The Government is RACIST and GREEDY as HELL!!!!

July 22, 2021

Hello Patrick Fennell,

My native hometown Pittsfield, Massachusetts is in decades-long post industrial decay in 2021.  My answer to your questions about Pittsfield now versus back in the late 1960s is that Pittsfield is a lot worse off now in 2021.  There are no more living wage jobs for the average working class family in Pittsfield.  The only economic growth in Pittsfield is in its huge underclass that mostly lives in the inner city.  Pittsfield public schools are among the worse rated in the entire state.  Pittsfield is one of the most economically unequal areas in the state and nation.

Prior to the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts in the mid-1960s, the government used to invest in the white working class.  For the past 5 decades now, after black workers had equal legal protections, the government instituted sink or swim social Darwinism because the government is racist and they will never invest in black workers so ALL workers now bear the risk of joining our country's huge underclass.  Instead of the white working class having a nice suburban home like in the 1950s and 1960s TV shows, ALL of the working class are nothing more than numbers on an Accountant's financial spreadsheet to be cost controlled by bureaucrats in the government and big business' billion or trillion dollar budgets.

Cities such as Pittsfield, which has a lot of minority working class and underclass families, are the product of the racist government and big business taking all of the financial gains for the ruling and corporate elites, while the working class is lucky to catch a few proverbial crumbs here and there.  Our country has been financialized so that the working class and underclass don't stand a chance anymore in their pitiful lives.  To be clear, the elites are both RACIST and GREEDY as HELL!!!! 

Best wishes,

Jonathan Melle

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July 22, 2022

Hello Patrick Fennell,

I am sure you are right or correct about Massachusetts being dominated by Democratic Party politicians and their corrupted money.  I am also sure you hit the target about Pittsfield and other decaying post industrial cities similar to it being ran by Democratic Party politicians who serve Boston's state Democratic Party Officials' liberal agenda.  I am also sure that Governor Charlie Baker is a RINO who wants to be reelected in 2022.

The problem with one party dominated states and cities in Massachusetts is that there are a lot of Democrats who are nothing of the sort except that is their meal ticket to win elected office and enrich themselves at the public trough.  Peter Larkin is an example of a Massachusetts politician and now greedy Beacon Hill lobbyist who says he is a Democrat, but his public record is obviously Republican.  Dan Bosley is another example.  Daniel Bosley is a greedy Beacon Hill lobbyist who supports huge tax breaks in the billions of dollars range for big businesses.  Nuciforo is another example.  Even The Berkshire Eagle wrote that Nuciforo is a fiscal conservative on the side of corporate interests - Boston's big banks and insurance companies - instead of the public policy needs of the Berkshires.  Nuciforo's over 4 year old marijuana business is yet another predatory industry that people pay in to for the sole benefit of the Elites.  Multimillionaire Governor Deval Patrick started the predatory and regressive taxation casino gambling industry in Massachusetts.

The government is a predatory industry in and of itself.  There really is no Democratic and Republican Party in American politics except for on paper only.  The only real political party is the Incumbent Party.  Politicians belong to the Elites' proverbial Country Club, along with big business' wealthy monied interests who fill the politician's campaign coffers with special interest dollars.  Donald Trump and the Clintons attended weddings and other social functions together for years.  Please don't be fooled by the Elites.  It is all a show to make believe we live in a functioning democracy when we really live in a "Haves versus Have Nots" or the "Elites versus the 99%" political, economic and financial system.

The Elites always win, even when a few Incumbents lose their seats in a contested election.  Peter Larkin, Dan Bosley and Nuciforo all make more money now than they ever did as career politicians.  In 2008, the Elites on Wall Street brought our financial system to its knees, but they were all rewarded for it all with trillions of federal bailout dollars - and none of them ever faced any charges except for Martha Stewart for insider trading.  The Elites on Capitol Hill even bailed out foreign banks with federal dollars to the tune of hundreds of billions of public dollars.  When Wall Street and foreign banks took the federal bailout money, they rewarded themselves with huge pay and compensation packages.  The federal minimum wage - $7.25 per hour - has NOT been raised in 12 years, which is shortly after the aforementioned bailouts of the billionaires and multimillionaires who run Wall Street.

It is all a political and financial shell game to ensure that the Elites always win, and the rest of us either tread water or lose.  The only two things that grow in our nation's economy are the top 1 percent's huge share of our nation's wealth and the huge underclass.  Take a wild guess where little guys like us fall into?  I will have to continue to POUND SAND, while the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Best wishes,

Jonathan Melle

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July 25, 2021

WAR is the U.S.A.'s biggest and most profitable business.  The U.S.A.'s #1 non-farm export is military weapons.  The U.S. Government fights in proxy wars.  The Korean Conflict was/is the final conflict, which nominally ended after Stalin died, that was NOT a proxy war.  The reason why the U.S. Government did not win in the Vietnam Conflict is because it was the U.S. Government's first proxy war against the Soviet Union.  After the Soviet Union collapsed in the early-1990s, the U.S. Government took most of the Russian government's market sale in arm sales.  Remember that the 1990s economy and stock market was hot for a long time.  It was because the U.S. Government was selling a record amount of military arms to the world, while Russia was still recovering from their economic collapse prior to Putin taking over the Russian government since the Spring of 2000.  When Bush and Cheney invaded Iraq in mid-March of 2003, the U.S. Government took over and still controls around 85% of Iraq's second largest in the world oil fields.  Saudi Arabia, which has the largest oil fields in the world, is a strong ally of the U.S. Government and they buy billions of dollars of our military arms every year.  Afghanistan temporarily interfered with Bush and Cheney controlling Iraq's vast oil fields, and now in 2021, President Joe Biden is pulling most of the U.S. Armed Forces out of there after nearly 20 years.  Most women in Afghanistan will soon lose their human rights and be subjugated again by the Taliban.  The U.S. Government doesn't care about any of that as long as they get to sell billions of dollars in military arms exports and fight in proxy wars that cause humanitarian crises and countless deaths around the world.  The MSM is focused on Donald Trump all of the time, while the world is always being militarized for defense contractors and Wall Street to profit.  Millions upon millions of foreign Peoples have been killed by the U.S. Government's war machine since the end of World War 2.  In closing, the U.S. Government is only about "The Almighty Dollar" (GREED)!

Jonathan A. Melle

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July 26, 2021

Hello blogger Dan Valenti,

I am not allowed to post more than one blog posting per day on your awesome blog.  You keep writing on your blog that Ike brokered the long standing truce in the Korean Conflict.  Please take into account that Stalin did not die until after Harry Truman left the presidency and Dwight Eisenhower was the sitting U.S. President.  Stalin did not take Harry Truman seriously during the years he (Truman) was in the White House.  There was no way President Harry Truman could have brokered a truce in Korea while Stalin was still alive and running the Soviet Union.  It was not until after Stalin died that President Eisenhower was able to broker the long standing truce in Korea.  I would appreciate it if you would post this information on your blog today.

Thank you,

Jonathan A. Melle

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August 1, 2021

Hello Patrick Fennell,

Today is August 1st, 2021 all day long.  Today is the start of Beacon Hill Lawmakers' August 2021 month-long paid vacation.  Today is the start of one of the biggest evictions of renters in U.S. History thanks to the Swamp: President Joe Biden, Capitol Hill, and the U.S. Supreme Court.  Put it all together, and you have the ruling elites taking the month of August 2021 off, while millions of renters will be fed to the wolves; homeless families will desperately look to have a roof over their heads before the cold nights set in.  Sarcasm: I am sure the Founders envisioned the U.S.A.'s ruling elites taking a month-long paid vacation, while the working class and underclass families will struggle to survive on the streets.  More sarcasm: Thank you ruling elites for taking a month-long paid vacation, and thank you again for feeding us all to the wolves while you enjoy your undeserved time off.

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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August 4, 2021

Hello Patrick Fennell,

I know that you are a Veteran like myself.  We fellow Veterans talk about the eviction of renters after the CDC eviction moratorium ended at the end of Saturday, July 31st, 2021.  We said that U.S. Congress went on its month-long August vacation, while tens of millions of families are at risk of eviction and homelessness, and landlords are owed tens of billions of dollars from renters.  The 435 Members of the U.S. House of Representatives won't be back to "work" in the Swamp until after Labor Day.  The 100 U.S. Senators are still in legislative session, but only to "work" on Biden's trillion dollar infrastructure package.  The U.S. Senate is expected to recess soon, and then they won't be back to "work" in the Swamp until after Labor Day.

The ruling elites in our country are very disconnected from the people who depend on the government for their survival and well being.  We are receiving their message loud and clear that unless you are part of their elitist proverbial country club on Wall Street, K Street and in the Swamp or places such as Beacon Hill's corrupt Statehouse, then you don't count anymore.  We are scared of our government, even the Veterans who took an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution and follow the lawful orders of our Commander In Chief in the White House.  It is like the elites have turned the corridors of money and power into a casino where only the rich and powerful get to pay to play.

Our country is in a major crisis right now.  We are in a global pandemic.  U.S. inflation is at a 30 to 40 year high, which is worse than any federal tax hike.  The federal government has hit its debt ceiling and the feds are using extraordinary measures to keep the government open and running, while U.S. Congress is taking its month-long paid vacation.  Tens of millions of American renters are facing eviction, and landlords are owed tens of billions of dollars due to the CDC eviction moratorium.  Global warming and climate change is threatening our national security and economic stability.  China and Russia are gaining global power and wealth, while the U.S.A. is running record multitrillion dollar federal deficits.

On another front, I am annoyed that U.S. President Joe Biden joined the chorus of Democrats calling on New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo to resign, while his (Joe Biden's) son Hunter Biden is an alleged money launderer of hundreds of millions of Chinese dollars, along with Hunter's business dealings in Russia and Ukraine.  Andrew Cuomo is not a crack cocaine addict and alcoholic like Hunter Biden, who unlike Andrew Cuomo, Hunter Biden paid sex workers for sex and impregnated a young woman stripper and then tried to deny to a Judge that he (Hunter Biden) was the father of the stripper's baby.  After a court ordered paternity test, Hunter Biden was proven to be the stripper's baby's father.  Hunter Biden has at least 5 children by at least 3 women, which means that Joe Biden has a lot of grandchildren out there that he is neglecting while he is busy tanking our country's inequitable economy in the Oval Office.  Compared to Hunter Biden, Andrew Cuomo doesn't look all that bad for his alleged sexual harassment and sexual misconduct of women - which is wrong - in his role as Governor of New York.  However, we all have to answer to the law, and if Andrew Cuomo is proven to have violated the law, he has to pay for his illegal actions like everyone else out there.

I believe our country has gone too far with political correctness and sexual harassment and sexual misconduct - which is wrong - allegations, but it makes for sensational tabloid news.  In Marketing 101, the first thing one learns is that SEX SELLS!  We are all cavemen and cavewomen, and nothing gets our attention like the marketing of SEX, SEX, SEX, SEX, SEX, SEX, SEX, SEX, SEX, SEX....  We all have done things in our lives that are sexually inappropriate, whether they were only thoughts, or possibly actions.  I am a believer in mental healthcare, and I would like to see Andrew Cuomo receive mental healthcare for his alleged inappropriate sexual behavior instead of the media using it to sell their news to the masses.

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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August 4, 2021

To the Editor;

I have the two best landlords in the world. They are kind, keep up the property and go out of their way to all of us tenants. I do work for other landlords and find them to be hard working conscientious people. Almost every landlord I know are good hardworking people, with many it is their primary business. To make ends meet they need to collect rent.

So why is President Biden punishing landlords unconstitutionally? Why out of 47 Billion dollars only 7% has been spent? Why are landlords punished while non-paying renters are being rewarded? Right now there ar 'Help Wanted' signs out in front of almost every business. Between stimulus checks, checks for children, extra unemployment money, and other benefits there is NO excuse to make property owners suffer. Not one.

Shame on the government for ignoring the real people suffering. 

Odd that no government is forgiving when it comes to collecting money from us.

Patrick Fennell

Great Barrington, MA

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August 5, 2021

My response to my political family's history with the Democratic Party is that I am not a partisan activist.  Moreover, I believe that the Democratic and Republican Parties are mostly for show.  Behind the scenes, politicians from both sides are friends and go to each other's family weddings and social events.  Furthermore, I believe there is only one real political party: The Incumbents.  Once a career politician wins elected office, they are usually there for life.  It takes millions of dollars per year to be a Member of U.S. Congress, and $1 billion every four years to be in the White House.  The average working stiff can barely pay his or her mortgage, never mind fund a multimillion dollar campaign for U.S. Congress.  The Swamp is a proverbial Country Club of ruling elites who receive most of their campaign funding from K Street corporate lobbyists.  The Swamp is very disconnected from Main Street America.  We are in a K-shaped economic recovery where the corporate and ruling elites are winning, and the rest of America is either treading water or falling behind and losing.

After my dad's time as a politician in Berkshire County, Massachusetts over 2 decades ago, I don't want to relive any of it ever again in my lifetime.  Blogger Dan Valenti and others have written to me that what happened between my dad and I versus the Nuciforo network happened a long time ago, but I feel like no one else went through the abuse and political persecution other than my dad and I back then.  It feels weird to me because I was living in a decade (1996 - 2005 when I was over 20.5 to 30 years old) in the Twilight Zone, while everyone else's life was presumably normal.  I am 46 years old now in the Summer of 2021, and after over 25 years of it all, no one from the Nuciforo network of Pittsfield politics ever apologized to me or my dad for their mean-spirited and conspiratorial bullying and threatening actions.  The only feedback I received over the past 25 years is that my behavior was socially inappropriate and that I need mental healthcare help.  It is like people judge me for my behavior and mental illness without accounting for the trauma I went through during and after my father's political career as a Berkshire County Commissioner (1997 - mid-2000).  I feel that people shouldn't judge me without listening to me and walking in my proverbial shoes.  I understand that I am imperfect and that I should handle things in my life better as I mature with age, and I take my social behavior and mental healthcare seriously.

