Congressman Chris Stewart's op-ed dressing down Joe Biden

September 27, 2021

I believe that Joe Biden is incompetent as U.S. President and he should resign his office immediately.  Joe Biden has a lot of neglected grandchildren (and other neglected family members) out there from his last surviving son who he said he is proud of named Hunter Biden, who wrote and published a book earlier this year of 2021 where Hunter Biden said he used to smoke crack cocaine every 15 minutes and drown himself in alcohol, and pay strippers and sex workers for sex, got a young woman stripper pregnant and tried to weasel his way out of paying child support to her by lying to a Judge that he wasn't the father of the stripper's baby, but a court ordered paternity test proved otherwise, that Hunter Biden has at least 5 (neglected) children by at least 3 (neglected) women, and that Hunter Biden is an alleged money launderer of hundreds of millions of dollars from China, and an alleged money launderer of millions of dollars from Russia and Ukraine.  Of course, China and Russia are both adversarial countries to the U.S. Government, which Joe Biden leads after Joe Biden and the Biden "Crime" family are all worth tens of millions of dollars each without rational and legal explanation of how they are all so wealthy.  I wish Joe Biden would resign the presidency immediately to put an end to his incompetence, corruption, and the tanking of our country.  I wish the U.S.A. had a good U.S. President!

Jonathan A. Melle

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"President Biden is making the world a more dangerous place"

By Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah), Op-Ed in The Hill — 09/26/2021

Last week, President Biden gave his first address to the United Nations General Assembly. He continues to claim that “America is back,” and that the United States intends to “lead on all of the greatest challenges of our time.” President Biden used to be right. But, sadly, the current reality looks very different.

In 1776, our nation’s birth was the result of American victory. Since then, from defeating the Axis of Evil to innovating COVID-19 vaccines, America has always led the world through its darkest times. President Biden is not only failing to do that, but also making the world a more dangerous place.

The Taliban and ISIS-K are unnecessarily emboldened, enriched and energized. Right now, they are arresting, torturing and killing Afghans who fought alongside American troops for years. The Biden administration has responded by calling these terrorists a “strategic partner.”

Unfortunately, the consequences of this rolling humiliation do not end at the borders of Afghanistan. The world is watching as we leave Americans behind enemy lines, despite having the greatest military force in the history of the world. And our adversaries will take advantage of President Biden’s undeniable weakness.

In the immediate wake of the disastrous withdrawal, China began performing assault drills near Taiwan. Every indication is that China will only accelerate its efforts to reclaim the country. Unless President Biden has a fundamental change in his constitution, we can’t assume he would do anything to defend them.

Russia increased their cyberattacks on America the moment President Biden stepped into office, likely as a test of his resolve. And how did President Biden respond? He cleared the way for a Russian pipeline that will boost our rival’s economy and enhance their ability to manipulate our partners in Western Europe. This is the type of decision-making that is hamstringing our own interests, both abroad and here at home.

Despite his generosity toward Russia, President Biden began his term by going to war against American energy. When President Biden came into office, for the first time in 35 years, America was energy independent. We didn’t import a single barrel of oil from Saudi Arabia in 2020. President Biden is changing that. He sabotaged the Keystone pipeline, canceled domestic oil and gas leases, rolled back restrictions on Iranian oil sales and more. Then, when the price of energy began to rise, as it inevitably would, he even went to our foreign competitors and asked them to increase their production to help cover his mistakes. These decisions destroyed American jobs and empowered our enemies. 

Meanwhile, Americans have watched helplessly as our already sky-high spending has grown to even more preposterous levels. Over the past 18 months, Democrats have approved or proposed $16-18 trillion in spending. And what is President Biden funding with your tax dollars? An ever-growing government, subsidies for politically favored industries, programs that incentivize people not to work and entitlement programs. 

Essentially, President Biden is committed to ensuring the government is in your life from cradle to grave, no matter how much taxing and spending that requires.

Predictably, this has resulted in levels of inflation that we haven’t seen in decades. The costs of housing, fuel, food and just about every other necessity in your life are all on the rise. This is effectively an additional tax on every American.

The one place President Biden was sure to succeed was in the pandemic response, or so you would think. He inherited a ready-to-go vaccine program and an economy that was primed to take off. Still, he has lost the confidence of the American people with arbitrary, baseless, inconsistent guidance.

Shortly before taking office, President Biden made the vaccine declaration that he wouldn’t “demand that it be mandatory.” Now, he’s blaming his fellow Americans and political opponents for the surge of COVID-19 this summer and ordering them to be vaccinated or risk losing their jobs. President Biden has come a long way from his pledges to unify the country and defeat COVID-19. 

And where does all of this leave us? Unfortunately, in a more dangerous world — both at home and abroad.

Among America’s most important allies, there is no longer any trust that President Biden can be relied on as a serious partner. Among America’s most competitive rivals, there is no longer any belief that President Biden can protect our interests. And among the American people, there is no longer any faith that President Biden can defend our most fundamental ideals. 

Stewart represents Utah’s 2nd District.

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September 27, 2021

Hello Patrick Fennell,

Thank you for your reply.  I voted for the Biden/Harris ticket last Fall, but I now see I made a terrible mistake doing so.  I will never support Donald Trump in politics because I believe that he is a Nazi who leads a racist White Nationalist political movement that threatens both Human Rights and Democracy.  I don't know what to do at this point in time.  Like the Editor of the NH Union Leader wrote last week, Nobody is representing us in government so politicians should consider changing their last names to Nobody so we can both literally and figuratively say that Nobody represents us in government.  The Swamp stunk prior to the Biden Administration, but I agree with you, Patrick Fennell, that the Swamp really stinks now more than ever before.  Sarcasm: Perhaps Hunter Biden should be the U.S. President so that China can make him a billionaire instead of a multimillionaire.  It would be the most efficient method for China and Russia to tank our country - just like the Democratic Party-run American cities have already been ran into the proverbial ditch.

Best wishes,

Jonathan Melle

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September 27, 2021

Hello Patrick Fennell,

You are right, and I agree with you that 2021 has been a total debacle during Joe Biden's partial first year in the White House.  I respect you and and everybody else who supports Donald Trump in politics.  I am only speaking for myself and what I believe in.  I come from the Human Rights school of politics, and I myself am a disabled Veteran.  I believe that politicians and the government's first duty is to protect the Human Rights of all American Citizens, as well as all of the Citizens of the world.  If Human Rights are systemically violated, which has been the case from the beginning of the U.S.A. with racist, sexist and violent politicians and the government, especially the historical Democratic Party that includes the racist legacy of Joe Biden, then we are no different that Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany.  The American Government is a political system where the people are supposed to be ruled by laws instead of by men.

Donald Trump's failures as U.S. President includes the Charlottesville Virginia Nazi hate march where an innocent young woman was murdered by a neo Nazi, and the January 6th insurrection on and in Capitol Hill where 5 innocent human lives - including a Capitol Hill Police Officer - were lost, which was incited by Donald Trump because in his delusional mind he refused (and refuses) to accept the 2020 presidential election results.  Donald Trump is the leader of the racist White Nationalist movement that threatens both Human Rights and Democracy if these lofty founding principles stand in the way of white men having control over the government and economy.

Donald Trump stands for everything I oppose in politics and government.  Donald Trump was caught on a hot mic saying that he likes to - paraphrasing - "Grab women by their pussies" and he has openly made many sexist - as well as racist - remarks over the years.  Men and Women are equal in politics and government and other places in society, and Donald Trump's disparagement of women is wrong on many levels.  Donald Trump's personal life rivals Hunter Biden's personal life less the drug and alcohol abuse and addiction.  Donald Trump openly cheated on all three of his wives, and he paid women, including a Playboy Bunny and a Porn Star, to stay silent about his love affairs with them.  Donald Trump's business is being criminally charged with two dozen indictments by the State of New York.  Donald Trump declared business bankruptcy around one-half dozen times and screwed over many people associated with his bankrupt businesses who he owed money to over the years.

Donald Trump's tax cut bill and federal government spending grew the U.S. national debt by $8 trillion in four years.  Tonight, the Republican Members of the U.S. Senate unanimously blocked a bill to suspend the debt ceiling and keep the federal government open past Thursday night.  What hypocrisy by Mitch McConnell and the other 49 Republican U.S. Senators who grew the U.S. national debt by $8 trillion during the 4 years of the Trump administration.  In closing, while I believe that Joe Biden is already a failed U.S. President, both political parties in the Swamp are equally deficient in running the federal government.

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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November 2, 2021

Hello Patrick Fennell,

I response to your reply email where you wrote to me: "Jonathon; This is what happens when people vote for a senile old man who wears and soils diapers."

Sarcasm: In the year 2065, when I am either 90 years old or a memory, I promise to give every American the equivalent of this year of 2021's $1,000,000.  I am making this promise because I want to be like Joe Biden and John Kerry, who promised the world to reduce greenhouse emissions in 2030 when they will be either near 90 years old or memories.

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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November 2, 2021

Hello Patrick Fennell,

In response to your email reply to me where you wrote to me: "Jonathon; Never take Climate Change seriously when your spokesman [Billionaire John Forbes Kerry] owns multiple homes, flies private and fought against wind mills around the  Cape because it affected his wind surfing. Diaper Joe nodded off the other day at a Climate conference."

I do NOT believe most of what politicians say.  It is usually propaganda and spin [bullshit and hot air] instead of truth, law and science.  The Ruling Elites mostly do DISSERVICES to the average American Citizens.  In the Swamp, the real Capitol Hill is on K Street with its wealthy and politically-connected Lobbyist firms that literally bribe Pols such as PAC Man Richie Neal.

I talked with a neighbor in town about the Swamp's pending 2021 most expensive spending bill(s) in U.S. History and I said that the Democrats want to spend well over $6 trillion without agreeing on raising revenues (taxes) to pay for their record setting 2021 federal spending bill(s).  My neighbor in town told me that the Swamp is already printing trillions of dollars out of thin air.  I said that I am angry and confused about it all.  He said to me not to be angry, but that he too is confused by the Swamp.

On Climate Change/Global Warming, I read that it has been published science since the 1950s that greenhouse gas emissions contribute to rising global temperatures.  We have had this published science for around 7 decades now.  As a disabled Veteran, my Veteran peers tell me that a lot of greenhouse gas emissions come from military superpowers' use of energy.  My Veteran peers tell me that the real way for the USA, Russia and China to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to lessen their respective military's uses of energy.  The Swamp and the MSM doesn't explain any of this, but rather, they like to blame West Virginia's U.S. Senator Joe Manchin coal energy plants, along with our nation's farms that produce red meat that people love to eat instead of more healthy and environmentally-friendly foods.

My Veteran peers tell me that one of the main reasons why Hitler lost World War 2 was that he had little to no access to oil; he had a lot of tanks and planes, but no oil to run them.  Less than 58 years after Hitler was defeated by the Allied Powers in the Spring of 1945, none other than U.S. Senators Joe Biden and John Kerry (and Congressman Ed Markey) all voted to give U.S. President George W. Bush military authorization to invade Iraq and take over Iraq's second largest oil reserves in the world next to our oil rich allies in Saudi Arabia, whose terrorists flew airplanes into NYC's twin towers, the Pentagon, and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.  Let's cut through the crap and state that the USA, which is the number 2 greenhouse gas polluter behind China, is addicted to oil and the world's military superpowers are huge emitters of greenhouse gas pollution.

The real issue the world's leaders should be dealing with right now is the mass starvation and deaths of millions of Afghanistan's Peoples and people during the upcoming Winter of 2021/2022.  I am still receiving political emails and signing online petitions asking President Joe Biden to release federal funds and send aid to stop an estimated 14 million human beings from needlessly dying in Afghanistan this upcoming Winter.

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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November 5, 2021

I am 46 years old, and for all of my life, most of the gains in income have gone to the already super wealthy, while the rest of the American people have been thrown into Social Darwinism.  The average American family is happy to save a little money, cut even, or even have a job with benefits that takes care of their family.  The underclass has grown larger and larger during my entire life.  In 2008, the Swamp, including both Bush 2 and Obama, voted/supported bailing out Wall Street with trillions of tax dollars, as well as bailing out foreign banks with business on Wall Street with hundreds of billions of dollars, during the financial crisis that Wall Street itself caused through its casino-like operation that still goes on today in the year 2021.  Bush 2 cut federal taxes 3 times, and Trump signed the single largest tax cut package in U.S. history, while the U.S. national debt is very close to $29 trillion and counting higher.  Biden spent $6 trillion federal tax dollars in his first 100 days in the Oval Office, which is on top of the multitrillion federal government budget, and now Biden is anxiously waiting to sign the largest federal spending bill(s) in U.S. history.  U.S. inflation is at decades-highs, and the Swamp is beholden to the wealthy K Street lobbyist firms that don't want Congress to raise taxes on their wealthy clients.  Trillions of dollars are being printed every year out of thin air, which is reminiscent of when Napoleon ran the printing presses in France over 2 centuries ago.  The only thing going for the U.S. economy and corrupt financial system is that the rest of the world is drowning in debts along with us.  In closing, 21st Century capitalism has become the old coin flip game of "Heads the Haves wins, Tails the Haves win" while the Have Nots are forced live in Social Darwinism that will always keep the same ELITES in POWER forever.

Jonathan A. Melle

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November 9, 2021

Hello Alan Chartock and op-ed submission,

In response to: WAMC's Dr. Alan Chartock discusses the Washington Post's report of greenhouse gas emissions being much higher than countries are reporting while the climate summit continues in Glasgow [Scotland] and more.

As a Veteran, when I go to the VA Hospital I learned from my peers there that the military is a major contributor of global warming greenhouse gases, and that if the military cut down on its carbon dioxide emissions, then there would be a lot more progress in fighting climate change.  I did not know or understand this until my peers at the VA Hospital explained it to me.

Well over 50% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions are from China, USA and Russia alone.  The world's largest militaries are from China, USA and Russia.  Along with global warming, China, USA and Russia are in a new very scary nuclear arms race, despite the fact that there are already an excessive number of nuclear weapons.  Also, the economies of China, USA and Russia all depend on arm sales, with the U.S. Government being the number one exporter of military arms in the world.

The United Nations COP26 Climate Change conference is setting long range goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions from 2030 all the way to 2070, which is 9 years to 49 years from now when most of these old fart emitters of hot air will be in the Afterlife - if such a Fairy Tale actually exists.

I hope you and everyone else sees what is going on here.  Old fart wealthy politicians (including Joe Biden, billionaire John Forbes Kerry and Maryland Ed Markey - all of whom voted for Bush 2's 2003 invasion of Iraq for its second largest oil reserves in the world), whose biggest money maker are arms sales and who are engaging in a dangerous new military superpower nuclear arms race, are disingenuously telling the world that they are fighting global warming when they are really growing the military industrial complex, which is a huge polluter of greenhouse gas emissions.

The US Government is one of the major reasons why the USA is the number two polluter in the world of greenhouse gas emissions.  Sleepy Joe Biden and private jet setter John Kerry have only spewed more hot air in Glasgow Scotland.

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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November 9, 2021

Hello Patrick Fennell,

What is the difference between a prostitute and a politician?  A prostitute will stop screwing you when you run out of money, but a politician will still have his (Andrew Cuomo) hands in your pockets.

That is why "Crack addicted $20.00 hookers have higher morals than elected democrats."

The Swamp is ran by K Street lobbyist firms, and they all have PAC Man Richie Neal's picture on their walls as their most bribed Member of U.S. Congress.  K Street Insurance Company Lobbyist firms have PAC Man Richie Neal's picture framed in GOLD on their walls.

Billionaire John Forbes Kerry is flying in his private jet around the world so that he can spew more of his hot air about climate change.  Joe Biden thinks climate change hot air talks are his naptime.  Maryland Ed Markey promised to save the world from Climate Change with his Green New Deal, but now we are in an energy crisis where the average homeowner is being told to plan to spend around 60 percent more on heating bills this upcoming winter of 2021/2022 than this time last year.  Maryland Markey should be called Pay for Hot Air Markey!

But, in the end, despite the broken political system, the MSM and Democrats get a free pass by blaming Donald Trump and his supporters without looking at themselves in the proverbial mirror.

The U.S. national debt is quickly closing in on $29 trillion.  Joe Biden's most expensive spending bill(s) in U.S. history has produced record high federal budget deficits.  PAC Man Richie Neal and the Swamp have yet to raise revenues to pay for their spending spree that they have the balls to say is revenue neutral, despite the CBO saying otherwise.

In closing, Hunter Biden's paintings are selling for 6-figures, and his bad boy behavior book made millions of dollars this year of 2021.  At least someone is getting ahead in this distressed economy!

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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November 13, 2021

Hello Patrick Fennell,

Thank you for sharing your political email letter to the editor with me.  The Swamp is broken.  Joe Biden has been in the Swamp for nearly 50 years, and his administration is Exhibit A in Swamp politics.  We have a 30 year high U.S. inflation volatile situation, we are in an energy crisis, Climate Change is driven by the world's military superpowers and we are in a global arms race with China (which is the world's number one polluter of greenhouse gases; the USA is the number two polluter), we saw a debacle in Afghanistan this past Summer of 2021, and one million children there are predicted to die of starvation there this upcoming winter of 2021/2022 along with 13 million adults there, Hunter Biden wrote a book about his bad boy behavior and he is now selling his paintings for $500,000 a pop for foreign access to his Pop's White House, we are experiencing a border crisis, K Street lobbyist firms are legally bribing Members of U.S. Congress, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is worth hundreds of millions of dollars from her investments in Pentagon-related defense stocks, federal spending is over ten trillion dollars in 2021 and the U.S. national debt is closing in on $30 trillion, and so on.

Western Massachusetts is a prime example of people receiving DISSERVICES from both Boston and the Swamp in Washington, D.C.  Erin Leahy from Act on Mass sent a Saturday (11/13/2021) political email saying that Beacon Hill will be going on a 7 week long vacation from 11/18/2021 - 1/4/2022 -- 48 days off from so-called legislative "work" during the holiday season paid for by the taxpayers of Massachusetts.  Maryland Ed Markey promised Massachusetts voters that he would save the world from global warming last year, but this upcoming winter of 2021/2022, we will being paying 60 percent more for home heating energy than last winter.  He should be called Pay of Hot Air Ed Markey!  Elizabeth Warren is sure helping Wall Street reach record highs, while Main Street is at rock bottom.  Charlie Baker has still taken zero responsibility for the Holyoke Soldiers Home debacle of the Covid-19 tragic deaths of 78 Veterans.  He should be called No Apologies Charlie Baker to our nation's beloved Veterans.  PAC Man Richie Neal only represents K Street lobbyist firms that have no connection to the people he supposedly represents from Springfield to Pittsfield Massachusetts.  Chrome Dome Adam Hinds political legacy is wanting to raise state taxes in Massachusetts.  Smitty Pignatelli votes for and collects dozens of legislative pay raises in Boston.

As for the VA system, we need to help our nation's Veterans.  The VA is more like a greedy insurance company that fights our nation's Veterans rather than providing us with needed services.  Biden's current VA Secretary is the first one in our country's history who is not a Veteran.  What the Hell is going on there?  The U.S. Congress should pass a law to ensure that the head of the VA is a U.S. Veteran!  The VA is the second largest federal bureaucracy behind HHS, yet Veterans are being systematically shortchanged from our earned benefits.  Where does all of the federal money go?  If I was in the Swamp, I would make sure that our nation's Veterans are well taken care of by the VA.

As for the multitrillion dollar bailouts of Wall Street and foreign banks who has business on Wall Street in 2008 and 2009, it shows how corrupt and rigged the political and financial system really is.  Wall Street is a casino, which makes the Swamp a casino, which makes the American people an insurance policy to be cashed in when the casino needs money to cover its losses.

