I’m not quite sure who at Huff Post didn’t manage to catch this the first time around.

From the above cited article:

The politicians pushing drug testing disagree. In South Carolina, where the unemployment rate is 9.9 percent, well above the national average of 8.5 percent, Republicans want the nation’s toughest requirements: blanket drug testing of every applicant for unemployment benefits and compulsory volunteer work for the long-term jobless.

Now, I don’t know if I need to give you the definition of the word “volunteer”, but I’ll give you the link.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/volunteer

Of course, the issue here is that Republicans want to mandate “compulsory volunteer work” for those on unemployment insurance.  Well, if, to volunteer, you must be actively willing to do whatever it is, then how exactly is the oxymoronic phrase “compulsory volunteer work”, presumably where, since the work would be compulsory (so you would not actually be volunteering, but would be mandated to work, and to work at no pay at that), how is it not an exact description of slavery?

With slavery, it is mandated that people perform work without pay, and with “compulsory volunteer work”, it would be mandated that people perform work without pay.  Ergo, “compulsory volunteer work” is just a euphemism for slavery.

Finally, the Republicans admit what everyone has been thinking.

The GOP wants to go back to the “good ole days”, um, where slavery was legal?  Really?  But there it is, in black and white, for all to see.  The GOP wants us all to be slaves.  I knew it.

Wait one minute.  If the GOP wants to go back and make us all “volunteer” slaves, could they perhaps get a few non-profits together that had people picking cotton and tobacco, and maybe even vegetables in the fields?  That way, the GOP could kill the DREAM Act, have their border fences, and not have to pay for any housecleaning and gardening labor.  They could still prevent any economic recovery, since all of us who were out of work would have to volunteer for the already rich, who, after all could pay for these jobs, but if they have slaves, then why bother?

This all has to do with the notion that the GOP thinks that anyone who is poor is on drugs, and that those people receiving any form of public assistance must be poor, and therefore on drugs.  I don’t know, but if I were to work for those assholes, I would need to be on drugs.

First of all, those people who get unemployment insurance (UI) are able to do so because they were just recently employed, and through no fault of their own, they were laid off, downsized, outsourced, or what have you, generally by an already rich Republican.  The money which pays for UI does not come from the individual taxpayer in the first place.  It comes from a tax on corporations which would never be given back to the corporation if left unpaid to the UI recipient, and generally comes out of the allocated employee salary funds from that former employer, so it really is the UI recipient’s money to begin with.

I know for a fact that there are quite a few Republicans who are employed and who use drugs (Rush Limbaugh to name one).  If there are individuals who are employed and who use drugs with the money they earn, it is their business (beyond the scope of not getting busted with the drugs, should they be illegal).  So if someone on UI wants to spend a portion of that retained earned income on drugs, it should be no one else’s business but the UI recipient’s.

The GOP nationwide in the states’ legislatures and in US Congress has been pushing for enactment of legislation which would remove welfare, TANF, SNAP, and UI recipients from having the ability to receive their checks unless they are able to pass a mandated random drug test.  Oh, and by the way, the recipient has to pay for the test.  I thought the GOP was against individual mandates, or perhaps that is just when it suits them.  One law in Florida mandating these measures was struck down because it clearly violates the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution against unreasonable search and seizure.

This all caught my eye because there is some pushback from the Democrats who are essentially saying that if you are going to test people who get public money (still not sure why they include UI), then we ought to be testing everyone who gets public money, including state and federal representatives.  Maybe not oddly, but at least effectively, this move made some of the GOP sponsors of the bills withdraw them, in what seems to be a direct admission of hypocrisy by the GOP.

Yes, once the Democrats pushed back by amending the bills so that the GOP bill sponsors would also have to get tested, those Republicans decided that the measure was not such a good idea after all.

I think that if we were going to institute this policy, it would be a good idea to make sure that ALL public money, like corporate banking bailouts for instance, will only go to people who have tested negative for illegal drug use, particularly cocaine, MDMA, and maybe ketamine in their case.  Oh, and how about all those oil subsidies?  No drugs for them.  No more partying with the regulators for you, Big Oil!  Imagine how much money this would save.  Do you really think the oil and banking barons would give up their drugs for public money?  I doubt it.

And the next time you see some sort of whacked-out SOPA/PIPA/NDAA/EEA type of legislation come out of Congress, well, test them too.

Vote Legalization!  Vote Green!  Vote Oatman!

Obama opened with thanks to Armed Forces members, which was nice, but I was appalled by his statement that he thinks war makes us safer and more respected around the world.  We know for a fact that it does not.  Our supposed “war on terrorism” (you cannot make war on a tactic) is known to be used as a recruiting tool to enlist more members in Al-Qaeda, and only creates more resentment worldwide.  Claiming otherwise, at first pass which might seem naive, is not so, but is simply a move to create more taxpayer-funded business for the defense industry, and to extend our false imperialism in a battle with China for oil and other energy resources.

Speaking of energy and by extension jobs and the economy, we were asked by Obama to imagine our situation having a more positive outlook.  This is essentially the method employed by Family Guy’s Brian Griffin’s fictitious book, “Wish It, Want It, Do It” and is completely ridiculous.  I can imagine it, but why won’t Obama address the situation in any meaningful ways?  Programs can be instituted in various departments which will help things and which do not require congressional approval, but it seems to be more politically expedient to do nothing and blame the other party for lack of progress.  No wonder approval ratings for both parties are at an all-time low.

We could bring more manufacturing back if there were limits (taxes, tariffs and other fees) imposed on corporations which practice outsourcing to other nations, rather than having us all just wait for the Chinese wage to go up.  With corporate taxes, we need more sticks and fewer carrots.  We already have the biggest corporations paying next to nothing on record annual profits.  These loopholes need to be closed immediately.  Job training needs to work in conjunction with a reduction of military manufacturing and conversion of those defense industry plants and technologies to green energy production and sources.

I do agree that we should offer states something like a 3 to 1 match on state university and college funding increases, and incentivize universities to reduce or not increase tuition.  We also need to increase Pell Grants to twice higher than 2000 levels, and use the Treasury and not banking institutions to handle Student Loan repayments.

Some other thoughts on energy production:

• We cannot afford more oil production, furthermore, we will need to keep the oil we have, and keep it in the ground.  We need to use only carbon-negative or -neutral energy sources.
• We cannot afford to ruin all the water and create hundreds or thousands of earthquakes by further developing hydrologic fracturing (fracking).
• We cannot afford to susidize oil production any longer.  We need to tax it, along with fracking, completely out of existence.
• We can afford to develop wave energy generation, where strings of hinged booms and buoys float on ocean waves and where the hinges turn generators based on the wave movement.
• We can afford to harness underwater tidal forces which can turn propellers like wind turning a windmill as the tides go in and out.
• We can afford to make wind energy more efficient and more plentiful, including offshore.  Paint them to blend in if you are so concerned with your scenic view of the offshore oil rigs.
• We can afford to make solar more efficient and more varied, and use the massive acreage located within the Nevada DOE site to make enough solar energy for all the homes in the US.
• We can afford to place solar and wind installations on all manufacturing plants, with all new homes getting active and passive solar on the rooftops.
• We can afford to make better batteries, so I agree with Obama on that one.
• We can even develop (it has been done) GM bacteria which take greenhouse gases out of the air, and then which use the sequestered molecules to thrive and excrete oil which we can use.  I suspect the same method could be used to create natural gas.

Any idea to help alleviate the mortgage crisis is a good one.  What about getting peoples’ foreclosed and unpurchased houses back to them?

How about getting mercury out of vaccines?  Well, getting it out of the water is great also.  Strengthening the FDA and preventing mercury, dioxins and arsenic from entering fish and other seafood chains via stream runoff is wonderful.

Here’s a better idea, we can increase the taxes on corporate gains, etc. (Romney’s and Buffet’s incomes) and let the added 10-20% increase be earmarked by those taxpayers individually toward their choice of investments for R&D to colleges, universities and green energy businesses.

As for fixing the tax code, there are various numbers which could be used, but we should employ a progressive taxation system similar to the following, where individual incomes of:

• >$1M should pay 40% on amounts at or above $1M,
• >$500K should pay 25% on amounts between $500K and $1M,
• <$50K should pay zero, and
• incomes between $50K and $500K should pay 15% on amounts between $50K and $500K.