The eviction moratorium and landlords getting scammed by the federal government's policies that only protect renters during the current global pandemic needs to be resolved.  However, U.S. Congress is on a month-long vacation through August until after Labor Day 2021.  I don't understand how the U.S. Congress can take over one month off from "work" in the Swamp, while our country is in crisis.  The federal government hit its debt ceiling, and the U.S. Treasury Department is using extraordinary measures to keep the federal government open.  Again, we are in a global pandemic and our country is in crisis, yet the Swamp's elected officials are missing in action for over one month right now.  The only thing that matters to the Swamp's elected officials is their multimillion dollar campaign coffers and getting reelected term after term after term....

Beacon Hill lawmakers in Boston are also on a month-long vacation, but as Patrick Fennell write, that may be a good thing for the people and taxpayers of Massachusetts.  It is when they are in legislative session that everyone gets the proverbial shaft.

In Truth!

Jonathan A. Melle

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August 7, 2021

Re: Swamp on August vacation and War Pig dollars

Hello Patrick Fenell,

I read your letter to the Editor of the Berkshire Eagle (online) newspaper about the federal government spending only 7 percent of tens of billions of dollars in financial relief for landlords and renters during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic as of early-August of 2021.  I agree with your published letter that landlords are getting stiffed by tens of millions of renters across the U.S.A.

What do you think about the U.S. House of Representatives being on their one-month long August vacation that doesn't end until after Labor Day 2021?  What do you think about Beacon Hill Lawmakers being on their one-month long August vacation that doesn't end until after Labor Day 2021?  Our country is in crisis right now, and the career politicians in Boston and in the Swamp are all on taxpayer-funded paid vacations.  It doesn't seem right to me.

Yesterday during my functional fitness class at the VAMC in Manchester, NH, I asked my fellow Veterans what they thought about the U.S. Armed Forces' plan to mandate Covid-19 vaccination shots to all of our troops.  The Veterans responded to me that it should be mandatory.  I was wondering what your thoughts about it are?  When I was an American Soldier in the U.S. Army both stateside and over in Germany, I had to receive shots over 2 decades ago.  I also had to train with machine guns and grenades, which were a lot more scary to me receiving a vaccination shot.

Donald Trump had bone spurs (unlike war hero John McCain), and Joe Biden had Asthma during the Vietnam Conflict draft.  They used to call Vice President Dick Cheney "5 deferments Cheney".  Bill Clinton was also a well known draft dodger, who refused to call World War 2 combat Veteran George H.W. Bush "Mr. President" during the 1992 presidential debates.  George W. Bush is said to have been AWOL during Vietnam, and his military records were destroyed in a Pentagon fire.  The recent U.S. Presidents and Vice President Dick Cheney aren't exactly examples of honorable military service.  Also, Willard Mitt Romney, who had offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands, didn't serve, neither did any of his 5 sons.  Donald Trump (who won't release his federal tax returns) has 2 adult sons who also didn't serve.  Most Members of U.S. Congress' adult children never served.

President Joe Biden is pulling our troops out of Afghanistan, which is leading to persecutions, murders, and the taking away of human rights from women and children.  For decades on end now, the U.S. Government's number one non-farm exports are military weapons.  The Swamp tells us that if we don't sell Saudi Arabia billions of dollars in military weapons, then they will turn around and buy them from Putin's Russian government in Moscow.  There are tragic humanitarian crisis and proxy wars across the globe, including the one in Yemen.  Why does everyone think that Wall Street is at record highs right now?  The answer is that the U.S. Government has done the exact opposite of "A Farewell to Arms".  Wall Street and the Swamp are profiting off of WAR, while Afghanistan, Yemen, and other areas of the world are burning.  When will it ever end?  When will we (including Russia and other countries) stop being war profiteers and start working for Peace on Earth?

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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August 13, 2021

What do I think about blogger Dan Valenti's essay?  My A to Z thoughts are: (a) I know of a certain sitting Mayor of Pittsfield named the Lovely Linda who lives in a very elitist millionaires-only gated community near the border with Hancock, (b) Post Industrial Pittsfield shows many of the downsides of capitalism, (c) Biden's Infrastructure Bill was sent back to the U.S. House of Representatives, who aren't scheduled to return to the Swamp until September 20th, 2021 (or 1 month and 1 week from now), but may return earlier if called upon, (c) Biden's Social Safety Net and phony Green New Deal bill is already dead, but it makes the progressives look good for trying, (d) Karl Marx lived in the heyday of the Industrial Revolution where the underclass was ruthlessly exploited by the "Haves"; there was no Middle Class yet, and there was still slavery and anti-Semitism which Karl Marx has been called out for being a racist, (e) Big government has become a predatory institution that only serves itself and Wall Street, while throwing a few proverbial crumbs to the masses, (f) Personally, when I write to the ruling elites I either receive form letter responses or no response at all, (g) No economic system has ever worked in human history, including Capitalism, which is nowhere to be found in the U.S. Constitution or any other founding documents, (h) Communism equals totalitarianism and more mass murders by war criminal regimes than any other system of government ever, (i) We live in a hybrid economic system where we have so-called Capitalism, but with some Socialism and a whole lot of CLASS WARFARE, (j) 2008's financial crisis caused by Wall Street saw trillions of dollars in federal bailouts to Wall Street's big banks and insurance companies, as well as hundreds of billions of dollars in federal bailouts to foreign banks, which is REVERSE CAPITALISM! and GLOBALISM!, (k) We are in a K-shaped economic recovery (for Wall Street and the Ruling Elites) and recession (for Main Street), (l) Inflation is worse than any federal tax on the working class and Biden's big government spending policies are exacerbating inflation to the highest levels in decades (1983), (m) I always want to know where the federal dollars really go because they never seem to go to the actual people, agencies, businesses, and communities who need the money the most, (n) I always want to know why politicians in big government make proverbial "Holy Sermon on the Mount" Jesus Christ-like speeches to the masses, but when money is involved, only the special and vested interests profit, (o) I wonder if the Ruling Elites are enjoying their taxpayer-funded August vacations during this time of national crisis, (p) I would like blogger Dan Valenti to breakdown the ratio of big government dollars for the military and corporate welfare to that of social services and social insurance funding, and then have him tell me why he hates social services funding so much, (q) I would like the Ruling Elites in big government to cut their public pay and perks in direct proportion to increases in taxes, public debts, spending and inflation so that they would lead in the front and feel the direct impacts of their votes, (s) I would like to ban career politicians who enrich themselves at the public trough via term limits, (t) I would like to know the ratio of K Street corporate lobbyists to the 535 Member of U.S. Congress, and how the Swamp became a casino for pay to play politics, (u) I would like to know why U.S. Congress is dragging its feet on either raising or suspending the national debt limit during our national crisis, (v) I would like to know why the U.S. Government's number one non-farm export to the world are military weapons and how much money we are making off of arms sales, (w) I would like to know if the Military Industrial Complex (or Big Brother) is really in charge of the U.S. Government, (x) I would like to know how many millions of foreign Peoples the U.S. Government's Armed Forces and related agencies killed in military conflicts since the end of World War 2, (y) I would like to know how many trillions of U.S. Dollars the U.S. Government owes foreign governments and its plan to pay them back, (z) I would like to know how high sea level rise from global warming will get in 50 years to 100 years from now, and beyond, and why the U.S. Government acts so sanctimonious about Climate Change when we are the number two polluter of greenhouse emissions in the world next to the number one polluter China, which the two countries combined account for nearly 1/2 of all greenhouse emissions in the entire world.

Jonathan A. Melle

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August 17, 2021

Questions: If we have been in Afghanistan for too long, and the U.S. Government's pullout there was long overdue, then why are we still in Iraq?  Could it be that Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world next to Saudi Arabia?  If the situation was reversed and Afghanistan had Iraq's vast oil reserves, and if Iraq did not have oil, would we have been in Iraq for too long?  Answer: I believe we all know the answers!

Jonathan A. Melle

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August 25, 2021

Hello Patrick Fennell,

The Swamp wants to spend well over $10 trillion in President Joe Biden's first year in the Oval Office.  If the Swamp spends tens of trillions of dollars over the four years of the Biden administration, then inflation will be worse than it was in the 1970s.  Inflation is the absolute WORST hidden tax on the working class.  Imagine a worker spending decades of the adult lives saving for their retirement, only to have the Swamp spend all of their hard earned savings on Joe Biden's wish lists of pork barrel programs.  Let us not forget that in 2008, the Swamp spent trillions of federal dollars bailing out Wall Street, as well as hundreds of billions of dollars bailing out foreign banks.  The worst part of the Wall Street bailouts was that Wall Street caused the financial crisis, and then Wall Street was rewarded for it.  The Swamp is NOT on the side of the working class!

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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August 29, 2021

What about 2021?  The U.S. Government's biggest non-farm export are military weapons.  The U.S. Government's war machine fights continual military conflicts and proxy wars that have killed millions upon millions of innocent foreign Peoples since the end of World War 2, as well as led to humanitarian crises across the world such as the one in Yemen.  The U.S. Government's military industrial complex is in all 50 states and has grown so very powerful that the Pentagon's budget is in the hundreds of billions of dollars each and every fiscal year.  Speaker Nancy Pelosi is said to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars from her military industry-filled stock portfolio, and many of other Members of U.S. Congress have made millions of dollars off of their similar defense-related investments.  Why is the U.S. Government so militaristic, greedy, and in bed with the defense contractors and arm salesmen?  What kind of message is the U.S. Government sending to the world?  To say that U.S. arms sales, the war machine, the military industrial complex, and so on is excessive is an understatement.  We fought against fascism and communism because we did not want Big Brother government in our lives, but the U.S. Government always has to be number one in military power to the point that we have become the dreaded Big Brother government to the rest of the world.  I don't feel safe when I predict where all of this militarism is all going to lead to in the future.  I hope that we will never have a World War 3.  If we do, the elites will live in space stations, the Moon, Mars, and the like, while the rest of us are killed in a nightmarish dystopian future.  But all that matters to the elites is the Almighty Dollar!!!!

Jonathan A. Melle

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September 10, 2021

Why do men get away with walking around in only a speedo, but women who show their boobs face ostracism?  Why is Ghislaine Maxwell in a federal prison cell in NYC for alleged sex trafficking charges, while twice convicted Felon Bill Clinton - who has 26 flight logs on Jeffrey Epstein's private jet - the U.K.'s Prince Andrew, Bill Gates, and other rich and powerful men go untouched? (pun intended).  Why does Hunter Biden get to write and publish a book in 2021 about how he paid strippers and sex workers for sex, has at least 5 (neglected) children by at least 3 different women, used to smoke crack cocaine every 15 minutes, drown himself in alcohol, slept with his late-brother's widow, and is an alleged money launderer of hundreds of millions of dollars from China, along with millions of dollars from Russia and Ukraine?  It always seems to me that women get picked on and/or indicted for their sexual behavior, while men - Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Prince Andrew, Hunter Biden, Donald Trump - get a pass.

Lastly, if men want to end abortion, then U.S. Congress and/or the U.S. Supreme Court should pass a law that states that men cannot legally have sex with women unless men sign a legal contract to be a loving and providing partner and father to the woman and child.  There is no form of birth control EVER that works 100 percent of the time.  So long as a man's sperm reaches and fertilizes a woman's egg, the woman will become pregnant and may have a newborn baby.  It is that simple; so men, stop harassing and persecuting women about their reproductive rights when it takes 2 for a woman to become pregnant!

Jonathan A. Melle

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September 12, 2021

What about Joe Biden's last surviving son, Hunter Biden?  The Biden "Crime" Family are all worth tens of millions of dollar each without rational and legal explanation.  Hunter Biden is being investigated for alleged money laundering many millions of foreign dollars from China, Russia and the Ukraine.  Also, Hunter Biden's crack cocaine and alcohol use, paying for sex from strippers and sex workers, and fathering multiple (neglected) children by multiple (neglected) women doesn't play well with Joe Biden's statements that he is proud of his 51 year old son, Hunter Biden.  Sarcasm: I thought Joe Biden believed in the rights of women, but evidently not with his son Hunter's history with women and children.

Joe Biden spent a whopping $6 trillion federal dollars in his first 100 days without PAC Man Richie Neal and the Democratic Party Member of U.S. Congress raising federal taxes.  Bill Clinton, who is associated with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell's alleged sex trafficking of minor women, used to say that the Democratic Party uses arithmetic in its federal budgets and spending, while the Republican Party cuts taxes with no regard to federal revenues, but Bill Clinton is not raising his arithmetic argument during the first year (2021) of the Biden administration.

Lastly, I believe that LBJ's Great Society social spending was undone out of greed and racism by the Republican Party's Supply Side Economics policies.  LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, which gave black workers equal working protections as white workers, which then led to the federal government no longer investing in the working class.  For the past 50 years, the U.S. economy has seen the millionaires and billionaires get way richer, the working class treading water under "swim or sink Social Darwinism policies" that favor big business, and the underclass grow to excessively high levels.  The only economic winners since Richard Nixon's administration 50 years ago through Joe Biden's administration in 2021 have been the very wealthy few households/families, corporate elites and ruling elites, while everyone else out there is always getting screwed by the design of the political system to keep working class and underclass down and powerless - CLASS WARFARE!  I hope the last 50 years of greed and racism will end soon, and the American Dream of Social Mobility for all American Citizens will be invested in once again by the elites, but I doubt it.

Jonathan A. Melle

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September 15, 2021

The more I read about Ghislaine Maxwell's upcoming trial for her alleged sex trafficking of minor women under the age of 18, the more I want Ghislaine Maxwell to share her documented evidence with the public against Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, and all of the other rich and powerful men who are associated with Jeffrey Epstein.  At this point in time, we should all have a right to know about the documented evidence Ghislaine Maxwell has on Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, et al, and if these rich and powerful men allegedly sexually exploited minor women under the age of 18.  Bill Clinton is a former U.S. President and his wife Hillary Clinton unsuccessfully ran for U.S. President twice in 2008 and 2016.  Bill Clinton is listed on Jeffrey Epstein's private flight logs 26 times.  Bill Clinton has said he did nothing illegal.  However, Bill Clinton has falsely denied his past sexual misconduct, which led him to be a convicted Felon twice over for perjury and suborning perjury.  I want to know if Hillary Clinton covered up for Bill Clinton's alleged sex crimes with Jeffrey Epstein to further her political ambitions to be elected U.S. President.  If Hillary Clinton did coverup Bill Clinton's alleged sex crimes for her own gain, what does that say about Hillary Clinton?  Lastly, we keep reading about Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell's alleged sex trafficking crimes without knowing the truth about Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, et all, which is very unfair to the public.