In 16 days from now on 11/29/2021, the Ghislaine Maxwell trial by jury will begin.  Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, the U.K.'s Prince Andrew, and other rich and powerful men will be exposed as alleged sexually exploiters of minor women under the age of 18 - as young as 14 - who were allegedly purchased by alleged sex traffickers the late Jeffrey Epstein and the accused Ghislaine Maxwell.  I asked my dad why only Ghislaine Maxwell is standing trial while all of the alleged rich and powerful men associated with her network are walking free.  My dad responded to me that he thought it is unfair.  That is our nation's politics in a nutshell!

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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November 13, 2021

To the Editor;

The working class, veterans, elderly , small businesses and real poor people don't have a chance with Congress and the White House. Congress have passed relief bills that never get to the people in need, instead Williams College gets a 4.2 million dollars while small businesses get pennies if any help at all. The VA system is horribly broken. Small landlords still had to pay their mortages, property taxes and utility bills even though renters didn't have to pay their rent. Because of high unemployment payments small businesses were forced to do business without proper manpower and the list goes on.

Meanwhile despite getting bailed out in 2009, banks, insurance and investment companies and big business have been less than thankful to those taxpayer who bailed them out, hidden fees, loan rejections,and higher rates smother us. Right now the average employee has less buying power than before January 20, 2021, far less. Since politicians are now back in their pockets they will continue to abuse what is left of the middle and working class.

Yet Senators Markey and Warren and Congressman Neal, have done little to nothing to actually represent and help the first congressional district, unless you are a bigshot or K Street they won't return your calls or answer your letters. Guess they are too busy kissing up to BigTech and wealthy donors to care. They have no problems taking away our rights. Ask the stranded Americans in Afghanistan how they feel about being left in the dark.

The holidays will be rough on many Americans, but in Washington, everyday is Christmas.

Patrick Fennell

Great Barrington, MA

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November 17, 2021

Dear U.S. President Joe Biden,

I watched Andrea Mitchell Reports on MSNBC Television today (17-Nov-2021), which featured part of a feature by Richard Engel about babies dying of mass starvation everyday in Afghanistan since the U.S. Armed Forces and related agencies pulled out of there a couple of months ago.  This Humanitarian Crisis of Mass Starvation in Afghanistan is heartbreaking.  I watched on TV the malnourished babies only months old in a medical clinic in Afghanistan.  My request to you tonight is for you to openly outline a plan to help these starving babies in Afghanistan have access to affordable food, nutrition and medical care.  Reply requested from the White House, please.

Regards,

Jonathan Alan Melle

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November 20, 2021

Dear U.S. President Joe Biden,

Thank you for your letter about your administration's management of the Covid-19 pandemic.  I believe that you are doing good work on meeting the critical needs of the moment.  Good job.

However, I wrote to you about what I saw on MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports on Wednesday afternoon, 17-November-2021 whereby Richard Engel showed starving babies only months old in Afghanistan in a medical clinic.  The TV news show said that starving babies only months old are needlessly dying everyday in Afghanistan.  I believe that you, as U.S. President, have a moral responsibility to stop the mass starvation crisis in Afghanistan.  If you don't do something to help the aforementioned starving babies in Afghanistan, then you have blood on your hands similar to Hitler, Stalin, Chairman Mao and other evil leaders!  Response requested, please.

Regards,

Jonathan Melle

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November 20, 2021

Dear Mr. Melle,

Thank you for taking the time to write to me about the COVID-19 pandemic.

We are emerging from a year of isolation, pain, fear, and loss into an era of joy and hope and closer to independence from this deadly virus.  Because of the historic vaccine effort and heroic work of frontline and essential workers, more and more people are getting vaccinated and America is coming back together.

We see it in the transition from silent to crowded streets; from empty arenas to fans back in their seats; and from families pressing hands against the window to grandparents hugging grandchildren again.  We are traveling again and seeing one another again.  Kids are going back to school and businesses are opening and reopening again.

But the fight against COVID-19 is not over as we see with the dangerous variants that have emerged.  At the same time, the science is clear:  the best defense is to get vaccinated.  While the virus hasn’t been vanquished, it no longer controls our lives or paralyzes the Nation and it is within our power to make sure it never does again.

That is why the next phase of our war-time effort against COVID-19 is to get unvaccinated Americans vaccinated.  We are going neighborhood by neighborhood to help answer questions and administer shots where people are.  We are sending more vaccine doses to family doctors and local pharmacies so people can get vaccinated by health care providers they know and trust.  Businesses are offering vaccinations at work places and providing paid time off to make it more convenient.  We are also deploying more mobile vaccination units at special events this summer, like festivals, concerts, and sporting events.

In addition, we are stepping up our preparations to respond to the outbreaks we are seeing among the unvaccinated.  We are mobilizing COVID-19 Surge Response teams comprised of experts from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and elsewhere across our government.  They will help states prevent, detect, and respond to the spread of the virus among unvaccinated people in communities with low vaccination rates.

My Administration is doing everything it can to lead a whole-of-government response at the Federal, State, and local levels to defeat the pandemic.  But we need everyone to do their part to finish the job.  As we do, I think about all those we have lost to this virus and the families they leave behind. We can’t get complacent now.

I will keep your letter in mind as we, as a Nation, end this crisis and get back to our lives and loved ones.

Sincerely,

/signed/: Joe Biden

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November 20, 2021

Hello Erin Leahy at Act on Mass,

Thank you for your weekly Saturday email about Beacon Hill politics.  My response to your political email today (20-November-2021) is that Massachusetts state lawmakers are wrong to be taking their 7-week-long taxpayer-funded vacation from 18-November-2021 to 4-January-2022.  I found it interesting that during the 7-week-long informal session, the secretive State House and State Senate leaders will be making all of the public's decisions, while the rest of the 200 state lawmakers will home.  If laws pass during this time period, there will be no public record of how the few powerful state lawmakers voted.  That is NOT democracy, but rather it is what happens in China and Russia.

For over 4.5-months and counting, Beacon Hill lawmakers have been sitting on $10 billion in cash, while many state and local public services are underfunded throughout Massachusetts.  Governor Charlie Baker wanted to spend the $10 billion in cash, but the Beacon Hill lawmakers saw the money and they became greedy so they took most of it away from Governor Charlie Baker's control, and then they did nothing.  The Boston Globe published an editorial calling out Beacon Hill's Epic Failure!  The Boston Globe wrote that many state governments have already spent their Biden Bucks, while Massachusetts has done little to nothing with the money.

Public Policy is NOT rocket science!  Massachusetts needs to fund public and affordable housing, build and maintain its public infrastructure, invest in 21st Century technology and train young adults in 21st Century living wage jobs, fully fund public education, provide critical funding to hospitals and healthcare clinics, including mental health services, provide funding for police, fire and other public safety departments, help the poor, disabled and Veterans, grant state aid dollars to cities and towns, and so on.

In the year 2021, we witnessed a K-shaped economic recovery/recession whereby the Elites did remarkably well, while the rest of us either treaded water or sunk into the underclass.  The 700 to 800 U.S. billionaires collectively made trillions of dollars in income, the Swamp passed the most expensive spending bill(s) in U.S. history without raising the needed revenue to pay for it all, Wall Street recorded record high indices, and so on, while Main Street hit rock bottom.  U.S. inflation is at a 30 year high, which is worse than any state or federal tax on the working class and underclass.  Our country is more politically divided now that at any point since the U.S. Civil War, while the Elites are all making money hand over fist.  I believe it is the old "Divide and Conquer" strategy we learned about in history class.

When someone like me writes to politicians, I never receive a response unless it is a form letter that everyone receives.  But if I was a K Street lobbyist firm filling a politician's campaign coffers and other PACs with a lot of special interest dollars, the politicians would send me a Christmas cards.  I know that someone like me doesn't count in the eyes of the Elites.

If I sold a painting, I would not make $500,000 like Hunter Biden.  If I published a book about my history of bad boy behaviors, I would not make millions of dollars like Hunter Biden.  If I went to Ukraine, Russia and China and allegedly money laundered many millions of foreign dollars, I would not be walking free like Hunter Biden.  If I had at least 5 children by at least 3 women, I would not be as well regarded by society as Hunter Biden.  If I, as a man in my mid-40s, got a young woman stripper pregnant and lied to a Judge by saying I wasn't the father of the stripper's baby, I would not be treated as well as Hunter Biden in a court of law after taking a court ordered paternity test that proved Hunter Biden was the father.  But, I am not the son of then Vice President and now U.S. President Joe Biden, who is worth tens of millions of dollars thank to his Biden "Crime" Family.

Lastly, on climate change, I found it humorous that the young adults of the world called out the ruling elites for only spewing more hot air at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland.  The wealthy and powerful gathered in Scotland to limit greenhouse gas pollution, which they make a lot of money from, and the end result was more hot air by the rich and powerful buffoons of the world.

Best wishes,

Jonathan Melle

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November 20, 2021

In response to Mr. Fritz calling me a "hypocrite" for voting for Joe Biden in 2020 on the blog Planet Valenti, I responded: "True dat, Mr. Fritz, but regardless of dat, I still like to write email letters criticizing the elitist buffoons who act like big shots but are really still buffoons."

Jonathan Melle

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November 23, 2021

Hello Boston Herald Editors,

Russia and China did not show up to the COP26 summit because they know that most of the greenhouse gas pollution that causes global warming is caused by the world's military superpowers, especially the Pentagon - which is one of the world’s BIGGEST polluters, churning out more greenhouse gas emissions than 140 countries combined, according to Win Without War.  If one combined Russia, China and the USA, they would find that well over 50 percent of the world's greenhouse gas pollution is from these three countries' respective military industrial complexes.  To Russia and China, the US Government's Green New Deal is meaningless to them because they want to rival our country's military might, which means more greenhouse gas pollution with a lot of hot air from western world billionaires such as John Kerry.

Jonathan A. Melle

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Editorial: "Thunberg wrong to call climate summit a failure"

Boston Herald, November 22, 2021

Only a few days into the United Nations’ two-week climate conference, activist Greta Thunberg pronounced it a failure. The Swedish teen famous for scolding polluters later went on to slam the “very vague” agreement struck as the COP26 summit wrapped up in Glasgow last week, saying it succeeded only in “watering down the blah, blah, blah.”

She wasn’t alone in her disappointment. Even Alok Sharma, the British politician presiding over the conference, fought back tears as he declared himself “deeply sorry” about last-minute wording in the final agreement to “phase down” rather than “phase out” the use of coal for heat and power.

Time for a reality check. It should come as no surprise that COP26 ended without a revolution. There was no way to put an immediate end to the planet’s current reliance on fossil fuels, as Thunberg evidently expected.

First, the conference ended with an agreement. That was no foregone conclusion going in, especially when China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin decided not to show.

While the final agreement is carefully hedged, it calls for more urgent emission cuts and promises assistance for developing countries adapting to climate impacts. This was the first international climate deal to explicitly call for reducing the use of coal.

Also, the world’s governments agreed on rules for a global carbon-emissions market that will enable countries to trade carbon credits with each other. The idea is for polluters to buy credits from countries that can offset emissions with green projects, such as planting trees or building wind farms. This provides a financial incentive to reduce emissions on one side of the trade and to go green on the other.

It took six years to work out the details after the Paris Agreement established an initial framework for this potentially game-changing marketplace.

Getting the rules straight is essential, in part to keep rich nations from snapping up discounted credits so they can keep emitting as usual. Though operational details still need to be worked out, we have high hopes that a functioning market will encourage new investment and reduce emissions overall.

Finally, the COP26 agreement directs the world’s governments to arrive at COP27 in Egypt next year with updated plans for cutting emissions by 2030 and additional details on how to assist developing countries adapting to climate change. By putting participating nations on the hook to update their goals and report on their actions more regularly than in the past, the agreement shows a greater sense of urgency that even Thunberg should appreciate.

In the meantime, what can individuals do to make a difference? For starters, there’s conservation. Turn down the heat, drive less, insulate, recycle and reduce waste. Consider electric vehicles, solar panels and switching to low-emission power suppliers. Plant trees and back organizations committed to preserving forests. Support companies that factor climate impact into their business decisions.

Speak up about your concerns, but do yourself and those around you a favor by staying out of the “green shame” game — as in “flight-shaming” those who travel by air, “meat-shaming” those who don’t eat vegan and “fashion-shaming” those wearing cheap, high-volume clothes.

Shame has a place in public discourse, but a young generation on the warpath over climate change already has gone overboard to the point of turning off potential allies. More will get done if we can accept that green comes in many different shades.

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November 26, 2021

Joe Biden is celebrating the 2021 Thanksgiving long holiday weekend in a billionaire's compound in Nantucket Massachusetts.  It is NOT billionaire Donald Trump's compound, of course.  Joe Biden recently turned 79 years old, and next year's 2022 Thanksgiving, he will be the first U.S. President to serve as an 80-year-old.  Nancy Pelosi is 81 years old in 2021.  Our country is being led by near 80-year-old career politicians who are all fabulously wealthy and spend their holidays with billionaires.  The Swamp is NOT at all representative of the people who live in the USA.  Rather, it is like a dystopian futuristic story of elitist career politicians who have enriched themselves by selling out the proverbial Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski family for decades-on-end.  I often wonder if the Swamp will ever change for the better, but I am not holding my breath for it to happen within our lifetime.

Jonathan A. Melle

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Hello Patrick Fennell,

The U.S. Stock Market dropped by around 3 percent today, black Friday, 26-November-2021.  But don't worry because the wealthy and powerful elites will always win.  It is all a shell game for the elites.  They move huge amounts of money around various Swamp and Wall Street computer screens to get what they want.  The American People don't count anymore.  There are huge areas of the USA where there are no living wage jobs, failing public schools, rusted out infrastructure and factories, and so on.  The elites give lip service to the underclass and shrinking working class at election time, but then they go home to their millionaires-only gated communities and vacation with multimillionaires and billionaires.

I read that the Swamp went on vacation this week, and then the Swamp will be in session for a few weeks before Christmas 2021, and then they will go on vacation again.  Beacon Hill lawmakers are on a 7-week-long taxpayer-funded vacation until 5-January-2022.  Boston left billions of dollars in state cash in limbo prior to their lengthy holiday season state legislative recess.

On Monday, 29-November-2021, the Ghislaine Maxwell federal trial in NYC will begin with opening arguments.  If I were a would-be defense Attorney, I would ask who were the men the 14-year-old allegedly sex trafficked minor girls were made to perform sex acts on?  I would ask about Bill Clinton's 26 flight logs on Jeffrey Epstein's private jet?  I would ask why only the woman - Ghislaine Maxwell - is being charged when the federal prosecutors are saying that the uncharged men allegedly sexually exploited the minor women?  Is not that the textbook definition of SEXISM?

In the spirit of the holiday season, I like it when the ruling elites are on vacation because at least we have a little peace of mind until after the New Year.

Best wishes,

Jonathan Melle

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November 27, 2021

Hello Patrick Fennell,

I agree with you.  The only difference of opinion we have about it is that I believe both political parties and their different factions (Dems: far left Socialism, moderate Corporatism), (Republicans: moderate Corporatism, MAGA Trumpism) are failures in federal leadership.  Hunter Biden is a scam artist who the Democrats and MSM never criticize.  On Global Warming, the Pentagon has more greenhouse gas pollution output than 140 countries combined, yet billionaire John Kerry flies around in his private jet giving speeches about the so-called Green New Deal.  The USA, China and Russia all have the world's largest military industrial complexes, which means that these three countries alone account for well over 50 percent of the world's greenhouse gas pollution output.

What do I want from the Swamp?  Like I previously wrote, I want to the Swamp to become the Shining City on the Hill again where our elected officials stop fighting each other for Wall Street and K Street money and power, but instead work together to produce a PUBLIC AGENDA for the common good of the American people and taxpayers.  I do NOT want to always criticize Donald Trump and Joe Biden for their well-deserved criticized failures in leadership.

My opinion of Donald Trump is that he is a Nazi-like (or alt right) leader of the White Nationalist movement in the USA.  Donald Trump had Nazis work for his presidential campaigns and administration.  His immigration policies were Crimes Against Humanity when he forcibly ripped months-old babies from their immigrant mothers' arms without a way to reunite them.  Donald Trump used violence as a means of gaining support from his angry white underclass and working-class supporters.  Donald Trump showed violent and racist leadership with the Charlottesville Virginia hate demonstration and January 6th, 2021, Capitol Hill riot and insurrection.  Donald Trump's Big Lie and big numbers fundraising are really strategies to keep his name in the media and have legitimacy for his MAGA Republican Party base in the 2022 midterm elections and the 2024 presidential election.  Without Donald Trump's Big Lie that Democratic Party Officials stole the 2020 presidential election from him, and without Donald Trump raising hundreds of millions of dollars for his MAGA Republican Party faction, Donald Trump would have little to no legitimacy in national politics.

(Sarcasm:) NEWS ALERT!  Politicians LIE!  That includes both Democrats and Republicans, as well as Independents, Unenrolled, the Green Party, and the rest of them.  That includes DONALD TRUMP who is nothing more than a billionaire BIG FAT LIAR!  Politicians have lied for thousands of years.  Politicians still lie in 2021/2022.  Politicians will ALWAYS lie!  Politicians only want big money and power so they will be reelected for decades-on-end.  When politicians retire, they use their political connections and become greedy lobbyists (like Dan Bosley) or they open marijuana businesses (like Nuciforo) while they collect their public pensions and perks paid for by the taxpayers.

What did Donald Trump or any other useless politician ever do for our country's always growing larger underclass and shrinking working class lately?  The answer is NOTHING!  Trump's huge tax cuts went to the elites, who were already super wealthy.  The rust belt swing states voted for Joe Biden in 2020 because they understood all too well that the living wage jobs of post-WW2 America were still a distant memory from the 1950s and 1960s.

I understand that Joe Biden is worse for the many millions of struggling and marginalized American families and the large swath of American rust belt regions than Donald Trump, and the unlike Trump, Biden purposefully killed hundreds of thousands of energy industry and energy-related living wage jobs in the name of the utopian Green New Deal that conveniently overlooks the Pentagon's global warming pollution output.  I understand that many friendly foreign countries do not trust Joe Biden's global promises for a better world.   I wish that we had a better US President than Joe Biden, who has been running for the Oval Office since 1988, which is over 33 years ago now.

In closing, I agree with you, Patrick Fennell.  Unfortunately, we always get the government we don't deserve!

Best wishes,

Jonathan Melle

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Letter: "Inflation is the Democratic tax on the poor and families"

The NH Union Leader, December 7, 2021

To the Editor: Is inflation a tax on the poor and middle class? Inflation is at a 30-year high. We are retired and live on a fixed-income budget. Gasoline to go to the store was averaging $3.41 in November 2021 vs. 2.39 in January 2021. It was great that we are getting a 5.9% COLA on Social Security; however, inflation is greater than the COLA.

There is a seven-year high on oil prices. This affects heating oil and propane prices. We are Americans so won’t be getting $450,000 from President Joe Biden. Our federal representatives and senators do not care as they keep voting for more spending programs.

Democrats are busy in Congress on gender pronouns, war against parents and more spending bills. Democrats care more about the teacher unions than about educating our children.

The majority of Americans believe President Biden is untrustworthy, dishonest, incapable and a weak leader. He has a new nickname President Do-Little.

We have a crisis at the southern border but Democrats have stated they support Biden’s policies. Our representatives and senators completely support Biden’ policies and believe he is doing a great job.

I will not go into supply chain shortages, as only our President understands them. Just look at the shelves wherever you shop. Try buying a turkey.