In addition, FICA & Medicare (at whatever percents, usually 2%-6% each depending on the national mood) are taxed on all incomes over $50K, with no upper limit.  There should be a 50% estate tax for liquidity over $1M, though not for real estate and investments.  The total tax levied on all corporate gains and investment incomes should be about 30%, and would be excluded from the calculation of the individual incomes above.  Married couples filing jointly would double the income requirements above, and dependants claimed would allow for a $25K deduction per dependant.  All income amounts would be COLA adjusted for successive years.  Therefore, if your household consisted of a married couple with two children filing jointly, and your combined annual income did not exceed $150K with no investment income, you would pay no taxes.  If you were single making $100K/yr, with $50K in investment income, you would pay $22.5K plus FICA & Medicare on $50K (somewhere around $2K to $6K), for an effective tax rate of about 18%.  This would increase current revenues compared to the current tax code (it would generate somewhere around $2.5T in income taxes, plus perhaps $2T in capital gains / investment taxes), and would create massive spending from the middle class, which would in turn create the largest economic expansion since the 1950s and 1990s, thereby generating even more tax revenue, particularly for states and localities.  Taxing corporations at a reasonable rate (20-25%) on incomes exceeding $500K with no loopholes would generate another $2T or so.  We would have a $2T surplus and the debt would be paid off in a record 8 years.  It only takes political will or better members of congress to accomplish this.

You can feel cynical about nothing getting done, but you could also just institute massive political reform.  Mandate shortened campaign seasons to a couple or a few months.  Ban all stock and commodities trading by congress people.  Limit lobbyists to genuinely interested parties, with no payouts.  Limit campaign contributions to individuals only.  Have no more filibusters in the Senate unless you actually take the floor and read something into the congressional record which pertains to the topic at hand.  Limit supermajorities in normal voting where a 50% majority is required.  End the Bush Cycle between lobbyists, regulators, other oversight positions, congress, and other federal positions.  Once someone takes one position within an industry, they cannot switch (from private to public sectors or vice versa) until having not been employed in that industry for at least five years.  The SEC needs more teeth.

The way you end the source of attacks against US is to get our bases out of Mecca & Medina, stop state funding Israel & Pakistan, get out of Afghanistan, and end the “war on terrorism”.

Finally, we can give better, free, jobs training to veterans, and really to everyone, and not just incentives for companies who hire them.

That would be my response to the 2012 SOTU address, but it was not the response given by Mitch Daniels, the GOP Governor of Indiana.

Instead, Daniels simply regurgitated the same old talking points from Rush Limbaugh’s radio show.  How does such an uncaring racist blowhard drug addict (Rush) get to be the non-titular head of the Republican Party anyway?  Perhaps that was too rhetorical.

Daniels talked about there being roughly a 20% unemployment rate, which was really odd, since Republicans never count those not actively job seeking as being unemployed, I suppose unless it suits them.

Republicans do not even want more employment.  Rather, they want higher profits for their corporate donors.  How exactly do you suppose we got into this mess in the first place?

Neither do Republicans want equality.  They want rich white land-owning males to have everything and for everyone else to be slaves, leave or die.

If a Republican cannot route a pipeline through a poor neighborhood, he (and not she) will route it through a wetland.  Daniels said that the XL pipeline deal is, and I quote, “pro-poverty”.  Now, I do not know if Daniels knows yes from no, good from bad, left from right, for from against, but he obviously does not know pro- from con-.  XL is pro-poverty alright.  It is also pro-environmental-destruction.  Tar sands are about the most inefficient and carbon-positive producers of oil known on the planet, and routing a pipeline through an aquifer, particularly the largest in the Midwest, is about as dumb an idea as not using hardened cement on a blowout preventer.  Between XL, drill-baby-drilling in the oceans, fracking, and trying to end the Clean Water Act and EPA, one would guess by their actions alone, that Republicans wanted all the potable water in the country to simply disappear.

Why do Republicans constantly state that raising their tax rates on largely investment earnings will somehow hurt jobs?  It will not.  People will continue to invest (unless the tax on investment earnings was 100%), and the higher the tax levied, the less risky the investments will be.  Graphically plotting gross tax revenue versus tax rate levied looks like a bell curve, and we are way down on the left side low end.

If Daniels wants growth, then his Senate and House compatriots ought to approve the jobs bills introduced this year.  If Daniels wants Obama to fail just like Rush and McConnell stated, he will not want growth.

If Republicans like saving money, they will use the goddamn energy saving light bulbs.  What a ruse!  I replaced 100% of the light bulbs in my apartment (even in the fridge and under the range hood) with the new energy saving kind (for a total cost of $25), and my monthly electric bill dropped by $20 overnight.  I’ll save $215 in the first year of using them.  They even now come encased in a coated glass bulb which acts to diffuse the light, so they shine light just like a normal incandescent, and they warm up to full brightness in about a minute.  You no longer need to get blinded by the compact fluorescent coil.  What a deal!  Buy them in packs of 5 or 10 to save money.

And finally, contrary to what Daniels said, to have national bankruptcy, our GDP (FY2011 was $15.0T — T is trillion) needs to be smaller than our annual interest on the federal debt ($15.23T total, and $0.457T of that is interest).  We are not even close, well, yet.  Our annual federal budget is about one quarter of our GDP, and is over seven times the annual interest on the debt.  If Daniels is concerned that the debt as a percentage of GDP is just over 100%, he should feel better to know that following WWII, the debt was just over 120% of GDP and in 35 years, under Jimmy Carter, we managed to get that percent down to just over 30%.  Reagan/Bush proceeded to bring that figure back up to nearly 70%.  Clinton brought it down to about 55%, and Dubya brought it back to 70%.  Obama did the rest.  However, the debt needs to be $500T (over 30 times the current amount) to get to where interest payments (at 3% interest) exceed the GDP, at which point the US would become insolvent.  Even if we run a $2T defecit every year (the largest defecit ever in 2009 was $1.9T), it would still take 242 years to reach that point (the United States will be 236 years old on 4 July 2012).  Now, we absolutely do need to pay down the debt, but we do not need to make such draconian austerity measures like the EU is doing, and by doing so, shoot ourselves in the foot by preventing our economic recovery.  Apparently Daniels does not know how to use a calculator, either.

So, that response got four Pinocchios.  Neither Republicans nor Democrats know what they are doing, and if they do, then they know that all they do is make the already rich richer, and be damned with the rest of the populace.  Here’s not quite a joke: What’s the difference between a neo-conservative (Republican) and a globalist (Democrat)?  Well, the neo-conservative wants the corporation which controls everything to come from this country, while the globalist cares not from which country that corporation comes.  Or, alternatively, the Democrat charges too much for the meal, but the Republican leaves the restaurant before the check arrives and sticks you with the bill.

So what’s the better way?  It is to not elect either to office again.

Vote Green!!!  Vote Oatman!!!

I thought the speech itself was well delivered and polished (minus the spilt milk joke of a joke), but lacking in the intensity of programs which were proposed to solve the jobs crisis.  Obama was just trotting out the same old lines which had previously gone nowhere with the GOP and which would have little actual impact on the situation regarding the placement of the US in the new economic model of sustainability, and in actual job creation and retraining.

I was thinking how this speech was in no way going to help him against his GOP rivals, and that his chances of reelection were waning.

But then I thought about his GOP rivals.

So maybe all hope is not lost for Obama, but why do we always have to settle for the lesser of two evils?

I was, of course, thinking of the Republican disarray which is the progression of the nominating process so far in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

After Newt won in The Palmetto State, following on the heels of a GOP certified Santorum win in Iowa, and Romney winning New Hampshire, with Ron Paul close on his heels, you get the distinct conclusion that there will not be for some time in the GOP primary, any distinct conclusion.  Even the comedian Stephen Colbert, made a last minute pseudo-run in South Carolina, his home state, instructing his followers to pick “Cain” on the ballot as a vote for Colbert, and he actually placed a solid fifth place, ahead of Rick Perry, who placed sixth.

There has got to be a better way.

Even the Republican’s SOTU response, delivered by Mitch Daniels, governor of Indiana, was bland, lacking, regurgitated, hating-Obama-for-no-reason-other-than-that-Rush-told-me-to, outright distortions, which should earn it four noses on the Pinocchio scale.  What was that bit about “pro-poverty” and why do you hate those light bulbs so much?

If Obama drops the ball and the GOP cannot come along and pick it up and run with it, then it is truly time to give up on both sides of that fence.