Jonathan Melle

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"Prince Andrew says secret settlement protects him from Jeffrey Epstein victim’s lawsuit"

By Ben Wieder, Miami Herald, September 14, 2021

Prince Andrew’s lawyer said in a federal court hearing Monday that a secret agreement protects him from liability in a lawsuit brought by one of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims.

After years of being linked to the Epstein case by news reports, the British royal is now having to fend off civil allegations in court.

Virginia Roberts Giuffre sued Prince Andrew in August 2021 for battery and emotional distress, saying that she was sexually abused by him on multiple occasions when she was under the age of 18, forced to have sex with him in the London home of Epstein’s accomplice and former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, and molested by the British royal in Epstein’s New York and Palm Beach, Fla., mansions.

A picture of Giuffre, Prince Andrew and Maxwell reportedly taken in Maxwell’s London home in 2001 has become notorious and is included in the suit. The prince has denied any recollection of the meeting and suggested in a 2019 BBC interview that he thought the picture might have been doctored.

At the hearing Monday, Prince Andrew’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, said he believes the suit is without merit because the British royal is protected from a “settlement agreement that (Giuffre) entered into in a prior action.”

Brettler asked for the release of the document, which is currently under seal in a different case overseen by U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska.

“We are asking for a document that we believe absolves our client from any and all liability,” Brettler said.

Last week, Epstein’s former defense attorney, Alan Dershowitz, requested that he be allowed to provide Prince Andrew’s lawyers with a copy of a settlement agreement and general release agreed to by Giuffre and Epstein in her 2009 lawsuit against Epstein. Dershowitz and Giuffre have sued each other, and Giuffre’s suit against Dershowitz was partially dismissed earlier this year, which Dershowitz contends was in response to his bringing up this same release. His lawyers wrote in requesting to share the Epstein agreement that “there is no doubt that Ms. Giuffre was aware of her alleged claims against Prince Andrew before she agreed to the Release.”

The attorney who represented Giuffre in the suit against Epstein disputes that the agreement protected Prince Andrew.

“The settlement never mentioned Prince Andrew,” Robert Josefsberg said.

Brettler also questioned the “propriety” of the suit, saying that he believed British courts would weigh in on its legitimacy. Despite Brettler’s appearance in the court hearing on behalf of Prince Andrew, the royal’s team is disputing whether Prince Andrew was appropriately notified of the suit.

Giuffre’s suit against Prince Andrew comes as Maxwell awaits trial later this year on criminal charges related to the sexual trafficking of four girls between 1994 and 2004. She is accused of recruiting and grooming the girls to be abused by Epstein and of participating in the abuse of one of the girls herself.

Maxwell introduced Epstein and Prince Andrew in 1999, according to Giuffre’s suit against the British royal. Giuffre has said that she was abused by Epstein between 2000 and 2002 and directed by Epstein and Maxwell to have sex with many of their powerful friends, including Prince Andrew. All have denied her claims.

Maxwell was arrested in July 2020, nearly one year after Epstein was arrested and charged with sex crimes in the summer of 2019. Epstein’s arrest came in the wake of renewed attention to the remarkably lenient plea deal he struck with federal prosecutors a decade earlier. That deal was the subject of the Miami Herald’s 2018 “Perversion of Justice” series. Epstein was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell in August 2019, a month after he was rearrested. His death was ruled a suicide.

Giuffre sued Maxwell in 2015 and the two parties settled in 2017. Statements made by Maxwell during depositions she gave as part of the suit form the basis of two counts of perjury she faces separately.

Much of the material from the 2015 lawsuit was kept under seal even after the settlement, and the Herald has sued for documents from the case to be released. As a result of the Herald’s suit, thousands of pages of once-sealed documents have been released since 2019, but thousands more remain under seal.

Brettler and lawyers representing Giuffre didn’t immediately respond to requests for clarification about the document in question.

The prince did not participate in the virtual hearing and he has denied any knowledge of Giuffre.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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September 21, 2021

Most of the billions of people who currently live on Planet Earth are poor.  The middle class nuclear family is a relatively modern concept that is going extinct with global politics and business so that the Elites will eventually rule with unlimited power.  Capitol Hill is mostly ruled by millionaires who get even richer at the public trough by doing the bidding of sleazy K Street lobbyists.  Joe Biden and his "Crime" family are all worth tens of millions of dollars each without legal and rational explanation that the MSM ignores because the Biden family are Democrats, unlike Donald Trump whose business is facing dozens of charges.  We live in the age of conspiratorial politics where fringe politicians divide us with their pseudo-beliefs about religion, science and economics.  I believe it is all for show to distract us from Wall Street and the top 1% taking all of the income gains, while everyone else lives in Social Darwinism that tells the working class and underclass to compete against each other instead of uniting stop the historic economic inequality, racism and greed committed by the Elites at home and abroad.  In closing, it is all a game to those at the top, and we are being played like pawns on a Chess Board!

Jonathan A. Melle

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September 23, 2021

Hello Patrick Fennell,

I agree with you.  The 80 year old group of Democrats in the Swamp are a debacle.  Biden should resign.  Pelosi should resign.  Chuck Schumer is unable to lead his slim one-vote Democrat majority in the U.S. Senate without dissention in the ranks.  Inflation is the WORST indirect tax on the underclass and working class.  The Democrats are spending way over $10 trillion federal dollars in 2021 without raising revenues because Springfield's own PAC Man Richie Neal sold his soul to the Devil via K Street.  You are correct about everything you wrote to me today.

The only problem I have with it is that Donald Trump is a Nazi.  Donald Trump had Nazis work for his campaigns and administration.  Donald Trump praised the Nazis in Charlottesville Virginia and incited the January 6th insurrection on Capitol Hill.  Donald Trump's supporters proudly wore shirts that said "6MWE": Six Million Jews killed in the Holocaust were not enough, and "Camp Auschwitz".  Donald Trump is a hate-filled man and he uses Hitler-themed politics to gain legitimacy in white nationalist America.  It sickens me to no end because it is DEMAGOGUERY, which is the WORST kind of leadership!

Our country was founded on Human Rights (as well as Slavery and Genocide), but the good part of our Founders' beliefs were for classical Liberty and Equality through a democratic government that served the People of the then new American nation.  What happened to our politicians standing up to Hitler and fascism, Stalin and communism, and later, McCarthyism?  In 2021, we live in the age of conspiratorial politics where wacko politicians lead people through their pseudo-beliefs about religion, government, economics, and foreign interests.  While I find conspiratorial politics interesting to study, I also denounce it because it is fringe propaganda meant to divide us as a country.

I am upset with Hunter Biden, Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, Prince Andrew, Donald Trump, and the fringe Members of U.S. Congress in both political parties.  I want to know what the truth is already with all of these corrupted Swamp politicians.  If you have any answers about what kind of trouble Hunter Biden, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Prince Andrew, Donald Trump, and the extremists Member of U.S. Congress are in, please share it with me so I can write and blog about it since the MSM (mainstream media) won't cover it.  What the hell is really going on?

Best wishes,

Jonathan Melle

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September 25, 2021

Hello Alan Chartock,

While I agree with you about people standing up against Donald Trump's Hitler-Nazi-inspired racist White Nationalist political movement to remove democracy as a threat to white men forever ruling our federal government, I disagree with you about Joe Biden being a good man.  Joe Biden has a long public history of racism in the U.S. Senate.  Even then candidate for U.S. President Kamala Harris called him out by calling Joe Biden a racist on national television during a Democratic Party presidential debate.  Joe Biden's decision with Afghanistan will tragically lead to around 14 million deaths there over the coming winter months.  Women and children lost their human rights in Afghanistan.  The Taliban men are allowed four wives and many concubine young women to use as their sex slaves.  The Taliban is similar to Hitler's Nazi Germany because young men are given "a choice" to join the Taliban or die, along with their families.  This is now Joe Biden's doing, not Donald Trump's past doing.  Joe Biden has angered many of our closest allies, and many European countries no longer trust the U.S. Government during the Biden administration.  Joe Biden has killed tens of thousands of energy jobs, and our country is in an energy crisis.  Joe Biden spent $6 trillion federal dollars in first 100 days in the Oval Office, and he is spending way over $10 trillion this year of 2021 alone.  Inflation is at decades highs, and inflation is the worst (indirect) tax on the "have nots": the underclass and the working class.  As much as I support your work in politics, Alan Chartock, sometimes I see you as removed from the economic realities many American families face, but I also read your op-eds where you acknowledge people's financial struggles.  Then there is Hunter Biden, who has at least 5 (neglected) children by at least 3 (neglected) women, as well as Hunter Biden's substance abuse addiction and history with strippers and sex workers, as well Hunter Biden's alleged money laundering business with his foreign contacts with adversarial countries including China and Russia.  Joe Biden and his "crime" family are all worth tens of millions of dollar each without rational/legal explanation.  While Joe Biden is not Hunter Biden, Joe Biden is the grandfather of Hunter Biden's neglected children.  I believe that Joe Biden should spend his time helping his grandchildren instead of failing to address all of the crises domestically and abroad.  In closing, I will never support Donald Trump in politics, but I am also very unhappy with Joe Biden, too.  I wish we had a good U.S. President, but that would be like me winning the lottery jackpot or finding my first living wage job (slim to none)!

Best wishes,

Jonathan Melle

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I PUBLIUS: Good versus evil, presidential edition

It is up to everyone who believes in right and justice to get on the political firing lines and stay there.

By Alan Chartock, The Berkshire Edge, September 25, 2021

The question is whether being President of the United States is worth it. Joe Biden, I think, is a genuinely good person. He earned his spurs in the United States Senate. He has suffered tremendous personal tragedy, having lost those who meant the most to him. He is Catholic and believes in God. He wasn’t only a senator but also a vice president who worked in tandem with Barack Obama.

He was surrounded by other Democrats who wanted the nomination. I am proud that I identified him as the man most likely to beat Donald Trump, who I continue to believe is the most dangerous man to ever participate in American politics.

Trump has always been the single most likely person to bring down our democracy. He shares many characteristics with Adolph Hitler. He taught people to believe that “others” were responsible for their misery and misfortune. He was just the latest demagogue who had too many people in the palm of his hand.

On the one hand, we had this miscreant who with his supporters set out to destroy American democracy. On the other, a man tempered by tragedy who really believed that people were good. The American left is impatient with him. Many want a socialist revolution. They have no interest in exploring the hand that Biden was dealt. They don’t like that he has done progressive things that many had considered impossible. He knows his politics. He knows all about trading to get what he wants. That’s what he learned in the Senate and from Obama.

Over his career, Biden has learned that politics is sort of like a baseball game. Both circumstances and your adversaries will keep throwing hardballs at your head, hoping to take you out of the game. Some are thrown by your political rivals while others come from things that are beyond your control.

COVID is one such hardball. No one could have anticipated what was coming. The guy did his best. He saw the mistakes that were made by Trump in his failure to lead the American people. He has learned, however, that all you can do is to call in the experts and depend on them to give it to you straight. You stick with the facts as given to you by scientists like Dr. Fauci and you lead in the call to take the shots and to wear masks. Then you discover that the disaffected want none of that science stuff. They are literally willing to die rather than do what will protect themselves and their family. They see the statistics. They know that the people who are dying and who are seriously ill are overwhelmingly those who have not received the vaccine. It’s that simple.

Then there’s Afghanistan. Biden listened to his top people and ended the longest war in our history. Instead of crediting the president for doing so, his ruthless political enemies went after him hammer and tong. Forget about the fact that Trump had himself called for getting out of Afghanistan. Now he has conveniently forgotten all of that and directs his people to call out Biden for the way in which it was done. What matters most is that we are out. The Taliban knows full well that the more ruthlessly they behave, the less likely that they will be accepted in the international community. If Biden is doing anything wrong here, it is that he hasn’t put it just the way I have.

It does appear that Donald Trump will run again. His forces have indeed rigged elections in the red states. It is now up to everyone who believes in right and justice to get on the political firing lines and stay there. Nothing could be more important.

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September 25, 2021

Hello Patrick Fennell,

Neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden should be called "a good person"!  

Per Alan Chartock citing Joe Biden's Catholic faith and belief in God, it doesn't give Joe Biden or anyone else out there a pass.  76 years later, the Catholic Church still won't release their documents to the public explaining their role in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.  Some people believe that the Catholic Church was a major force behind the rise of Nazi Germany because they hated the Jews in the 1920s and 1930s.  The Catholic Church taught that the Jews killed Jesus Christ back then.  Never mind that Jesus was Jewish; (and centuries later, Muhammad was Christian).  Also, many Catholic leaders are upset with Joe Biden for being pro choice (abortion).  When one looks at Joe Biden's surviving family life, one observes many neglected family members.  I would not wish to be part of Joe Biden's family, despite their unexplained wealth (from China).

Politicians are often at odds with Religious leaders who want to protect the poor and persecuted from big government's predatory exploitation.  I love our country, but the U.S. Government is GREEDY and RACIST.  The military and related federal agencies have killed millions upon millions of innocent people around the world since the end of World War 2.  The corrupt EPA lies to people about industrial pollution that kills millions of American Citizens.  Parts of the world fear the U.S. Government on security, economic and financial matters.  The U.S. Government's number one non-farm export is arms sales.  Veterans have to fight the VA for their care.  The U.S.A.'s huge rust belt leaves millions of Americans without ever finding a living wage job.  Wall Street, the corporate elite, K Street, and the Swamp always win, while 99% of American Citizens either tread water or lose.  It is a rigged game for the ELITES, and it is Social Darwinism for the rest of us.  Joe Biden has not changed any of it, and people like you (Patrick Fennell) and I are still pounding sand.