We are in a mess. However, President Biden has accomplished one thing, he is the worst president in the history of the United States.

Jim Mayotte

Sanbornton, New Hampshire

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December 10, 2021

Hello Patrick Fennell,

A letter writer wrote that Great Barrington is not supporting affordable housing for the low-to-mid-income working class residents because it is more profitable for homeowners and landlords to rent their homes and/or apartment units out to well-heeled vacationing tourists from places like NYC.  She is requesting that the Town Government pass the proposed Housing Trust bylaw in May 2022 to subsidize affordable housing and affordable rental units for working class people and their families who live in Great Barrington.

My opinion of economic inequality in Great Barrington is that it is a prime example of the state and local government NOT investing in their most valuable resource: The People who live there.  Instead of investing in the people, Great Barrington's ruling elites, including Chrome Dome & Shitty, only care about the Almighty Dollar.  Greed should have its limits in state and local government because the people who invest in their community to work and raise a family are far more important than profits going into the Elite's deep pockets.

The Stock Market Indices closed at record high numbers today (Friday, December 10th, 2021), while Main Street is still at rock bottom.  The Swamp spends most of its trillions of federal dollars on Wall Street, along with Foreign Banks, who then legally bribe Members of U.S. Congress such as PAC Man Richie Neal (D-Insurance Companies) with millions of K Street lobbyist dollars year in and year out.  I don't see Maryland Ed Markey spewing his hot air about the Green New Deal or Elizabeth Warren fighting for Main Street in Great Barrington.  Joe Biden spent his Thanksgiving long holiday weekend at a billionaire's compound in Nantucket, Massachusetts.  Where is the proverbial George Bailey who does more than says he is a man of the people when it comes to investing in the people who live and work in Great Barrington?

Best wishes,

Jonathan Melle

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Letter: "In Great Barrington, you have working-class neighbors who deserve affordable housing"

The Berkshire Eagle, December 10, 2021

To the editor: Recently, I sat on my living room floor reading to my 2-year-old son, while a parade of strangers stomped around my attic making plans to renovate the apartment that I’ve rented on East Street in Great Barrington for the past nine years.

One woman was somewhat apologetic, the Realtor made awkward small talk and two other individuals seemed scarcely interested in making eye contact as they took measurements and pondered renovation strategies. I have no idea whether they will purchase the house or whether my family of three will be evicted before the end of winter.

This is a snapshot of the affordable housing and rental crisis in our town. I am a self-employed teacher with a master’s and my husband is a self-employed local who grew up in Stockbridge. We cannot afford to continue living in Great Barrington and will be lucky if can find an affordable house to rent or purchase in a neighboring town.

There are many more like me: An undercurrent of low- and middle-income folk who are not being heard or supported. We are teachers, farmers, veterans, therapists, artists and parents. We are often quiet because we are working to make ends meet and are overwhelmed by a system that has left us with nowhere to go.

Perhaps the sob stories of wealthy homeowners have lulled the housing subcommittee into believing that regulating their passive income would be detrimental to their lives. Fear of eviction is a different kind of stress than whether one can take a second vacation.

This is where the town comes in. My rental on “The other Hill” is an excellent example of a two-unit home that the Housing Trust could purchase, renovate and subsidize to maintain two affordable downtown apartments. Regardless of the fate of this particular house, I implore the citizens of this town to pass the proposed bylaw at the town meeting in May.

I understand that there is revenue to be gained from short-term rentals, but let’s face it, the Berkshires are not going to slow in popularity any time soon. Leave the hotels and B&Bs for the tourists and please consider this reality: There are working-class people in your town who are worthy of affordable places to reside. We are your friends and neighbors. Give us our rentals back.

Kristin Grippo, Great Barrington

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December 10, 2021

Hello Patrick Fennell,

As I live in a town that is only a one-hour drive to Boston, I watch the Boston news on TV.  I learned that only the poor who receive public and subsidized housing and the rich who can afford one million dollar-plus housing units are able to live there, while the working class who work in Boston have to commute there from places such as Lowell and Fitchburg, which are Massachusetts Gateway Cities close to where I live in Amherst, New Hampshire.  That means that Boston's workforce cannot afford to live in Boston anymore.

I believe that every community no matter how rich or poor should have affordable housing units for its working-class residents.  I don't buy the argument that the underclass and working-class people only bring social costs to local taxpayers, and they should therefore be segregated by class.  The Almighty Dollar is not the end all in economics and finance because big profits in the deep pockets of the Elites forgoes investing in a community's most valuable resource: The people who live, work and play there.

The reason why the people are so valuable to a community is that the people invest in the community they live in by having families, owning or renting housing units, investing in their properties, paying state and local taxes, shopping at small businesses, eating out at area restaurants, working with their politicians who are supposed to represent them in City/Town Hall, the Statehouse, and the Swamp, sending their children to well-performing public schools, having safe streets, and so on.  Without a community that invests in its people, you get blight, pollution, poverty, severe economic inequality, violent crime, Level 5 public schools, a vacant dangerous downtown former business district that is sarcastically called "Social Services Alley" where homeless people have to shit on the street, politicians who live in gated communities who are totally disconnected from the local people and taxpayers, and so on.

I understand your point of view that Massachusetts lawmakers systemically shafted the landlords whose renters legally didn't have to pay them during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic that is currently in its fifth wave in December 2021.  The most annoying piece of that puzzle is that Beacon Hill continues to sit on billions of state dollars in cash that could have long addressed the state's housing crisis.  I also understand that state and local government use affordable housing projects as boondoggles where taxpayers got screwed and never recoup their hard-earned tax dollars.

On global warming, the Pentagon emits more greenhouse gases than 140 countries combined, but the Swamp is giving tax credits to high income earners who purchase expensive new electric vehicles while conveniently ignoring that the federal government itself is one of the biggest greenhouse gas polluters in the world.  The Swamp makes huge profits off of the USA's number one non-farm export: Military weapons to foreign countries.  Moreover, the Swamp controls most of the Iraq's oil reserves, which are the second largest oil reserves in the world next to number one Saudi Arabia, which is fighting an ongoing proxy war versus Iran in Yemen that is a tragic Humanitarian Crisis.

At the 2021 Glasgow Scotland Climate Summit, the youthful climate activists rolled their collective eyes at the Senior Citizen Billionaires such as John Forbes Kerry, the napping U.S. President Joe Biden, and the other rich and powerful corrupt politicians from wealthy industrialized countries because they knew that the rich and powerful old men were only emitting hot air about Climate Change.  Nothing changed, while target dates to reduce global warming emissions ranged from 2030 all the way to 2070, which is nearly 50 years from now!

Maryland Ed Markey should be called HOT AIR Ed Markey because the people in Massachusetts will be paying up to 60 percent more to heat their housing units this upcoming Winter of 2021/2022.  The Green New Deal that HOT AIR Markey always touts is really only taking more greenbacks out of the pockets of the low to moderate income people to heat their homes and drive their cars.  I still cannot believe that Massachusetts voters elected that far left career politician who promised them that he is going to save the world from global warming with his Utopian Green New Deal propaganda.  Why did HOT AIR Markey stop there?  He could have promised to save the Sun, the Planets and the Moons, the Asteroids, the Solar System, the Milky Way Galaxy, the Universe, the Metaphysical Realm, and beyond.

I don't know what is worse: Fascist Trump's MAGA promise to restore the USA's mythical past or HOT AIR Markey's Utopian Green New Deal to promise to save the USA's mythical future.  Haven't we studied this kind of propaganda in our history books?  We know where it leads us: Shit Road!  Politicians cannot take us back to a mythical past or future!  Rather, politicians should deal with the here and now whereby they represent the people and taxpayers who elected them.  The Ruling Elite are really only about money and power to stay in elected office for as long as they are able by raising large amounts of money from K Street lobbyist firms and other politically connected special and vested interests.

Thank you for responding to my political email to you.  I always enjoy reading your conservative point of view.  I hope that the working-class residents and families who live in Great Barrington will not evicted during the Winter months of 2021/2022.  Housing, like healthcare, is a Human Right that the government should fund and protect for all people and families regardless of their class and status in society.

Best wishes,

Jonathan Melle

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December 17, 2021

Joe Biden called Putin "A KILLER", and Putin has over 100,000 sitting on the Ukraine border ready to invade Ukraine.  The only way Biden can stop "KILLER" Putin is with Nuclear Weapons, which would start World War 3.  Joe Biden threatened China with World War 3 if they invade Taiwan.  China is taunting Taiwan with Chinese War Planes.  The only way Biden can stop China is with Nuclear Weapons, which would start World War 3.  Let us NOT forget that Joe Biden voted for Bush 2's invasion of Iraq in 2002/2003.  Iraq possesses the second largest oil reserves in the world second only to Saudi Arabia.  If "KILLER" Putin invades Ukraine and/or China invades Taiwan, Russia and China will remind the world that Joe Biden voted to invade Iraq less than 2 decades ago.  Then there is Joe Biden's failure to stop Iran from having Nuclear Weapons in the near future.  Iran is a high threat to Israel, which is the USA's number one ally in the Middle East.  Iran is also a top state sponsor of terrorism against US interests.  If Iran nuked Israel, then the US would retaliate by nuking Iran, which could start World War 3.  Joe Biden's failed foreign policy with Russia and China and other adversarial countries are putting the world at the brink of Nuclear War and World War 3.  Then there is Joe Biden's recent military withdrawal of Afghanistan.  Up to 14 million people in Afghanistan are at risk of mass starvation and mass death this upcoming Winter of 2021/2022.  15 million innocent people and Peoples - mostly Jewish People - were tragically killed in Hitler's Holocaust over many years, while up to 14 million people and Peoples are at risk of mass starvation and mass death in Afghanistan during the 3 months of Winter 2021/2021.  Joe Biden needs to step up on the world stage and stop the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, and also in Yemen, and also in Syria, and also elsewhere in the world.  I wish we had a good U.S. President right now who would meet the foreign policy crises with real leadership instead of Joe Biden's napping during global forums and defending the ongoing debacle in Afghanistan he is responsible for due to his failed presidential leadership in the world.

Jonathan A. Melle

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December 21, 2021

Mr. Fritz, I do NOT agree with the Utopian Green New Deal HOT AIR and Biden's unfunded multitrillion-dollar Social Services Democratic bill, nor do I agree with Trump's MAGA White Nationalist political movement.  What do I want instead of Utopian Socialism or alt right (Nazi) MAGA Trumpism?  I want the government to start investing in the people again like it did over 50 years ago so the USA can rebuild its post-WW2 Middle Class that was an economic model for the world in the 1950s and 1960s.  It is NOT rocket science!  The government should fund well performing public schools and skilled job training programs, affordable housing and healthcare insurance, promote businesses that pay employees a living wage, have financial policies and programs that support family financial security, have solvent Social Insurance programs and public-option retirement plans for all workers, and begin to use its public funds to help the people in the most need of government assistance.  In 2021 going into 2022, our country is very economically unequal.  It should not be that way.  I wish everyone in our society had an equal opportunity to live a rewarding life for themselves and their family.  Instead, only the financial, corporate and ruling elites are succeeding, while the rest of us can only dream of having it so good in our lives.  I wish all of the corrupt career politicians would stop with their Utopian propaganda hot air and start representing the people and taxpayers who voted for them to spend decades in elected public office!  I know it is just a wish.

Jonathan A. Melle

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December 22, 2021

I like it that you disagree with my viewpoints, Mr. Fritz, because we live in a free country.  There are holes in your argument about the role of government in our society.  First, the government redistributes most of our income to the super wealthy; think of it as a rectangle where the Federal Reserve prints money for the Swamp to spend and send to Wall Street to invest and then send it to foreign banks, which means that the American People never see any real gains in their income for the past 50 years and counting.  Second, post-industrial America has large swaths of our country called the Rust Belt - see post-GE Pittsfield Massachusetts - where there are little to no living wage jobs for the average working-class family.  Third, the ruling elites all have it made as long as they play ball and do the bidding of Wall Street, K Street, big business and big government.  Fourth, during the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009, the U.S. Government used the American People as an insurance policy that Uncle Sam cashed-in in order to bailout Wall Street with trillions of federal dollars and also bailout foreign banks in Europe and Asia that do business on Wall Street with hundreds of billions of federal dollars - the U.S. national debt is now over $29 trillion with its Wall Street-based political system and military industrial complex.  Fifth, it would be EVIL to purposefully allow a person and/or family to be homeless, hungry, unsafe and insecure due to the imperfect economic system we pretend to call Capitalism.  Don't you have any HUMANITY, Mr. Fritz?  Or are you like Scrooge and believe is Social Darwinism whereby the marginalized people in our society should die off because they are too powerless and poor to survive?  The government doesn't represent the people anymore, Mr. Fritz!  Capitalism has become Class Warfare whereby the financial, corporate and ruling elites always win no matter what happens in our economic and financial system, while the rest of us either tread water and are fortunate to save a few "inflated Biden Bucks" or we fall into our country's ever growing larger underclass.

Jonathan Alan Melle

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December 22, 2021

I was asked what I would do if I lost my VA earned benefits; would I, Jon Melle, get a job to keep a roof over my head, and not starve to death, or would I, Jon Melle, choose to die?

My sarcastic answer is that I would change my name to Federal Reserve Swamp K Street Wall Street Foreign Banks Money/Power-grubber!

Sarcastic Quote: "Wall Street and the Big Banks are ruining this country! So I am endorsing the candidate [Joe Biden] who received the most money from Wall Street and the Big Banks in 2020." - Sarcastically attributed to U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren who also didn't say "If there is no bread, let them eat cake".

Jonathan A. Melle

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January 22, 2022

Hello Paul Thornton,

I have thought about your political email today.  You ask, "Is the U.S. Government on a similar path to Nazi Germany?"  My answer is that while I hope the nightmare of Hitler and the Nazi Party will never happen again, the fact is that political nightmares keep happening in our otherwise cruel world.  Hitler's rise to power happened after World War I when Germany was thrown into chaos by a New World Order led by Great Britain after the end of Colonialism during a time in history when the Sun never set on the Old British Empire.  Hitler and the Nazis blamed the Jewish People for Great Britain's Superpower status in Europe that left post-WWI Germany deep in debt, and then the Stock Market Crash in 1929 and the Great Depression began through the 1930s that crushed Germany's very distressed economy.  The German people were desperate and vulnerable, which gave Hitler and the Nazi Party fertile ground for his Predatory Regime that led to the deaths of hundreds of millions of people and Peoples, including 6 million Jewish People in the Holocaust, along with millions of other innocent people and Peoples who were killed in the Holocaust.

In 2022, the U.S. Government is led by the Ruling Elites who have enriched themselves and their rich and powerful financial backers with millions upon millions of dollars, while the working class and underclass are losing ground in proportions that we have not seen in 100 years, which was when Hitler and the Nazi Party was rising to power in Germany in the 1920s.  Joe Biden promised to unite our country, but that turned out to be his false 2020 campaign tagline.  Donald Trump alleges that Joe Biden stole the 2020 election from him, but that is just his baseless tagline.  The Democrats are promoting their Green New Deal propaganda, while the Republicans are mostly backing Trump's MAGA propaganda.  Neither side is helping the American People achieve equality of opportunity by investing in the American People by supporting living wage jobs and the small businesses that provide them, by supporting affordable housing and public housing, by supporting single payer universal healthcare public option like every other industrialized country in the world, by teaching the American people financial literacy and providing realistic financial products and solvent Social Insurance programs that will help them to have financial security, by investing in Level One public education for every child, as well as affordable college for every young adult and older, by investing in our 21 Century infrastructure, by helping our beloved Veterans obtain all of the federal, state and local benefits we are entitled to under the law, by reforming the VA to meet the needs of our beloved Veterans instead of the VA fighting us with endless bureaucracy, and so on.

I want to let you know that as a 100% service-connected Veteran, I write to politicians daily, and that they hardly ever write back to me, while some never write back to me and other go so far as to block my political emails to them.  I served our country honorably, but to the Ruling Elites, they are only interested in their own money and power instead of taking the time to write back to me.  I am upset with the Ruling Elites, and this morning I had brunch with my 77.5-year-old father, who was a politician decades ago, and I told my dad how I feel about politicians being out-of-touch with Veterans and the American People.  My dad and I discussed how a group of Republican state lawmakers in New Hampshire have proposed that the state should secede from the Union.  I told my dad with all of the issues and problems the State of New Hampshire is dealing with, these misguided politicians are wrong to act like Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy of Dunces.

In closing, I want American Democracy to thrive, and I want to be able to write to politicians about the U.S. Government on down and receive written responses back from them.  I hope that the U.S. Government is not on a similar path to Nazi Germany 100 years after Hitler and the Nazi Party rose to power.  Let us do everything in our power to stop fascism and other forms of tyranny.

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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Paul Thornton - L.A. Times <paul.thornton@email.latimes.com>

To: jonathan_a_melle@yahoo.com

Opinion

January 22, 2022    

Good morning. I’m Paul Thornton, and it is Saturday, Jan. 22, 2022. The United Nations has begun a monthlong period of Holocaust remembrance events, including International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27. With that in mind, let’s look back at the week in Opinion.

Close readers of The Times’ Opinion pages have probably picked up on the increasing frequency with which some of our letter writers are drawing comparisons, mainly spurred by the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, between the U.S. political situation now and what happened in Germany before the Nazis came to power in 1933.

Are these comparisons appropriate? Over the years we’ve published some letters from readers who identified themselves as Holocaust survivors — so as The Times’ letters editor, I decided to ask them what they think.

To be clear, what these comparisons have not done is equate the mass murder and devastation of World War II to what’s happening here right now. What these letter writers have worried about is that the United States may be backsliding toward authoritarianism in ways similar to pre-Nazi Germany, which was a representative democracy (albeit a young, unstable one) with a vibrant intelligentsia before the fascists came to power. The embrace of racist autocracy and the marginalization and dispossession of German Jews were not enabled because of any single, sudden change — rather, it took long-existing antisemitism along with years of conspiracy theorizing, fear mongering and violence to set the stage for what would culminate in the murder of 6 million Jews less than 80 years ago.

It is that pre-fascist period of setting the stage for catastrophe that has been the subject of comparisons to our political situation now. Some readers bristle at this kind of commentary, saying it is based more on partisan hysteria than historical fact.

These are excerpts of what some of the Holocaust survivors to whom we reached out have to say. For videos featuring the survivors, produced as a part of our Hear Me Out series by my colleague Karen Foshay and her team at L.A. Times Studios, and the full essays, click here.

Enjoying this newsletter? Consider subscribing to the Los Angeles Times

Your support helps us deliver the news that matters most. Become a subscriber.

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‘Never again’ is now

My parents left Germany for France in 1935; I was born there in 1938. Too many of our relatives were less fortunate, and they were gassed in the camps.

For a time I wanted to believe that the Nazi era was a ‘never-again’ episode orchestrated by some twisted fascist monsters. I wanted to believe that America had saved Europe from the worst evil in modern times.

Alas, “never again” is now.

I fear not enough good people remember history. Why are so many Republicans on board with Trump, even a year after the Jan. 6, 2021, coup attempt? I worry about political things such as the large number of judges Trump has appointed, but there are also other changes that deeply concern me.

I wonder about doctors who refuse to call COVID-19 the killer that it is, especially of poor Americans and people of color. My grandmother was a victim of the Nazification of medicine. She had leukemia. It was treatable with transfusions that she received regularly at a blood bank in Frankfurt. After the Nuremberg Laws, she was denied pure Aryan blood. Her oldest son stayed in Germany to donate blood to her even though he had received an exit visa to America. She feared he wouldn’t get out in time.

My grandmother stopped eating so her son would leave. She died.