One thing that truly did matter happened this morning.  Gabrielle “Gabby” Giffords officially retired from the floor of the House.  In a tearful speech delivered by her friend, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Democratic National Committee chairman, Giffords announced that she was retiring to work on her recovery, and that she would return eventually to public service.  It was so moving that even John Boehner was in tears, or perhaps that is too low of a bar.  In a final tribute to Gabby, 408 House members voted unanimously (!!!) to approve a border security bill she had sponsored.  Gabby was the one good thing Southern Arizona had going on in the US House, and unless Steve Leal wants to take her place, we are headed for a wasteland with the Democrats, as equally as with the Republicans.

But there is another option.  We all have until next Monday 30 January 2012 to renew our voter registrations and turn them in to the Recorder’s Office (on the north side of the courtyard in the Pink Dome Building in downtown Tucson), but this time, we need to register for the Green Party!

With the Green Party there will be no more partisan blockades, and there will be an actual genuine putsch to actually improve things!  You will get jobs, actual manufacturing base, no stupid fake wars, and no reliance on foreign oil!

Plus, I’m running as a Green Party candidate, so you can …

Vote Green!  Vote Oatman!

Contact: Michael Oatman
Oatman for President 2012
Tel: (202) 642-4785 (D.C. Offices)
Tel: (520) 302-5465 (Tucson Offices)
Fax: (206) 202-2194
Email: 2012@MichaelOatman.co.cc
Website: http://2012.MichaelOatman.co.cc/

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Michael Oatman Announces Green Party Presidential Candidacy

Description:  Michael Oatman is seeking the Green Party nomination for United States President in 2012, and is on the ballot in the 2012 Arizona Presidential Preference Election to be held statewide on Tuesday 28 February 2012.

TUCSON, AZ, 23 January 2012 — Green Party presidential candidate Michael Oatman today formally and publicly announced his candidacy from his Tucson offices, by stating his intention to seek the nomination by the Arizona Green Party for the office of United States President.

Mr. Oatman, a native of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, has lived in Tucson for the past twelve years.  He works as a computer and internet services consultant in the Tucson area, and has owned and operated several businesses in the Tucson downtown area.  He is also the host and producer of the Access Tucson televised call-in talk show entitled “Illegal Knowledge”.

“I’m all for creating jobs in the green energy sector, including here in Tucson and Southern Arizona, where they are certainly needed,” says Oatman.  He believes the United States needs to derive most of its energy sources from technologies employing exclusively solar, wind, wave and tidal forces.  “I’d say my platform is about being fiscally conservative and socially progressive.  We desperately need massive political reform.  I would spend much more on education, less on defense, more on research for developing new technologies which can bring us energy independence, and we can re-tool our manufacturing industries to that end.”  The website 2012.MichaelOatman.co.cc contains more information about his candidacy and regarding what Oatman would bring to the nation’s highest office.

This is not the first time Oatman has run for the office of US President, although it is the first time he has run as a Green Party candidate.  In 2008, registered as a Democrat, he received 17 votes, all from early balloting, which he says is remarkable “considering there was absolutely no budget whatsoever to work with, and that the campaign was exclusively word-of-mouth.”

This year, Oatman hopes to receive the endorsement of the Tucson Weekly newspaper, working with what Weekly writer Jim Nintzel calls “an exercise in reality journalism” known as Project White House.  The project pits candidates whose names are on the ballot for the 2012 Arizona Presidential Preference Election against one another to compete for the Weekly’s endorsement of a candidate from each of the Republican and Green parties.  The Democratic Party elected to not participate in this year’s Presidential Preference Election in Arizona, and no Democrats will be listed on this year’s ballot.

                                                                          #   #   #

Michael Oatman is currently accepting invitations for interviews from all news and media outlets.  Please contact Mr. Oatman using any of the contact methods provided in the header of this release.  Thank You for Your Interest!

Vote Green!  Vote Oatman!

Michael Oatman For President of
These United States of America!
Email: 2012@MichaelOatman.co.cc
Website: http://2012.MichaelOatman.co.cc/

With Love, We Can Take the Power Back!

Saturday 14 January 2012

Jim Nintzel
Senior Writer
Tucson Weekly

Thank you Jim!  Here are my responses.

Name: Michael Oatman

Contact/Email:2012@MichaelOatman.co.cc

Website: 2012.MichaelOatman.co.cc

Social media –
Facebook: facebook.MichaelOatman.co.cc
Twitter: @MichaelOatman

Occupation: Webmaster
Website: HeyComputerMan.co.cc

Birth Town: Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Residing in: Tucson, Arizona

Pets: Fish

Favorite food: Baked Ziti, or pizza, both of which I make.

99% or 1%?

• There will always be a 99% and a 1%.  The issue is the difference of incomes and standards of living between the two.  Eventually, the differences will become less, but it is only now a question of whether that difference reduction is accomplished via social, economic and political reforms or via revolution.
• I prefer reforms, but I will always assist in the revolution, should reforms fail.

How many houses do you own? None, I rent.

General Questions

Who is your first choice for a running mate? Cynthia Ann McKinney

Make us a campaign promise: “I Do Solemnly Swear To Read The Tucson Weekly, Weekly!”

• Seriously, please look at my site at 2012.MichaelOatman.co.cc since there are plenty of them already.

Spaceships appear above every major US city: How would you handle it?

• 1) Find out whether they are ours and whether this is an exercise or a coup d’etat.  If it is an exercise, deny it.
• 2) If they are ours (and not an exercise), quash the coup and hang the treasonous bastards.  If they are not ours, well, fucking negotiate.
• 3) If they (not ours) refuse to negotiate, and it is understood what they want, and that is our annihilation, then nuke them.  Cooperate to our mutual benefit otherwise.  Let’s get on board!

Name two people you would bring together in a beer summit.

• Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman, just to test them.
• Other than those two, neither of whom would likely have a beer, an effective beer summit might include myself and the leaders of Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Brazil, EU people, Palestine, and Israel.  One can only imagine the tremendous range of topics to be hammered out.  We would need absinthe, not beer, for this one.

Priority Evaluation

Please order the following threats in terms of biggest priority to least priority (1-6):

First of all, I’d like to explain my numbering scheme.  I have these listed in order 1-6, and also in percent importance priority, 0%-100%.  The latter percent is where the issue falls in relative importance overall.  I will use this percent importance scale in further posts.

Order  Pct. Importance  Issue
-----  ---------------  -------
1.     92%              Climate Change
2.     90%              Iran
3.     85%              Unemployment
4.     60%              Food recalls
5.     25%              Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen
6.     0.00002%         Piranhas

FYI, I would place the possibility of Asian Carp invading the Great Lakes at number 4.5 with a percent of 30%.  Additionally, I would give 100% to overall political reform of elections involving the federal government.

Issues (stated):

Abortion – Safe, Legal, and Rare.  Birth control should be freely and widely available so that abortion effectively exists only to protect the life and well-being of the mother.

Guns – For the Second Amendment, and for the argument that a background check (instantaneous) does not impinge on it.  I also support free public gun training, particularly for those who wish to carry concealed.

Death penalty – Only for the offense of Treason.

Marijuana – For decriminalization, for removal from Schedule I, and for treatment like and taxation beyond Alcohol and Tobacco.

Israel or Palestine or is it complicated? I support a One-State solution, where everyone’s votes are equal under a united government.

Justin Bieber – I’m for kids with talent.  This excludes Bieber.  I’m morally against mommies trying to relive their youth by entering their daughters into beauty pageants, but there should be no law.

Waterboarding – For the Geneva Conventions for all nations.

Gays in the military – Are we seriously still talking about this?  It has been resolved correctly, finally.

Bigger threat to the institution of marriage: Sinead O’Connor;  Las Vegas?

Obamacare – I support (and have since 2007) a single payer, possibly multi-tiered system.  Please see the website for details.

Boehner’s tears – As fake as his tan.  Where In The World Is Jon Boehner?

Border fence – For a reasonable guest worker program, some version of the Dream Act, drug legalization (except meth and heroin), the cessation of state funding for Israel and Pakistan (our businesses can still sell them weapons), and the removal of our bases from Mecca and Medina.  The fence was historically used simply to mark the national boundary.  Oh, and no Canadian fences.  If we remove the reasons for which people want to come here illegally and/or attack us, we need no fences.

English as the U.S. official language – Je parle Francais aussi.

Amnesty for undocumented immigrants – Yes for the kids; Guest Worker for the adults.