Best wishes,

Jonathan Melle

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September 25, 2021

A woman emailed me the following:

Chartock disgusts me and I won't waste my time on him

As for you ?

Calling. Trump what you did disgusts me as well

When. Trump was President he did more good for the. American people than

all. Presidents before him along with Asians...Blacks...Hispanics....Veterans...

Police...Ice...Border Patrol. ..and  On and on it goes....

All the good he accomplished has been destroyed in just 8 short months .by the RESIDENT of the. White House...named. Jobama. Bin Biden .....

Our freedoms are being eroded....and our. Country is on the verge of being totally

destroyed.....

There needs to be a. Revolution at the polls in 2022...minus the fraud that occurred

last year .....

I'll remember your name for sure......and I will NEVER put a check Mark next to your name .....

Agreeing with. Chartock and his ilk. on ANYTHING cancels you out !!

You are merely just one of the reasons why we are losing our country ......along with the

empty suits  Like Chartock. 

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My (Jonathan Melle's) response:

I do NOT always agree with Alan Chartock's op-eds, but I do agree with Alan Chartock's writings against Donald Trump.  In fact, I think Alan Chartock is right on target here.  I have written to Alan Chartock when I have disagreed with some of his op-eds.  I respect Alan Chartock as a good man and a progressive news media executive.  Alan Chartock has been kind to me over the years, and I appreciate his caring concerns for me since I was a young man in the late-1990s.

I am disabled, and I will never be able to run for political office due to my disability.  I take my role as a political activist seriously, and I will always speak my good conscience as long as I live.  No one will ever vote for me because I will never be a political candidate.

Lastly, I dislike both Donald Trump and Joe Biden in the White House!

Jonathan Melle

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September 26, 2021

Re: Wall Street and the Swamp are really corrupt casinos

To Wall Street and the Swamp, federal spending, deficits, and the nearly $30 trillion U.S. national debt is really only a casino-like financial shell game where the rich and powerful move huge sums of money around - most of the money only exists on the Federal Reserve's computer screens - faster than Matt Kerwood can shuffle around all of the tens of millions of dollars in "Kold Kapan$ki Ka$h" that Mayor Linda Tyer is sitting on.  Big Business and Big Government finances are nothing more than a strategy in a financial shell game to make our economically unequal financial system appear stable when it is all really just a facade that hides a corrupt casino where the American People are really only an insurance policy to be cashed in by the Elites in a rigged political and financial system.  We no longer live in a capitalist economic system, but rather we live in a corrupt casino-like financial system whose method is Class Warfare where the rich win no matter what happens, and the working class families feel lucky to tread water, and the underclass grows excessively larger and larger as the years pass by.  In closing and to be clear, Wall Street and the Swamp are both PREDATORY institutions that are systemically screwing over the American People!

Jonathan A. Melle

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October 2, 2021

Hello Patrick Fennell,

Members of U.S. Congress have legally corrupted Leadership PACs into their personal Slush Funds that gives K Street's sleazy lobbyists an endless campaign pipeline of special interest cash to federal lawmakers to fund our country's federal delegates' to the Swamp lavish lifestyle that ordinary people could only dream of.  Massachusetts U.S. House of Representative Seth Moulton is one of the WORST abusers of treating his multimillion dollar Leadership PAC as his personal slush fund where he spent his campaign donations on transportation, lodging, and meals, while only spending a paltry 8 percent on politics over a two year period.  PAC Man Richie Neal spent 37% of his nearly $1 million slush fund on non-political expenses over a two year period.

Issue One and Campaign Legal Center stated that "it defies common sense that expenditures that would be criminal offenses if they were paid for with campaign cash can be paid for by leadership PACs without getting politicians in trouble".  There is no distinction between federal lawmakers receiving bribes versus contributions anymore.  Members of Congress host leadership PAC fundraising events at high-end resorts, golf clubs, and restaurants, which means that they are not inviting regular guys like you, Patrick Fennell, and myself, Jon Melle.  92% of the Members of U.S. Congress have these slush funds, including Ed "Maryland" Markey, who last year promised to save the world from global warming.  I wonder if Chevy Chase Maryland's U.S. Senator Ed Markey is saving the world from global warming with his $585,942 slush fund?

To read about the Swamp's Slush Funds, please go the following webpage:

https://www.issueone.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/All-Expenses-Paid-Another-Look.pdf

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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October 3, 2021

Re: A new Leadership PAC U.S. Constitution for the Elites

Hello Patrick Fennell,

Thank you for replying to my open letter to you about Leadership PACs amounting to bribes from sleazy K Street lobbyists.  I guess it is legal to bribe Members of U.S. Congress.  Perhaps the Swamp will write a new U.S. Constitution that codifies bribing Members of U.S. Congress into federal law, as well as Members of U.S. Congress exempting themselves from all of the laws and programs, including the ones you cited.  The Preamble of the new U.S. Constitution shall read: "All animals are created equal, but the elite animals are more equal than rest of the animals"!

The ruling elites living in Gated Communities and serving on Beacon Hill and in the Swamp's supreme law would be that instead of the government serving We the People, We the People are legally there to serve the government, K Street, Wall Street, and foreign elites.  Instead of George Washington, PAC Man Richie Neal would be the new Founding Father of our morally bankrupt political and financial system.

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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October 10, 2021

Hello Alan Chartock,

I have been receiving political emails of late predicting that Hillary Clinton plans to run for Governor of New York in 2022.  I do not know if the predictions are true or not, but you may want to contact Hillary Clinton's political office and ask about it.

The only problem I have with Hillary Clinton running for Governor of New York is that her husband, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, will be one of the main suspects in the upcoming sex trafficking trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, who sits in a federal prison cell in Brooklyn, NY because she is being held without bail prior to her trial by jury.  Bill Clinton had 26 flight log entries on Jeffrey Epstein's private jet, and we all know about Bill Clinton's sordid sexual history and two felony convictions for perjury and suborning perjury related to the Paula Jones sexual harassment case and his impeachment for lying about receiving blow jobs from Monica Lewinsky in the Oral Orifice (Oval Office) and elsewhere in the White House in the mid-1990s.

Ghislaine Maxwell and her Attorneys said that she has documented evidence against Bill Clinton and other rich and powerful men, which she and her defense Attorneys will disclose at her upcoming sex trafficking trial.  If Hillary Clinton reenters politics by running for Governor of New York in 2022, she must answer to her husband's alleged sexual exploitation of minor women under the age of 18 who were allegedly sex trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.  Hillary Clinton must disclose if she knew about Bill Clinton's aforementioned alleged illegal sexual misconduct of underage teenage girls (or women) during his association with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.  If Hillary Clinton did know anything about it, which she had to know about it at some level, she must disclose to the public if she helped to cover it up for her own political ambitions to run for U.S. President in both 2008 and 2016.

Hillary Clinton spent decades saying the she was in politics for women and children's human rights both in the USA and globally.  But if Hillary Clinton covered up her husband's alleged illegal sexual misconduct associated with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, which will be discovered as evidence in Ghislaine Maxwell's upcoming sex trafficking trial, then Hillary Clinton is a total hypocrite who put her own political ambitions before her so-called feminist ideals.

I don't think Hillary Clinton should be in politics anymore, especially with Ghislaine Maxwell's upcoming sex trafficking trial by jury where Bill Clinton is one of the main alleged subjects of allegedly illegally sexually exploiting minor women under the age of 18 who were allegedly sex trafficked by Jeffrey Esptein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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October 12, 2021

Was it Constitutional when the Swamp bailed out Wall Street banks as well as foreign banks with trillions of U.S. dollars during the 2008 financial crisis?

Was it Constitutional when the Bush 2 administration invaded Iraq in 2003 for its second largest oil reserves in the World next to Saudi Arabia?

Is it Constitutional that the Military Industrial Complex spies on American Citizens when the Constitution forbids it?

Was it Constitutional for the Military Industrial Complex to torture foreign enemies by having them waterboarded or having trained dogs bite at their genitals?

Is it Constitutional for the Military Industrial Complex to have killed millions upon millions of foreign Peoples since the end of World War 2 through 2021?

Is it Constitutional for the President to declare de facto wars ever since World War 2 ended?

Is it Constitutional for the U.S. Supreme Court to made laws out of case laws?

Was it Constitutional when the U.S. Government and the state governments practiced racist immigration laws that targeted Jews and Italians from entering the U.S.A., the South's racist Jim Crow laws, and the state governments' racist eugenics laws that inspired Hitler in the 1920s?

The Constitution is just a piece of paper that the American Government uses to do whatever the hell it wants!

The allegory of the Grasshopper and the Ant illustrates how power works.  During the Spring, Summer and Fall, the Grasshopper always played while the Ant always worked hard and prepared by storing food for the cold Winter months.  The Ant would tell the Grasshopper to work and store food like he did for the cold Winter months.  The Grasshopper would tell the Ant that he wanted to enjoy the nice weather and play.  When winter came around, the Ant told the hungry Grasshopper that he should have worked and prepared for the cold weather like the he did.  The hungry Grasshopper looked at the well nourished Ant and then ate the Ant.

It doesn't make sense to the working class and underclass of America that they are the proverbial Ant, while the ruling and other rich and powerful elites are the proverbial Grasshopper.  When Wall Street needs money, the ruling elites bail them out with our hard earned tax dollars.  Iraq is rich in oil, so the Swamp took over their oil reserves.  It is all a shell game, and I wish everyone would understand that we are really being manipulated.  Lastly, I love my Country, but I fear my Government, despite the Constitution.

Jonathan A. Melle

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October 13, 2021

Hello Patrick Fennell,

I honor and thank you and all of my fellow Veterans for the Honorable service in the United States Armed Forces and related federal agencies who sacrificed their time and/or lives in defense of our country and the Constitution.

My point is that the Constitution is used similar to The Bible in that the Government uses it to justify its actions that have led to many nightmares such as the millions upon millions of foreign Peoples who have been killed by the Military Industrial Complex since the end of World War 2.  How in Hell did the Founding Fathers' documents justify Wall Street and foreign banks receiving trillions of dollars in bailouts in 2008, the Military Industrial Complex of endless wars and arms sales being the number one non-farm export to the world?

Religious texts, such as The Bible, and Government texts, such as the Constitution, are the most cited documents by politicians, but they are also the least understood texts.  Try reading The Bible and the Constitution.  It is not easy reading, even for the most educated scholars.

My friend is very intelligence about Financial Issues, and I asked him if the U.S. Government will ever pay for the $30 trillion and counting higher U.S. National Debt.  My financially astute friend told me two things: (a) the U.S. National Debt will never be paid off, and (b) the Swamp can only run up huge federal budget deficits for so long until it won't work anymore for the economy.  My financially educated friend told me that when the government gives people "free" money, that it will all eventually trickle down back to the people who will have to pay for it in the future.

I told my financially astute friend that while he is right about it all, I believe that the people, including myself as well as him and his family, should take everything the government gives us all because someone else will take it instead of us.  I also told my brother that it was unfair when the Swamp bailed out foreign banks in 2008 with hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars, while he and his family are struggling to stay financially afloat while paying local, state and federal taxes.  God forbid that the people receive government benefits, while Wall Street and the ruling elites are all worth 7-figures or more with the financial system rigged in their favor only.

In closing, I wish the Constitution was more than a piece of paper, but I also wish that other Fairy Tales were real.

Best wishes,

Jonathan Melle

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October 27, 2021

Hello Patrick Fennell, and letter to the editor,

What do you think about the Democrats in the Swamp pushing to pass the largest spending bill in U.S. history at over $6 trillion that President Joe Biden said won't cost taxpayers any money and Congress not agreeing on a way to raise revenues to pay for it?

I myself am confused.

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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November 2, 2021

Re: Russia & China no USA yes in 2030

Russia and China won't sign onto global agreements to reduce greenhouse gases, while US President Joe Biden says yes in the year 2030; we are now in the year 2021. What a joke! The USA, Russia and China combine for well over 50% of the world's global warming emissions. The rest of the world must be scared of these three countries when it comes to global warming and sea level rise in the 22nd Century. Joe Biden is a multimillionaire and John Kerry is a billionaire, both of whom are near 80 years old. In 9 years from now in the year 2030, Biden and Kerry will most likely be bad memories the world will be happy to forget about. In closing, all Joe Biden and John Kerry do is emit more hot air.

Jonathan A. Melle

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Letter: "Tax the rich to compensate disabled veterans"

The New Hampshire Union Leader, November 7, 2021

To the Editor: Disabled veterans are grossly under-compensated. They’ve been asking various Congresses and administrations for fair and adequate compensation since the end of World War I. That was a 103 years ago!

In 2022, a totally disabled veteran with no dependents will be compensated at the ridiculous rate of $39,984.72 annually. The National Average Wage Index (NAWI) for 2020 was $55,628.60 per annum and the median income for 2020 was $67,521.00. The per capita GDP in 2020 was $63,416, among the highest in the world. They are only compensated for projected lost wages and not lost quality of life. That is an antiquated approach to injury compensation.

They realize that they are being manipulated by our tax-evading elites who use campaign donations to Congress in order to keep compensation low.

We can levy at least a penny tax on every dollar traded on the stock market to pay for the compensation due disabled veterans. The New York Stock Exchange alone traded about 1.46 billion shares a day in 2019. There are presently 13 separate stock exchanges operating in the USA.

This is a national security problem. A young person who enlists in the armed forces and subsequently is injured or falls ill in the line of duty is looking at a lifetime of near poverty. This realization could cause the armed forces to collapse quickly. We have no right to expect our youth to make a sacrifice like this so that elites can avoid a fair level of taxation.

Martin Reckendorf, Portsmouth NH

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December 6, 2021

The reality of government is 2008 - 2009 trillions of dollars in federal government bailouts to Wall Street, plus hundreds of billions of dollars of federal government bailouts to foreign banks in Europe and Asia, which was after Wall Street and the foreign banks treated institutional investing like a casino and lost their collective shirts doing so, which then makes the federal government a casino with its nearly $30 trillion U.S. national debt.  I wish people would understand that the government moves huge sums of federal dollars from the Federal Reserve to Capitol Hill to Wall Street to foreign banks and back and forth again and again.  The last thing that government does is to provide for the people's every need.  The Elites get most of the economic, financial and income gains, while the proverbial Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski family feels fortunate to either save a little money or cut even so that they do not fall into our country's growing underclass.