— Josie Levy Martin, Santa Barbara

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Jan. 6 brought back terrible memories

For 84 or 85 years, these memories buried themselves in the back recesses of my brain. Jan. 6, 2021, caused a tsunami of memories to come back to the forefront.

Terror, insecurity, fright — will America’s Constitution and freedoms be overturned? Will we become a dictatorship?

Tyrants thrive on chaos, incitement to overthrow government, fraud, mass hysteria, lies, manipulation and rallies. That is their playbook. I can still hear Hitler’s rallies with thousands yelling, “Sieg Heil,” until our radio was confiscated. Will the legislators who have blatantly ignored their oath of office let their conscience guide them?

— Marianne Bobick, Gainesville, Ga.

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The comparisons get so much wrong

What comparable state of affairs exists in America? Instead of the Weimar splinter parties, our current moment is Manichean — each of our two parties thinks it is the democratic one and the other elitist, racist or sexist.

And consider the anarchy today! At the moment, schools seem to be barely functioning; some close regularly because there are not enough teachers. This is the antithesis of Hitler’s Germany, where regimented children, marching into the classroom, were indoctrinated into fascism. For Hitler, discipline was the order of the day, whereas the Trump administration was curiously disorganized, firing its own personnel left and right. At the same time, the Biden administration seems to be paralyzed when it comes to education.

Finally, it should be made clear that democracy is not just a voting issue. One can, after all, vote in, fairly and squarely, a fascist party. It has happened all over Latin America. Rather, as Alexis de Tocqueville warned, democracy only works when you have a reasonably educated public. Today, when we have eighth-graders who can’t read and write, when civics courses have disappeared and when geography is literally untaught, it is very hard to have a meaningful democracy in the U.S.

Our first aim should be to restore primary education as well as a meaningful media in which there is real discussion of the issues. As for antisemitism, how can it be avoided at the same time Israel has become such an object of hatred?

— Marjorie Perloff, Pacific Palisades

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Too few Americans know about the Holocaust

Much in today’s world concerns me. I sympathize deeply with refugees trying to flee poverty and violence south of the U.S. border. They want to come to the United States for a better life, but how can this country take in millions of people who would come here if they could? This is a difficult question to ask that is just as difficult to answer.

I am also concerned that fewer and fewer people are learning about the Holocaust. My father, mother, sister and I fled Europe before the mass killing began, and I have fond memories of our journey across the Atlantic, a period that my mother recalled as the best vacation of her life. But I also remember my mother and father begging their parents to flee. My grandparents died in the concentration camps.

My immediate family was not killed, but the Holocaust still happened to us. We lost everything we had in Germany and were forced to make new lives for ourselves. I feel it is important for people to know about this, the different ways Jews were victimized. Even though my parents did not talk about the Holocaust with us much at all, and though I am proud to be an American, I believe we must know about this history today.

— Betsy Kaplan, Covina

Stay in touch.

If you’ve made it this far, you’re the kind of reader who’d benefit from subscribing to our other newsletters and to the Times.

As always, you can share your feedback by emailing me at paul.thornton@latimes.com.

Thank you for reading the Los Angeles Times Opinion newsletter.

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January 22, 2022

Joe Biden's near 50-year federal government public record is one of systemic racism against black American men.  Prior to being named Joe Biden's V.P., Kamala Harris openly called out Joe Biden about his history of racism against African Americans.  Racist Joe Biden outraged Republican U.S. Senators by basically calling them Racists for their opposition to federal voting reform laws that two Democratic Party U.S. Senators helped Republicans to stop by upholding the U.S. Senate's filibuster rules.  Joe Biden mentioned Eugene "Bull" Connor and George Wallace and Jefferson Davis in a speech to compare those racist and segregationist historical men to the current 50 Republican U.S. Senators who opposed his federal voting rights bill.  In 2020, Joe Biden said that he would unite the country, but in 2022, Joe Biden is dividing the country.

Moreover, in 2021, Joe Biden called Putin a "KILLER" on the world stage, and then Joe Biden threatened China with WW3 if China invades Taiwan, which the White House had to walk back with China.  Does anyone realize how many people would be killed if the U.S. Government went to war with Russia and/or China?  It would be in the billions!  Joe Biden's hostile words could result in more mass deaths than Hitler, Stalin and Chairman Mao's regimes combined times 10, or 20, or even 30.  I have never witnessed or read about a U.S. President who used such hostile language against foreign military Superpower nations.  It is downright scary when one thinks about it.

Then there is Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden, who said and wrote that he used to smoke crack cocaine every 15 minutes while drowning himself in alcohol, spent his family's money on strippers and sex workers instead of paying the monthly bills to provide for his then first wife and their 3 children, he then impregnated a young woman stripper half of his age and tried to lie to a Judge that he wasn't the father of her baby but a court-ordered paternity test proved otherwise, then he remarried and fathered his 5th child with his second wife, and he is an alleged money launderer of many millions of dollars from adversarial foreign countries including China and Russia from which there is a U.S. Senate public report that said that he paid to have sex with Russian sex workers who may have been sex trafficked.  What does Joe Biden say about his son, Hunter Biden?  Joe Biden said that he is proud of his son, Hunter Biden.

Why is Joe Biden still the sitting U.S. President after all of his failures in the Oval Office?  Joe Biden knew damn well that his voting rights bill was never going to pass in the U.S. Senate, but he pushed for it anyway to make himself and his Democratic Party Members of U.S. Congress look like they were being reformers of the corrupt federal political system that he enriched himself and his family from whereby the Biden "Crime" Family are all worth tens of millions of dollars each without any rational and/or legal explanations.  In 2020, Joe Biden took in the most amount of Wall Street and K Street Lobbyist campaign dollars of any candidate, yet he bills himself as a progressive Democrat when he is anything but progressive.  Rather, Joe Biden was and is bought and paid for by Wall Street and K Street Lobbyists.

Joe Biden will turn 80-years-old this Autumn/Thanksgiving-time of 2022.  His old age and outrageous, hostile language are a detriment to our country and the world.  I wish Joe Biden would be legally removed from the U.S. Presidency A.S.A.P. for the benefit of our country.

Jonathan A. Melle

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POLITICS

"Joe Biden Should Apologize to Mitt Romney, Says Ex-Democratic Senator"

By Darragh Roche, Newsweek, 1/22/2022

Former Democratic U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp suggested President Joe Biden should apologize to Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) after controversial remarks that appeared to liken Senate Republicans to segregationists.

Heitkamp was discussing the recent failed effort to pass voting rights legislation in the Senate with Sarah Isgur and Steve Hayes of The Dispatch and was critical of the president's comments.

She served as senator for North Dakota from 2013 to 2019 but lost her reelection bid in the 2018 midterm elections to Republican Kevin Cramer, who was previously the U.S. representative for the state's at-large congressional district.

Isgur asked Heitkamp about the president's comments where he mentioned Eugene "Bull" Connor, who was commissioner of public safety in Birmingham, Alabama from 1957 to 1963 and a notorious enforcer of segregation.

Connor was a white supremacist who turned fire hoses and police dogs on civil rights activists.

Heitkamp said that African American voters were a core Democratic constituency and African Americans are "quite aggrieved" at new voting restrictions in states across the U.S.

"I think there was this sense—you've got to be on their side," Heitkamp said. "You've got to make it clear you're on their side. And so whether that was an overstatement, I mean, a lot of Democrats have criticized it as not helpful."

She continued: "I think if Joe Biden had a chance to go back, I think he would call on Mitt Romney. He would call in these other folks."

Heitkamp suggested the White House had misunderstood Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), who voted against a change to the rules of the Senate filibuster that Democrats had proposed in order to allow voting rights legislation to progress.

Later in the conversation, Hayes pointed to Romney's previous comments about voting rights and again highlighted the president's remarks referencing Bull Connor.

"If I were Joe Biden today I would call Mitt Romney and I would apologize and I would say, 'I never intended to paint with a broad brushstroke," Heitkamp said.

"'There is a lot of bad stuff going out there, would you agree to help me pull together a commission that's looking at these things from the perspective of getting everybody to vote?'"

Heitkamp suggested that Biden and Romney could work together on the issue of free and fair elections. The Utah senator was opposed to the voting rights legislation passed by the House of Representatives and now stalled indefinitely in the Senate.

In a speech in Atlanta on January 11 [2022] in support of the voting rights legislation, Biden asked where the Senate would stand on the issue and said: "Do you want to be on the side of Dr. King or George Wallace? Do you want to be on the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor? Do you want to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis?"

Republicans reacted with outrage to the comments. Romney took to the Senate floor and said Biden had "accused a number of my good and principled colleagues in the Senate of having sinister, even racist inclination."

"So much for unifying the country and working across the aisle," the GOP senator said.

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January 22, 2022

Hello Patrick Fennell,

Please read the following news article about racist covenants in Massachusetts property records going back to the 1620s.  Over 400 years of racist land records are upsetting Massachusetts property owners in 2022.

https://www.wbur.org/news/2022/01/22/racist-land-records-discrimination-massachusetts

Did you know that Adolf Hitler openly admired the U.S.A. for our country's systemic racism and racist eugenic laws in the 1920s?  The U.S. immigration laws in the mid-1920s targeted and discriminated against the Jewish People and Italian People from entering the U.S.A., which Hitler openly agreed with back then.  It wasn't until after the U.S.A. and the Allied Powers defeated Hitler in WW2 that President Harry Truman desegregated the U.S. Armed Forces and created the State of Israel at the new United Nations.  My parents, who were born in the mid-1940s, told me stories of Jewish People and other minorities not being allowed to be members of Country Clubs in Pittsfield in the 1950s and part of the 1960s.

I agree with you that Joe Biden and the Democratic Party have a horrible history of systemic racism in the Swamp.  I believe that racism is wrong and evil, of course, but I believe the worst systemic injustice is classism with our country's huge and always growing larger underclass.  I believe that poverty equals structural violence and social conflict.  Joe Biden's 40-year high inflation is hurting the poor people the most.  Although you will disagree with me, Pat, I must call out Trump's racist MAGA/Nazi-like White Nationalist political movement in the U.S.A.  I also must call out Trump's sexism against women, including his audio remark that he likes to "Grab women by their pussy".  I really hope that neither Joe Biden nor Donald Trump will be elected U.S. President in 2024.

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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January 24, 2022

Why did the U.S. Government, including Joe Biden, vote to invade Iraq after 9/11/2001, but now the U.S. Government, led by Joe Biden, is telling Putin not to invade Ukraine, and also telling China not to invade Taiwan?  What is the difference between the U.S. Government's invasion of Iraq and Putin's threat to invade Ukraine, as well as China's threat to invade Taiwan?  It sounds to me like it is the old do as I say, not as I did double standard.  Lastly, I don't think that Joe Biden calling Putin a "KILLER" on the world stage last year of 2021 is helping matters.

Jonathan A. Melle

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January 24, 2022

Hello Patrick Fennell,

Joe Biden is a total failure as U.S. President.  I agree with you that he should be legally removed from the Oval Office A.S.A.P. before he starts WW3 and the mass deaths of billions of innocent people and Peoples that would result from WW3.  Joe Biden already threatened China with WW3 because of China's threat to invade Taiwan, which his own White House Officials had to walk back with China.  What is happening in Afghanistan is a Humanitarian Crisis whereby an estimated 14 million innocent people and Peoples, including an estimated 1 million children, are predicted to die there of preventable causes such as starvation and freezing to death during this Winter of 2021/2022.  Joe Biden is doing nothing to stop the mass deaths in Afghanistan.  True Evil is when Good Men (& Good Women) know there is EVIL things happening and then do nothing to stop it.  However, Joe Biden is NOT a Good Man.  Rather, Joe Biden is all about Money and Power.  Joe Biden received more campaign money from Wall Street and K Street in 2020 than any other candidate that presidential on down election year.  Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden is a total DISGRACE, but Joe Biden said he is proud of him.  Joe Biden's first year as U.S. President has been a disaster.  Now we are in the second year of his presidency, and things are looking very ugly both at home and around the world.

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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January 24, 2022

Mr. Fritz, It is true that I voted for Joe Biden/Kamala Harris in 2020 over Donald Trump/Mike Pence.  I believe that Trump is a Nazi and Pence is a right-wing conservative Christian extremist; I believe that both Trump and Pence are nutjobs in their own right and they should not be in the White House in the future.  I am disappointed with Joe Biden's tenure in the White House.  I believe that Joe Biden should no longer serve as U.S. President, and I would like to see him legally removed from the Oval Office A.S.A.P.  I disagree with you that I am part of the problem because I am not an important political figure, party activist, or financial backer.  I am NOT a Communist.  I am NOT a Socialist.  I am NOT a Capitalist.  In fact, I believe that politics, economics and finance is always ruled by the Iron Rule of Oligarchy whereby the powerful Elites in every system are the proverbial Wolves, while the rest of us are the proverbial Sheeps - in the past, in the present, and in the future.  Those who have power never give it up without a fight.  That is why PAC Man Richie Neal has been in the Swamp since 1989.  That is why Smitty Pignatelli has been in Boston since 2003.  That is why Joe Biden (79), Nancy Pelosi (81; she turns 82 in 2 months), and Mitch McConnell (79; he turns 80 in less than one month) are all still running the show in the Swamp after many decades of enriching themselves at the public trough.  I believe that PAC Man, Shitty, Xiden, Pelousy, and Moscow Mitch all only do DISSERVICES to the people and taxpayers.  I dislike the Oligarchy of career politicians on both sides! Jonathan A. Melle

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February 14, 2022

Hello Patrick Fennell,

The Ruling Elites are all totally DISCONNECTED from the people and taxpayers they are supposed to be serving in all levels of government.  They are only concerned about money and power so they will be reelected in non-competitive so-called "elections" which are really fixes.  The only real political party is the Incumbent party.  Smitty Pignatelli gets to pull his nomination papers for his 11th term (2023 - 2024) in Boston tomorrow, February 15th, 2022.  He is in his 20th year on Beacon Hill, and his public record is him serving his political masters there so he can vote for and/or accept all of the countless public pay raises and perks he has happily taken since 2003.  In the Swamp, Joe Biden is spending well over $10 trillion federal dollars per year, and hardly any of it is helping the people who are paying for 40-year high U.S. inflation, which is worse than any federal tax out there.  Where does all of the Biden Buck$ go to?  K Street top corporate lobbyist firms reported record earnings in 2021.  Wall Street had record numbers, too.  Joe Biden took in more campaign donations from K Street and Wall Street than any other candidate for elected office in 2020.  The picture is clear to me, and it is called ECONOMIC INEQUALITY, while the Financial, Corporate and Ruling Elites are earning and spending trillions of U.S. Dollars during the Biden Administration!

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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February 25, 2022

Why do you hate me?  I am a Veteran who served honorably like you are.  I am upset by what is going on at home and overseas, too.  It is true that I will never support Donald Trump in politics and government because he is the leader of the racist White Nationalist (alt right, Nazi) political movement in the U.S.A.  Mike Pence is a religious extremist, and homosexual and feminist groups send me political email that say he is a threat to their well-being.  I wish we had a better U.S. President than Joe Biden, and I think his son Hunter Biden is a horrible man with most likely allegedly illegal business ties to adversarial countries such as China and Russia.  Kamala Harris called Joe Biden a racist on national television, but now she is his loyal Veep.  Lastly, Putin is a straight up ASS!  What the Hell is Jon Melle supposed to do about it all except pound sand?

Jonathan A. Melle

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"Get ready: Here comes the Biden recession"

By Liz Peek, Opinion Contributor to The Hill — 03/14/2022

At a recent confab, President Biden’s imperiled party pushed a new message: Democrats deliver.

The proposed slogan was panned; Democrats were terrified Republicans would respond with: “Yes! Democrats deliver crushing inflation, soaring crime, an open border, critical race theory for tots, full-term abortions on demand, a woke military, high taxes and out-of-control spending. And now… will Joe Biden’s Democrats deliver a recession?”

Yes, just when you thought things could not get worse, along comes the very real possibility of a downturn, thanks to Bidenomics, the war in Ukraine and an inept Federal Reserve. A year ago, during a robust recovery, such a forecast would have seemed ludicrous.

A top Wall Street economist recently conducted an informal poll of his firm’s clients. To his surprise, 100 percent thought the U.S. would be in a recession by next year.

Why such gloom? It starts with accelerating inflation, caused by out-of-control government spending and measures taken by the Biden White House that kept workers on the sidelines. Inflation is also being fueled by soaring energy prices, thanks to lower U.S. production amid reviving growth and now the disruption to Russian oil exports.

The past four recessions have been preceded by sharp hikes in energy prices; $120 oil is a red flag.

To combat spiraling prices, the Federal Reserve must begin raising rates aggressively, which will slow growth. Investors hope the central bank will manage a “soft landing”; history tells us the odds are low, and especially for today’s Fed, which has been behind the curve for months.

Combined with sinking optimism, down stock markets and declining real incomes, the stage is set for a slump.

After initially dismissing spiraling inflation over the past year, and then blaming supply chain snafus and greedy corporations, the White House is now saying Russian President Vladimir Putin is responsible. Unfortunately for Biden, most voters disagree.

In the latest Wall Street Journal poll, 63 percent disapproved of Biden’s handling of inflation. Moreover, by a wide margin, respondents chose Republicans over Democrats as better able to handle rising prices.

Voters know that Democrats’ signature government spend-a-thons have driven 40-year-high inflation, which surged from 1.4 percent in January when Biden took office to 5.4 percent in June and last month to 7.9 percent. Biden signed into law the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan (ARP) just three months after Congress passed a $900 billion package; it brought total COVID-related spending to $5.7 trillion, more than was spent fighting World War II.    

“The risk is not doing enough”, Biden told reporters at the time. Actually, it turned out the risk was doing too much.

Biden says the ARP was necessary to “rescue” the economy, but that is not true. The U.S. was growing at over 6 percent the quarter that Biden took office; the ARP exploded already-strong demand and led to shortages and, inevitably, rising prices. Simply stated, it created too much money chasing too few goods.

It also included myriad benefits that allowed workers to stay home, worsening a deepening labor shortage and kicking off what has become a wage-price spiral.

Astonishingly, even now, with voters saying inflation is their number one issue, Democrats (and some Republicans) still see no reason to slow the gusher of federal funds.

Consider the recent $1.5 trillion omnibus spending bill passed by Congress last week after no hearings, no discussion and with only hours available for legislators to review the more than 2,700-page package. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, the bill was chock-full of earmarks like a $3 million museum in Houston celebrating the life of Mahatma Gandhi and $1.6 million for the development of “equitable growth of shellfish aquaculture.”

Small potatoes, maybe, but in the aggregate costly beyond measure.

Soaring energy costs are also clearly a major factor in the recent inflation surge. Biden is blaming Putin, but voters know that of the $1.75 hike in gasoline prices, fully $1 predated the war in Ukraine. One dollar per gallon, which is robbing Americans of $400 million every single day.

Oil markets were tight even before the war, mainly because OPEC has limited production increases and because U.S. output fell almost 2 million barrels per day from late 2019 to early 2021 as COVID cut demand. As people began to travel and demand recovered, American oil companies have been slow to ramp up production, given the hostility of the Biden White House towards U.S. fossil fuels, a posture the White House has stubbornly maintained even as gas prices reach record levels.

Meanwhile, Americans are becoming more pessimistic.  

The University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index sank to the lowest level in 11 years in February, worse than expected. Respondents were especially gloomy about the future and about price increases, projecting inflation one year out of 5.4 percent, the highest such forecast since 1981.

Considering the robust jobs market, the dismal reading is surprising. But real wages are down 2.6 percent over the past year; people know when they’re falling behind. 

