Monday, 29 June 2015
Those Who Forget
They say those who forget the Past are doomed to repeat it.
Recently I got to thinking about one of the First Hate Mail Letters I recieved and a portion of it came to mind.
My reaction was
That's not right.
here it is.
This blogger is reminiscing about the past ten years of the Linn County Republican Central Committee. But where is his reality ... lost in the night sky? Buried under a rock? Fell into the toilet? He revels in the past performance of the LCRCC. Interesting because his memory is delusional, they didn't elect a single Republican.
That is certainly an extreme statement.
At First glance one might assume it is true, because after all it would be a matter of public record would it not?
Of course it is and the record of the sucess or failures of the Linn County Republican Party can be found
Here in
And when we look there we can find that what the person who on that letters return address calls themself A Real Republican claims i
Dead Wrong
For example just a little over 10 years ago we had this result in the 2004 Election
ROGER GROBSTICH DEM 8360 48.33%
KRAIG PAULSEN REP 8928 51.61%
Write-in Votes 11 0.06%
Yes our own Kraig Paulson who is now Speaker of the House was Elected.
As well as 9 other Republcans in Local Elections one of them being Mary Lundby.
In latter years other Republcans also got elected and of course Mr Paulsen continued to be re elected.
Now the question before us seems to be
Is Mr Real Republican
Forgetful
Ignorant
Has their own unique definition of the phrase "
they didn't elect a single Republican.
which would mean that they also have their own unique definition of
delusional
Or is Mr Real Republican simply Lying to create the Illution of a Truth that does not exist because they believe we are too STUPID to look up the Public Record?
It is not like the members of the LCRCC have not had that happen to them in the not so distant past.
Still I have a hard time understanding the thinking of someone who Lies about something that is in the Public Record
I mean this IS the 21st Century you can with a few clicks of your mouse pull up the Recordon your Monitor
Then I recall Mr Real Republican DID send this to me via an envelope with a Stamp on it
So maybe they are stuck in the Past
But it does seem to be a Past of their own Creation and not the one the Restof the World shares.
Thursday, 25 June 2015
We Must Destroy The Committee In Order To Save It
There once was a Central Committee that had risen from the ashes.
It had declined to the point it had to take up a collection each meeting to pay for the room.
This was required because the bank account had run dry,
Attendence had fallen drastically, Events were non productive.
And then it got NEW LEADERSHIP
Leadership that vowed to work WITH the Committee as a Partner.
Promising to always keep in mind that the Contitution put the power of decision in the hands of the Committee and not the Executives,
And it came to pass the Committee Flourished
Attendence rose some meetings had 200 or more.
There was no problem affording anything it got done,
Events were overflowing with attendence
And it was Good
And then again New Leadership arose
And he Body thought it would be a continuation of what had worked so well
But instead the Leadership followed the path that had led to empty meeting rooms and emptier bank accounts
They proclaimed that ALL decision power was vested in THEM
The Committee had given birth to sundry Sub Committees and had worked hard over a period of Years to Build them up and give them charters.
They were well attended and healthy
The New Leaders Destroyed the Work of Years
To replace them with something called Teams of their own making and controled by people of their own choosing.
As all this happened attendence plummeted the treasury declined,
The Committee was in dissarray, a large portion of it felt disenfranchised.
In a very short time everything was back to where it had been BEFORE the Golden Era of Growth
None of this happened by Accident
A Great Deal of Effort was expended to accomplish these things
What I have not been able to figure out is
WHY?
The Tax Revenue Shell Game
Recently the Iowa Conservative Union had a post on an increase of Marion's Garbage and Water Run Off Levy
This guy , wow... Last month I informed you all of the fee increases to garbage and water run off.. No explanation why ,just pay up.... At last nights work sess...
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Not exactlly riveting but the REASON for the increase I found interesting.
It would appear that First the Marion Father took a large amount of funding from that Dept and spent it on somehing else
THEN they appeared before the Public with tears that would shame a Crocodile exclaiming
Oh My God we do not have the Money for the Garbage and Water Run Off Dept
ALAS we are going to be FORCED to Raise Taxes!
It IS rather clever
Rahm Emanuel once said, "Never let a Good Crisis go to waste,"
The Marion City Fathers said
"First Create Crisis, then Reap Opportunity."
Patter for the Shell Game
A little fun, just now and then,
Is relished by the best of men.
