In Memory of Emily Keyes

Random acts of kindness
“In memory of Emily we would like everyone to go out and do random acts of kindness, random acts of love to your friends or your neighbors or your fellow students because there is no way to make sense of this,” Gonzalez said. “It’s what Emily would have wanted.”

Very well said if you ask me. What an excellent approach to a meaningful memorial.

Emily was fatally shot Wednesday in a Bailey, Colorado high school.

Our sympathy is with her family and others involved in this senseless tragedy.

I am off to perform random acts of kindness, in memory of someone I have never met.

TDK

The James Hill Interview

JAMES HILL FOR CONGRESS
What does Iowa have that the other 49 states don't have? A man like James Hill running for congress, that’s what. Read this nearly 6 page interview done recently with Candidate Hill and find out why he is so different.
-TDK

TDK: Well Mr. Hill, it is obvious that you feel our government and the elected officials are corrupt. I am sure there are many others who share your views. Here is a quote from your site. “Ideas for laws can be submitted with out taking a congressman to dinner.” Does that mean that you would never discuss a new law over dinner?

Candidate Hill: In put from experts, constituents, people affected by legislation for better or worse can be picked up just as well in a mans office during work hours. I am very serious about exposing the abuse of public trust that’s traded for these free meals and “fact finding vacations” our legislators enjoy.

TDK: Well I what I mean is, people are not likely to forget that kind of statement. Especially when followed by a comment like this. “Our government can function with out a city full of lawyers whose only job is to bribe elected officials. This is again a problem of both parties.” Do you feel that brutal honesty can win an election?

Candidate Hill: Honesty has to win out eventually. I think it was Ronald Reagan’s quote about having to “lie if it is in your best interest”, well when you only seek out outcomes that are in “your best interest” you’ll end up lying quite a bit. That’s less of a knock on Dutch than it is a problem with our general attitudes. No one wants to fess up and take their lumps anymore. The parties especially need to look at how they operate and to what end. Remember they take in a lot of private money but a lot of tax money also supports the party structure so we deserve some control over them. Both of them.

TDK: Once elected, what next? I mean have you researched at any level what congressmen do?

Candidate Hill: I remember enough of government class to be able to function. The legislature is a body that enacts rules and guidelines, appropriates money for projects among other things. I am perfectly capable of working in a group towards any common good. Do you think I will have any friends in there with my attitude of ending the gravy train? Would any one of the sitting legislators work with me? If they wouldn’t it will only be more proof of just how addicted they are to the money.

TDK: Of course you will not please everyone. This will make you the black sheep. I mean campaigning without financial backing and being frank and honest. Does that bother you?

Candidate Hill: You can not take donations and work effectively, it contradicts human nature. When you rely on contributions to win you are going to take special care of the donors. I think voters are ready to take a chance and send DC a message by electing the guy that spends the least money campaigning and owes no debts to contributors.

TDK: Is there a possibility that even if you are elected that by being out numbered that all your efforts may go in vain?

Candidate Hill: My ability to run bills through will be hog tied I am sure. Or that is until I start posting details of the inner workings and back door deals. Nothing that would violate confidentiality of course but right now they call everything secret while we sit on the outside wondering what the people who are supposed to be our servants are up to. I only want two years of holding the magnifying glass over the Congress. It’s asking a sacrifice by my constituents for a greater good for all of the country.

TDK: I myself feel that any elected official (as a candidate) should receive a certain amount “air time” each, maybe even it should be free. I would say they can select the program in which during it airs, in a window of prime time hours. This could trickle down form presidency / national to congressman / local. What do you feel about that idea? To put everyone on the same playing field so to speak?

Candidate Hill: Definitely, the networks will whine like little bitches but remember, they will still be making huge profits with out election money. Set up a really good public access channel and let all candidates have equal time. If we are not willing to fund it then we deserve what we get. A volunteer body could be rounded up to check the facts in the ads. Candidates would lose air time for saying anything they can’t substantiate.

TDK: Pro life, yes I am too. Only in the sense that I was born less than a month before my mother turned 16, more like I am glad my mother was pro life. You bring up very good points about the number of babies that would be born each year without them 400 per day (OUCH) and the most impressive point. Instead of arguing about how to react to a pregnancy, let’s talk more about prevention. Eliminating unwanted pregnancy is the bet way to resolve the abortion issue Correct?
Would you take on an issue this controversial? Even organize the proposed need of more or better education and birth control.

Candidate Hill: I am pro living as I have stated. I can not believe that there is more compassion for a freezer full of eggs than there is for living breathing children on the lower end of the social spectrum in this country. Abortion is a terrible reality but I would never see Roe vs. Wade overturned without a very good safety net for kids who will be born without much love right from the start. It is the part of the issue no one addresses out loud.

TDK: What about drug addicted mothers who become baby factory trading sex for drugs? Who have many unwanted pregnancies and babies born addicted to drug(s). Some feel that women like this should be “fixed” so they can not bear children anymore. Your thoughts?