Recession in 2023 is not yet the consensus, to be sure. After all, the economy is still motoring ahead, driven by a 40 percent increase in the money supply over the past two years, rising (nominal) wages and a near record-low inventory to sales ratio, which means that even with rising uncertainty, many businesses will continue to invest in restocking goods.

But the odds of Biden’s recession are rising fast. What more will Democrats deliver?

Liz Peek is a former partner of major bracket Wall Street firm Wertheim & Company. Follow her on Twitter @lizpeek.

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March 14, 2022

FOR PUBLICATION, please, pretty please, pretty pretty please!

Hello Patrick Fennell, blogger Dan Valenti, and the People, the News Media, and the career politicians,

The VA proposed closing three VA Hospitals, including the one in Northampton, Massachusetts, because it would cost them well over $100 million in repairs per VA Hospital.  How did the VA Hospitals fall into such disrepair?  Meanwhile, the Northampton VA Hospital's nearby Holyoke Soldiers Home, run by Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker's administration, saw around 80 Veterans tragically die of Covid-19, along with the Chelsea (Massachusetts) Soldiers Home where a number of Veterans tragically died there of Covid-19.  Governor Baker never took responsibility for the Massachusetts Soldiers Homes debacle, nor has he apologized to the families of the Veterans who tragically died there of Covid-19.

My fellow Veterans in New Hampshire have gone on weeks-long retreats to the Northampton (Massachusetts) VA Hospital where they enjoyed the outdoor activities in beautiful Western Massachusetts.  If/when the VA Hospital in Northampton closes, I am sure New England area Veterans will no longer be able to go there anymore.  My fellow Veterans from New Hampshire died of Covid-19 in the Holyoke/Chelsea Soldiers Home, too.  All of this news from the VA and Massachusetts is very upsetting to me because our country is supposed to honor and care for our fellow Veterans, but instead, the federal and state government(s) have clearly failed to do so.

I agree with you, Patrick Fennell, that PAC Man Richie Neal (D-K Street/Insurance Companies) and company in the Swamp do DISSERVICES to Veterans, among other groups the government overlooks while the Ruling Elites are mostly multimillionaires from their corruption and greed.  The sitting Secretary of the VA is the first person to head the federal government's second largest agency (behind HHS) who is NOT a Veteran.  When VA Secretary Denis McDonough served as Obama's Chief of Staff, he proposed to and did cut federal social insurance and VA earned benefits, including to Veterans and other groups the government overlooks due to its corruption and greed.

During the 2008 financial crisis caused by Wall Street's greed and the Swamp's corruption, the White House and Capitol Hill spent trillions of dollars bailing out Wall Street and foreign big banks in Europe and Asia.  But God forbid Veterans have a VA Hospital in Northampton, Massachusetts; but God forbid Veterans have quality Soldiers Homes, but God forbid Veterans have a Veteran as the Secretary of the VA who won't sell us out for the Almighty Dollar like the sitting non-Veteran VA Secretary is proposing to do; but God forbid the Swamp raises the federal minimum wage from $7.25 in 2009 to a non-poverty minimum wage in 2022; but God forbid tens of millions of American Citizens, including Veterans, are not uninsured or underinsured; but God forbid hundreds of thousands of American Citizens, including Veterans, are not homeless or at-risk of being homeless.

I wonder what your thoughts are about the VA, as well as Governor Charlie Baker, failing to honor and support our fellow Veterans.

Jonathan A. Melle

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March 14, 2022

During Sunshine Week, Donald Trump wants fellow billionaire John Forbes Kerry to open up his books at the U.S. State Department's Climate Czar Office.  Trump said to Howie Carr on his conservative radio show that John Kerry's wife Teresa Heinz Kerry is the wealthy heiress of the H.J. Heinz ketchup fortune.  Trump criticized John Kerry for allowing U.S. energy prices to soar.  Trump said that if oil and gas prices were lower, which was the case when Trump was in the White House, then Putin's war against Ukraine would never have happened because Putin wouldn't have had the money to invade Ukraine.  For the record, in the spirit of Sunshine Week, Donald Trump never released his federal and state tax returns during his 4-year presidency, which was probably because he received his business financing from Russia via Germany, which was why he never criticizes Putin, but Trump is willing to criticize almost everyone else with his racist, sexist and violent language.  In closing, I wish billionaire Oligarchs such as John Forbes Kerry, Donald Trump and Putin would all retire from politics in their Senior Citizen years to let new blood into the political system both at home and abroad.

Jonathan A. Melle

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March 15, 2022

Hello Patrick Fennell,

What happened in the state government run VA Nursing Homes and VA CLCs during the Covid-19 pandemic was a tragedy.  The VA system does not work because they fight Veterans who need healthcare and social services assistance rather serving and supporting Veterans in need.  The bottom line is that no one should be at-risk of being homeless or homeless, and no one should be without healthcare insurance, including Veterans.  I have read about Veterans who have had to fight the VA system all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.  I believe that when the U.S. Congress and U.S. President pass laws for Veterans then the VA should be in compliance with the federal laws for Veterans instead of the VA system being all about the Almighty Dollar.  The VA has a long history of bureaucratic mismanagement going back to the time of Abraham Lincoln.  It is 2022, and I would hope that the government would stop being so bureaucratic, but rather, the government would care about the people and Veterans they serve.

Joe Biden keeps saying that we are close to WW3 with Russia and China.  Why doesn't Biden, Putin and Xi all grow up and stop the ongoing warmongering threats of nuclear war?  What ever happened to being good men (and women) who lead through diplomacy and conflict resolution for world peace?  The government has become all about money and power for the few ELITES/Oligarchs instead of serving the people with liberty and justice for all.

Best wishes,

Jonathan Melle

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The VA system does not work, properly serve Vets and kills them in nursing homes. The Vets should be able to see local experts instead and the money saved in bureaucratic hospitals would be better used elsewhere.

Any word on the millions of dollars' worth of artwork the VA bought?

Patrick Fennell

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March 16, 2022

Hello Patrick Fennell,

My message, below, about Hunter Biden points out your criticisms of the MSM, including NPR.  I still do NOT understand why the MSM is lying to us about what is really happening in Ukraine.  They are getting slaughtered there by Putin's military invasion.  Putin is ruthless, and the innocent people and Peoples who live in Ukraine are being killed in large numbers by Putin's military forces.  Everyone I speak to understands what is really going on, and they are all tired of the MSM's propaganda about Ukraine being a shining example of resistance to foreign authoritarianism in the name of democracy.

The VA, similar to many government and business agencies, needs to stop being a bureaucracy that only cares about the Almighty Dollar.  The Swamp is only about money and power.  In theory, the government is supposed to serve the American People through a democracy whereby We the People have a real voice in the Halls of Power.  Instead, the government only serves the ELITES, while the rest of us have to pound sand and hope we don't end up dying in a substandard-managed nursing home/CLC.

Case in point: A large number of Veterans have died of Covid-19 in government run nursing homes/CLCs. The politicians never took any responsibility for it, nor have they had the decency to apologize to the families who lost their beloved Veterans family members.

Best wishes,

Jonathan Melle

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The government legally steals via excessive taxation for excessive spending.  Anyone else who steals gets indicted by the government.  What about Hunter Biden's alleged money laundering business that took in many millions of dollars from China, Russia and Ukraine when his father was the Vice President?  Is Hunter Biden playing the crack cocaine addict and alcoholic, sex workers' John sex addict, strippers addict, father a love child with a stripper half of his age addict, my daddy's the Prez addict, the I loved to screw Chinese and Russian sex trafficked prostitutes addict cards?  Monica Cannon-Grant and her husband Clark Grant allegedly stole $1 million dollars from their Violence in Boston organization, but they get to play the race and gender cards?  What about HUNTER BIDEN?

Jonathan Melle

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March 16, 2022

Tulsi Gabbard and Mitt Romney fighting on social media and cable news networks.  Tulsi Gabbard and Hillary Clinton cat fighting for years.  Tulsi Gabbard spoke the brutally honest truth about the situation in Ukraine and the neoliberal political establishment hates her for it.  I wonder if Tulsi Gabbard will be a future U.S. President?  She is taking on the Swamp like Donald Trump did in 2015 & 2016.  Joe Biden is in it way over his head.  The wealthy sitting Ruling Elites are only about money and power, while Tulsi Gabbard is about the speaking the truth!  Go Tulsi!!!!

Jonathan A. Melle

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March 17, 2022

Hello Mad Trapper,

While I usually agree with your blog posts, when you wrote that Zelensky has dirt on the Bidens and is using it to extort Joe Biden, the cat’s is already out of the bag and the bell has already been rung for years now. Everyone I talk to knows about the Biden Crime Family, especially Hunter Biden who even wrote a book in 2021 telling the world about all of his Bad Boy Behavior.

Best wishes,

Jon Melle

March 17, 2022

China has billions of dollars in investments in the MSM. Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and his crime family all made billions of dollars from China. Hunter Biden’s business was an alleged money laundering scheme/operation whereby he took in hundreds of millions of dollars from China. The NBA/professional sports, Big Tech/social media, MSM, and other U.S. Businesses all make billions of dollars from China. Money Talks, Bullshit Walks, and China is where the billions of dollars are for the ELITES. The Swamp loves to criticize China for its authoritarianism and Human Rights violations, but at the end of the day it is all about the MONEY, MONEY, MONEY….

Jonathan A. Melle

March 17, 2022

Hello Patrick Fennell,

In 2021, Hunter Biden published a book whereby he said he used to smoke crack cocaine every 15 minutes, drowned himself in alcohol, paid sex workers for sex, frequented strip clubs (whereby he impregnated a stripper half of his age and tried to weasel out of paying her child support and still says he has no memory of his sexual partner he had a love child with), and so on.  Hunter Biden's ex-wife (first wife) recently published a book of her own where she wrote of the trauma Hunter Biden caused her and their three children by him using the family's funds on drugs, sex workers and strippers, while they went without financial security.  Hunter Biden's business in adversarial foreign countries China and Russia, as well as in Ukraine, was an alleged money laundering operation when his father, Joe Biden, was the Vice President under Obama.  The Swamp made the Biden Crime Family very wealthy.  The non-MSM picture of the Biden Crime Family is the WORST of U.S. politics and Swamp corruption.  Joe Biden is all about money and power instead of being a decent family man who cared/cares about his family, including his love granddaughter he doesn't acknowledge.  Joe Biden has been running for U.S. President since 1988, which is 34 years ago now.  What ever happened to being a Good Man (or Woman) first where the people in your life are more important than enriching oneself at the public trough and being in the White House?

Best wishes,

Jonathan Melle

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March 18, 2022

Hello Patrick Fennell,

Last Autumn 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden threatened China with WW3 for China's threat to invade Taiwan. Last month of February 2022, Putin invaded Ukraine. Today, 3/18/2022, Biden spoke with Xi warning him not to support Putin or China will face consequences for undermining U.S. sanctions against Russia. What would Biden do? He could send Hunter Biden to China to smoke more crack cocaine and pay sex workers like he (Hunter) did when his father (Joe) was the Vice President. Xi made no assurances to Joe Biden today. I don't think that Putin and Xi take Joe Biden seriously.

As for the Massachusetts State and Local politicians sitting on huge sums of government cash, I agree with you that they will take care of themselves, their lobbyist pals, and mock this week's (March 13th - 19th, 2022) Sunshine Week's push to open the governments' (cooked) books to the public. The ARPA funds are supposed to have 5-year spending plans in place by now in Pittsfield and on Beacon Hill. Instead, there are no 5-year spending plans, while the people/taxpayers are needlessly struggling to stay financially afloat during the Covid-19 pandemic because the career politicians have done little to nothing for one year and counting.  I have never witnessed anything this corrupt in my lifetime of nearly 47 years (this Summer of 2022).

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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March 27, 2022

Billionaire John Kerry had tens of millions of dollars in personal investments in the oil and gas industry prior to his appointment as Joe Biden's Climate Czar.  The Pentagon emits more greenhouse gases than 140 countries combined.  Speaker Nancy Pelosi made tens of millions of dollars - some say hundreds of millions of dollars - through her personal investments in Pentagon stocks.  YET, the Democratic Party under Joe Biden are promoting their Green New Deal lies and political propaganda, which resulted in the intentional loss of tens of thousands of American energy jobs, the current energy crisis, and very high energy costs, especially for low to moderate income people and families.  FACTS: The U.S.A. is the second biggest emitter of global warming gases in the world; China is #1; and combined China and the U.S.A. account for nearly 50 percent of the world's greenhouse gas pollution.  Who the Hell do Joe Biden, John Forbes Kerry and Nancy Pelosi think they are fooling?  The youth of the world rolled their collective eyes at them in Glasgow, Scotland because they understand it is nothing more than a political stunt not based in reality.

Jonathan A. Melle

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March 27, 2022

Hello Patrick Fennell,

The Swamp stinks, Beacon Hill stinks, both political parties stink.  There is only one real political party: The Career Politicians/Incumbents who are only about the Almighty Dollar and power so that they can sit on their fat asses for decades in elected political office.  The Financial, Corporate and Ruling ELITES only do DISSERVICES against common people such as you and me.  I was born in 1975, which marks when nearly all of the economic and financial gains have gone to the ELITES for the past 47 years.  Joe Biden has been in the Swamp longer than I have been alive.  He has changed nothing for the mythical proverbial Joey who was born in hardscrabble Scranton, Pennsylvania, but rather, the mythical proverbial Joey from there is paying 40-year high U.S. inflation consumer prices.  Do you know that after Putin invaded Ukraine, all of the Elites have made a financial killing with their investments in the military industrial complex, while many thousands of innocent Ukrainian people and Peoples have been literally killed or lost their homes and other personal possessions?  Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi are both worth tens of millions of dollars each, while some people say it is really hundreds of millions of dollars each.  How did these career politicians get to be so wealthy by serving in elected federal government offices?  It is called Pay to Play Swamp corruption that leaves little guys like you and me in the ditch.

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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March 27, 2022

Hello Patrick Fennell,

The AP recently published a news article, below, showing that Joe Biden's largest federal spending bill(s) in U.S. history are really money laundering operations to fund career politicians' pork barrel projects.  Joe Biden spent over $6 trillion federal dollars in his first 100 days in the Oval Office.  Joe Biden spent well over $10 trillion federal dollars in his first year in the Oval Office.  U.S. inflation is at a 40-year high, which is worse than any federal tax on no, low- and moderate-income American consumers.  The news story explains that the Biden Buck$ went to a 4-Star hotel in Florida, renovations to a minor league park in New York State, relief funds that paid off debts for the Ted Kennedy Institute in Massachusetts, and relief funds to pay off child support debts for deadbeat dads (& moms) in St. Louis, and so on.

In Pittsfield Massachusetts, Mayor Linda Tyer has not produced a 5-year spending plan with the over $41 million in Biden Buck$ only her municipal administration controls with no state and local oversight.  On Beacon Hill, state lawmakers have not produced a 5-year spending plan with their billions of dollars in Biden Buck$ that the state's do-nothing corrupt career politicians' control.  Many other state and local governments have produced 5-year spending plans with their Biden Buck$, but not in Pittsfield politics, nor on Beacon Hill.  Is Pittsfield politics, as well as Beacon Hill lawmakers, money laundering their Biden Buck$ to fund pork barrel projects instead of using cash to save jobs, help those in distress, open schools, and increase vaccinations?

If/when the Republicans win a majority of seats in U.S. Congress in the midterm 2022 federal elections, they will hold Congressional Hearings about how the Biden Buck$ were spent by state and local governments.  In 2023 (which is an election year in Pittsfield politics), Mayor Linda Tyer will not be able to defend the secrecy behind her municipal administration's spending of Pittsfield's Biden Buck$ with no 5-year spending plan in place.  Beacon Hill lawmakers will also have to explain their spending of the billions of dollars in Biden Buck$, also with no 5-year spending plan in place.  The Democratic Party have proven themselves to be excessive spenders of federal dollars, while the struggling American people and families are paying the price for it at the gas station, grocery store, and so on.

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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"Pandemic relief money spent on Kennedy Institute, ballpark, ski slopes"

By Brian Slodysko, The Associated Press, March 23, 2022

WASHINGTON — Thanks to a sudden $140 million cash infusion, officials in Broward County, Fla., recently broke ground on a high-end hotel that will have views of the Atlantic Ocean and an 11,000-square-foot spa.

In New York, Dutchess County pledged $12 million for renovations of a minor league baseball stadium to meet requirements the New York Yankees set for their farm teams.

And in Massachusetts, lawmakers delivered $5 million to pay off debts of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the US Senate in Dorchester, a nonprofit established to honor the late senator that has struggled financially.

The three distinctly different outlays have one thing in common: Each is among the dozens of projects that state and local governments across the United States are funding with federal coronavirus relief money despite having little to do with combating the pandemic, a review by the Associated Press has found.

The expenditures amount to a fraction of the $350 billion made available through last year’s American Rescue Plan to help state and local governments weather the crisis. But they are examples of uses that are inconsistent with the rationale that Democrats offered for the record $1.9 trillion bill: The cash was desperately needed to save jobs, help those in distress, open schools, and increase vaccinations.

Republicans are already balking at additional money for pandemic relief that President Biden has requested, and programs that seem far removed from ones that directly combat the virus will probably add to the resistance in the GOP.

“They need to give us an accounting,” said Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, who tried unsuccessfully to amend the Democrats’ bill last year to add more limits on how the money could be spent. “Show us how you’ve already spent the money Congress gave you.

“It’s hard to imagine how a four-star hotel is helping to solve the pain of COVID.”

Many of the projects identified by the AP echo pork-barrel spending disasters such as Alaska’s $398 million “Bridge to Nowhere,“ which was canceled in 2007 after a public uproar.

But with permissive Treasury Department rules governing how the pandemic money can be spent, state and local governments face few limitations. New Jersey allocated $15 million for upgrades to sweeten the state’s bid to host the 2026 World Cup. In Woonsocket, R.I., officials allocated $53,000 for a remodeling of City Hall.

“Outrageous” and “just nuts” is how Representative Abigail Spanberger, Democrat of Virginia, described some of the expenditures, which she said were an affront to responsible local governments.

“Our hospitals were overwhelmed because of the pandemic and somebody now has a hotel somewhere?” she added.

Included among the projects and expenditures:

$400 million to build prisons in Alabama, accounting for nearly one-quarter of the total aid the state will receive through the program.

Tens of millions of dollars for tourism marketing campaigns in Puerto Rico ($70 million), Washington, D.C. ($8 million), and Tucson, Ariz. ($2 million).

$6.6 million to replace irrigation systems at two golf courses in Colorado Springs.

$5 million approved by Birmingham, Ala., to support the 2022 World Games. The event features niche sporting contests such as DanceSport, korfball, and flying disc.

$2.5 million to hire new parking enforcement officers in Washington, D.C.

$2 million to help Pottawattamie County, Iowa, purchase a privately owned ski area.

$1 million to pay off overdue child support in St. Louis. A city memo states that owing child support stops some people from looking for work because the overdue payments are garnished from paychecks; the program would “empower individuals” by paying down a portion.

$300,000 to establish a museum in Worcester, honoring Major Taylor, a famed Black bicycle rider from the turn of the 20th century known as the “Worcester Whirlwind” who died in 1932.

In Broward County, officials defended their planned 29-story, 800-room hotel, which will be owned by the county but operated by a private management group.

They also contest whether federal money is technically being used for the project. Broward County initially routed $140 million in federal coronavirus aid to the project, which ran against Treasury Department rules that generally bar spending the money on large capital projects.

To get around the prohibition, the county adopted a common workaround.

