits the vexing possibility that:

AMERICA MAY NOT REMAIN A FREE NATION

because history knows of no country that has withstood the destruction or even the diminution, over time, of the political, economic, educational, military, religious and social elements of ordered society.