Jonathan A. Melle

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January 8, 2022

I am an American Citizen.  I am a Veteran.  I am a registered Democrat.  I am NOT a Marxist.  I am NOT a member of Antifa.  I am NOT a Communist, Socialist and/or Capitalist.  In fact, I believe that in every political and economic system throughout Human History, the Elites are the ones with most to all of the power.  I learned about "The Iron Rule of Oligarchy" long ago.  It is when the Elites are the proverbial Wolves, while the rest of us are the proverbial Sheep.  In our country, the USA, the Wolves/Elites are from the Wall Street/Financial, Corporate and Ruling classes.  What does that mean?  It means that no matter what happens in our country, the USA, the Wolves/Elites always win, while the Sheep/the rest of us either cut even and maybe save a few Biden Bucks or we lose.  I think of it as a rectangle whereby the Federal Reserve sends trillions of Biden Bucks to Capitol Hill who sends most of its Biden Bucks to Wall Street via K Street Corporate Lobbyist Firms who sends part of it to foreign banks in Europe and Asia.  What does that mean?  It means that if you are not part of the Elites, you have little to no power in the political and economic system.  In closing, when the Oligarchy has most to all of the political and economic power, our American Democracy is reduced to the proverbial Jon Melle always pounding sand.

Jonathan A. Melle

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January 17, 2022

Hello Editor:

On this Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday, would MLK affirm or DENOUNCE Joe Biden's horrible public record on Civil Rights in the USA?

Joe Biden was a staunch opponent of “forced busing” in the 1970s, and he was a leading crusader for mass incarceration throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s that targeted black men. Joe Biden has described African-American felons as “predators” too sociopathic to rehabilitate — and white supremacist senators as his friends.

Jonathan A. Melle

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January 21, 2022

Members of Congress earn a few hundred thousand dollars each per year, while they spend millions of dollars to be re-elected every two years in the U.S. House of Representatives and every 6 years in the U.S. Senate.  K Street Lobbyists are allowed to legally bribe Members of U.S. Congress.  Last year of 2021, top K Street Corporate Lobbyist Firms posted record earnings.  Critics of the Swamp say that the real Capitol Hill is on K Street because the Corporate Lobbyist wrote most of the Obamacare bill, Trump's single largest federal tax cut bill, Joe Biden's single largest federal spending bill(s), and other major bills.

Why do we have Members of U.S. Congress such as PAC Man Richie Neal when they only represent K Street Lobbyist Firms instead of the people and taxpayers who live in their Congressional Districts?  When state and federal politicians retire from high elected office, most of them become registered lobbyists, including Dan Bosley, Peter Larkin and Stan Rosenberg, who also collect their public pensions and perks on top of their lucrative salaries as greedy lobbyists.  Career Politicians and Corporate Lobbyists are enriching themselves at the public trough, while the rest of us feel lucky to survive.

Whatever happened to the government investing in the people, taxpayers, small businesses and institutions who elected officials represent in the Statehouse and Capitol Hill?  No wonder why the American Dream and middle class has become so out of reach for so many American families in the 21st Century.  All the politicians and K Street Lobbyists want is more and more tax dollars without working class families receiving anything in return for sending the government their hard-earned money.  Instead of calling the government a democratic institution, we should call the government a shakedown operation.

https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/business-a-lobbying/590709-top-lobbying-firms-report-record-breaking-2021

Jonathan A. Melle

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February 20, 2022

Karl Marx lived in the 19th Century - only in Capitalist countries - when Slavery and Colonialism ruled the days of his life.  Perhaps the 21st Century has the working class and underclass both being crushed by the elitist Globalist agenda?  It doesn't matter to the Global Elites if "Jon Melle" earns an at or near minimum wage income with underfunded benefits in the U.S.A., the U.K., France, or even bad boy Hunter Biden's former business clients in China and Russia.  Please note that the word Globalist really means "Evil Jews" in Trump speak.  Therefore, I denounce the word Globalist for its discriminatory alternative meaning.  I denounce the Trump-led White Nationalist political movement for its racism and anti-Semitism.  I also understand that Joe Biden has a very long history of racism in his nearly 5-decade public record in the Swamp.  I also understand that Hillary Clinton has a history of elitism and racism in Swamp politics, along with her delusional absolute loyalty to her pervert husband Bill Clinton.  Lastly, a majority of the Founding Fathers owned Slaves and lived during a time when the Native American Tribes were systemically killed in genocides that claimed between 40 to 50 million innocent lives.  It is all true, unfortunately!

Jon Melle

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March 12, 2022

FACTS: The U.S.A. is the #2 polluter of greenhouse gas emissions in the World.  China (#1) and the U.S.A. together account for nearly 50% of the World's global warming pollution.  The Pentagon emits more greenhouse gases than 140 countries combined.   China and the U.S.A. both have the largest military industrial complexes in the World, which is the real reason why the two countries are the worst culprits in causing so-called Climate Change.  OPINION: The Green New Deal is nonsense because the U.S. Government's lucrative military industrial complex is the real problem, and the Swamp knows damn well that billionaire John Kerry lecturing the world about reducing greenhouse gas emission is a public relations stunt that furthers the Democratic Party's propaganda to win support for their phony causes.  FACT: Billionaire John Forbes Kerry had tens of millions of dollars in personal investments in the oil and gas industry one year ago in 2021 prior to President Biden naming him as his Climate Czar.  OPINION: Career Politicians LIE for a living, which is on top of their huge fortunes from their decades of corruption in the Swamp!

Jonathan A. Melle

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March 21, 2022

Pittsfield politics is the land of sky-high municipal taxes for Level 5 public schools, substandard public services and violent crime on its dangerous downtown area streets.  Mayor Linda Tyer and Peter Marchetti and Bill Cameron: It would be like me charging you for a mansion but selling you a rundown shack.  Boston Statehouse politics is the land of behind closed-door unaccountable state government where the career politicians enrich themselves and their politically connected backers at the public trough.  Chrome Dome, Shitty Pigpen, Trippy Country Buffet, Paul Marxism and the career Mayor: It would be like me telling you to believe in American Democracy but instead I am really picking your pocket with a mask of Abraham Lincoln over my face.  Swamp politics is the land of multimillionaires and billionaires legally bribing each other so that the Financial, Corporate and Ruling Elites always win, while the rest of us have to pound sand.  Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi: It would be like me having a credit card with over $30 trillion in U.S. national debts, but when I need to refinance it, I use the American People and foreign national debt holders as an insurance policy to cash in over and over again so I can continue to spend taxpayers' money like a drunken Sailor on leave.  The Swamp politicians use the American People much worse than Hunter Biden used crack cocaine, alcohol, sex workers, strippers, his family funds, adversarial countries such as Russia and China's funds, his business as an alleged money laundering operation worth an estimated $1.2 billion with "the big guy" (Joe Biden) allegedly getting his 10% cut of an estimated $120 million, and Hunter Biden trying to weasel out of paying his stripper ex-partner he cannot remember ever meeting child support if not for a court-ordered paternity test.  In closing, the corrupt career politicians are all hucksters from Pittsfield Massachusetts to Boston's Golden Dome, to the Swamp no matter if they Democrats, Republicans, or another political party or a so-called Independent/Unenrolled.

Jonathan A. Melle

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Letter: "The vanishing American dream"

The Berkshire Eagle, March 25, 2022

To the editor: After the 1929 crash on Wall Street, the Bank for International Settlements made an agreement on Jan. 20, 1930, to determine the legal status of the BIS and all other banks operating under the BIS.

Articles 14 and 15 gave them full immunity from prosecution. The Glass-Steagall Act was passed in 1933 in order to set a regulatory firewall between commercial banks and high risk investment banks. This was to limit commercial banks from using depositor’s money in high risk investments.

The act was repealed in 1999, which set the stage for the mortgage-backed security crisis of 2007-08. Prior to this, the American dream was alive and well; a home was an individual’s rightful place to live, protected under our Constitution. After the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999, banks took extraordinary risks and sacrificed the American dream in the process and, due to the BIS agreement, there were no prosecutions; justice was never served, while many Americans lost their homes.

Our American dream has been vanishing since 2008, when nearly $5 trillion of mortgage-backed securities were pooled together in tranches, given dubious credit ratings and sold on stock market exchanges. This is when a home transitioned from an individual’s rightful place to live, to a commodity packaged on Wall Street and sold to the highest bidder. The United States has been the beacon of hope for many people around the world, because our Constitution and Declaration of Independence are predicated on John Locke’s treatise on inalienable rights. Locke believed people are born with natural rights: life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness. The duty of the government is to protect those rights, not to infringe upon them.

The people are the sovereign power; the government gains authority through the consent of the governed. The Fraser Institute measures economic freedom. Each country gets a ranking. If you click on their dataset, you can see the United States currently ranks sixth as we are allowed to “own property as an inalienable right protected under our Constitution,” compared to Russia, 100th, or China, 116th. The Fraser Institute confirms: People are lifted out of poverty when they are allowed to own property and participate in free markets — something to be protected, not legislated away.

Reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act and eliminating mortgage-backed securities might go a long way toward restoring the American dream.

Lucinda Shmulsky, New Marlborough

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April 2, 2022

Hello Patrick Fennell,

In response to your first political email, the ELITES never pay for their alleged crimes, especially the financial elites on Wall Street and the ruling elites in the Swamp.

To illustrate, my enemy #1, who is derisively called "Luciforo", had to step down from being a Massachusetts State Senator in 2006 because of his illegal double dipping as the Chairman of the State Senate Finance Committee while serving as a corporate Attorney for Boston's big banks and insurance companies since 1999.  Nearly 16 years later, Nuciforo has never been charged for his corrupt state government and corporate alleged crimes.  Nuciforo's law website says he has a law office in Boston's financial district, as well as a law office in Pittsfield where he is sarcastically called Pittsfield's Pot King.  Nuciforo defends sleazy insurance companies and salesman, including an insurance salesman in eastern Massachusetts who allegedly scammed a group of elderly eastern Massachusetts consumers out of a couple of million dollars of their hard-earned life savings and would not return their telephone calls.  Back in 2004, during John Kerry's failed run for U.S. President, Nuciforo and John Kerry wore matching tuxedoes together whereby the two of them cohosted a shakedown event to raise campaign money from the Bos-Wash financial elites.  In the 2004, like Joe Biden did in 2020, John Kerry outraised George W. Bush, but unlike John Kerry, Joe Biden ousted Donald Trump to win a 4-year term in the Oval Office by raising more Wall Street campaign cash than any other candidate in 2020.  Does anyone other than me ever wonder why Nuciforo was never charged for his corruption on Beacon Hill and in Boston's Financial District?  The answer is that he is an insider who is well protected by the sleazy Massachusetts Democratic Party ELITES, including his billionaire friend John Forbes Kerry.

As for women, minorities, the disabled, and so on, there should/must be equal rights under law.  When I stood trial by jury in the State of New Hampshire in early-2010 whereby the Hillsborough County District Attorney's Office in Manchester wrongfully indicted me on two state felonies from mid-2007 to early-2010, the prosecutor named Brett Harpster, whom I derisively called Brett HarpsTERD, said in open court before the Judge and Jury that my defense was playing the mental health card.  What a jerk!  It has been court precedence for nearly one century to enter my mental health condition(s) as evidence and testimony, but I was openly discriminated against as a person who is a disabled Veteran who serve our country honorably by the State of New Hampshire, which violated ALL of my legal rights to convict me of two misdemeanors, which the State of New Hampshire thankfully annulled in mid-2019.  I love our country, but I fear my government when they are wrong and/or indifferent like how they treated me many years ago now.

As for the homosexual and the like/similar movement(s), I believe all American Citizens and Citizens of the World should have equal legal rights under law.   As for the government, I believe that politicians and bureaucrats should stay as far away from public education as legally and politically possible.  If they really cared about children and public education, then it wouldn't be systemically underfunded for generations.  The government is racist and very greedy, and most career politicians only care about the Almighty Dollar and power so they will be reelected for decades on end.  After they retire from being corrupt career politicians, they collect their public pensions and perks and go onto be greedy registered lobbyists, or in Nuciforo's case, multimillionaire marijuana drug dealers.

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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The Department has three sets of justice, one for the elites, they don't get punished, minority victims and the harshest sentences for the rest of us. During the BLM riots, even Vice President Harris helped bailout rapists, few rioters got serious prison time, of course the visitors that went to Epstein's island, ranch and NY residence get a pass, meanwhile the rest of us get punished to the fullest letter of the law.

Notice all the Trump stories, yet until last month the Hunter Biden activities? Notice Maxine Waters activities are ignored and yet GOP House members are indicted?

Under Biden equal justice does not exist, it is an embarrassment, our founding fathers are rolling in their graves.

Patrick Fennell

&

Let me get this straight, you cannot drink, smoke, do drugs, own a weapon and a slew of other things until you are over eighteen, but you can change your sex as early as first grade? You cannot buy pornography until you are an adult, but can checkout gay porn at the school library? And we have both a federal and state Departments of Education.

Patrick Fennell

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Letter: "Time for Democrats to get real -- and honest"

The Gloucester Daily Times, April 8, 2022

    

To the editor:

I was recently asked why, given my die-hard liberalism, I am not more actively involved in Democratic Party politics.

That question caused me to pause and reflect on a series of events I have witnessed over the last three decades.

Over the course of those 30 years, I came to conclude the once liberal Democratic Party of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, Harry Truman, the Kennedy brothers, Lyndon Johnson, Rep. Shirley Chisholm, and Sen. Paul Wellstone, had devolved into a neo-liberal, corporatist party dominated by a new generation of Ivy League-educated elitists with little use for, or understanding of, the blue-collar, working- and middle-class Americans, regardless of race, who had been the backbone of FDR’s New Deal Coalition for decades.

The first event that got me thinking about it all occurred way back on Dec. 8, 1993.

That was the day Bill Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement into law — a feat neither Ronald Reagan nor George H.W. Bush were able to accomplish, despite 12 years of trying.