Candidate Hill: If you are a dude that has fathered or a woman that has more than three children you can not or will not care for, you should be paid a sum of money to under go some sort of sterilization process. I feel cruel even saying it but in the long run it would free up money to give the first three kids better schools and fund social support networks. Remember one smooth talking dead beat can father a hell of a lot of children, whether he intends to support them or not.

Franny: Do you have any views on HR 4411 internet gambling ban?

Candidate Hill: The big down fall I see with internet gambling is allowing the use of credit cards. I think any gambling should be in the casino or at a betting parlor or track with cash in hand. I do not know if any one has done a study on the numbers but I want to know how much of our dangerously high consumer debt is run up by betting money a person does not have.

Franny: Did you know that? There are exceptions to the proposed ban for betting on horse racing (special interests) but an individual can not play poker online. Does this raise or change your interest?

Candidate Hill: I have a sentimental attachment to the ponies but I do not think broadcasting races onto every PC in the world is the right thing to do. In the long run we would all lose. As far as live on the spot betting I prefer the horses because the industry creates more support jobs than casinos and it takes longer to lose money.

TDK: This country was founded as “One Nation Under GOD”, do you feel that it is about time we get back to that?
I mean we bend over backwards to please everyone who comes here, even illegal aliens. Isn’t it time that we take this country back to what it was built on and those who come here can accept the country for what it is, not change it to what their country was back home.

Candidate Hill: A person can respect God without proclaiming it every morning and a person can hear the phrase under God without suffering harm. I feel like this is a major distraction issue to keep us divided while we get robbed. I would leave the words in the pledge of allegiance simply because it does not hurt any one enough to invest the resources to remove it. Whatever your feelings on religion, in the end it will be your actions not you rhetoric that count. Religious fervor has been used to justify horrific atrocities in the past. Can our society use God’s word to instill a sense of right and wrong with out it becoming a club to beat those whose beliefs we don’t agree with?

TDK: Health care issues. A poor child versus a wealthy vegetable, who is going to be attended to, Any American, can answer that. How can we straighten this mess out? Like Canada, free health care, but it isn’t cheap to drink or smoke there. Back to the question, do you have any health care ideas?

Candidate Hill: Get your living will done now! I will take a bullet over a feeding tube any day. More people need to look at the Schiavo case and ask themselves; what if that was me? Make your decision now and get it notarized so the rest of us do not have to witness a sick spectacle like that again. Health care reform has to start with providers of care and coverage. What will they live without so it becomes more affordable? The question applies to insurance company CEO’s, shareholder’s, doctors, research scientist’s even hospital janitors. How rich should someone get of other people’s misery? There is a moral side to this issue that is ignored.

TDK: Views on Terrorism?

Candidate Hill: At this stage the public has no real perspective of the terror threat. I know I keep coming back to it but the money from the pro Israel lobbies and defense industry donors relies on a murky picture of what is really happening in the Middle East. We the people deserve to know these things to a point of risking operations. Right now everything is just “classified” to keep us guessing and letting our Congress and President spend, spend, spend. One thing we do need in the military effort is stronger enlistment incentives. We are beating the same units in to the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan and it is not fair. The Iraq operation has been a useless waste of human life from the beginning. Despite that view I am not going to get so hung up by it that I will see a single serviceman denied the support and care they have earned up on returning home no matter how much it costs. I still want to see the Neo Cons take over fighting the Iraq operation with mercenaries paid out of their own bank accounts. Bill Kristol wants a war with Iran so let’s give him an M16 and send him over their border.

TDK: Right to bear arms. This right is constantly challenged I do not like guns myself. But I feel taking the right for others to have them does not make me feel any safer. Registered gun owners are typically not the threat that protestors scream about. It is the stolen guns, or guns sold on the black market, and as some movies suggest guns sold by high ranking military officials. What is your view on gun control?

Candidate Hill: I do not own a gun but my son does. When he is old enough his uncle or my friends will teach him to hunt responsibly and have a healthy respect for fire arms. Gun ownership is a constitutional right so let’s not screw with it. If these heady times have taught us anything it is that we had better work for the preservation of the constitution and the rights granted by it. A low unemployment rate and good wages are still the best deterrent to gun or any crimes anyway.

TDK: I know you have mentioned that putting your personal life out, in the public eye for everyone to scrutinize. I suppose you might or may of already heard things like, he is just a drunk hillbilly. What do you say to those people? I mean you have basically named some of your own obvious faults.

Candidate Hill: Alcoholic Hillbilly, you mean! It is painful to wear my faults on my sleeve but it is my way of showing I will make real sacrifices to serve my district. The campaign also holds the voters to a higher standard, it asks them to look past the usual campaign fluff and identify with the candidate instead of any pre packaged image. Basically my whole intention when I decided to run was to make people think about our democratic process. The campaign style also puts my family through more stress than that of the average candidate, they don’t really like it but they understand the necessity for a campaign like this.