The agenda from a Feb. 22 county board meeting details how: In a back-to-back series of unopposed votes, commissioners clawed back the federal money they had given to the hotel. They then transferred it to the county's general fund, describing it as a federal payment to cover lost tax revenue, which is an acceptable use. Then the cash was transferred from the general fund right back to the project.

County Administrator Monica Cepero insisted “no federal funds will be used to pay any of the cost of developing the Hotel Project.”

“The County has reviewed the Treasury guidance and modified its use of (the) funds,” she said in a statement.

Some lawmakers in Congress, however, are nonplussed.

“They are basically money laundering funding that is meant to help communities that are suffering,” said Spanberger, who called for more oversight.

Local officials in New York’s Dutchess County, home to the $12 million minor league stadium project, said in a statement that the expenditure was “completely and absolutely consistent” with Congress’ intent for the money.

“It’s ironic that this criticism emanates from the same congressional members who have brought back pork barrel earmarks,” said Dutchess County Executive Marcus Molinaro.

The Edward Kennedy Institute operated at a $27 million loss between 2015 and 2019, according to tax filings from those years, the most recent that are publicly available.

”We were just super grateful to the state for helping us that way,” Sue Heilman, interim executive director, said of the influx of funds. “Because of COVID, we were shut down for almost two years at that point. And obviously, we have lots of bills to pay.”

Heilman added, “Specifically, the way that they wrote it was to help us pay some of our debts that we owe from when the building was built.”

Even in cases where local and state officials may have violated the spending rules, the sheer volume of money pumped out presents a challenge for government oversight offices that are often understaffed and poorly funded.

“The amount of money that went out was so massive and so far beyond anything that has ever been spent in our country before, that our capacity to audit every dollar spent is clearly stretched," Romney said.

But groups that lobby on behalf of local governments in Washington say the spending rules were written permissively in order to give as much flexibility as possible.

“Counties should be able to determine what’s best for them,” said Mark Ritacco, director of government affairs for the National Association of Counties. “Their residents will decide whether that was appropriate or not at the ballot box.”

Boston Globe correspondent Madison Mercado contributed to this report.

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March 28, 2022

Hello Patrick Fennell,

This past weekend, Joe Biden's hostile words inferring regime change to oust Putin in Russia, as well as calling Putin a "BUTCHER", only served to escalate Putin's ongoing invasion/war in Ukraine.  Why would Joe Biden escalate his conflict/crisis with Putin?  The only answer I can come up with is that Biden knows that Wall Street and the military industrial complex are making a financial killing off of wars, conflicts/crises, and arms sales, and right now it is on proverbial steroids right with Putin's ongoing invasion/war in Ukraine.  Career Politicians are only about the Almighty Dollar and POWER.  They don't give a shit about the people and the world, especially when the ELITES get richer and richer, while the rest of us don't.  If there was a Nobel HOSTILITY Prize, I would nominate Joe Biden for it.

I read about Joe Biden's $5.8 trillion federal budget proposal for fiscal year 2023, which will begin on October 1, 2022.  His budget proposal won't pass because the U.S. Senate needs 60 yes votes to pass it, but there are only 50 Democratic U.S. Senators.  Joe Biden wants to raise federal taxes on the very wealthy families, as well as increase the corporate tax rate, to keep federal spending revenue neutral, while he forecasts diminishing federal budget deficits over the next decade.  10 years from now, Joe Biden will be either 89 years old or a (bad) memory.  Why would Joe Biden propose his second federal budget of his presidential administration knowing that none of his tax and spending proposals will pass the U.S. Senate?  Is he just trying to waste everyone's limited time?

Lastly, I find it contradictory that Joe Biden and the Democrats in the U.S. Congress recently passed the largest federal spending bill(s) in U.S. history without budget offsets, but today, Joe Biden's administration is saying that his budget proposal will reduce the recurring trillion dollar plus federal budget deficits.  The prior Trump administration passed the single largest federal tax cut in U.S. history without budget offsets.  2 + 2 = 5 in the Swamp!

Best wishes, 

Jonathan A. Melle

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April 19, 2022

Hello Patrick Fennell,

Joe Biden is visiting Portsmouth, New Hampshire today, Tuesday, April 19th, 2022.  Three out of the four federal delegates to the Swamp - Senator Maggie Hassan (who will probably lose her reelection campaign), Congressman Chris Pappas (who will probably face the toughest campaign of his political career, and my Congresswoman Annie Kuster - are being dragged down by the unpopular Biden administration.  Do you believe that Biden's NH visit today will help, hurt or have no real impact on Hassan, Pappas, and Kuster's political future during the 2022 midterm elections?

Best wishes,

Jonathan Melle

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"There is only one reason why Biden is visiting N.H. today"

By James Pindell, Boston Globe Staff, April 19, 2022

Joe Biden has heard a lot from his fellow Democrats about the need to hit the road and start touting accomplishments. After all, they argue, Democrats passed a very popular infrastructure bill. The pandemic has stopped dominating our lives to the same degree. And job growth is excellent.

Yet, headlines counter this good news with warnings about high inflation and a Biden domestic agenda that is dead. As a result, Biden has a dismal 33 percent job approval rating, which could drag down other Democrats in the midterm elections.

Wouldn’t some good old-fashioned campaigning around the country help counter all that, they argue?

When Biden returns to New Hampshire on Tuesday, it will be a quick appearance. He’ll show up and tout accomplishments, just as fellow Democrats told him to do. It’s no coincidence that the visit will be to Portsmouth, home of the state’s progressive base. It’s also located in the congressional district of vulnerable Democratic Representative Chris Pappas and a few miles from Senator Maggie Hassan’s home. Hassan is also in a tough reelection fight this year.

But no trip to New Hampshire is really about anything other than presidential politics. He knows this.

Home of the first-in-the-nation presidential primary, New Hampshire has been a destination for Biden hundreds of times, both during his various campaigns for president and especially as vice president when he was a constant presence hoping to curry favor for a later run.

Biden didn’t have a lot to show for those visits. He dropped out of the presidential races in 1988 and 2008 before the New Hampshire primary was even held. In 2020, he famously finished fifth in the presidential primary. No other president has ever performed that badly in the state on the way to the White House.

His trip to the Granite State Tuesday will mark his second visit since becoming president. Interestingly, it also comes a week after he visited Iowa, the state that has traditionally kicked off the presidential primary process.

That Biden is visiting Iowa and New Hampshire in tandem is definitely noticeable to those in politics. What kind of statement he is trying to deliver, however, is less clear.

Most of the discussion about Biden’s political future has revolved around the question of whether he will seek re-election. It began when he ran in 2020 and it was reported that advisers urged Biden to say he would only seek one term. Biden is, of course, the oldest person to have even been elected president.

But there’s another question in the mix, one consistently brought up among Democratic political operatives: Would Biden face a significant primary opponent?

After all, Biden was never that good as a primary election candidate. A centrist, Pete Buttigieg handily defeated him in Iowa last time. A progressive, Bernie Sanders, has won the last two New Hampshire primary elections. At the moment there is also deep disillusionment with Biden over his failure to keep campaign promises on racial justice, gun violence, climate change or even increasing taxes on the rich.

At the same time a Saint Anselm College poll last month found that only 11 percent of New Hampshire Democrats said they disapproved of his time as president. On top of that, no one has visited Iowa or New Hampshire hinting at a Democratic challenge. At least not yet.

Bear in mind that a primary challenger need not win the nomination to have a major impact. Every time an incumbent president has faced a significant primary challenge, going back to 1968, they have not been reelected.

So back to today’s New Hampshire visit. While he may be there to talk about infrastructure, not campaign politics, it will serve as a planting of the flag and warning to any potential challengers: The president is at least looking at reelection.

James Pindell can be reached at james.pindell@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jamespindell and on Instagram @jameswpindell.

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"Need leaders who understand economics"

News-Press, Opinion: Letter to the Editor, April 21, 2022

Inflation results when government prints money to pay bills without corresponding economic growth. In 16 months, Democrats and Biden approved $2.9 trillion spending above budget this year and Biden is now proposing more spending to curb inflation. Historically high inflation normally precedes a recession.

Inflation started to increase right after Biden was inaugurated. When he declared war on fossil fuel it reduced domestic oil supply by almost 2 million barrels a day and spiked oil prices. This ended our energy independence causing dependency on other countries at inflated prices. This ultimately increased prices in every industry.

The purchasing value of the dollar is decreasing because of inflation. A family would have to generate $7,000 more income before taxes to equal the buying power of 2020. Consumers see the effects of inflation not only at gas pumps but also grocery stores. Manufacturers’ car prices are changing almost daily because part prices keep rising resulting in a dealer sur-charge added to the sticker price. The cost of borrowing will also increase which will affect home and car purchases.

A former Obama cabinet officer said Biden has been wrong on foreign policy decisions his entire career. Barack Obama wasn’t complimentary about Biden’s judgment as vice president. We’re in for a rough couple of years. We need leaders who understand economics to take back our country.

Frank Mazur, Fort Myers

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"This week in Bidenomics: Debt bomb"

By Rick Newman, Senior Columnist, yahoo! finance, May 27, 2022

President Biden is proud of the declining budget deficit under his watch. But lucky timing will turn against him if he runs for a second term in 2024.

The Congressional Budget Office updated its 10-year budget outlook on May 25, and the short-term news is encouraging. The federal budget deficit will drop from $2.8 trillion in 2021 to around $1 trillion this year, and to a bit less in 2023. That’s a better forecast than CBO’s 2021 outlook. The improvement reflects a sharp increase in government tax revenue resulting from a strong recovery from the COVID recession of 2020. Government spending is also down sharply this year as the final batch of COVIID stimulus, passed last year, runs out.

The longer-term outlook is pretty horrible, however. All the structural problems with the U.S. fiscal situation remain. Spending on Medicare, Social Security and other “entitlement” programs will continue to rise as a percentage of federal outlays, as the population ages and health care costs continue to rise. That will leave a shrinking portion of money for “discretionary” spending on infrastructure, transportation, aid programs and many other things, including defense, even with the infrastructure law Congress passed last year.

The most ominous change is ballooning federal outlays on interest payments, given that inflation is much higher than it was last year and interest rates are rising as a result. Net interest payments in 2021 were $352 billion, or a manageable 5.2% of all outlays. By 2032, CBO expects net interest payments to triple to $1.2 trillion, which would be 13.4% of all outlays. That’s money the Treasury will be paying to bondholders just for the right to borrow. It won’t finance anything for taxpayers and will leave even less money for other programs.

Debt analysts have warned for years that the U.S. budget imbalance is unsustainable, but many predictions of disaster haven’t happened (yet). In theory, a debt crisis could occur if investors buying Treasury securities, which finance the government’s debt, start to think the United States is in over its head, and demand higher interest rates for what they perceive as a growing risk of buying Treasuries. That could trigger a debt spiral in which borrowing costs rise further, leaving Washington short of money for critical functions.

There are solutions. If the government had to, it could either slash spending or raise taxes to narrow a debt gap that got too large. But that would probably cause a recession, and perhaps a bad one. Congress typically provides trillions of dollars in deficit-financed aid during recessions, but if it’s a recession triggered by a debt crisis, Congress might not be able to do that.

But don’t worry! Nothing like this has happened yet because the global demand for Treasuries seems to be bottomless, and investors don’t seem to have any worries at all about Washington repaying its debts. The United States has one huge thing going for it, which is that the dollar is the world’s favorite currency, which makes dollar-denominated U.S. debt supreme to most other forms.

A time bomb

But if the CBO forecasts are in the ballpark, the magnitude of those interest payments is going to become a big political problem, at a minimum. The mushrooming national debt, now $30.4 trillion, is the ultimate boiling frog, an incrementally worsening time bomb that nobody wants to deal with today but everybody will have to deal with if or when it blows. Nobody knows when the pressure to do something will become irresistible, but it’s hard to imagine deficits and the overall debt can grow indefinitely, as a portion of the economy, without requiring fiscal or political intervention.

In CBO’s forecast, net interest payments will equal the amount spent on defense in 2029, and they will be 20% more than the defense budget by 2032. Net interest payments would be 51% more than Medicaid spending in 2032, and roughly equal to all non-defense discretionary spending. This seems, I don’t know … crazy? Could we really spend more on interest payments than we do on the Pentagon every year?

Biden has personally taken credit for the big drop in spending this year, and the stark improvement in the annual deficit, calling it “the biggest decline in a single year in American history.” His budget director, Shalanda Young, hailed the May 25 CBO report as evidence of a “strong economic recovery, powered by President Biden’s economic and vaccination policies.” Meh. Budget experts say the improving deficit is almost entirely due to the end of fiscal stimulus passed in 2020 and 2021, some under Trump and the rest under Biden.

The deficit matters, even now, because Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia is insisting on some form of deficit reduction if there’s ever going to be a revival of Biden’s “build back better” legislation, which died late last year when Manchin said he couldn’t vote for it. Democrats have promised a streamlined version, but that was supposedly due by Memorial Day, and BBB lite is nowhere to be seen. Yet Manchin still says a climate, energy and deficit-reduction bill could pass this year, with every Democratic vote in the Senate. Biden, dogged by inflation and a gloomy national mood, could certainly use the win, even if it’s a shadow of the bill Biden wanted originally.

Biden might get another year or so to crow about falling deficits. But the mid 2020s are shaping up as crunch time for the spending-revenue mismatch. Medicare is likely to start running short of money in the next few years, requiring more funding, benefit cuts or a combination of both. And the higher interest rates go, the sooner federal interest payments will gobble up taxpayer funding. No president wants to have to deal with the budget mismatch, but the next president may be the one who has no other choice.

Rick Newman is the author of four books, including “Rebounders: How Winners Pivot from Setback to Success.” Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman.

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June 2, 2022

Joe Biden plans to visit Saudi Arabia later this month of June of 2022.  Joe Biden and the Democrats campaigned on the phony Green New Deal in 2020; the U.S.A. is the number two polluter behind China of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, which combined accounts for nearly 50-percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.  Joe Biden campaigned on holding Saudi Arabia accountable for its Human Rights abuses and their lying about their role in the 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks.  But two years later, U.S. gas prices are near $5 per gallon and forecasted to rise above that price.  Russia's big energy market is being boycotted due to Russia's ongoing invasion in Ukraine.  Saudi Arabia's role as a regional power in the Middle East is key to the U.S. national interest.  Joe Biden needs Saudi Arabia's oil exports to lower gas prices, especially before the 2022 midterm elections, and again before the 2024 presidential election.  Will Joe Biden betray all of his campaign promises when he visits Saudi Arabia?  We know the answer is yes, of course, but don't know for sure because the White House did not comment on Joe Biden's upcoming meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman when he visits the Middle East region a few weeks from now.  Why did Joe Biden and the Democrats promise to save the world from global warming, terrorism, Human Rights abuses, and so on, when Joe Biden is going to betray all of his campaign promises in the name of the ALMIGHTY DOLLAR and political power?  On an intellectual level, I understand that corrupt career politicians are the biggest phonies and liars out there, but on a heart-to-heart emotional level, I am still disappointed.  But Capitol Hill/K Street and the White House/Wall Street is called the SWAMP for a reason, and the corrupt career multimillionaire politicians who live in the SWAMP for decades-on-end are worse than all of the literal swamp creatures themselves.

Jonathan Alan Melle

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POLITICO Playbook: SCOOP: Biden gets squeezed on potential MBS meeting

By Eugene Daniels, Rachael Bade and Ryan Lizza (with help from Eli Okun and Garrett Ross), POLITICO Playbook, 06/02/2022

9/11 FAMILIES PRESS BIDEN OVER MBS MEETING — When JOE BIDEN was a presidential candidate, he promised to make Saudi Arabia “the pariah that they are,” and said that there is “very little social redeeming value in the present government in Saudi Arabia.”

But now that he’s president, he’s encountered the same reality that hemmed in his predecessors: It’s much easier to say you’ll be tough on Saudi Arabia than to actually do so.

WaPo’s David Ignatius reported this week that Biden will sit down with Saudi Crown Prince MOHAMMED BIN SALMAN during a trip to the region later in June. When White House press secretary KARINE JEAN-PIERRE was asked about this on Wednesday, she was careful to neither confirm nor deny the report: “There’s really no discussion to have, because I don’t have a visit to even talk through at this time,” she said. (AP, notably, confirmed the Ignatius report this morning.) 

The White House’s thinking here is pretty straightforward. The president has a gargantuan domestic political liability — high gas prices — that Saudi Arabia is in a position to help with. Combine that with the international political realities — MBS is young and will likely lead the kingdom for decades, the West needs new sources of oil given Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Saudi Arabia’s role as a regional power — and you have the makings of a rapprochement.

But even as the calculation is understandable, there are obvious moral costs to wooing MBS. There’s the matter of the murder of WaPo journalist JAMAL KHASHOGGI in 2018 — which came at the crown prince’s behest, and for which he has avoided any real responsibility. There’s a litany of other human rights abuses, ranging from torture to jailing dissidents to laws permitting the execution of people for the crime of being gay. And then there is the role that Saudi nationals played in planning and executing the 9/11 attacks.

In a letter obtained exclusively by Playbook and being sent to Biden today, 9/11 Families United is demanding Biden bring up “accountability for 9/11 in any conversations” he has with MBS. If Biden doesn’t, the family members write, “it would signal to the world that you are willing to indulge years more of Saudi obfuscation and obstruction, and that America prioritizes the interests of foreign powers and economics more than the lives of its citizenry.”

Terry Strada, the group’s national chair, whose husband TOM was in the North Tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, praised Biden for declassifying a trove of 9/11-related documents, but said it would be a “betrayal” to the families if Biden allowed strategic decisions to keep him from being stern with MBS.

“You don’t just release the documents and then say ‘we do nothing.’ This is the second half. Now you have to help facilitate the kingdom coming to grips with what they did and admitting it and stop — stop lying about it,” Strada told Playbook on Wednesday night. “It has to be part of resetting the relationship.”

The White House did not respond to a request to comment.

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June 3, 2022

Hello Patrick Fennell,

In 2020, candidate Joe Biden took then U.S. President Donald Trump to the proverbial mat for Trump being too close to Saudi Arabia and its leader Crown Prince MBS.  Joe Biden made a number of false promises to stand up to Saudi Arabia's authoritarian government.  But later during this month of June of 2022, U.S. President Joe Biden is going to meet with the Saudi Crown Prince MBS and ask him to increase his oil output to try to lower the record high gas prices before the 2022 midterm elections.  So much for the Democrats' Green New Deal propaganda!  So much for the families of the 9/11 victims!  So much for Human Rights and Justice!  So much for Biden's moral outrage!  Then I read that MBS is only going to modestly increase his nation's oil output, which won't help to lower gas prices before the 2022 midterm elections.  Why is Joe Biden doing this when all it will do is make him look like a typical politician who made false promises that he is now willing to break to try to help his doomed political (Democratic) party in the 2022 midterm elections that heavily favor the Republican Party?  Joe Biden spent the last two years throwing his mudslinging words at MBS on the world stage, but now he is going to meet with MBS later this month to ask him to sell more of his oil.  Unbelievable! .... but predictable, too.

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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June 3, 2022

Hello Patrick Fennell,

Do you think that the 2022 midterm elections have anything to do with Joe Biden meeting with Saudi Crown Prince MBS later this month of June of 2022?  In 2020, Joe Biden said a lot of negative words about Saudi Arabia and MBS to win votes.  In 2022, Joe Biden is going to pay Saudi Arabia and MBS a personal presidential visit to win votes.  There are a lot of people who are very upset with Joe Biden right now.  Why isn't Joe Biden commenting on this?  Why isn't the White House commenting on this?  Why all of the silence from the Swamp on this?  Is the U.S.A. going to face a severe energy crisis soon like Europe is facing now?  Will there be no gas for working-class commuters?  Will there be no heating energy sources and supplies when the cold nights of Autumn and the freezing nights of Winter come later this year of 2022?  What the Hell is going on?  Lastly, the thing that gets me the most is that all of the Democratic Party corrupt career Swamp politicians you mentioned are worth tens of millions, or hundreds of millions, or a few who are even worth billions of dollars through their legal insider stock investments, while the rest of us have to hear their bullshit HOT AIR about the Green New Deal while we are paying nearly $5 per gallon for gas to drive to the grocery store.