When Bill Clinton put his signature on that trade agreement, he not only imposed an economic death sentence on hundreds of thousands of blue-collar, working- and middle-class Americans in the industrial Midwest, he drove a stake through the heart of organized labor in the U.S.

Then, in 1994, when Clinton got his “crime reform” bill passed, he doomed tens of thousands of young, poor, urban Americans of color to lengthy prison sentences, often for nonviolent drug offenses, even as their more affluent, white, suburban counterparts got slaps on the wrist, suspended sentences, and their records expunged when they turned 21 for very similar offenses.

In 1996, as the First Couple, the “Billary” Clintons worked together to eviscerate the one federal social welfare program Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt worked together on to enact.

I am referring to Aid to Families With Dependent Children, or AFDC.

The Clintons hailed their “welfare reform” legislation as having ended “welfare as we know it”.

It did end welfare as we had known it, but it did nothing to reduce poverty in America — despite the Clintons’ claims to the contrary.

In late 1997, Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich brokered a secret deal to privatize the Social Security trust fund and turn it over to Wall Street to manage.

The deal, however, fell apart several months later when the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke and Gingrich could not risk being seen as cooperating with Clinton on anything.

Then, in 1999, Bill Clinton, working in tandem with Phil Gramm, the right wing, conservative senator from Texas, eliminated FDR’s signature piece of financial regulatory legislation.

Enacted in 1933, Glass-Steagall reeled in the big banks and Wall Street financiers by banning the kinds of reckless and unethical investment practices that brought the Great Depression down upon the world in 1929.

Less than a decade after Bill Clinton set the bankers and Wall Street financiers free to return to the kinds of practices that brought about the Great Depression, the world was plunged into its worst financial crisis since 1929.

In 2008, riding a wave of “hope and change,” Barack Obama was elected president.

But rather than seizing the historic moment before him by offering the nation real economic change and reform the way FDR did in 1933, Obama chose to behave like Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

Rather than holding the bankers and Wall Street financiers accountable for the havoc their “mortgage derivatives,” and other ethically challenged, perhaps even illegal, financial schemes wreaked on the lives of ordinary Americans, Barack Obama continued the practice of rewarding them with hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funded bailouts.

Heck, he even made one of them, his Harvard buddy Timothy Geithner, his secretary of the Treasury.

To this day, many of my fellow Democrats continue to crow about Barack Obama’s “economic recovery.”

More than a few get angry when I point out Obama’s recovery, thanks in no small part to the obstructionism of Republicans in 2009, was so narrow in scope that the vast majority of the economic gains of the recovery went to those Americans who already had the most before the onset of the Great Recession and lost the least when it hit.

They feign disbelief when I remind them the scope of the Obama recovery was so narrow that, three years after the Great Recession officially ended, nearly two thirds of working class Americans believed the economy was still mired in recession.

But they really get ticked off when I point out that many working-class voters who turned to Trump in 2016 had voted for Obama in both 2008 and 2012.

It was those voters’ anger at, and disappointment with, Obama’s failure to address the economic issues and policies that, over the previous three decades, resulted in the great discrepancy in wealth and income that we see today — a discrepancy that poses as serious a threat to the social and political stability of the nation as Donald Trump’s 21st century American version of 20th century European fascism does.

It is common in Democratic and liberal circles to hear people talking almost incessantly about the Republican Party’s dramatic shift to the right in recent years being the primary factor in the rise of a dangerous demagogue like Donald Trump.

What is far less common is to hear those Democrats and liberals talking about the role our party has played, particularly at the national and establishment levels, in contributing to the kind of social, political, and economic environment that allowed for a demagogue like Trump to rise.

If we don’t get honest about that with ourselves and with the voters, and soon, I suspect the Democrats will be looking at a pretty bleak political picture in November and in 2024.

Michael Cook

Gloucester

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April 19, 2022

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is said to be a billionaire from her legal insider trading. The Swamp is a Country Club of multimillionaires/billionaires who do nothing but legally enrich themselves at the public trough of political corruption. I doubt that the Mitt Romney's of the world give a crap about $100,000 in student loans like a 24-year-old starting out in their adult life. Also, the 2008 - 2009 bailouts of Wall Street and foreign banks in Europe and Asia cost trillions of Swamp dollars, which was far more than the Swamp forgiving over a trillion dollars in student loans. Power equals the Almighty Dollar, and young adults don't contribute millions of K Street lobbyist dollars to the Members of U.S. Congress' campaign coffers; just ask PAC Man Richie Neal.

I always criticize predictable Pittsfield politics for its sarcastic "Business as usual" tagline, but blogger Dan Valenti's predictable always unfavorable blog writings against Berkshire County District Attorney Andrea Harrington is putting Mayor Linda Tyer's failed administration in a close second place thus far in 2022. Talk about a study of journalism of the BANAL and REDUDANCY! When one looks up the subject in the proverbial encyclopedia, they see an illustration of blogger Dan Valenti pointing his proverbial finger at D.A. Andrea Harrington one hundred times over.

D.A. Andrea Harrington has been in office for 3 years, 3 months, and 19 days so far. Pittsfield's violent crime, dysfunctional Social Services agencies, multigenerational poverty, and all of its other systemic socioeconomic problems have been a sad reality in Pittsfield long before 2019. To always write unfavorable blog posts about her is the textbook definition of myopic journalism. I cannot argue the facts that blogger Dan Valenti and likeminded blog posters present, but the context goes back generations long before Andrea Harrington put her proverbial hat in the political ring of Pittsfield politics starting in 2016, and again in 2018.

Jonathan A. Melle

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May 2, 2022

Hello Patrick Fennell,

The State of Maine has an $800 million surplus, and they are giving some of the surplus state cash back to the taxpayers in Maine.  Many state governments - as well as counties and municipalities and public-school districts - with surplus cash have passed 5-year ARPA spending plans and/or passed demand side tax breaks for Veterans, Senior Citizens, working class commuters by suspending the state portion of the gas tax, and so on.  Beacon Hill lawmakers have spent only a fraction of their billions of dollars in Biden Bucks & surplus state cash without helping the people, families, communities, and taxpayers of Massachusetts.  Why?  The answer is that the corrupt career politicians on Beacon Hill only do DISSERVICES against the people and taxpayers in Massachusetts.  What will happen with the billions of dollars in surplus state cash and Biden Bucks over the next couple of years?  Do they think we won't ask about it in 2023, 2024, 2025, and so on?  I hope they all go to jail, but Luciforo was never criminally charged for his alleged illegal double dipping in the State Senate and Boston's big banks and insurance companies in and after 2006.  If you are politically connected, you can allegedly break the law and state "ethics" policies without negative consequences, which means that the billions of dollars in surplus state cash in Boston will probably go towards more political corruption as the 2020s-decade moves forward in time.

During the Wall Street led financial meltdown of the U.S. and global economy in 2008 and 2009, the Swamp bailed out Wall Street with trillions of federal dollars, as well as foreign banks in Europe and Asia with hundreds of billions of federal dollars.  Why?  The answer is because the real White House is on Wall Street, and the real Capitol Hill is on K Street with its army of corporate lobbyist firms.  The Ruling Elites in the Swamp are said to be worth tens of millions, hundreds of millions, and in Speaker Nancy Pelosi's case over $1 billion.  Why?  The answer is because they are corrupt career politicians who are legally bribed, practice insider stock trading, and collect huge sums of campaign donations from very wealthy mega-donors.  The Financial, Ruling and Corporate Elites are all doing very well, while the rest of us feel fortunate to cut even and maybe be fortunate enough to be able to save a few Biden Bucks.  I will go back to pounding sand about it all.

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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May 8, 2022

Hello Erin Leahy at Act on Mass,

Thank you for your weekly political email from Act on Mass.  I always look forward to reading your thoughts about Beacon Hill politics.  I hope that all of your reform efforts will work, but I am not holding my breath.  

My responses to your political email today (Saturday, 7-May-2022) are:

The U.S. Supreme Court doesn't represent the American People, including on abortion law.  I asked my 75-year-old mother about the U.S. military industrial complex that has killed millions upon millions of foreign Peoples since the end of WW2, consumes trillions upon trillions of federal tax dollars, emits more greenhouse gases than 140 countries combined, and so on, but the Pentagon gets away with it all as being legal, but if an American woman has an abortion, the Swamp pretends to go nuts about it.  She replied that her generation fought for women's rights in the 1960s and 1970s, protested the U.S. war machine killing over 5 million Vietnamese People back then, and supported the founding of the EPA back then.

The U.S. Government is the number one exporter of arms in the world, which has led to humanitarian crises around the world.  Since Putin invaded and started his unprovoked war in Ukraine, the Swamp and Wall Street has made a financial killing.  The U.S. Supreme Court, like the rest of the Swamp and the Billionaire Elites on Wall Street, are all about war, money and power.  When the U.S. Supreme Court overturns nearly 50 years of limited abortion legal rights and the right to personal privacy laws, let us all remind them about the Pentagon, the Swamp's obsession with the Almighty Dollar and Wall Street, and that the U.S.A. is the number 2 polluters of greenhouse gases in the world second only to China, which the two countries combined pollute nearly 50 percent of the world's greenhouse gases that contributes to global warming and sea level rise.

Beacon Hill's corrupt career politicians passing a law to reward undocumented immigrants with Massachusetts Driver's Licenses is contradictory to state and federal laws concerning legal immigration.  I understand that it is a complex issue similar to limited abortion legal rights, but undocumented immigrants with legal driver's licenses could lead to more serious traffic accidents and/or fatal auto accidents.  If there are negative consequences, should Beacon Hill lawmakers vote to overturn the law?

Beacon Hill's corrupt career politicians passed the bill to legalize sports betting in Massachusetts by a voice vote, which means that nobody knows how each State Senator voted.  Like I wrote before, all gambling schemes are nothing more than regressive taxation schemes.  Beacon Hill lawmakers use all of their regressive taxation schemes to play financial shell games to give tens of billions of dollars in state tax breaks (every fiscal year) to their wealthy big business campaign donors.  Regions such as mostly rural Western Massachusetts do NOT have the big businesses that the Boston area has.  Municipalities and public-school districts are always systemically underfunded by Boston.  I grew up and lived in Western Massachusetts for most of my life, and I have long spoke out about how the corrupt Boston politicians were always screwing us over with their financial shell games and institutional political corruption, but to no avail.

I wish to thank you for your non-binding transparency question on ballots across the Commonwealth!  I hope you succeed in bringing Sunshine Laws to Beacon Hill's corrupt Statehouse, but I won't be holding my breath.

Best wishes,

Jonathan Melle

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May 7, 2022

Jonathan,

It is with anger, fear, and solidarity that I write you today. The news of the impending repeal of federal abortion rights is shocking and deeply disturbing, even if it is perhaps not altogether surprising given the makeup of the supreme court; a court where 5 of the 9 justices were appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote.

This is a dark, scary time where hard-fought rights are being stripped away by, frankly, a well-funded minority who thrust themselves into power through the cracks in our democratic system: gerrymandering, voter suppression, the Citizens United decision, and the electoral college. 

Thankfully, abortion is still safe and legal in Massachusetts, and that’s not going to change anytime soon. But that doesn’t mean our work here is done. Far from it.

State House Scoop

What overturning Roe v. Wade means for Massachusetts

The good news is that the Massachusetts legislature codified the rights guaranteed by Roe v. Wade into law by passing the ROE Act last session (after, of course, sending it to study for years and years and stripping out several reproductive justice provisions). Little did we know they passed it just in the nick of time; because of the ROE Act, should abortion rights be formally overturned, abortion will remain legal in Massachusetts.

But overturning Roe will mean more and more people from out of state will come to Massachusetts seeking care, and we need to ensure that we adequately fund abortions and reproductive healthcare. We may also have to pass new legislation protecting Massachusetts healthcare providers from civil or criminal lawsuits for providing care to patients from states where abortion is made illegal.

Senate passes The Work and Family Mobility Act

Thankfully, it wasn't all bad news this week: after 19 years of being sent to study, a bill to allow undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses is on its way to the governor’s desk after passing the Senate on Thursday. The House took its historic vote on the bill back in February. Both chambers passed the bill with a crucial veto-proof majority, ensuring that any veto from Governor Baker could be overridden. Massachusetts would be joining 16 other states and D.C. by establishing this policy.

This massive victory for immigrant rights and road safety comes after years of organizing and advocacy, notably the powerful encampment on the State House steps and hunger strike organized by Movimiento Cosecha Massachusetts and allies last session, both led by immigrants and BIPOC folks. 

Spilka stands by passing sports betting bill without recorded vote

The Senate passed a bill legalizing sports betting last week on a voice vote. This type of vote doesn’t record the actual votes cast by individual members, so there’s no way to see how your senator voted on this bill. And if we can’t see how our senators vote, there’s no way to hold them accountable to their constituents. This was a shocking move: final votes on substantive bills are almost always taken via roll call. 

When asked to explain the Senate’s decision to pass the bill without a recorded vote, Senate President Karen Spilka offered an extremely clarifying, not vague at all explanation: “It was a general consensus that they were ready to move forward.” Got it, thanks!

Housekeeping

Thank you all for a successful Ballot Question Campaign Weekend of Action!

A HUGE thank you to everyone who came out last weekend to collect signatures to get our non-binding transparency question on ballots across the Commonwealth! I had an absolute blast gathering signatures in Arlington and chatting with folks about the state house, even if I did get mildly sunburnt. (Note to self -- bring a hat next time.)

Together we gathered around 3,000 signatures, putting us at just under a quarter of the way to our goal -- right about on track! We have the next 6 weeks to keep collecting, so stay tuned for more volunteer shift information soon!

Take Action

Support reproductive rights by donating to these abortion funds

While abortion remains legal in Massachusetts, there are still several barriers to accessing care, including cost. Abortion funds help people pay for their abortion and other logistical expenses such as travel, lodging, and child care. Donating to abortion funds is one of the best things you can do right now to support abortion access. There are two links below for each fund: one where you can donate, and one where you can seek funds if you or anyone you know is in need.