Koch brothers – BANG, ZOOM!  Straight to the moon!

Net Neutrality – 1000% FOR!  100% against SOPA/PIPA!  100% FOR COPPA!  Let corporations make their own limited internet, parallel to the real one.  Let’s see which one people want to use.

Increased defense spending – As if we really have the money to spend — but if we just print it, could we at least print 3 times that much for education, please?

Should text message abbreviations be taught in schools? AFAIK ABVS RNT GRMR.  If you could understand that, then maybe we *should* teach people how to communicate with you, or perhaps better vice versa.

Childhood vaccinations – I’m against mercury in particular and any other toxins in vaccines.  Yes, mercury is still in there.  You should really read the packaging ingredients on everything.  The underlying principle of vaccination is fine, medically speaking.

Disclosure

Please list all:
love-children: none
sexual harassment allegations: none
illegal immigrant house help: no house, no help; I rent
criminal convictions: public record
draft dodges: none
bribery scandals: none
other ethics challenges: I’m NOT for bestiality, incest, rape, the Bohemian Grove, Sharia Law, Vulture Capitalism, or closed minds.

• God Is Everything And Everything Else.  God does not require religion, but the opposite is not true.

Please remember to register with the GREEN PARTY on or before Monday 30 January 2012!

Thank You ALL For Your Amazing Support!

Foreclosures and the abuses of the Big Banks are crippling our economy.  In neighborhoods like mine and across the state, we’ve seen people underwater on their mortgages and even losing their homes.  Even worse, in many cases the Big Banks broke rules, falsified paperwork or defrauded homebuyers—and gambled with our homes to enrich themselves.  They have yet to be held responsible.

Families like mine are depending on you to stand up for us and put our needs ahead of protecting the banks.  We can’t just let banks get bailed out and escape consequences for their irresponsibility and greed.

I urge you to fight for a strong settlement with the banks that really will hold them accountable for their misconduct and the damage done to the economy.  Any settlement must reflect the harm done to homeowners and provide large-scale relief for underwater homeowners.  And before you agree to any settlement, there must be a full investigation into misconduct and fraud by the banks.

This act was named the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA.

There was much furor over this act becoming law, for a number of reasons, which I will write about here, and about the implications of those governing sections of this act.

Let me first state that the NDAA for 2012, unlike other Defense Spending Acts passed in years prior, which were used to simply supply the military of the United States with the funds needed to operate, the current NDAA has been written to be much more far-reaching, to include executive branch limitations on where and how to combat terrorism, conditions on Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, and detentions of individuals from within the United States, and the fundings for these entities and practices.

The original version which passed the House of Representatives was written to bind the executive branch from moving Guantanamo by removing all funding for doing so. The detainees there would be left there indefinitely. The Senate version was no better.

Now, President Obama did not like having his executive powers limited (see Title XII) and he threatened a veto of the bill, but the reconciled version, struck in committee, did allow more powers to the executive regarding these things.

Obama was then agreeable to passing the act one the powers of the executive were not so restrained.

Regardless, it was written (see Sec. 1021 and Sec. 1022) that individuals can be held indefinitely (or until the “War On Terrorism” has ended, which according to Senator John McCain, will be “never”).

Now, we suppose that all of this has nothing to do with you and me, correct?

That assumption is very unfortunately dead wrong.

Both versions, and the committee version which was passed by Obama, which is the actual law, allow for indefinite detentions or military tribunals of ANYONE.

Let me make that perfectly clear. ANYONE. Any individual.

This includes United States Citizens, living in the United States, since this country is a front of the War On Terrorism.

The remedy is indefinite detention.

This a completely arbitrary and includes classes of individuals which, according to the law, are now described as “any person who has committed a belligerent act” (see Sec. 1021(b)2).

So, if I am walking down the street, say quickly, and pushing through a crowd, am I being “belligerent”?

If I write this, am I being “belligerent”?

If I am, I can now be held indefinitely, without trial or Habeas Corpus, in a military prison or even in Guantanamo Bay.

This is certainly NOT what the Founding Fathers intended.

Furthermore, the law allows for the executive branch to assert a power to identify any particular individual and hold them indefinitely (see Sec. 1022(a)4).

You can be kidnapped by the military off the streets and be held and never heard from again. No trial. No jury. No Habeas Corpus.

If you are lucky, you might get a military trial. You might even get a regular trial.

It is not up to you. You might get deported to face trial in your home country, or maybe not (see Sec. 1022(a)3). This is the way the NDAA has been written. Please read it.

Do that here http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr1540enr/pdf/BILLS-112hr1540enr.pdf or here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_Act_for_Fiscal_Year_2012

Thank you.

Now, I would like to restate that Obama only had a problem that the powers of the executive branch were limited, and one those powers were given, Obama figured the NDAA was a good thing that he wished to sign in secret on 31 December 2011.

No ceremony, no 15 pens given out, no press.

I have an idea on how to define “belligerency”.

I think that it was a clear act of belligerency against the United States that any act, such as the NDAA, has been passed, and I do hold as “belligerents” those who had any part in passing the NDAA for 2012.

If they make their bed, they must lie in it.

Yes, the fact of the passage of the 2012 NDAA is, in itself, an act of belligerency against the United States, and any individual who took part in its passage and enactment into law should be subject to its terms.

This would include the 93 Senators, the 322 members of the House Of Representatives and President Obama.

Their punishment for this act of belligerency shall be indefinite detention within the confines of the US base in Cuba, named Guantanamo Bay, D-4.

Once they are gone, We The People should set about to be repealing this indescribable repugnancy of an act which should never have seen the light of day.

There are simply too many of us, even for the FEMA camps.

More importantly, this is construed as an act for “National Defense”.

The question really is “whose defense, from whom and against whom exactly?”. I think that this act smacks of being an enactment of defense of the US Government from its own people.

We The People should not allow this, and if necessary, take up arms to resist the obvious coming of the Federal Police State, enacted under our noses, by “law”, in our own nation.

Let us now join together and take the ownership back for ourselves from those who falsely govern out of fear.

With Love, We Will Be Our Own Sovereigns!

This was never the case with me.

It is simply, Prima Facie (on the face of it), that corporations, which have not an expiration, nor a Corpus Delecti (think, a gravestone), amongst other oddities, do not quite fit the general description of Persons, nor, as a whole, People, who are themselves rather distinct.

It is with this in mind that I do propose a new set of Rules which shall govern corporations. These rules hearken back to the days of the founding of The Dutch East India Company, which was, and still remains, the very first corporation to come into being, way back in the year 1602 Anno Domini. It itself was only chartered originally for 21 years, but quite obviously, things in this regard have gotten very far out of hand.

We, The People, should now exercise our Collective Will to remand these entities and their progeny back into a more manageable state. I have some ideas.

1) Corporations must be chartered. This really sounds obvious, but it is really not so. Today (and only the other day I in fact have done this), corporations can be created by any individual person or entity without limit. They can exist only by the stroke of my (or anyone’s) pen.

This is not the way it used to be.

Corporations used to be created to perform a duty, and would so be regulated by a chartering commission (now the Commerce Division or some such), and could not become chartered unless they were to serve some obvious purpose.

Corporations should be chartered by a body with actual oversight which can rule on whether their charter is valid.

2) Corporations must serve the Public Good. This is another baby which was thrown out with the bathwater.

Corporations, in their original charter, must state for what Public Good they will provide. The Chartering Commission will have due public input to hear the yeas and nays of why and why not the new corporation will or will not serve the Public Good.

It is ultimately up to the People to determine what, if anything, is in the Public Good.

3) Corporations shall exist for a definite amount of time, during which, they shall either perform or not perform, according to their charter, the stated Public Good via which they were originally chartered.

If a corporation fails to perform in the Public Good, according to the dictum set forth in its charter, then the charter and so the corporation’s license to operate, shall be revoked. This extends to that corporations must pay their fair share of taxes and not outsource their labor to foreign countries, but provide work for those in Our Nation.

An annual renewal of all corporate charters should be the litmus test, and that renewal should be held in public, with public approval.

4) Corporations are not a shield for liability, but a “collection of fools” over which that liability is spread.

I could write a number of names of corporations here which would bring up horrific images of disaster to most folk. I will not, but rather I will focus on what can be done to improve corporate liability.

The limited liability which corporations now enjoy should extend only between its members (who are actual People and not other corporations), so as not to exclude any member from liability, so long as that member has any part in the issue from which the liability had originated.

