Dr Kent’s Blog

Bull Shit!

Dear Senator—

Have you ever thought “the root cause,” real cause of the financial crisis is the Federal Reserve System?

No, of course not!

Because you are a sycophant, a lackey.

Who remains uneducated.

Dare we call your wonderful message treason?  Treason to the very document you swore upon oath to defend?  Are you a traitor to the American Way?  To true Freedom?  And the Constitution?

I say YES!

Until we get traitors, lackeys and stupid people like you out of office we haven’t a hope as a people.

Read, Senator, read.  Educate yourself. And get your head out of your ass before you and your ilk reduce US to foreign invasion!

Read the books I recommend beginning with these three:

http://drkentshow.com/wordpress/?p=20

Straight forward,

Dr. Kent

From: Senator_Merkley@Merkley.senate.gov [mailto:Senator_Merkley@Merkley.senate.gov]
Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2009 12:24 PM
To: DrJohnTaylorKent@cox.net
Subject: Thank you for sharing your views

Dear Friend,

Thank you for contacting me to share your views.  The views of Oregonians are very important to my work in the U.S. Senate, and I appreciate your patience in my response. 

Since I was sworn in as a United States Senator on January 6, 2009, I have been actively engaged in my Senate duties and pursuing a legislative agenda, while setting up an office, hiring staff, and establishing a system for communicating with my constituents. I am pleased that my office operations are now fully in place.  But I regret that during these initial months, I was not able to respond directly to all of the letters, emails and faxes I have received.  I have, however, reviewed daily the content of these messages.  Thank you so much for sharing your views. 

Here are some of the issues I have been working on during the last four and a half months.

Without question, the greatest challenge facing our country is the faltering economy. More than 13 million Americans are currently unemployed, and the number continues to grow each week.  In Oregon, our unemployment rate has risen a full percentage point every month for the last four months and now exceeds 12 percent.  While we cannot put America back to work overnight, we must meet this economic crisis head-on by creating jobs, investing in our infrastructure, and helping states avoid disastrous cuts and layoffs. 

I worked with President Obama and my congressional colleagues to enact the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). This legislation creates jobs now – more than 44,000 in Oregon alone – by investing in our nation’s transportation infrastructure, promoting the development and production of renewable energy, and modernizing our schools and repairing public buildings. This legislation puts money back in the pockets of working families by providing tax cuts for 95 percent of workers and their families, including a tax credit of $400 per person and $800 per couple for most working Americans. 

As a member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, I am working closely with my colleagues to end the abusive and reckless Wall Street practices that crippled our financial system. We must also ensure vigorous congressional oversight and tough limits on inappropriate and excessive executive compensation for firms recapitalized with government assistance. 

We must also take action to address the root cause of our financial crisis, the housing market. I know how hard Oregon families are hit by the mortgage crisis, and I am committed to supporting legislation that protects borrowers, reduces foreclosures, and helps to keep people in their homes. Recently, I introduced two major reforms. The Transparency for Homeowners Act would ban steering payments, which are kickbacks paid to brokers to place unsuspecting homeowners into high-cost and destructive loans. The Promoting Mortgage Responsibility Act would prohibit the use of prepayment penalties – a practice that can lock homeowners into exploitive high-interest loans. I have been asked by Senator Chris Dodd, head of the Senate Banking Committee, to chair a hearing on these predatory practices later this year.

Another huge challenge is fixing our broken health care system.  I was pleased to be assigned to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), which will play a key role in drafting health care reform legislation. One of my first votes was to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).  The expansion of SCHIP, which was signed into law by President Obama on January 30, 2009, will provide health care coverage to about 42,000 additional children in Oregon. But with over 47 million Americans currently without health insurance and the continuing rising costs of health insurance straining families’ budgets and businesses’ bottom line, more needs to be done. I will work tenaciously with my colleagues on the HELP Committee to secure affordable and accessible health care for every single American.

As you may know, protecting our environment ranks high among my legislative priorities. I am proud to have cast my first vote in the Senate in support for the passage of the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009. This legislation, which was recently signed into law, designated approximately two million acres across the country as Wilderness, including nearly 200,000 acres in Oregon. Protecting these special places not only conserves wildlife habitat; it also protects sources of clean water for many Oregonians and creates jobs in the tourism and recreation industries. 

In addition, I am working hard to promote the development of clean and renewable energy. Indeed, converting our economy to run on clean energy is one of the most pressing challenges our nation faces.  As a member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, I am helping to help draft comprehensive energy legislation to strengthen national security, create jobs, and take on global warming. It is essential to our national security that we end our dependence on foreign oil, to our economic future that the next generation of clean energy jobs be created here at home, and to our environment that we limit the pollution that is causing global warming. We are already seeing the effects of global warming in Oregon, where scientists have measured shrinking snowpack in the Cascades, which threatens reduced river flows for farm irrigation, salmon migration, and hydropower generation.

Finally, I am fighting aggressively for much-needed credit card reform.  Many Oregonians are getting slapped with unfair credit card penalties and fees – at any moment their interest rates go sky high for no reason at all.  I cosponsored legislation, the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act, which will tighten the rules to end such deceptive and unfair practices in the credit card industry. I am pleased we passed this landmark consumer protection bill out of committee, and I look forward to getting it to the President’s desk soon. 

If you would like to know more about my work in the Senate and positions on other important topics, please go to my recently launched website, http://merkley.senate.gov/, to sign up for my e-newsletter updates or to email me directly about issues that matter most to you. 

Thank you, again, for taking the time to contact me.  It is an honor to serve as your Senator, and if I have not appropriately addressed your concerns in this response, please share your views again.

All my best,

Jeff Merkley
United States Senate