Eastern MA Abortion Fund (DONATE) (GET HELP)

Jane Fund of Central MA (DONATE) (GET HELP) 

Abortion Rights Fund of Western MA (DONATE) (GET HELP)

For a full list of abortion funds across the US, visit abortionfunds.org/funds. 

Remember to take care of yourself, Jonathan. I hope you’re able to find comfort by being in community with others, and resolve by standing in solidarity with those who need it most. 

Yours,

Erin Leahy

Executive Director, Act on Mass

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May 8, 2022

Hello Patrick Fennell,

I respect you.  I respect that you are a Veteran - like myself.  I respect that you are a Republican who supports Donald Trump in U.S. politics.  I respect that you are pro-life.  I respect that you speak out about local issues in Great Barrington, you tell it like it is about the corrupt career politicians on Beacon Hill, and that you write about the Swamp's systemic failures in American leadership.  While I will never support Donald Trump in U.S. politics, I respect you, and I agree with a lot of your political views.

My reply to your political email to Erin Leahy and myself is that people, including women's issue, should stop being politicized.  We are all human beings, not numbers on a bureaucrat's spreadsheet.  We should all practice the Golden Rule, which means that we all treat each other with respect, fairness and safety in our lives, which is a lot easier said than done, of course.

In the case of Berkshire County District Attorney Andrea Harrington, who is a progressive politician, she receives more personal attacks than any other Berkshire-based politician, which has become redundant, banal and mean-spirited.  I doubt that Andrea Harrington, who I wish a Happy Mother's Day, is fighting for abortions to kill innocent babies.  That is ridiculous!  I doubt that Andrea Harrington is fighting to let violent criminals walk the streets of Pittsfield.  That is also ridiculous!

Beacon Hill lawmakers' recent votes to give undocumented immigrants Massachusetts Driver's Licenses contradicts state and federal laws on legal immigration.  Moreover, the consequences could result in increased serious and/or fatal auto accidents.  In time, the would-be law should be overturned if it leads to serious consequences.

As I respect you, Patrick Fennell, I ask that you please respect me and the written response I have sent to you and the community.

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

On Sunday, May 8, 2022, 09:55:32 AM EDT, Patrick Fennell wrote:

Erin & Jonathon.

Over the last two years women did not exist. When Lia Thomas was kicking college girls butts in swimming , silence. When men went into womens' bathrooms and locker rooms, crickets, men could pretend to be women, transsexuals  came before women, in sports, treatment and in the classrooms. 

Recently illegal immigrants got special treatment i at the MA DMV. Unlike the rest of us do not need the special documents to get their drivers licenses. Again special treatment.

The Boston Marathon Bomber got a Stimulus Check, meanwhile many veterans did not, special treatment. Bernie Sanders thinks murderers in prison should vote, bet Andrea Harrington agrees, she will benifit from the criminals vote.

Women will still be able to kill their babies in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts if the Supreme Court ruling is what was LEAKED, (odd no one wants to arrest and punish the Leake amongst liberals) Apparently it should be legal to assault a Supreme Court Judge. possible injure them, but illegal to protect innocent life in a woman's womb. 

Life, especially innocent life should be values and yes protected. Yet DAs like Andrea Harrington would rather protect criminals than babies in the womb. Some states allow abortions up to birth. How can any human with a heartbeat choose abortion over life, especially in this 'advanced' age? I have noticed all Pro Choice people are still alive.

Patrick Fennell

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May 8, 2022

Hello Patrick Fennell,

Once again, I agree with you.  Killing an innocent baby is wrong.  There is no good reason to do so.  We are men.  How can we, on a personal level, not partake in a woman getting an abortion?  The answer is that we keep our respective male genitals in our own pants.  All it takes is for our respective sperm to reach a woman's egg for a woman to become pregnant.  That only happens if you or I put our erect penis in a woman's vagina - hopefully through consensual sex in a healthy sexual relationship - and we ejaculate our respective semen during sexual intercourse.  Men have to learn to stop having sex with women if men want women to stop having abortions.  There is no form of birth control that works 100 percent of the time throughout human history.  Unless a man wants to pay for a woman and her child, then a man should either masturbate and/or abstain from sex with a woman altogether.  But instead of making that into law, the U.S. Supreme Court puts it all on women to make abortion illegal.  I have always asked anyone and everyone: What ever happened to being a good man?  What ever happened to men making the sacrifices in life, including men stop having sex with women to stop abortion?  What ever happened to a man being a responsible partner/husband and father to his child/children?  If a man doesn't like his woman partner and he doesn't want to be a caring family man to his child/children, then the man should stop having sex with a woman.  Men cannot have it all in life.  Men can't put all of the burdens of society on women, along with everyone else out there.  I believe in Human Rights for ALL people and Peoples.  I believe that men and women are equal under law and in society.  I don't like it when women hate men.  Nor do I like when men hate women.  To be clear, I am pro-choice, which means that I support limited abortion rights under law as they stand today.  Personally, I would not want to be a man who has sexual intercourse with a woman who then gets pregnant, and she then gets an abortion.  But I fully understand that I give up my right to decide the fate of the fetus after I ejaculate my semen into her vagina.  I believe that men and women need to be responsible when it comes to sex and everything that comes after it.  Politically, the Republican Party and its over 5 decades of supply side economics that favors the super wealthy families are moral hypocrites on being against abortion because they - along with the corporate Democrats such as Bill Clinton and PAC Man Richie Neal - have decimated the middle class in the U.S.A.  Politicians are supposed to use their limited financial and other public resources to invest in people, families and the community, but neither Beacon Hill nor the Swamp does so for a very long time now - since the 1960s.  Instead, the Massachusetts State Lottery bragged about its record profits at the close of fiscal year 2021 (June 30, 2021).  The state lottery is nothing more than regressive taxation so that Beacon Hill lawmakers can give their wealthy big business campaign donors tens of billions of dollars in state tax breaks (every fiscal year), while always systemically underfunding state aid to municipalities and public-school districts.  Beacon Hill lawmakers are still sitting on billions of dollars in state surplus cash and ARPA Biden Bucks, and they recently rejected all tax relief proposals for working class families, Veterans and senior citizens, along with Governor Charlie Baker's supply side tax cut proposals.  Instead, the Swamp saw Speaker Nancy Pelosi become a billionaire via institutional legal political corruption, K Street corporate lobbyist firms brag about their record earnings in 2021 by legally bribing Members of U.S. Congress, and Wall Street reach record high indices numbers.  Anyone who follows politics knows full well that abortion is a wedge issue meant to distract us from the corruption of state and federal career politicians who are screwing us over and laughing at us all the way to their respective banks.  Trusting a corrupt career politician with your tax dollars and legal rights would be as foolish as trusting your proverbial 14-year-old daughter with Bill Clinton, Bill Gates and/or the U.K.'s Prince Andrew, while only the woman named Ghislaine Maxwell is behind bars.  I believe that corrupt career politicians, including U.S. Supreme Court Judges, should stay as far away from women's health policy and legal issues as possible, especially given all of the reported Swamp sex scandals over the years.

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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May 8, 2022

Hello Patrick Fennell,

Please know that I am being serious, not sarcastic.  I wish we all lived in a perfect world.  I wish there was no war.  I wish that there was no greed.  I wish that there were no career politicians.  I wish that the government and politicians used taxpayer dollars to invest in the people, families and communities.  I wish that there were no abortions.  I wish that men didn't have sex with women unless men were willing to pay for the women and children instead of being deadbeats.  I wish that Hunter Biden wasn't being investigated for alleged money laundering and tax fraud, along with his history of crack cocaine and alcohol addiction, him trying to weasel out of paying child support for his love child with his stripper young woman partner, if not for a court-ordered paternity test, him having a sordid history of paying strippers and sex workers for sex both at home and abroad, him writing his tell all book in 2021 about all of his bad boy behavior as a middle-aged son of U.S. President Joe Biden, and so on.  There is so much wrong with the cruel world we all live in.

I am upset with Ed Markey because he really lives in an upper-class suburb in Chevy Chase, Maryland, he used the Democrats' Green New Deal propaganda to be reelected to the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts in 2020, he supports GE's proposal to put an industrial chemical toxic waste dump inside of the watershed in the polluted Housatonic River in Lee, Massachusetts, over the protests of the local people who live in Lee and Lenoxdale, which totally contradicts his Green New Deal platform of HOT AIR.  As for U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, her support for Wall Street backed Joe Biden contradicts her claims of fighting for Main Street.  Joe Biden raised more Wall Street and K Street campaign donations than any other candidate in the 2020 election, and we all know that Wall Street and K Street bragged about their record earnings in 2021 after Joe Biden and the Swamp passed the largest federal spending bill(s) in U.S. history without a way to pay for it, which led to 40-year high U.S. inflation, which is worse than any federal tax on a majority of American Citizens.  John Forbes Kerry is a billionaire, and about one year ago, he sold tens of millions of dollars in his personal investments in the oil and gas industries to work as Biden's Climate Czar.  The world rolled their eyes at Joe Biden falling asleep and John Kerry's propaganda tour in Glasgow, Scotland, especially the youth.  PAC Man Richie Neal only represents K Street corporate lobbyist firms, which has nothing to do with his mostly rural Western Massachusetts Congressional District that he has been representing in the Swamp since 1989, which is over 32 years now.  Chrome Dome Adam Hinds left Pittsfield after he married a wealthy woman who is a professor at Amherst College.  Shitty Pigpen is a rubber stamp to his secretive and top-down State House leadership in Boston, despite all of his lofty, disingenuous op-eds in Western Massachusetts' newspapers.  Trippy Country Buffet has done nothing in a little over one decade in Boston.  Paul Marxism is for the politically connected ruling elites and labor unions in Boston.  John Barrett III is a career politician going back over 40 years.  Mayor Linda Tyer knows the public's business and she is nobody's fool, but she is not accessible to a majority of people who live in Pittsfield.  With Linda Tyer, one has to take the good with the bad, but Boston is far worse than Pittsfield politics.  Lastly, I agree with you that the Ruling Elite in both Boston and the Swamp only do DISSERVICES to common people and Veterans such as you and I.

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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May 8, 2022

Jonathon.

Liberal states will still allow the killing of babies. The states will decide about abortions and Congress will continue to fund abortion clinics, since groups like Planned Parenthood send money back to liberal politicians and make money selling body parts.  There is a lot of money killing babies. Notice Liz Warren and Ed Markey are more concerned with women's right all of a sudden and still cannot be bothered by disabled, veterans, elderly and school children is there is more money in Pro Choice groups. Until school kids send their lemonade money to the MA Congressional Delegation they will continue to be ignored as far as learning English, math and reading are concerned.

Remember if you are really hungry, cold or homeless talk to a local charity, the trillions of wasted money still haven't gone to local food pantries and in cold weather kids hope for local donations.

Patrick Fennell

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May 8, 2022

The U.S. Government's military industrial complex has killed millions upon millions of foreign people and Peoples since the end of WW2 in 1945, which is about 77 years.  The U.S. Government's number one non-farm export to the world are military arms.  The U.S. Government is the number one arms dealer in the world.  The U.S. Government's lust for war, money and power has led to more deaths and humanitarian crises than abortions.  What a double standard for the Swamp to be self-righteous about abortion but spend trillions upon trillions of dollars on war to make trillions upon trillions of dollars in profit for Wall Street's Financial Elites (billionaires), the corporate elites (defense/war contractors and arms dealers), and the Ruling Elites (Speaker Nancy Pelosi is said to be a billionaire from her Pentagon stock portfolio).  Human life obviously does NOT matter to the Swamp, but rather, the Almighty Dollar to buy decades of Political Power is what really matters to the corrupt career politicians there.  The 5 Catholic Supreme Court Judges who wrote that American Women don't have a federal constitutional right to limited abortion rights and privacy rights are rewriting over 50 years of law and legal precedent.  The Catholic Church is a pro-life religious institution, but most American Citizens are NOT practicing Catholics, nor do they believe in the Church's doctrine of moral hypocrisy from Vatican City to the Swamp and beyond.  Lastly, if men don't want women to get abortions, then men should keep their genitals in their pants instead of having sex with women.  What does a man think is going to happen after he has sexual intercourse with a woman?  This is all unreal.

Jonathan A. Melle

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OPINION: "War. What is it good for? The armaments biz."

By Alex Beam, Op-Ed Contributor, May 13, 2022

More than a dozen years after the end of World War I, a book appeared that developed into a movement.

“Merchants of Death: A Study of the International Armament Industry,” by University of Chicago instructor Helmuth Engelbrecht and journalist Frank Hanighen, advanced the radical idea that the sanguinary Great War, which claimed 20 million lives, hadn’t been a catastrophe for everyone. In fact, they argued, companies such as Colt (small arms), DuPont (gunpowder), Germany’s Krupp works (artillery), and the Czech Skoda factories (tanks, hand grenades) had done quite well for themselves.

The book prompted a congressional investigation and briefly popularized the epithet “merchants of death,” which fell out of fashion many years ago.

Time for a reboot?

On the one hand, citizens of Western democracies, like me, sincerely support Ukraine’s heroic resistance to Russia’s sudden and brutal invasion. On the other hand, it’s hard not to notice politicians’ enthusiasm for opening up a new armaments market. “Being the arsenal of democracy also means good-paying jobs for American workers . . . in the states all across America, where defense equipment is manufactured and assembled,” President Joe Biden said last week. He was visiting the Lockheed Martin plant in Troy, Ala., that manufactures Javelin anti-tank missiles.

Some of those Javelin procurement dollars — the Biden administration authorized $100 million for Javelin transfers to Ukraine last month — find their way to Massachusetts. Raytheon Missiles & Defense, a subsidiary of Waltham-based Raytheon Technologies Corporation, is Lockheed Martin’s partner in the Javelin Joint Venture.

Former New Republic magazine editor Peter Beinart ungraciously noted in The New York Times a few weeks ago that “many of President Biden’s top foreign policy aides did spend their years between government service at either consulting firms funded by defense contractors or think tanks funded by defense contractors. Few politicians acknowledge how unethical that is.”