If there was one bad apple in the corporation, and that one apple made the Gulf Oil Spill or Bhupal, then it is solely up to the other members of the corporation to prove their innocence, or, otherwise, the entire “ship of fools” goes down and shares plural personal liability.

This may just be a start. Please tell me what other rules governing corporations which you would like to see. I am very open to popular opinion on this matter.

We are The People — Let Our Love Be The Way!

That is essentially where it ends.

Ron Paul used to be in favor of nationalizing the Federal Reserve; he is no longer in favor; I still am.

The Constitution of These United States of America States (in Article I Section 8), verbatim:

Section 8 – Powers of Congress

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States; [...]

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States; [...]

… and so to impugn or disguise this under any other authority is clearly in breach. Firstly, I would prefer to strictly nationalize the Federal Reserve Banking System and place its powers back squarely under the purview of the Congress Assembled. For those who disagree on the basis of that the powers would be therfore politicized, I give you the last 25 years of the history of the Fed from Greenspan/Reagan.

The monetary policy of this nation will always be politicized, and naming one chair under the auspice of a clearly partisan president to further the economic and monetary policy of the entire nation is not solution. It never was.

Secondly, the Glass–Steagall Act must be re-enacted, so that speculation is controlled, banking institutions have control over banking, investment institutions have control over investments, the FDIC is not left holding the bag, and so that securities can become more secure, as overseen by the proper agency in charge, the SEC.

If banks want to betray their investors by giving billion or million dollar golden parachutes to failed CEOs, it will then be up to the stockholders, and certainly no more the taxpayers, to bail on or to revive those commercial institutions.

Thirdly, I would like to see, a hedge to the US Dollar’s performance overseas, a new plethora of local currencies, to be governed by those who participate in their creation.

These would be patterned after various LETS systems and would be wholly autonomous, as in the days of the independent banks which where in abundance during the days of the presidency of Andrew Jackson.

With all these reforms in place, we as a People could certainly initiate a more abundant and populous-serving system run in conjunction with the People and the State.

Please allow me to introduce myself; my name is Michael Oatman and I am seeking nomination as a candidate for the office of President of these United States of America from the Green Party, seeing as how the Democratic Party has chosen not to participate this year.

I am submitting my Candidate Nomination Paper via the Tucson Weekly for the Arizona Presidential Preference Election to be held on the 28th day of February 2012.

Now, I would like to tell you a little about my platform. Actually, unlike just about every candidate who is currently running for president, I would like to describe fully (to a practical extent) the platform upon which I will be running for the office of President of these United States of America. For more complete information, you may view my website, currently at http://MichaelOatman.wordpress.com/ where you may also participate by asking questions and leaving comments.

We all have heard the push-button issues about which the current candidates have made their televised sound bites: the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; universal health care; reduced deficit, and particularly debt; middle class job sector improvement; a federal executive trashing the Bill of Rights and the Constitution; the border and migration issues; the failing housing market and economy; and many more. Then, there are the usual suspects like gun control, abortion and gay marriage. In a moment, I will address all of these issues. What is truly amazing and mostly depressing is that I have not changed the above wording in this paragraph since four years ago.

However, I think it is important for all of us to step back and look at the whole of things, “the big picture” so to speak. These issues, while debating and discussing them is extremely important when finding a solution, they have tended to do more harm to the peoples of this country, at least in their attitudes toward one another. We can see that we are becoming increasingly intolerant to what we consider “the other side”, when usually there are many shades of grey.

I think that the Peoples of the several States of these united States of America ought to truly and finally set aside their differences and do come together in order to be completely themselves. It would be a marvelous day when we can all say that we fully know who we are, and who each other are, and have understanding and show respect for this; this which is not exactly the current state of affairs.

With that said, I would like to say a little about myself. I consider myself to be, first and foremost, a logician. My profession is a computer scientist, or an “IT Guy”. The way I approach problem solving is with the goal of *actually solving the problem* rather than giving lip service to some group or a sound bite or two to the media. When the latter is done by politicians, the goal is not to necessarily *do* anything about the issue, but rather simply to quell the populace, or a particular group; to spin the media so that the issue becomes a “non-issue” is the immediate goal of this rationale. I employ no such rationale.

Having hosted and produced a television show entitled “Illegal Knowledge” on the local public access stations, Access Tucson (http://access.tucson.org/), whose tagline is “Everything we should have known, but were never supposed to find out”, and the issues in this season, season two, have ranged from the Question of the Middle East, to 9/11 Revisited, to Media and Corporatism, to A Discussion of Non-Valuation, and even featured an Election Special with Proposition 200 author John Kromko as guest, I am keenly aware of the subtleties of the global events happening today, and I will not hesitate to bring that knowledge to my Administration.

Let us now go onward and discuss various specific issues relating to topics of today. I am and will be always open to input from the People of this Nation, and I currently will make my email address available for this purpose; it is oatman [at] geocities [dot] com and all who wish may write to me there, or to Post Office Box 304, in Tucson, Arizona, 85702, for those of you who prefer snail mail (parcels will not be accepted). If anyone emails me with generally important issues, they will also be answered on my blog at WordPress (http://MichaelOatman.wordpress.com/). I will first state that I am generally, although not without exception, socially left-leaning and fiscally conservative.

In the arenas of jobs, the debt, our banking system and government intrusion, I would like to side fully with the bulk of the People who are disaffected as a result of this as well as the past two administrations’ policies. We must support the People who support this Nation, and we can do that by providing green jobs for every person capable of working, tax heavily corporations who wish to outsource jobs overseas (if not prevent it outright), reduce defecits and debt by completely reforming the banking system and the Federal Reserve, and keep the government from otherwise meddling in People’s affairs. More on exactly how to accomplish this will appear on my blog in the near future.

In issues of federal and executive importance, I strongly believe in the efficacy of our Constitution and give myself as a strict constructionist if not an originalist; that is I will use the executive to interpret the Constitution in its original meaning, with emphasis given to the Articles and Amendments themselves. This means I will roll back all domestic spying, NDAA, limitations on internet use (I’m against SOPA/PIPA and for Net Neutrality), and the myriad of other executive abuses perpetrated by the Bush administration as well (and it seems as much or more) by the Obama administration, I will work to end the deficit *AND* debt, partially by bringing to and end by political means the war Afghanistan (and wherever else by the end of Obama’s term), all while maintaining good relations with nations which are needed for us to prevent any terrorist acts.

I will write much more on these and many issues later, but for now I will ask all of you this: where would you like to see this Nation be in five years? Please visit http://MichaelOatman.wordpress.com/ and share your thoughts with myself and others today!

I look forward to representing We the People of these United States of America in the next general election in 2012.

This is now the time to register (Green Party) to vote and, most certainly, to vote for me, Michael Oatman, on election day, Tuesday 28 November 2012, and I thank you well in advance for your vote that day.

Sincerely,

Michael Oatman

The Facebook page for the Truth Party is at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=38182145308.

Here’s the post:

Hello,

I came across this group while looking for a new political party, which had its ideals based in Truth and not in lies, rhetoric and mass public manipulation, as do the Democrat and the Republican political parties. I myself do not think that the policies of the Libertarian political party are pragmatic enough, and the limited scope of both the Green and Communist political parties do not provide them with the capacity to ever draw large numbers of voters “into their tent”. I had thiought that a new political party which is capable of representing the wide range of popular policies which benefit the People of the United States of America has been sorely needed since the 1980s, obviously so during the 1990s, and painfully so since the election of Barack Obama and the plurality of Democrats in both the House and Senate, any and all historical significance aside.

Therefore, I thought that a new political party had been needed to accurately represent the will of the majority of Americans. I thought a really good name for this party would be the Truth Party. Republicans have become (over the space of time since president Eisenhower) ever increasingly shown to be outright liars, starting with Nixon and crew in 1960 and worse yet when elected following the assassination of Bobby Kennedy in 1968. The entire basis of (G.H.W. Bush and) Reagan’s “trickle down” economic policies have been shown time and again to be an outright fabrication produced only for the benefit of the already rich, and George W. Bush has been widely viewed as the worst president in the history of the nation for nearly every single action he performed while in office. Democrats have fared no better since president Carter, insofar as that president Clinton seemed intent on rejecting unions and workers rights and standards for the benefit of Global Fascists and their corporate shills on the same level as Reagan. President Obama, who was elected just as Clinton was, on a tidal wave of popular “hope” regarding “the economy, stupid”, has so far failed as horribly as Clinton in terms of providing a better standard for the workers of this country, the majority of the populace, at 70-80% of the total workforce. Obama has done noting for the workers, while simultaneously giving trillions to the already rich banks and bankers in the form of bonuses. He may publicly speak against it, but he has done absolutely nothing to prevent it (the “Pay Czar” has no teeth), and has encouraged it by giving the banks the money in the first place, rather than, say, spending less money by simply bailing out every underwater mortgage in the country. Obama obviously believes (or at least acts), like Reagan, that “trickle down” policies work, where it is painfully obviously to the majority of americans that he is completely incorrect and out of touch.