TDK: Do you think, anyone would try to harm or scare you out of the political race? Have you received any hate mail?

Candidate Hill: No hate mail, unless you count an offer of oral sex as vindictive! I am honored by the almost unanimously positive number of messages I have received. As for any fears, mine are of doing something really stupid more than someone doing something stupid to me!

TDK: Name the 5 most important issues of your campaign.

Candidate Hill:
1. Legislative Reform by:
a. Dismantling the lobbying industry.
b. Making the congress work year round so fewer amendments are necessary.
c. Making the campaign process transparent and fair.
d. Holding Politicos (including my self) accountable for indiscretions through asset seizure and jail time.
e. Enforce no payback rules after people leave office also. The Congress was not intended to create millionaires; it is supposed to be a body of public servants. If you want to get rich, stay in the private sector and work.

2. Social Security:
a. We can shore it up by putting our elected officials back onto it and cut their fat retirement entitlement.

3. Military:
a. We have to rely less on contractors so soldiers are in charge again.
b. Real auditing of spending. Throwing money at the military does not necessarily make stronger if the money is not used right.
c. Real concern for veterans. If a soldier comes back from a war with a wound or a head problem we pay them a wage as long as it takes for them to get better, not because it is cheap but because we owe them that.

4. Taxes:
a. Instead of seeing funding as an evil see it as a necessary evil to pass a stronger Republic to our children.
b. Get the money spent right by getting special interest lawyers and lobby representatives out of the committee meetings in the capitol.

5. Life quality:
a. Corporations must be taught responsibility. When we were railing in the eighties for less regulation we forgot that oversight and fair practice would go away with them. No company or person gets government money unless it has a firm plan to reinvest it in our people.
b. Keep an eye to the future. This war like all others will end and we will miss the rights we traded away for short term safety.
c. Fair treatment of workers. By employers
d. Fair treatment of employers. By employees

TDK: Are you prepared to be the ear of Iowa, you listen to what the people of Iowa have to say and react as their voice, the people’s voice. Can you really do that?

Candidate Hill: If they like my message and elect me that is exactly what I’ll be. Like I mentioned earlier it will be a sacrifice by this district to send a message. If I can fight for anything for my district it will be real renewable fuel incentives. Reward conservation also. Since I accept no oil corporation money personally or through any party or political action committee I feel I am the only candidate that can work for Bio Fuels with out one hand tied behind my back. My constituents will of course also gain the pride of having tried to enforce a real and fair change to their democracy by taking a chance on a guy like me.

TDK: Name something that you have in common with most of the world?
What makes you normal?

Candidate Hill: Right now I think there is a feeling among many of detachment and helplessness while the world spins out of control around us. I think it is time we grab the wheel.

TDK: What makes you different from the rest of the world?
Yeah what, about you, would make people say Freak?

Candidate Hill: The perception that what other people think is paramount to my existence. I don’t mean a lack of respect for others I mean selling out ideals or not doing what is right, to bolster ones image in the eyes of society. The idea that there are worse things to do than die poor freaks some people out too.

TDK: Dwyer and Michaels of Q106.5 www.2dorks.com in the quad cities want to get the word driver changed to driver’s on the Iowa state driver’s license. They say that is only more cause for people to make fun of the state of Iowa. Like the Acronym: Idiots Out Wondering Around. You know that things as minor as this will pop up as well.

Candidate Hill: The wording on your driver’s license doesn’t make us look stupid, electing superficial, power hungry and greedy Congressmen does. I like D&M’s anti traffic camera campaign better. If I can ticket you thru your vehicle because of someone else’s actions it opens up a potentially bad precedence, then can we charge United Airlines board of directors with murder because some idiots used their planes to kill 3000 people?

FRANNY: I don’t think we live in a "absolute" democracy. I like to call it a "limited" democracy. We elect a representative based on positions and they speak for everyone whether they flip after the election or not. It doesn’t seem right. It would be nice to have all individuals vote on a bill and majority rules.

TDK: What would you say to that? There are so many people that even if a elected official stays true to his public, his vote is actually as clear as mud, but counts as if it were black, and white.

Candidate Hill: A complete majority rule is stifled some what by the bill of rights. With technology advancing your idea could become possible, if it isn’t already. We can clear up the mud by enacting my aforementioned house reforms. If we get the billions that are paid in to politicians to get legislation to benefit a few people, majority rule might become the standard anyway.

TDK: One last question. If elected, do you feel that you would come thru for your state, and make re-election much easier? Can you make Iowa a better place to live.

Candidate Hill: I would never run again but I might put my name on the ballot and see what would happen. With an uncorrupted transparent legislature an elected public servants actions would speak louder than any cheap slogans.

TDK: Thank You Mr. James Hill for your time.

Candidate Hill: I thank you for taking the time to do this interview... Best wishes.

Please visit his site: http://www.jameshillforcongress.com/ We can't link it enough!
Best of wishes to Mr. Hill, his family and his state.