Thanks to Vladimir Putin, it’s going to be a very good year for the armaments biz. Small countries not previously known for saber-rattling are suddenly eager to flex their military muscles. Finland, which for decades pursued a policy of judicious non-involvement in geopolitics, “is now upgrading its air force,” The Wall Street Journal reported, “announcing in February that it had completed its purchase of 64 Lockheed Martin F-35 jet fighters to replace its aging fleet of Hornets.”

Raytheon also participates in F-35 manufacturing.

I don’t mean to whomp on Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, which are just individual tiles in the grand, multibillion-dollar mosaic that president Dwight Eisenhower branded “the military-industrial complex.” But it’s odd how few people have commented on the bipartisan frenzy to bankroll a protracted war against a well-armed opponent. Suppose they put all that effort into negotiating a peace treaty instead of sharpening the weapons of war?

One voice crying in the desert: Pope Francis. In an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera earlier this month, Francis opined: “What seems indisputable is that in [Ukraine] both sides are trying out new weapons. . . . Wars are fought for this reason, too: to test your arsenals. This is what happened in the Spanish Civil War, before the Second World War. The production and the sale of armaments is a disgrace, but few are bold enough to stand up against it.”

In “Merchants of Death,” Engelbrecht and Hanighen noted that “the war year 1916″ — when the United States was supplying weapons to the combatants but had yet to formally declare war — “was by far the most prosperous in the entire history of American industry and finance. There was only one cloud on the horizon: the war might end.”

You may remember the lyrics to Edwin Starr’s number-one hit of 1970, “War (What Is It Good For)”: “War. It ain’t nothing but a heartbreaker. War. Friend only to the undertaker.” And also to weapons manufacturers, to be sure.

Alex Beam’s column appears regularly in the Globe. Follow him on Twitter @imalexbeamyrnot.

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May 23, 2022

Hello Patrick Fennell,

Joe Biden received more Wall Street and K Street campaign dollars than any other candidate for political office in 2020.  Hunter Biden is said to have earned over $1.2 billion from his foreign business dealings in China, Russia and Ukraine.  The Biden "Crime" Family are said to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.  Hunter Biden is being investigated by a federal prosecutor for alleged money laundering and alleged tax fraud.  I ask my best friend during our monthly dinner out this past Friday evening how much money Hunter Biden and his father - the sitting U.S. President - may owe in back taxes?  My best friend said nearly one-half billion dollars.  Joe Biden hired impeachment Attorneys last week for his anticipated impeachment in 2023.  It is a lot less expensive for taxpayers to pay for Joe Biden's impeachment Attorneys than for the Biden "Crime" Family to pay their huge tax bill(s).

The Democrat's Green New Deal policies and promises are all a lie.  Speaker Nancy Pelosi is said to have over $1 billion in stock holdings from her legal insider stock trading.  Most of Pelosi's stock holdings are Pentagon related equity shares.  The Pentagon pollutes more greenhouse gas emissions than 140 countries combined.  It is a contradiction for the leader of the Democratic Party, Nancy Pelosi, to be for the Green New Deal when she is said to be a billionaire from the Pentagon and its global warming pollution.

PAC Man Richie Neal is all about the greedy K Street corporate lobbyist firms and the Almighty Dollar.  PAC Man Richie Neal is Speaker Nancy Pelosi's golden corporate money boy.  The Swamp only spews HOT AIR, lies, and legal corruption.

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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June 1, 2022

Hello blogger Dan Valenti,

I enjoyed your blog's commentary on endless war.  After nuclear weapons were invented by the U.S. Government during WW2, the U.S. Government had no choice but to become a national security superpower state.  Since then, nuclear weapons proliferation has become an existential threat across the globe.  While Joe Biden is calling Putin a "KILLER" and a "BUTCHER", Putin has been threatening to blow up multiple countries, including the U.S.A., the U.K., Germany, among other countries, with his nuclear weapons proverbial toy box.  Putin understands that if he deploys his nuclear weapons, that Russia itself will be destroyed by nuclear weapons, which would mean the end of the world as we know it.

The U.S. Government is in the business of war, and the U.S.A.'s number one non-farm export are arms sales.  When the Soviet Union collapsed over 30 years ago, the U.S. Government took over Moscow's market share of arms sales.  During Bill Clinton's administration in the 1990s, the economy boomed because the U.S. Government's huge global market share in selling arms to the world.  Joe Biden's economic advisors are the same ones that Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton used in their campaigns and administration.  Joe Biden, who received more Wall Street and K Street campaign contributions than any other candidate in U.S. history when he ran for U.S. President in 2020, is spending more federal dollars on the Pentagon than any other U.S. President in U.S. History, while we common folks are paying for 41-year high U.S. inflation, especially on energy costs.

The Democratic Party's Green New Deal propaganda contradicts their leadership's lucrative support for the military industrial complex.  The Pentagon pollutes more greenhouse emissions than 140 countries combined.  Speaker Nancy Pelosi is said to have over $1 billion in her investments in Pentagon stocks.  How can Biden and Pelosi say they want a Green New Deal when they so connected to Wall Street and the Pentagon?

Lastly, the federal government, Wall Street, and the corporate war machine all play financial shell games to make a KILLING off of WAR.

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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October 31, 2022

U.S. Congress will return to the Swamp in mid-November 2022, which will be nearly one week after the midterm elections and less than one week prior to Joe Biden's 80th birthday on November 20th.  Beacon Hill lawmakers will return to Boston in early-January 2023, which will be after their 5-monthslong taxpayer-funded vacation.  Pittsfield politics is busy spending over $200 million in Kapanski Ka$h used to fund Gated Community Mayor Linda Tyer's record high Pickleball budget.  Did I miss anything on this Halloween night?  It is all very scary!

Jonathan A. Melle

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November 18, 2022

Hello Patrick Fennell,

Prior to the financial meltdown in 2008 caused by Wall Street Investment Banks, billionaire Martha Stewart went to prison for financial fraud.  Today (Friday, November 18th, 2022), former billionaire Elizabeth Holmes was sentenced to many years in prison for financial fraud, which she is appealing.  During and after the 2008 financial crisis, the billionaire men who run Wall Street, whose alleged financial fraud caused the economy to sink into the worst economic recession since the Great Depression in the 1930s, despite the trillions of dollars in federal bailouts, never faced any criminal charges.

The U.S. Department of Justice should proclaim that if you are a woman, such as Martha Stewart or Elizabeth Holmes, who allegedly commits financial fraud, you will be prosecuted and sent to prison, but if you are a Wall Street billionaire man who tanks the economy due to alleged financial fraud, not only will you never face any criminal charges, but you will be bailed out with trillions of federal dollars as your reward.

On K Street, corporate lobbyist firms are bragging about their record profits since Joe Biden moved into The White House and spent over $10 trillion per year, which will end next year after the Republican Party in the U.S. House of Representatives assumes majority power in early-2023.  Retiring Members of U.S. Congress are currently being recruited to work for K Street's corporate lobbyist firms to cash in on their political connections in the Swamp and beyond.

Meanwhile, the American People are financially distressed with 40-year high U.S. inflation, an energy crisis in these cold weather months, a predicted economic recession, and severe economic inequality that last occurred 100 years ago in the 1920s, which was when Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany.  I hope that history is NOT repeating itself in the 2020s.

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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November 20, 2022

I do not reject the Founding Fathers because most of them were owners of Slaves, while they fought for Classical Liberalism.  I do, indeed, believe it is important to make the statement that most of the Founding Fathers owned Slaves because it is the truth and a stain on our nation that should never be forgotten.  As human beings throughout human history, we are all flawed, including the Founding Fathers.  I believe in what they fought for in their time: Classical Liberty.  I also believe that they should have outlawed Slavery in the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution.  They all knew full well that Slavery was immoral and would cause problems for generations, but they put their economic and financial interests before the very ideals they fought for in their time.

In 2022, our nation is too militarized, along with China.  The U.S. Government's number one non-farm export to the world is Arms Sales.  What kind of statement to the world is the U.S. Government really making by profiting off of war?  The Pentagon pollutes more greenhouse gas emissions than 140 countries combined.  Behind China, which is the number one polluter in the world of global warming gases, the U.S.A. is the number two polluter of global warming gases in the world.  China and the U.S.A.'s military industrial complexes combined are the biggest polluters of global warming gases in human history.  China and the U.S.A. combined account for a little less than 50 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.  Billionaire John Forbes Kerry, who only last year of 2021 had millions of dollars of his huge fortune invested in oil and gas energy companies, is not fooling anyone with his HOT AIR about the Democrat's Green New Deal.  Ed "Maryland" Markey ran on the Green New Deal in 2020, but he has since supported, along with Smitty "Shitty Pigpen" Pignatelli, GE's proposal to put a leaky landfill full of industrial chemical waste called PCBs inside of a watershed in the polluted Housatonic River in Lee over the outcry of the residents of Lee and Lenoxdale.

From 1776 with the Slave owner Founding Fathers who fought for Classical Liberty to 2022 with the Ruling Elites selling arms, profiting off of war and polluting the world with greenhouse gas emissions with their respective Superpower military industrial complexes, it is clear that the Almighty Dollar for political power is still far more important than Classical Liberty centuries ago and modern Liberty alike. 

Jonathan A. Melle

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"Make First Republic Bank the new standard"

By Bruce Marks, op-ed, The Boston Globe, May 8, 2023

The three bank failures over the past two months, even with each subsequently purchased by larger financial institutions, do not address the fundamental issue of who the regulators support. The Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and other regulators must stop bailing out the wealthiest people and their banks. They now have an opportunity to reverse course and not ensure the depositors in First Republic Bank and other failed institutions with a balance above the $250,000 insurance threshold. This position comes from my experience as a bank regulator at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, experiencing firsthand the bank bailout during the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, and as a depositor with Silicon Valley Bank, which failed in March.

I worked in the Domestic Applications Department at the Federal Reserve in the 1980s where there was minimal oversight and accountability of the country’s major financial institutions. In fact, in my experience, this cozy relationship was facilitated by a revolving door where banks hired the regulators who “regulated” their operations. It is therefore not surprising that the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco was ineffective when it came to regulating SVB.

Americans experienced both the tax-funded bailout of major financial institutions and the lack of any real assistance for the at-risk homeowners during the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis. Millions of mortgage holders lost their homes because the US government prioritized protecting wealthy investors and lenders on Wall Street over Americans on Main Street. Elected officials, regulators, and policy makers failed to provide effective solutions to save homeowners from foreclosure because it represented a moral hazard, defined by the FDIC as “the incentive for increased risk-taking that is present in deposit insurance.” As the founder and CEO of the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America, I witnessed this during our massive HomeSave events, where tens of thousands of homeowners were counseled to obtain an affordable mortgage payment. The government’s failed assistance programs stand in contrast to NACA’s private agreements with major lenders, servicers, and investors, which saved over 500,000 homeowners from foreclosure.

NACA, as a depositor in SVB, played by the rules and kept its account balance at $240,000 to ensure FDIC insurance. However, NACA, like many other organizations that adhered to the rules, received a lower return. Currently, the government is bailing out wealthy investors, venture capitalists, hedge funds, and the high rollers with deposits in the millions. The costs of this bailout will be borne by bank customers with additional FDIC fees.

Confidence in the financial industry and the government has been lost, and it is time for a change. The American people need to be critical of those decision makers — such as Larry Summers, the former Treasury secretary and top financial adviser to President Barack Obama — who are driving forces in creating policy that favors the wealthy at the expense of working people. This is exemplified by the application of moral hazard to just the actions of low- to moderate-income people. There appears to be little concern that protecting the uninsured deposit balances of the wealthy will continue to encourage their greed and sense of entitlement, including the creation of polices requiring their future bailout.

American taxpayers are on the hook every time there is a financial crisis. We are told that if we do not bailout the wealthy who created the crisis the financial system will spiral out of control, that Wall Street will not be happy, and there will be a massive credit crunch, if not a financial apocalypse. Instead, let’s be fair and use common sense.

Make First Republic Bank, which catered to the wealthy, the new standard. The government should protect the deposits of the people and companies that had their payrolls with First Republic but not their wealthy depositors. Instead, the depositors who played by the rules with lower returns should be rewarded. The millionaire bank executives who were too greedy and incompetent need to be investigated, prosecuted if crimes were committed, and forever prevented from participating in the financial system if found guilty. This new standard might shock wealthy Americans who extol the virtues of free enterprise during good times but rely on the regulators and government to support their greed and incompetence during downturns. Unfortunately, in both scenarios, the American people bear the brunt of the consequences. Let’s flip this paradigm now.

Bruce Marks is CEO of the nonprofit Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America.

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October 11, 2023

I agree with you with your previous comment about federal spending being an economic problem for our own country.  The problem with your otherwise correct comment is that every other country plays similar financial shell games with their spending.  If the Republican Party in the Swamp accomplished its goal of limited federal spending, the trade-off would be U.S. Government isolationism in the global economy and international community.  From what I understand, the governments'- at home and foreign ones - respective monetary supply are mostly imaginary digital numbers that bounce around computer screens, which means that it is mostly made up digital numbers that float around doing nothing but causing us common people financial anxiety about our own financial security during the 8 or so decades we walk around the planet Earth.  The elites at home and in foreign countries always win in the fiat economy of Santa Claus, Unicorns, Mermaids....

Jonathan A. Melle

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Monday, March 11th, 2024

Hello honorable U.S. President Joe Biden,

The Veterans in New Hampshire and their families are feeling anxious about the new VA travel pay ineligibility rules for non-VA facilities that are authorized by the VA Office of Community Care.  The Veterans learned that the VA travel office now reports to a non-VA travel agency, which is new.  The new non-VA travel agency is taking away some of the Veterans' travel pay eligibility benefits.  This happened on your watch.  New Hampshire, along with Alaska, does not have a full service VA hospital.  In NH, Veterans are sent to VA authorized appointments to non-VA facilities on a greater basis than the Veterans who reside in the other 48 states with full service VA hospitals.  This matter is a big deal to the Veterans I communicate with in NH.  Please issue an executive order to change the rules back to the prior VA travel pay eligibility benefits.  Please stop taking away Veterans' benefits under your administration.  Thank you.

Jonathan A. Melle

Veteran

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