Both the Democrat and Republican parties are entirely Fascist, being completely beholden to global businesses and their lobbyists to have the ability to get elected or even cast a vote. The People of these United States of America deserve the opposite of this, and the Truth Party should be beholden only to the People. In fact, despite their acted public quarrels, the Democrats and Republicans have almost everything in common on issues of monetary and economic policies, favoring global capitalism as a means of resource extraction to benefit the already rich, foreign policy often to the same end, and policies on outsourcing the military and prison functions to private contractors owned by the already rich. The Truth Party will oppose all of these policies, so as to benefit all of the People of these United States of America.

The false dichotomy between the brands of Republican and Democrat provides the People of this nation with the illusion of a choice while presenting a singlar choice of complete Fascism (which is rule by the corporate structure) on a global scale, and our Fascist Supreme Court today has underscored this when they did not even bat an eye while they unanimously equated corporations with people (the ruling itself was 5-4 on the question of campaign financing, but no one on the bench questioned that corporations were people, which they are quite obviously not). The Truth Party must seek to remove the personhood from corporate law, and revert corporations to limited chartered activities for the good of the People of these United States of America.

The Truth Party need not have a position on so-called “wedge” issues, like abortion rights, gay marriage, flat taxes and the like, but rather should concern itself with corporate personhood, monetary, economic and foreign policies, workers’ rights and standards, and the betterment of the overall lives and livelihoods of we the People of these Unioted States of America. The Truth Party should not be confused with the 9/11 Truth movement, although there may be many shared ideals, and should never be comingled with the “Birthers” and other crazies. The Truth Party should demonstrate itself to be the salvation of the 95% or so of the People who are not already rich, and should therefore wrest control of goverment from the Fascists currently in charge.

I propose that we use this dormant Facebook group to organize and publicize these efforts to return control of the nation back to the People of these United States of America. Please post a reply to this topic if you agree and then spread the word, so that work can begin!

Thank You!

Michael Oatman

People in this campaign are using the word “change” so much anymore that is becoming nothing more than a buzzword.

But speaking about change without understanding the true nature of the problems facing this nation is really nothing more than giving simple lip service.

Similarly, talking about these problems without addressing the root cause is much the same, like pulling up a weed but neglecting to take up the roots.

The root causes of which I am talking stem from the policies of several organizations in this country — and abroad — and the members of those organizations are often in government and are leaders of big business, and often their allegiances cross party lines, because of a dialectical policy, which is the nature of these organizations.

I will name some of the organizations of which I speak, and some names may be familiar to you: the Council on Foreign Relations, the Project for the New American Century, the Bildeburg Group, the Trilateral Commission, the Heritage Foundation.

These organizations’ primary objective is to attempt to control and direct the future of this nation and the world.

Their goal is to eventually form a one world government, a New World Order, over which they will have a direct control, or they may have an indirect control, but if so only through the same manipulative practices.

The manifestation of that goal in this nation is seen in what Greg Palast so adeptly calls “The Bush Cycle”, where we see leaders from business becoming lobbyists or even presidents and vice presidents, or secretaries of defense, and then when their term is done — or their lies are discovered and they are forced to resign — they retreat back into the business sector.

Now, at first blush, that seems fine, to augment a distinguished career in the business world with one in public service, but this is not the sum of it.

What happens is that these people will bring their industry’s concerns to their roles as head of some oversight agency or another, but that agency which they are heading seems always to be the one which provides oversight to the industry of which they had just been a part. As such, industry always gets its way.

Then when they retreat back into the shadows of the world of big business they are rewarded handsomely for providing taxpayer-funded windfalls to that industry.

Now, why this mechanism happens to be the vehicle for control in this nation is because of the nature of corporations in the United States.

The laws in this nation are largely written by corporations, for corporations, and at the expense of the public and the resources of the public, with the blessing of the judiciary.

There is legally no liability of a corporation to the public at large, but only a responsibility to the stockholders to maintain the highest return possible to those investors.

Corporations are neither required to recognize any externalities which may figure into their computations on how to maximize their profits, nor are they required to work for the public good.

In fact, corporations are essentially required to do neither of these things in order to keep the profits up for shareholders.

What a quandry.

Some people consider this to be a “Culture of Greed” which started in the 1980s under president Ronald Reagan, but it goes much further back.

Please see the Timeline of Personhood Rights and Powers for detailed information on this subject.

Corporations used to be chartered for a specific, time-defined purpose, for a particular common good which was spelled out in their charter, and would dissove after that.

Nowadays, corporations are global in scale, timeless in scope, and We the People seem to be getting more powerless against their collective will, all with the help of the judiciary, but mostly the Supreme Court.

This is why we see that this so-called “Culture of Greed” has manifestations in all areas of corporate malfeasence, namely: the mortgage and housing crises, global outsourcinng and national job level migration to the service sector, the health care crisis, the worsening quality fo good and particularly toys, environmental destruction and climate change — or if you prefer — Global Warming, the skyrocketing prices of oil and gas, and the total lack of development of alternative energies in this nation to name only a few.

Furthermore, this influx of corporate leaders into the highest echelons of government has produced: all of the wars and secrecy surrounding those wars, spying on the people of these United States of America, massive constitutional subversion and an extreme rise in power of the executive branch of the federal government, the absence of any meaningful campaign finance reform or restrictions on lobbyists, and massive, massive foreign policy errors which have the potential to set our nation back for years before those errors are healed.

When I am elected, I will call on all of us to teach and or require that corporations begin and continue to act responsibly toward the people of this nation and toward the resources of the people of this nation.

We can do this if we are determined and we act as if we are even more determined.

Let us all vote for Michael Oatman on election day 2008 and let us all Take The Power Back!

Thank You,
Michael Oatman

————–

Michael Oatman For President of
these united States of America!
Blog: http://blog.MichaelOatman.com/
Website: http://2008.MichaelOatman.com/
MySpace: http://ms.MichaelOatman.com/
Take The Power Back!

Cathi Herrod, Esq.,
Jennifer Clark
The Center for Arizona Policy
7227 North 16th Street
Suite 250
Phoenix, AZ 85020

11 January 2008

Dear Cathy and Jennifer,

I received your 2008 Survey Questions given to the 2008 Presidential Candidates (which was postmarked on 01/08/2008, by the way). After reading through the questionnaire, I felt that it was necessary to qualify and/or expand on some of my answers to your survey questions, given the leading phrasings of most of the questions.

Therefore, I am submitting my full text answers to all of your survey questions, since I believe they are deserving of answers more descriptive than a simple scale of “support” to “oppose”. I will also be posting my answers on my own website (http://2008.MichaelOatman.com/) so that there is no confusion as to exactly how these questions were answered by myself. When you “inform citizens of [my] positions on key issues”, I would consider it to be deceptive to those citizens if you do not include the full text of my responses which are given in this letter (and fax).

My answers are as follows to the survey questions, as numbered in your survey:

1. School Choice.
Parents should be able to earmark money from their taxes owed to the federal government to enhance the quality of their local public schools (in their district). If parents wish to home school, or send their children to a private school, that would be their independent choice. I would support a tax write-off for parents buying books and other school supplies when their children do not attend a public school. I believe it is beyond the scope of the responsibilities of the federal government to support private and particularly parochial/religious schools beyond the bounds of the current level of support.

2. Stem Cell Research.
With the advent of stem cell development using blastomeres (see NY Times, 23 August 2006, Science Section) it is no longer necessary to use embryonic cells to develop stem cells. Therefore, since using the embryonic method destroys the embryo, which I *DO NOT SUPPORT* doing, and the blastomere method does not destroy the embryo, I do support using *ONLY* the blastomere method of stem cell harvesting.