If you have nerve, you may have plenty;
Five draws you ten, and ten draws twenty.
Attention given, I'll show to you,
How 'Umbrella' hides the peek-a-boo.
Select your shell, the one you choose;
If right, you win; if not, you lose;
The game itself is lots of fun,
Jim's chances, though, are two to one;
And I tell you your chance is slim
To win a prize from Umbrella Jim.
--"Umbrella Jim" Miner
Wednesday, 24 June 2015
Bound To The Phone Bank
For most of history and prehistory a large portion of the human race was
Bound to the Land a form of Involuntary Servitude not a whole lot different from Slavery
Attitudes from those days linger in some who have positions which give them power over others,.
Even in Volunteer Association their actions seem to be tainted by an unspoken atttitude that the volunteers are "bound" to the Task set them,
In my last post I discussed how the LCRCC MAY be getting ready to institute proportinal respresentation which will make more ( how many more is under distpute) of our members FULL members.
When you give people New Rights there is often a positive reaction.
HOWEVER I understand there may also be a move to eliminate or curtail the rights of the Assistant Committee Persons that are listed in our By Laws
II. ASSISTANT COMMITTEE PERSONS The County Central Committee shall have the power to designate and select additional members from each precinct to assist the Committee persons. They shall have the right to attend meetings and to be heard. They shall not have the right to vote, except in the absence of a Committee person form their own precinct.
They constitute about 25 percent of the members attending meetings and IMO are among the more active members doing volunteer work
It is not uncommon for someone in the Excitement of Caucus to Stand for the position of Committee Person.
Then make one or two meetings and never be heard from again.
But someone who stands before the Body in the two years between Caucuses and says "Yes I want to Join this Body and take part in its activiities"
They usually stick around and come back month after month and become involved in the SubCommittee (Team Now) activities that occur between the meetings
So if we are planning to disenfranchise almost 25% of our Body we need to be pretty sure that they do not leave as a result.
I have been led to understand that while they may no longer be allowed to vote in the meeting of the Full Body, they could still participate and vote in the Sub Committees (Teams Now)
OH DARN I just remembered that may not happen either
The Executive Board has ALREADY decided which few members are going to be allowed to vote in the teams
SORRY
But the disenfranchised former Asssistand Members will STILL be allowed to do the work
And THIS is how you motivate and keep a volunteer force?
I hope I am wrong about what is going to be presented to the Body
Because if what I described is what they push through by say
one of those tight 25 to 21 votes like the did other things?
They may end up with meetings of no more than 25 members
On the Bright side however they will have NO problem adjourning by
8:30
Tuesday, 23 June 2015
Power To The People
As the last half of the 20th Century got under way the was a drive to awaken the political consciousness of the masses.
To in a few words give
Power to the People.
There also seemed oddly enough an unspokne assumption that in turn for this boon the masses would
Do what their betters told them to do,.
After all the masses NEEDED the intelligentsia, to Guide them
It was a great shock to our self proclaimed leaders when many of the masses decided to think for themselves and make their own choices.
That lapse of appreciation by the masses has been the impetus for attempts at corrective action for the 50 or 60 years since then.
There are continual attempts to fine tune how things are done so that decisions are made by the "right" people.
The Linn County Central Committee is a csse in point.
I understand that there is a adhoc committee looking at redoing the By Laws to allow proportional representation based on the last major elections.
Johnson County has such a system.
But for some reason there is resistance to using their method
It seems that it might allow too many people to become members of the LCRCC?
That's a Problem?
Why do we have membership drives then?
The rationale is because we have contention with the small amount of members attending meetings now and they are afraid that more members, I heard a potential fo 350 or so would make this worse.
What we are seeing is what I consider faux logic based on faulty assumptions,
Yes we have right now about 40 or so voting members at meetings.
Yes we have contenion
Yes we have seen contention before.
No when we have seen contention before it was not a result of large numbers at the meetings
A few years back we had sometimes 200 + attending,.
We have 86 precincts a maxium of 172 committee persona plus assistants.
The meetings went smoothly, we had no problem paying for anything, our funtions were roaring sucesses.
What has made the difference?
Whenc might the contention come from?
Well the Committee is pretty much the same but the Leadership has changed.
You tell me.
If we go to REAL proportional representation it might be a little bit harder for those who want to control every single aspect of the LCRCC to be sucessful.