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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June 9, 2022

Hello blogger Dan Valenti,

I read your blog about U.S. Congress' first of six public hearings about the January 6th, 2021, mob riot and insurrection of Capitol Hill inspired by U.S. President Donald Trump to protest the election of Joe Biden prior to Congress' certification of the 2020 presidential election.  I totally disagree with you.  I believe that Donald Trump is a Nazi who admires Hitler, and that Trump is the U.S. leader of the White Nationalist movement that is taking place in Europe and North America.  Trump's campaign(s) and administration staff had Nazis working for him.  I understand that it doesn't make total sense due to the conservative Jewish Community supporting Trump over Biden, and that Trump was favorable to Israel during his 4 years in the White House.  Trump's family has Jewish in-laws and grandchildren.  But it is a slippery slope that Donald Trump is on to appeal to White people who HATE minorities, Jews, Muslims, and women.  Of course, both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden have a history of racist politics in the Swamp.  Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton wrote the mid-1990s crime bill whereby they used the loaded word "Super-Predators" which really meant "Niggers", and everybody knew it back then.  It is all bad!

I don't like the Swamp.  It is all about Wall Street, K Street, the military industrial complex, war, arms sales, the corporate elite, and the very wealthy Ruling Elite.  People such as you and me are insignificant to Joe Biden, Maryland Markey, PAC Man Richie Neal, and the like.  I don't like Beacon Hill lawmakers because they only do DISSERVICES against the people and taxpayers of Massachusetts.  They give a little less than $18 billion in state tax breaks per fiscal year to Boston area big businesses so that the Boston elites can all enrich themselves at the public trough.  Meanwhile, the people get to scratch lottery tickets, smoke pot, drink booze, smoke tobacco products, pay for $5 per gallon of gas, work at jobs that don't pay a living wage, and so on.  When you write to Beacon Hill lawmakers, they ignore you like you are the plague.  When you want to know why Beacon Hill lawmakers operate in secret, they vote against rules reform measures or make a mockery of them with their state legislative shell games.  Democracy is broken when it comes to big government, but what else is new?

Lastly, I agree with you that 82-year-old said to be a billionaire Speaker Nancy Pelosi and nearly 80-year-old Joe Biden are on their way out after many decades of enriching themselves in the Swamp as corrupt career politicians.  The November 2022 midterms will retire a lot of Democrats in U.S. Congress.  The Republican Party will turn the tables in 2023 and 2024 by holding similar show hearings on the Biden "Crime" Family, Nancy Pelosi, and the like wealthy Democratic Party Swamp corrupt career politicians.  The sad thing, nothing will get done in the Swamp until 2025.

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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June 15, 2022

Hello Patrick Fennell,

Former U.S. Senator Scott Brown's wife Gail Huff Brown is running in the Republican Party primary election to challenge Democratic Party Incumbent Congressman Chris Pappas, who is the first openly gay Member of U.S. Congress in New Hampshire's political history.  Like NH's U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan, Pappas will most likely lose his seat in the Swamp in the 2022 midterm elections.  My NH Congresswoman, Annie Kuster, is in a "coin toss" race this election year of 2022 that heavily favors the Republican Party Congressional candidates throughout the nation.  New Hampshire is a purple state similar to North Carolina.  Despite their unfavorable odds of winning reelection, Pappas, Kuster, and Hassan will each spend many millions of campaign dollars (mostly from K Street) to make a couple hundred thousand dollars each if they continue to serve in 2023 - 2024.  It defies logic as to why New Hampshire's candidates and beyond to the Swamp will spend so much money to make so little money!  But we all know the corrupt career politicians in the Swamp all make a lot more money than they say they do.

I wish I could write a book and receive tens of millions of dollars for my HOT AIR, but I am not a phony famous Swamp politician.  I wish I could sell my paintings for $500,000 each and have them resold to a dozen shadow buyers to give the Big Guy a big cut of the loot, but my father is not in the Oval Office.  I wish I could be legally bribed by K Street corporate lobbyist firms and use the special interest funds to stay at 5-star resorts, but I am not PAC Man Richie Neal.  I wish I could be a legal insider stock trader who is said to be a billionaire, but I am not Speaker Nancy Pelosi.  I wish I could give private speeches at Goldman Sachs Investment Bank and never release the transcripts, but my name is not Hillary Clinton.  I wish I could tell the people of Massachusetts that I am going to save the world with the Green New Deal in 2020 as a full-time resident of the wealthy Swamp suburb of Chevy Chase, Maryland, but my name is not Ed Markey.  I wish I could win the presidency by attacking Donald Trump for his close relationship with Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince MBS, but two years later I will soon pay MBS a presidential visit in Saudi Arabia and pay him many billions of our federal tax dollars to lower the $5 per gallon U.S. gas prices prior to the 2022 midterm elections, but my name is not Joe Biden.  

The elected positions in Massachusetts for Sheriff, D.A., State Senator, State Representative, and so on, are about corrupt career politicians each earning 6-figure public pay and perks that add up to many millions of dollars over time for each of the Salons.  When someone such as you and I try to communicate with them, Hell would freeze over before we received a sincere response from any of them.  They don't care one bit what we common people and taxpayers think about their public record in Boston.  To illustrate, Beacon Hill is still sitting on over $7 billion in state surplus cash plus $2.3 billion in "Biden Bucks", but they have not passed one form of middle-class tax relief, nor have the Salons in Boston provided increased state aid to local governments and public-school districts during this difficult time of 41-year high U.S. inflation.  Beginning on August 1st, 2022, the Massachusetts State Legislature will begin their 5 monthslong taxpayer-funded vacation without using their billions upon billions of dollars in state cash surplus funds to provide middle class tax relief to the people, taxpayers, communities and public-school districts that they represent and serve in Boston.

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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June 19, 2022

The average U.S. household annual income is $74,949, but $61,344 of it is used for monthly expenses, which leaves $16,615 per year for discretionary spending and savings (as if deferring one's income is even possible in 2022 with 8.6 percent U.S. inflation).  Broken down in a monthly budget, the average household income is $6,245.75, the average household expenses is $5,111, and the average discretionary spending and savings (if possible) is $1,134.75.  In 2023, a hurricane recession is being predicted, which is currently being caused by the Swamp's increasing the Federal Reserve's interest rates and Joe Biden's excessive federal spending linked to 41-year high U.S. inflation.  Currently, U.S. households have a lot of debts with little savings. In 2023, the Swamp-caused hurricane recession will put U.S. households into a neutral to negative income with monthly/annual expenses being either close to or above monthly/annual incomes.  The outcome of the Swamp's financial policies will be a flood of personal bankruptcies and shuttered small businesses.  We all understand what is happening now in 2022 and what will most likely happen in 2023.  The question is: Why is the Swamp raising Federal Reserve interest rates and still spending so many trillions of federal dollars per year instead of helping U.S. households get ahead financially?

Jonathan A. Melle

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Money Matters: "Budgeting for big new expenses"

By Lindsey Certonio - Special to the Daily Herald -June 18, 2022

Times are changing, and prices are increasing at a fast rate many can’t keep up with. A study by tradingeconomics.com shows that the annual inflation rate reached 8.6% in May. This is the highest it has been since December 1981. “The average household’s monthly expenses are $5,111 ($61,334 per year),” said Lyle Daly at Fool.com. “The average annual income after taxes is $74,949.” As you can imagine, that leaves very little room to budget for big expenses. 

How can you start budgeting early for big expenses? At some point, we’ve all wanted to make a big purchase and haven’t quite had the money to do so.

Fortunately, there are a few simple steps to get you started. The first step is to save your extra cash. When the time comes to add on a big expense, make sure you are being intentional with what you spend your money on. Lastly, have a clear plan of how you are going to pay for your big new expense. 

Budgeting

There is a common rule created by Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts called the “50/20/30 budget rule.” The tricky part is implementing it into your routine. As Investopedia.com explains, “The basic rule is to divide up after-tax income and allocate it to spend: 50% on needs, 30% on wants, and socking away 20% to savings.” You will need to divide up what money you are spending on your needs/wants and how much you are putting away for savings. You might be surprised how much you are spending in certain areas. This is a good time to cut back on any unnecessary expenses.

Be intentional with what you buy

There are several questions that you should ask yourself before making any big purchase for the wants category: Will this expense end up being an asset to you? How long will it last? Are you going to end up having to replace it within a couple of months? Are there cheaper options that are just as good? Will this expense bring you joy?

What about the expenses that you can’t control, like an ER visit or a pipe breaking in your house? This is where your savings should come into play. Medical or other emergency expenditures often happen when you least expect it. Without built-up savings, paying for these types of expenses will likely result in additional debt. This is why it’s better to start preparing early even if you are not planning on having a big expense in the near future.

Make a clear plan

Having a clear plan for how you are going to be able to make the payments and how much the payments will be if you don’t pay for the expense up front can be crucial. If you can help it, this step should come before making the purchase. Having this planned ahead of time will help you be able to budget this expense into your monthly spending. 

This also will help you visualize if you have the funds to be able to prudently complete the purchase. According to Investopedia, “A budget helps you figure out your long-term goals and work toward them. If you just drift aimlessly through life, tossing your money at every pretty, shiny object that happens to catch your eye, how will you ever save up enough money to buy a car or put a down payment on a house?”

It can be overwhelming budgeting for a new expense, but taking a few extra steps can turn into an easier task. As you are spending money, make sure to put a little bit away for savings, ask yourself a few questions before making your next big purchase, and always have a clear plan of how an expense will fit into your budget.

Lindsey Certonio is a project manager at Stage Marketing, a full-service content marketing agency based in Provo.

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June 25, 2022

Hello Erin Leahy at Act on Mass,

In response to your political email today (25-June-2022) mostly about the U.S. Supreme Court's 6 to 3 ruling overturning limited abortion rights federal law as interpreted in the U.S. Constitution, while I am NOT anti-Catholic, the fact is that the six-majority ruling Supreme Court Judges are Catholics, while the three dissenting Supreme Court Judges are one Catholic and two Jewish people.  The Catholic Church is a pro-life religious institution, despite all of its moral hypocrisy, especially with its long history of sexually abusing and raping children under the age of 18 years of age.  The Catholic Church does not believe in masturbation, safe sex with birth control, abortion, sex outside of marriage, and many other doctrines that are unrealistic in modern society.  The Republican Party does not represent the majority beliefs of the American People, so they use far right cultural and religious beliefs that conflicts with the majority of the American People to win support for their political money and power.  The Republican Party is unrealistic about far right cultural and religious conflicts with the majority of the American People because the Republican Party does NOT invest in the mothers and her children by providing a strong social safety net for them to have affordable access to housing, healthcare, Level One public education, transportation, living wage jobs, financial security, safe communities for low to moderate income families to live in, and so on.  To illustrate, I remember a political cartoon of a Republican politician saying he is pro-life in one frame, but in the next frame there is a drawing of a mother with her child who are homeless on the street.  Please note that I also have no faith in the Democratic Party on these same cultural and social issues because they (the Democrats) are also enriching themselves at the same financial and corporate trough that the Republican Party uses to enrich themselves.  Both political parties are only about the Almighty Dollar for Power.  We understand this by watching the one (Democratic) party state government in Boston gives a little less than $18 billion of our state tax dollars away per fiscal year in state tax breaks to the politically connected big businesses in the Boston area (that excludes the other regions of the Commonwealth) so that the corrupt career politicians on Beacon Hill can enrich themselves at the public trough at our expense.  When someone as noble as you, Erin Leahy, publicly advocates for these Salons on Beacon Hill to implement Sunshine Laws, a super-majority of state lawmakers always votes for behind closed doors secretive state government in Boston.  The Ruling Elites believe that our tax dollars are there for them to giveaway to their politically connected wealthy financial and corporate elites so that they will in turn enrich the corrupt career politicians.  On top of the SCAMS and CORRUPTION in Boston and beyond, they (Boston Pols) proverbially assault us with the state lottery and casinos, which are really (voluntary) regressive taxation schemes, excise taxes on marijuana, alcohol, tobacco, and so on.  The Ruling Elites in Boston tell us that the lottery is used to fund public education and state aid to local governments, that the excise taxes on marijuana, alcohol, tobacco, and so on, is used for fund public health, and so on, but we all know it is really a way to (voluntarily) tax the low to moderate income classes so that the upper classes get to pay less and less in state taxes, which increases campaign donations to the Salons' campaign coffers.  Another illustration of this is in "Sin City" in Las Vegas, Nevada.  The Mormon Church of Willard Mitt Romney and other Evangelical Churches in that area of our country make a lot of money off of their financial investments in casinos and the like in Las Vegas.  When George W. Bush ran for U.S. President and won in 2000 and again in 2004, he said that all of his sins were forgiven when he turned 40 years old in 1986 because he became an Evangelical born again Christian under ministry of the late Reverend Billy Graham.  14 years later in 2000, Bush 2 ran for U.S. President and won at age 54 years, all of his bad boy behavior in his youth did not count anymore because Jesus Christ forgave his sins.  Bush 2, like his late-father Bush 1, appointed only Catholic Judges to the U.S. Supreme Court, who ruled, along with Trump's Catholic appointed Judges, to the Supreme Court to overturn Roe.  The two Bushes and Trump did not practice what they preached, especially in terms of Catholic Church doctrine, but their appointed all Catholic Judges to the U.S. Supreme Court put their religious doctrine in to Constitutional Law by overturning 50 years of federal limited abortion rights policy.  Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden has at least 5 children by at least 3 women, and Joe Biden's family does not recognize Hunter Biden's daughter with the woman who was a stripper who was in an intimate relationship with Hunter Biden years ago, but now Hunter Biden says he has no memory of ever knowing her, despite the court-ordered paternity test proving he is the father of her baby girl that Hunter Biden is now making retroactive child support payments for.  We all know the story about Kamala Harris sucking and *uck*ng her way to the top during the early days of her political career.  The Swamp's corrupt career politicians do NOT give a damn about the common people's reproductive healthcare, nor does the Catholic Church, nor does the Evangelical Church, and the Religious and Ruling Elites have all proven themselves to be moral hypocrites who practice moral hypocrisy instead of their faith.  The Swamp's number one non-farm export to the world are arms sales, which have led to humanitarian crises around the world, and it is a fact the U.S. Government is the number one arms exporters in the world.  Since the end of WW2, the Swamp's military industrial complex (war machine) has killed millions upon millions of innocent foreign people and Peoples, spent trillions upon trillions of federal tax dollars on war and arms sales, and has been the second biggest polluter of greenhouse gases in the world next to number one China, which the two countries combined accounts for a little less than 50% of the world's greenhouse emissions.  How in God's name can the Swamp say that there are no longer federal legal protections for legal abortion rights when the Swamp has so much blood on its hands with its moral hypocrisy, war, arms sales, greed, corruption, and global warming?

Best wishes,

Jonathan Alan Melle

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June 25, 2022

Jonathan,

It’s hard to know what to say at times like this. We like to think that, over time, things are getting better. That we’re making progress, that each new generation will have more rights and will live in a more equitable world than the one before them. But that’s just not true. Not right now, anyways.

The repeal of Roe v. Wade, a 50 year old legal precedent, is shocking and violent. This decision, made by a Supreme Court in which 5 of the 9 justices were appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote, will result in lives lost and the further oppression of women, trans folks, non-binary folks, BIPOC communities, low-income communities, and young people. 

Alongside my grief, fear, and anger, I’ve been thinking about how this happened, especially given the fact that the vast majority of Americans support the right to abortion. Hell, while we’re at it, the vast majority of Americans support gun control. But when our systems are designed to reflect the desires and values of a wealthy, white supremacist, patriarchal class, those in power aren’t held accountable to what the rest of us want. This is what’s at stake when we talk about our failing democracy. 

As I’m writing this today, I don’t have any sweeping answers. I’m scared and I’m tired. All I know is that I’m grateful for you, and for being in a progressive people-powered movement with you. 

State House Scoop

Abortion access in Massachusetts

First and foremost, abortion is still legal in Massachusetts. If you or someone you know is seeking an abortion, they can find a list of providers here. This right was codified into law through the Roe Act which passed last session–just in the nick of time. Also in the nick of time, Governor Baker signed an executive action Friday immediately after the Supreme Court decision to protect MA healthcare providers from charges from other states for providing reproductive care, and ban our state agencies from cooperating with other state’s investigations into abortions. 

Meanwhile, funding for abortion services in the 2023 budget is currently being negotiated behind closed doors; the House had proposed $500,000 for abortion access, and the Senate proposed $2 million. But solutions to a crisis on this scale have to go beyond an earmark in the budget; check out the policy agenda laid out by the Massachusetts Beyond Roe Coalition, of which Act on Mass is proud to be a part.

House passes transportation bill, excludes low-income fare program

The House unanimously passed a $11 billion bond bill Thursday to address the MBTA’s recent safety and staffing issues and set aside some early funding for an east-west rail. But like any House bill, it’s not all good news: instead of making it easier and more affordable to use public transportation, especially amid record-high gas prices, legislators opted to remove a popular low-income fare program from the final version of the bill.

Criminal record sealing bill deadline approaches

Under current law, an individual’s criminal record can be sealed after a wait period, but the process to request a seal once that period is over includes lengthy wait times and labyrinthine red tape. A bill that would automatically seal criminal records, making it easier for millions of MA residents to access jobs, schooling, and housing from which they would otherwise be denied, currently sits in committee with a 6/30 decision deadline. State House leadership could easily have this advance out of committee and fast-track it to a floor vote if they wanted to. 

Take Action

Donate to your local abortion fund

While abortion remains legal in Massachusetts, there are still several other barriers to access including financial. Abortion funds help people pay for their abortion and other logistical expenses like travel, lodging, and child care.

Eastern MA Abortion Fund >>

Jane Fund of Central MA >>

Abortion Rights Fund of Western MA >>

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

Tell budget negotiators to include at least $2 million for abortion services

The good news is that both the House and Senate have earmarked funds for reproductive health care, including grants to directly support abortion funds in Massachusetts. However, the Senate has set aside four times as much money: $2 million. We must ensure that the conference committee maintains the Senate’s funding levels to ensure we are maximizing the support we can provide for abortion care in Massachusetts. 

EMAIL THE CONFERENCE COMMITTEE >>

An actual fun fact to kick off your weekend

Because we could all use some good news right now: Senate President Spilka announced this week that Senate staffers are to receive a 15% pay raise and new pay structure! This excellent news comes in the wake of a third-party report which concluded that the MA Senate had poor and unequal pay practices, and of course, in the midst of the MA Senate staff's ongoing bid to unionize. Read the MA State House Employee Union’s statement here. 

Remember to take care of yourself, whether that means taking time to be alone, spending time with others, joining your community in protest, or staying busy to take your mind off things until you're ready. But when you are ready to fight to hold our government accountable and demand the rights we deserve, we'll be here.