3. Marriage.
I am a strict constitutionalist and would not support adding an amendment to the constitution which involves an area in which the federal government has no business involving itself. Exactly how marriage is defined is up to the church, and not to the state.

4. Abortion.
In the words of Donna Edna Shalala, a person whom I do admire, “abortion should be safe, legal and rare”. I do not believe it is necessary to perform abortions at all (except in the cases of incest or rape, and in cases where it may severely adversely affect the health of the mother), particularly with proper and freely available family planning methods. Once these resources are in place and available for all women of child bearing age to receive, I would like to see an end to the procedure of abortion (above noted excepted), but moreover, I would like to see the federal government place much more of a priority on pre- and post-natal care, including allowed leaves of absence for pregnancy.

5. Abstinence Education.
Abstinence-Only programs have been shown time and again not to work, and in fact, to tend to have the opposite effect on teens’ behavior patterns. I would support any program which has a proven track record of preventing teenage pregnancies, particularly until marriage, and I would have those programs receive federal funds, provided they are not entwined in a religious program (I would also provide federal funds if the religious nature could be ambiguated from the pregnancy prevention nature).

6. Taxes.
I would support replacing the national tax code, as it is voluntary unless you are a federal employee. I do not think that taxing the poor does anyone any good, and therefore I would not support a flat or national sales tax (unless the flat tax was 0% below US$200K/year + COLA and something like 40% above the same). I believe there are better ways for the federal government to raise the money it needs, including spending less.

7. Gay Rights.
All citizens of these United States of America should share and enjoy the same rights. Period. No exceptions. No discrimination should exist, lest there be legal charges brought against any offending party.

8. Border Security.
Building walls on our borders (don’t forget Canada) is impractical (not to mention physically passable) at best and an environmental catastrophe waiting to happen at worst. I would support placing sensors along all of our borders, much like is done on Nellis Air Force Range’s S4 and S5 regions, but only in the short term. In order to secure our nation, we must improve upon our foreign policy, and particularly become an active participant in the economic development of the nation of Mexico and other Central American nations, so as to prevent the need for the mass migration which is presently and has been occurring. Without the millions of immigrants passing across our borders who only want jobs and a brighter future, it will make spotting those who wish to do us any harm much simpler. Then again, pulling our bases out of Mecca and Medina will also accomplish much in the way of reducing the number of people in the world who wish to do us harm.

9. Immigration.
Tax law reform, economic reform and foreign policy reform (see answer #8) also have to happen before true border security can be accomplished. If so many people per annum wish to become peoples of these United States of America, we ought to recognize this and eliminate the 18-or-so-year waiting list by allowing all of the current and the would-be entrants a legal path to citizenship.

10. Iraq War.
We need to first restore the world’s confidence in this nation in terms of its efforts to fulfill in good faith the policy objectives of all nations. This will take a great deal of legwork, no thanks to the current resident and his band of neoconservative hate-mongering iconoclasts. This will be basically top priority in my administration, since we should have brought the troops home about four years ago, after being in Afghanistan, and never in Iraq to begin. As soon as a diplomatic solution can be reached (read: we will need to force a solution by March 2009 should none be reached sooner), we should remove 100% of our current military forces. Note that I spoke not of our private military (Blackwater, etc.), which may stay at the sole behest of the Iraqi government, and without federal support.

11. Judicial System.
I’m not quite sure why this question is included; federal judges do not use other countries’ current laws to interpret our laws. If you are referring to the Magna Carta, etc., that is already part of the laws of the United States. If you are referring to treaties, there are a few which, for brevity, I do not entirely support (Geneva Conventions is not one of them), but those too are laws of the United States. I support the United States law of the Posse Comitatus Act.

12. Gun Laws.
Of course I support requiring a waiting period for gun purchases, even at gun shows. This question is the only one which I would actually circle “SS” on the form which you have provided, with no caveats. To allow anyone to possibly immediately purchase a gun for use in the heat of anger is a recipe for disaster, and does not impinge upon the Second Amendment. Further restrictions on the use of guns (except requiring that a civilian who carries a gun must be over the age of 21 or be in the immediate presence of a parent/relative/guardian over the age of 21, and either way must have passed a federal gun safety test prior to carrying the gun), are where I would have to give the issue more consideration.

13. Health Care.
This nation should have a single payer system, but it may be possible to incorporate a two tier option into that system. Whichever entity, public or private, produces the most benefit to the users of health care should be the entity which is selected as the single payer. Right now this is looking like the federal government, but with the proper corporation reforms in place, HMOs might not exist solely to make money for their stockholders, and may be able to actually serve the needs of their heals care clients. This is really the crux of the issue, some would say “corporate greed” but it is actually the way corporations are defined within the laws of these United States of America. I would consider it a top priority to reform those laws regarding the behavior of corporations with regard to having the profits of the shareholders being the single motivating factor where all externalities and harm to the people of this nation be damned. This would actually solve quite a few problems, most of which you have not mentioned in your questionnaire, like the mortgage crisis and housing industry, environmental destruction, global outsourcing and job level migration, poor product quality, skyrocketing oil and gas prices, and the lack of development of alternative energies to name just a few.

14. Environment.
With Bali and subsequent conferences on Global Warming / Climate Change (which *IS* a reality) obsoleting the Kyoto protocols, it is, as they say, too little and too late to sign on to Kyoto. We must, and I repeat *MUST*, as a nation, curb our insatiable appetite for carbon emitting energies and immediately develop carbon-neutral and better yet, carbon-negative methods of energy production. So far I support only solar, wind, hydrogen fuel cell (*ONLY* when one uses solar powered electrolysis to produce point-of-consumption hydrogen), and wave action energy technologies as viable and carbon-neutral. Short of actual carbon sequestration, I have not found any carbon-neutral technologies which I would endorse. We as a nation of industry must pledge our support to developing more carbon-negative technologies in the immediate future and we must mandate the cessation of use of all carbon-positive technologies by the end of my first three years in office.

Thank you for your interest in printing my responses.
I hope your publication goes well.

Sincerely,

Michael Oatman

————–

Michael Oatman For President of
these united States of America!
Blog: http://blog.MichaelOatman.com/
Website: http://2008.MichaelOatman.com/
MySpace: http://ms.MichaelOatman.com/

Hello Everyone,

Today, I’d like to address an issue which I believe should be first and foremost in addressing: the economy of this nation.

Furthermore, I’d like to talk about one of those things which economists talk about almost in taboo terms, externalities. These are things which most industry planners as well as economists largely ignore, for the simple fact that it becomes someone else’s problem. For example, to most in industry, THE ENTIRE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT is an externality. Pollution is as well to these types. To them, externalities are anything whose actual cost is unknown and which does not immediately affect the bottom line for the enterprise.

Of course, I’m writing about Global Warming, air and water pollution, and food chain contaimination, primarily and amongst a myriad of other problems brought on by this tunnel vision.

But what I’m really about to write is how I believe we can satisfy our economic needs without slowly killing our collective selves, and while simultaneously dramatically improving the middle class job sector. This is how we can end our energy dependence, save our environment and produce lots of jobs (and not even in the service sector!).

It is indisputable that we need to end our reliance on *ANY* foreign oil, be it from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran or Venezuela. The cost of a barrel of oil being roughly $100 whereas seven years ago it was barely $25 (and our resulting gas and heating oil price jumps) is not only a result of the current administration’s global policies and attempts at empire, but also as a result of rapidly growing demand, particularly in China and India. We do not need to be competing for this resource any longer.

This nation is already becoming a global supplier of wind energy, and it has long been in the forefront of producing solar energy. We now need to do more. Much more.

We can, and if you elect me on Tuesday, the 4th of November 2008, we will convert at least 80 percent of our overall national energy reliance to solar, wind, and other renewable and non-polluting energies. These are all systems which have no or little of those pesky things called externalities.

If this requires converting our entire fleet of personal and corporate commuter cars and trucks, then so be it. If this requires shutting down coal burning plants and converting them to atmospheric carbon scrubbers, then so be it. If this requires this nation to sign on to an international treaty whose sole effect is to reduce the amount of carbon produced into the atmosphere from all nations globally, then so be it.

Making these changes will go a good deal of the way toward balancing our carbon output with what this planet can handle naturally, effectively reducing our “carbon footprint” to zero. Making these same changes will also produce thousands if not hundreds of thousands of jobs, or more; and not just regular service industry jobs, which are the type which are cited by the current administration when it refers to “posted national job gains”, but well paying, unionized, secure positions in an ever-growing new vital industry.

And we won’t be addicted to foreign oil.

Now, the other problem is that corporations which operate in this nation and who employ skilled and semi skilled labor have been, since the advent of GATT and particularly NAFTA, outscourcing their operations to overseas branches of that corporation or to similar industries, located most recently in China, India and Indonesia (to name only a few). Corporations which wish to continue to do business as being based in this nation, or at least ones which do not wish to be taxed heavily, under my administration when you vote in this November election, will not be permitted to perform these, or any other, types of outsourcing of skilled or semi skilled labor.

When I named TR — Theodore Roosevelt — as my most respected president in the history of this nation, I was refering in part to his own handling of corporations which have run amok with power over and abuses toward the national labor force. It is most worthy of note that TR did *NOT* simply hit all the corporations with a “big stick” but used anti-monoply laws fairly and judiciously to alleviate the problems caused by the worst offenders and as a result, bring others into line.

It will take something akin to his deft manouvering just over one hundred years ago to bring about similar change in this country and beyond, for labor and jobs, for our energy for our future, and for our planet for all of us.

Thank You Everyone,
Michael Oatman

oatman@geocities.com
http://blog.MichaelOatman.com/
http://MySpace.MichaelOatman.com/

Hi Everybody,

Would anyone like to be on Access Tucson 
this Saturday 19 January for an episode 
titled "The Presidential Preference Election 
Special"?

I will be interviewing candidates, and 
stating my own positions, on my TV show,
Illegal Knowledge.

The show runs from 9PM to 9:50PM this coming 
Saturday.  If you are interested in appearing, 
please reply to this email (preferably) or 
just show up at the Access Tucson Studio 
(124 East Broadway in downtown Tucson -- 
just Southeast of 6th and B'way) around 8PM.  

Regardless, please arrive no later than 
8:30PM so everything can be coordinated 
properly.  Sorry for the short notice.

The show Illegal Knowledge is a live call-in 
talk show, hosted by myself, Michael Oatman.  

We will discuss our positions and take calls
from the audience.

NOTE TO JIM NINTZEL: Jim, if you would like 
to come also, you could have the position of
moderator/host.

Thanks in advance for your interest,
Michael Oatman

Michael Oatman For President of
these united States of America!
Blog: http://blog.MichaelOatman.com/
Website: http://2008.MichaelOatman.com/
MySpace: http://ms.MichaelOatman.com/
Take The Power Back!

Please allow me to introduce myself; my name is Michael Oatman and I am seeking nomination as a candidate for the office of President of the United States of America from the Democratic Party.

I am submitting my Candidate Nomination Paper via the Tucson Weekly for the Arizona Presidential Preference Election to be held on the 5th day of February 2008.

Before I begin to write about my platform, I would like to tell you how I came to be running for President. It was in the early Reagan years when I was in grade school, learning civics, that I did the math and figured that I would be just old enough to be able to run for president, then far off in 2008. I have since considered it to be a civic duty, an avocation if you will, and have spoken of the possibility on rather many occasions to a great number of people throughout the years. My friends would sit around and debate (hypothetically) who would get which cabinet position.

So when I turned 35 last March 10th and started talking about getting 250 people together who could each find one thousand individuals who were willing to donate $1000 to my campaign, no one was much surprised. But when the Tucson Weekly put forth their 22 November 2007 issue with the “Project White House” cover story, I said immediately “okay, I said I was running, so now I’m definitely doing it if they’re just going to throw it in my face”. And with that, here it is. A nice story, but let’s get to the meat of things.

Now, I would like to tell you a little about my platform. Actually, unlike just about every candidate who is currently running for president, I would like to describe fully (to a practical extent) the platform upon which I will be running for the office of President of the United States of America.

We all have heard the push-button issues about which the current candidates have made their televised sound bites: the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; universal health care; reduced deficit, and particularly debt; middle class job sector improvement; a federal executive trashing the Bill of Rights and the Constitution; the border and migration issues; the failing housing market and economy; and many more. Then, there are the usual suspects like gun control, abortion and gay marriage. In a moment, I will address all of these issues.

However, I think it is important for all of us to step back and look at the whole of things, “the big picture” so to speak. These issues, while debating and discussing them is extremely important when finding a solution, they have tended to do more harm to the peoples of this country, at least in their attitudes toward one another.

While it may not be as bad as in 2004, mostly because nearly everyone wants to end the war in Iraq very soon, when we talk about immigration, about recruiting in schools or in general, or about when and where are the most appropriate times to protest, we can see that we are becoming increasingly intolerant to what we consider “the other side”, when usually there are always shades of grey.

I think that the Peoples of the several States of these united States of America ought to truly and finally set aside their differences and do come together in order to be completely themselves. It would be a marvelous day when we can all say that we fully know who we are, and who each other are, and have understanding and show respect for this; this which is not exactly the current state of affairs.

With that said, I would like to say a little about myself. I consider myself to be, first and foremost, a logician. My profession is a computer scientist, or an “IT Guy”. The way I approach problem solving is with the goal of *actually solving the problem* rather than giving lip service to some group or a sound bite or two to the media. When the latter is done by politicians, the goal is not to necessarily *do* anything about the issue, but rather simply to quell the populace, or a particular group; to spin the media so that the issue becomes a “non-issue” is the immediate goal of this rationale. I employ no such rationale.

I would also like to mention that I currently host and produce a television show entitled “Illegal Knowledge” (http://IllegalKnowledge.com/) on the local public access stations, Access Tucson (http://access.tucson.org/). The show’s tagline is “Everything we should have known, but were never supposed to find out”, and the issues in this season, season two, have ranged from the Question of the Middle East, to 9/11 Revisited, to Media and Corporatism, to A Discussion of Non-Valuation, and even featured an Election Special with Proposition 200 author John Kromko as guest. I am keenly aware of the subtleties of the global events happening today, and I will not hesitate to bring that knowledge to my Administration.

Let us now go onward and discuss various specific issues relating to topics of today. I am and will be always open to input from the People of this Nation, and I currently will make my email address available for this purpose; it is oatman@geocities.com and all who wish may write to me there, or to Post Office Box 304, in Tucson, Arizona, 85702, for those of you who prefer snail mail (parcels will not be accepted). If anyone emails me with generally important issues, they will also be answered on my blog at Yahoo 360 (http://360.yahoo.com/illegalknowledge). I will first state that I am generally, although not without exception, socially left-leaning and fiscally conservative.

In the arenas of health care, jobs and housing, I would like to side fully with the bulk of the People who are disaffected as a result of this administration’s policies. We must support the People who support this Nation, and we can do that by providing full and free health care, tax heavily corporations who wish to outsource jobs overseas (if not prevent it outright), and work with home builders to create a glut of affordable and decent housing, while keeping interest rates low. More on exactly how to accomplish this will appear on my blog in the near future.

In issues of federal and executive importance, I strongly believe in the efficacy of our Constitution and give myself as a strict constructionist if not an originalist; that is I will use the executive to interpret the Constitution in its original meaning, with emphasis given to the Articles and Amendments themselves. This means I will roll back all domestic spying and the myriad of other executive abuses perpetrated by the current administration, I will work to end the deficit *AND* debt, partially by bringing to and end by political means the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and wherever else by the end of Bush’s term).

I will write much more on these and many issues later, but for now I will ask all of you this: where would you like to see this Nation be in five years?

I look forward to representing We the People of these United States of America in the next general election in 2008. This is now the time to register to vote and, most certainly, to vote for me, Michael Oatman, on election day, Tuesday 4 November 2008, and I thank you well in advance for your vote that day.

Sincerely,
Michael Oatman

oatman@geocities.com
http://blog.MichaelOatman.com/
http://MySpace.MichaelOatman.com/

Contact Info:

• My email address is oatman@geocities.com
• My mailing address is:
  PO Box 304
  Tucson, Arizona. 85702-0304

Please send email if you would like me to answer a particular issue very quickly. I apologize for the informality, but I can type rather quickly being a computer guy by profession, and therefore I can answer much more mail this way.

Please send regular mail if you need to mail in a campaign donation or any other type of contribution to my campaign. Sending anything but flat parcels or regular envelopes is *VERY* highly discouraged by the post office and myself.

Thank You Everyone,
Michael Oatman

oatman@geocities.com
http://blog.MichaelOatman.com/
http://MySpace.MichaelOatman.com/