In solidarity,

Erin Leahy

Executive Director, Act on Mass

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June 25, 2022

Hello Patrick Fennell,

As you and I are both men, we know that if we have sex with women there is always a chance that she has a chance of getting pregnant, which means that we would be respective fathers to her baby.  There is no form of birth control in human history that works 100 percent of the time.  If a man's sperm meets a woman's egg, the sperm is going to fertilize the egg.  The sperm does NOT know any better, but the man does, indeed, know better.  The point I am trying to make here is that if men don't want women to have legal abortions, then men need to stop having sex with women.  Why didn't the 6 Catholic Judges on the U.S. Supreme Court rule against a man's right to have sex with a woman to stop legal abortions?  Why does it all fall on a woman to care for the child with great socioeconomic risks and costs to her to pay for over at least 2 decades of her life?  Is that what Jesus Christ preached 2,000 years ago?  I thought Jesus Christ preached that we should use compassion to care for the most vulnerable people in need, including women and children, by all of us stop sinning against God, and through Jesus Christ's love He would forgive our sins, but that we will go onto sin no more.  The 6 Catholic Judges on the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that federal limited abortion rights are no longer in place, which puts women and children at risk of being homeless, insecure, unhealthy, uneducated, malnourished, and so on.  Neither the Republican nor the Democratic Members of U.S. Congress have passed federal legislation on limited abortion rights.  Yet they almost all of them go to Church or Synagogue or Mosque or another place to worship God without finding a way for the government to care for the most vulnerable people in our society.  It was easy for the 6 Catholic U.S. Supreme Court Judges to rule against Roe, but it is a Hell of a lot more difficult to care for the women and children who are in need whom their anti-abortion ruling impacts the most.  The Catholic Church's doctrine was never part of the U.S. Constitution, yet now in June of 2022, it is how our Constitutional Rights are interpreted.  The 6 U.S. Supreme Court Catholic Judges who ruled against Roe were put there by 3 respective non-Catholic Republican U.S. Presidents: Bush 1, Bush 2, and Trump.  The three former U.S. Presidents did not practice Catholic Church doctrine in their own lives.  I would go so far as to write that Jesus Christ would NOT be liked by all of the corrupt career politicians in the Swamp and beyond because Jesus Christ would denounce their moral hypocrisy and disregard for the people in need, while the Salons always enrich themselves and their politically connected wealthy donors at the public trough.  It is easy for the Swamp to say that they believe in Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ no longer walks the Earth to preach his Gospels.  When and where Jesus Christ lived in 1st Century CE Palestine, the average man had four wives with many children to work the land to feed his large family.  There was no such thing as a Nuclear 20th/21st Century CE family 2,000 years ago.  When the U.S. Constitution was written by the Founding Fathers hundreds of years ago, they never wrote about abortion one way or the other.  When our country began, almost every family lived on a farm.  Now, almost all of the farmland is owned by large corporate entities, and almost every family does NOT live on a farm.  Hundreds of years ago, our society was agrarian, and families had a lot of children to work on the farms.  In 2022, our society is postindustrial "Rust Belt" whereby poor families rely on the government for Social Services to survive.  The post WW2 living wage jobs in the 1950s and 1960s gave way to the financial, corporate and ruling elites offshoring our factories and businesses in the name of the Almighty Dollar that benefited only the rich and powerful elites.  Job security with a living wage and family financial security are no longer there for the American People.  When someone such as Jon Melle or Patrick Fennell tries to communicate with the Elites, we are avoided by them with no responses or banal form letters.  Instead of a middle-class family lifestyle, the Elites now give us Level 5 public schools to send our children to, lottery tickets with terrible odds that pay us pennies on the dollar, alcohol and marijuana to give our fragile brains a temporary high, and other proverbial assaults on our financial freedom and well-being.  When I try to write to someone such as Smitty Pignatelli (Shitty PigPen) and the like, they block my political emails.  If I don't kiss their dirty behinds or stay silent about their corrupt political careers in Boston, or the Swamp, and beyond, they avoid me.  The point I am making is that the Elites do NOT care on bit about people such as Jon Melle and Patrick Fennell.  They certainly don't care about our reproductive healthcare.  It is all banal politics to divide us into blocs of votes to keep us distracted from all of their DISSERVICES against us.  If one reads about human history, one will clearly see that the Elites use the "Divide and Conquer" method of conflict to rule over the people they govern and/or have control over.  When people are divided about abortion and other wedge issues, the Elites have more power to conquer us with their corruption and greed.  That is what the Elites care about, not the sanctity of human life from the time of conception until the newborn baby is born.  If the Elites cared, our society would be united to care for the most vulnerable people in need of Social Services for Social Mobility to the middle-class family lifestyle, but the opposite is true.  We don't live in A Perfect World, not even the 6 Catholic Judges who overturned 50 years of federal law on limited abortion rights.

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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June 25, 2022

Hello Patrick Fennell,

There is truth that abortion and entities such as Planned Parenthood had its roots in the racist eugenics' laws, which was practiced in the U.S.A. in the 1920s era.  Hitler openly praised the U.S.A. in his writings in the 1920s that supported the supposed German Aryan master race by persecuting and killing the Jewish People and other Peoples in the Holocaust a decade later in the 1930s until the end of WW2 in 1945.  The U.S.A. had racist laws against Jews, Blacks, Italians, and so on back in those racist days in the 1920s era.  A Century earlier in the 1820s, the U.S.A. had Slavery, and despite the Founders' writings supposedly supporting Classical Liberalism, most of them owned Slaves when they wrote the U.S. Constitution.  The 17th to 19th Centuries saw the genocide of the Native American Peoples by white European settlers to America.  Women had no rights under law back then.

Since WW2, the U.S. Government has been all about the military industrial complex, which has killed millions of innocent foreign Peoples, sold billions of dollars in arms to the world, spent trillions of federal dollars on the profitable American war machine, illegally invaded sovereign nations, including Iraq, which has the second largest oil reserves in the world next to Saudi Arabia where our sitting U.S. President Joe Biden will be visiting on July 15th, 2022, to pay MBS billions of U.S. federal dollars to increase his oil rich nation's oil and gas output and sell him and his neighboring nations more U.S. arms than ever before with ongoing humanitarian crises in the Middle East caused by profitable proxy wars and brutal dictatorships, and the Pentagon pollutes more greenhouse gas emissions than 140 countries combined.

Throughout human history, human behavior and human nature never changes.  The Elites use of Divide and Conquer conflict methods to consolidate their wealth and power never changes.  The Elites practice of moral hypocrisy in the name of so-called faith never changes.  A case in point is Joe Biden's 2020 attack of then sitting U.S. President Donald Trump for his support for Saudi Arabia and his close ties to MBS.  Two years later in 2022, Joe Biden is outdoing Donald Trump with Joe Biden's support for Saudi Arabia and his close ties to MBS.  Foreign news media outlets are calling Joe Biden a Morally Bankrupt U.S. President over his July 15th, 2022, trip to Saudi Arabia and visit with MBS.  A lot of people are very upset with Joe Biden about his recent flip flop on Saudi Arabia and MBS a few months before the 2022 midterm elections to try to help the Democratic Party's Congressional candidates who are losing in the polls to their Republican Party counterparts.  Of course, if Saudi Arabia didn't have the largest oil and gas reserves in the world, Joe Biden would have nothing to do with MBS.  But $5 a gallon gas and rising energy prices are more important to Joe Biden's political interests than Saudi Arabia and MBS' record of Human Rights violations.

In terms of the Almighty Dollar and Power, all of it goes to the super-wealthy and the super-powerful Elites.  When someone such as Jon Melle or Patrick Fennell wants to practice democracy and advocate for growing middle class families, the Elites put our respective photos on their proverbial dart board.  The Elites do NOT care about the common people's reproductive healthcare.  They use wedge issues such as abortion to divide Jon Melle and Patrick Fennell.  I am on your side, despite our different political views.

Lastly, I do not believe that 6 Catholic Judges (5 men & 1 woman) on the U.S. Supreme Court should decide the federal law(s) on abortion.  In fact, I think it is absurd.  It goes against everything our American democracy stands for.  Religion and Government should be separated with a strong wall between Church and State.  The Catholic Church is wrong to put their doctrine(s) on the free American People who mostly do NOT believe in the dogma that the Catholic Church did not practice for generations with its sexual abuse and rape of children by Priests.  I am NOT anti-Catholic.

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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June 25, 2022

Hello Charles Ivar Kronick,

Thank you for your email about abortion, infanticide, and freedom of religion, including freedom from religious persecution.  The Founding Fathers owned Slaves.  They persecuted Native American Peoples.  They also supported Classical Liberalism, including the right to practice one's religion without interference from the state.  The Founding Fathers believed that they should have political representation in the English government because they had to pay the English Crown taxes prior to the American Revolution.  Massachusetts went bankrupt in the mid-1770s, and instead of King George III bailing out Massachusetts, King George III told his subjects in Massachusetts to raise taxes to get out from their financial debts.  Similar to the American Civil War, it would have been a lot less expensive for the government(s) to bailout the colonies in the mid-1770s and later the states in the 1860s than fight in yearslong war(s).  Also of note is the fact that the 13 American colonies had to pay about 2 weeks of their yearly income in taxes, which is a lot less than we pay to our government today.  In the 18th and 19th Centuries, women were the property of men.  Women who did not conform to religious principles were called witches.  I agree with you that tyranny comes in many forms, and I believe that the Founding Fathers were tyrants in their own right who fought for freedom despite most of them owning Slaves.

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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September 3, 2022

Hello Patrick Fennell,

Blogger Dan Valenti did not affirm my request that he please remove the picture of Hitler that one of his posters is displaying on the comment section of his blog.  I received a "FU" comment for my post.  I received criticism for me always comparing Trump to Hitler.  I received a comment that my last name "Melle" equals Marxist, and that the picture of Hitler above the picture of Biden is a spot-on comparison.  I was insulted for being a person who suffers from mental illness, despite my Honorable military service and my status as a 100% service-connected disabled Veteran. You, Pat, emailed me a political letter saying that Biden and his handlers are much closer to Hitler than Trump and his handlers.

I am shocked by all of the unfavorable responses.  Donald Trump had neo-Nazis work for his campaigns and in his presidential administration.  Donald Trump is the U.S. leader of the racist White Nationalist movement, which is also thriving in Europe.  Donald Trump did not condemn the neo-Nazi hate march in Charlottesville, Virginia, that took the life a young woman who supported Human Rights, which is the foundation of law in our nation.  Donald Trump did not condemn the 1/6/2021 insurrection of Capitol Hill by his hate-filled protestors, which took the lives of five people, including the life of a Capitol Hill Police Officer.  Donald Trump's tagline is MAGA, which really means NAZI, and everyone knows it.

I am frustrated by Joe Biden's 50 years in the Swamp.  I wish we had a better U.S. President than Joe Biden.  He has a documented history of racism, as did Bill and Hillary Clinton, and other Democrats going back hundreds of years.  Biden and the Clinton's past use of the loaded word "Super Predators" in the mid-1990s really meant "Niggers", and everyone knew it back then.  When George W. Bush was the U.S. President, the Democrats used the loaded word "Neocons", which really meant "Evil Jews", and everyone knew it back then.  The Democrats are no good, too.  The Democratic Party tanked the presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders, who is a Jewish man, and then they blamed Bernie Sanders for tanking Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign that she lost to Donald Trump.  We all know about the anti-Semitic messaging the Democratic Party sends out.

We live in the year 2022.  We don't live in the 1920s to the mid-1940s anymore.  Why are the Republican Party operatives still supporting Donald Trump?  Why are the Democratic Party operatives still supporting the Clintons and Joe Biden?  Why are we regressing backwards in time to racism and the distracting divide and conquer political strategies?  Both political parties are WRONG, yet they are hypocritically pointing their racist and divisive fingers at each other when the proverbial pot is calling the proverbial kettle black, and not in a nice way!

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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September 3, 2022

Hello Patrick Fennell,

Thank you for sharing your political views.  You and I will have to settle on agreeing to disagree with each other about Donald Trump.  However, I agree with some of your points about Joe Biden's failed presidential administration, including Afghanistan, the underclass always growing larger and minorities falling behind, and the economy entering into a brutal recession that is being made worse by the Federal Reserve raising interest rates and the Swamp's record high deficit spending.

I really agree with you about your unfavorable writings about Beacon Hill's failed leadership.  It would be too good to be true if all of the corrupt career politicians are voted out of elected office, especially Shitty PigPen who has been there for almost 20 years!

Best wishes,

Jonathan A. Melle

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September 16, 2022

Hello Patrick Fennell,

Someone wrote to me: "I think you and Trump share the same goals. He is not a Neo Nazi."

I hope that Donald Trump and every other Ruling Elite politician out there shares the same goals of using the government's limited resources to invest in people and the communities that they live in for the purpose of having healthy middle-class families.  It is a nice thought, anyways, to think that the Financial, Corporate and Ruling Elites would start to give a damn about us.

I disagree with those who say that Trump "is not a Neo Nazi".  Trump had neo-Nazis work for his presidential campaigns and administration.  Trump is the leader of the racist White Nationalist political movement in the U.S.A., which is also growing in Europe similar to 100 hundred years ago.  Trump used sexist and racist language for many years.  Trump's inhumane immigration policies whereby he separated young infants from their immigrant mothers' arms and put them in living conditions worse than one would put a dog in was evil.  Whether Donald Trump is or is not a neo-Nazi, I believe that he sure sends a lot of mixed messages.  To be fair, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and especially Joe Biden, all have racist political records. Bill Clinton is a twice Convicted Felon due to his perjury and suborning perjury in the Paula Jones Sexual Harassment case that Bill Clinton settled, and which led to his impeachment without a conviction.

John Forbes Kerry ran for U.S. President in 2004, and he lost to the incumbent U.S. President George W. Bush.  John Kerry was asked what he accomplished as a do-nothing U.S. Senator, and he didn't have an answer.  During John Kerry's failed presidential run, he and my four-foot-tall pal Luciforo wore matching tuxedoes together when they cohosted an elitist fundraiser from Bos-Wash's big banks and insurance company's wealthy elitists and their greedy lobbyists.  Two years later in 2006, my pal Luciforo had to step down from his post as the Chair of the Massachusetts State Senate Finance Committee because Luciforo was allegedly illegally double dipping with Boston's big banks and insurance companies as a Corporate Attorney with the Boston Law Firm named Berman and Dowell from 1999 to 2006.  My pal Luciforo never faced criminal charges for his alleged illegal double dipping, and all these years the disgraced Luciforo still has a law office in Boston's Financial District.  It paid for my pal Luciforo to have John Kerry's political protection.  Can you spell C-O-R-R-U-P-T-I-O-N?

Just last year of 2021, John Kerry had millions of dollars in personal investments in the oil and gas industry.  Then the elderly Joe Biden named his geriatric billionaire friend John Kerry to be his Climate Czar.  John Kerry goes around the world spewing his HOT AIR about the Green New Deal, while it is an undisputable fact that the U.S.A. is the number two polluter of greenhouse gas emissions in the world second only to China, which the two heavily militarized countries combined account for a little less than 50 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.  The rest of the world sees and hears John Kerry and rolls their eyes at his propaganda and hypocrisy.

Also, another undisputable fact: Both Joe Biden and John Kerry (and Hillary Clinton, too) voted for George W. Bush's second Iraq War twenty years ago.  Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world second only to Saudi Arabia.  Guess who made a controversial visit to see Crown Prince MBS in Saudi Arabia on July 15th, 2022?  The answer is the sitting U.S. President Joe Biden.  Two months later, gas prices are over $1 lower than their $5 per gallon high mark three months ago.  Less than two months from now on November 8th, 2022, the midterm elections will decide which political party will control the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.  Sarcasm: It must have been a coincidence that Joe Biden broke his 2020 campaign promises and blistering criticisms of then U.S. President Trump about Saudi Arabia!  ....and Pigs have Wings and Fly!

Lastly, please think about this.  Sometime around one decade from now, all of these old bags of HOT AIR will become bad memories we will all be happy to thankfully forget about.

Jonathan A. Melle

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October 27, 2022

Facts: New York State has the highest taxes in the nation.  Upstate New York has many economically distressed areas full of the huge underclass population, low to moderate income working class, and violent crime.  New York State recently had a disgraced Governor named Andrew Cuomo, who is in his 60s, resign his elected position for groping young women who worked for him.  New York State politics is about corrupt career politicians soaking the taxpayers for every dollar they can take from the people who work and/or live there.

You cannot tell me that Syracuse's recent successes aren't political with the Governor, Kathy Hochul, and the Prez, Joe Biden, being Alumni of SU.  As for PEDA, it is a polluted debacle with millions of dollars in unfunded liabilities that always increase as the years pass us by since its beginning in the Summer of 1998.  No big business is going to invest in PEDA because it is heavily in debt and very polluted with industrial chemicals - PCBs - left behind by GE, which made Pittsfield into its dump with zero GE jobs left in Pittsfield for many years now.

Lastly, the corrupt career politicians are NOT investing in the people and workers in either Massachusetts or New York State.  Instead, they are really playing the same old financial shell games to screw over the fictional Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski family in order to enrich themselves: the Financial, Corporate and Ruling Elites - at the public trough.  It is all about the Almighty Dollar and Power!

Jonathan A. Melle

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Opinion Columnists | Moore: "Biden the king of debt & deficits"

By Stephen Moore, op-ed. The Boston Herald, November 10, 2022

Imagine someone close to you has a drinking problem. Night after night, he goes out to the bars on wild binges, chugging down 10 to 12 beers a night. But then, in a supreme effort to reform himself, the drunkard cuts his consumption down to a six-pack every night.

He starts boasting of his amazing self-control and good behavior.

That’s analogous to President Joe Biden’s tall tale that he’s one of the greatest paragons of fiscal responsibility in modern times. Here’s Biden on Oct. 21 discussing his budgetary record at a White House event.

“Today, my administration announced that this year, the deficit fell by $1.4 trillion — the largest one-year drop in American history.”

Talk about putting lipstick on a pig. Biden’s administration has led the federal government in spending and borrowing more money in his first 20 months in the White House than any other president in history. No one else comes close to his record of fiscal recklessness.

Biden is not even halfway through his presidential term, and he’s already signed into law federal spending over the next decade that will exceed $4 trillion.

Biden has already added just shy of an extra $900 billion to the federal credit in 2020 and 2021. If Biden had simply done nothing and spent his afternoons playing Scrabble with first lady Jill Biden in the Oval Office, our national debt burden would be much lower.

Instead, Biden swooped into office, and even though Trump, in his final weeks, with Congress, enacted a $1 trillion COVID-19 relief bill that hadn’t even been spent yet, Biden called for his $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. That was merely a massive bailout of blue states that had kept their businesses locked down for nearly a year.

Then came another $1 trillion for the scam “infrastructure bill,” which was really the Green New Deal in disguise. It then was followed by a $600 billion corporate welfare bill for microchip manufacturers, followed by the Biden administration’s efforts to bail out student loan borrowers to the tune of $500 billion.

Congratulations. No doubt our great-grandchildren will hold you in great esteem, Joe, when they learn that the tax bills they’re charged with 50 years from now will be to pay for the Biden budget splurge.

The longer-term official forecast is uglier still.

Thanks to Biden’s spending blitz, the debt over the next decade will be larger in every single year with almost $5 trillion added — more than we spent to fight World War II.

The Biden White House justifies the borrowing blowout by saying that it inherited an economy in free fall. Not exactly. In the second half of 2020, the six months before Trump left office, the economy surged by more than 20%. So far this year, the economy has grown in nine months by an earth-shattering 0.08%. That’s the real disaster here, not what Biden inherited.

The total amount of spending reduction to offset the Biden budget blitzkrieg adds up to a fat zero. Nothing is paid for. It’s all debt.

Biden has turned the Potomac River into a sea of red ink. But sure, he’s the No. 1 deficit-cutter of our time.

Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation

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