They would be smaller fish in a bigger pool
What is wrong with that?
Monday, 22 June 2015
Crawling Chaos
I had thought about making the title of this post
Personal Responsibility
That being what Republicans have always said they stand for, but in the LCRCC we have some many more willing to
Talk the Talk
than we have willing tp
Walk the Walk
That I decided to make the title more fitting to the character of the Linn County Cental Commitee these days and call it
Crawling Chaos
Now Crawling Chaos or Nyarlathotep may be one of\
the malign deities from the Lovecraftian Pantheon but it is
a good description of the Reality of the LCRCC
Let us take one example in order to prevent this post from being too lengthy.
Voting
I dare say if you ask Any Republican where they stand on Voting
You will get an oration on how important it is to protect the sanctity of the ballot box
How EVERY Decent Republican would do anything they can to prevent Illegal Voting
And ensure that everyone who does vote is legally entitled to
Unless they are members of the Linn County Central Committee
Now there WAS a time we did stand up for such things
And we insisted on Personal Responisibility if they were violated
Some of us recall a member being removed from the Body for Voting Violations,.
Not any more
A while back ballots were being passed out
Now everyone who has been attending for any length of time knows those who are credentialed to vote have a big plastic sleeve on a lanyard in which a BRIGHT LIME GREEN Credential Card is placed.
So when one of the members of the Membership and Meeting Setup Team spotted someone NOT wearing credentials sneaking a ballot under the table and hiding it,
They told another member to watch that person and if they did try to vote stop them
Which is what happened
and the consequences were
NOTHING
During May's Meeting a Credentialed Voter left the room and also left his Credentials on his table
Which they were not supposed to do.
If you leave the room the Credentials are to be turned in.
While they were gone there was a vote
And someone sitting at their table
Held up both their own credentials and the ones left on the table
First you do not get to vote for others and
Second you do not get to vote twice
They were caught Red Handed or maybe more appropriately
Bight Lime Green Handed
And the Consequences were
NOTHING
I am sorry but it does seem ridiculous for any of us to talk about how much we care about the sanctity of the ballot box while at the same time turning blind eyes to voter fraud in our own midst.
If there should be a third event?
I am for a Motion AT THAT MOMENT to remove the person for Voter Fraud
And if ANYONE should bring up the FACT that these two did the same without any consequences
Reply that point is well taken I wish to amend my motion to include Mr James Knox and Mr Mike Dupree
And if they have some Valid defense they can present it to the Body
Friday, 19 June 2015
Curse Of The Were Pumpkins
On the Third Tuesday of each month at a place called the Longbranch
If you are sufficiently sensitive you might be able to detect the silent psychic screams of the Were Pumpkin.
For most of the month they appear much as the rest of us,
But if they do not leave and find shelter on the Third Tuesday of Each Month before
They Metamorphise into hideous Orange Monstrosities
Which accounts for the desperate need to leave the Linn County Central Committee Meeting
Now if they were content to just leave it would be understandable.
I mean who would want to be seen in public like that?
It is their insistance that everyone leave that is the problem.
But as Robert Heinlein said
Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.
If they have to leave
EVERYONE has to leave
The Problem is it seems to always leave things not done.
So I have a couple of sugesttions for future meetings
First We could AMEND the Agenda
That only takes a majority vote, changing the Agenda to say put off adjourning til after 8:30 takes a Two thirds vote
So a tad more than one third of those attending can at that time force everyone to leave for the night,
Another thing we could do is
Follow our By Laws.
Which state
Robert's Rules of Order Revised shall prevail unless modified by these by-laws
Now it is true unlike some of the LCRCC membership Robert's Rules of Order seem to assume everyone is there to actually get the work of the Committee done.
Instead of Rushing out at a specific time
But it does say what to do if a meeting adjourns before all business is completed.
The Effect upon Unfinished Business of an adjournment, unless the assembly has adopted rules to the contrary, is as follows:
(a) When the adjournment does not close the session [63], the business interrupted by it is the first in order after the reading of the minutes at the next meeting, and is treated the same as if there had been no adjournment, an adjourned meeting being legally the continuation of the meeting of which it is an adjournment.
Here is June's Agenda
Welcome / New LCRCC Members Vote
Old Business/ New Business
SO at July's meeting after we have the reading of the minutes
We need to DO these items
I mean it is REQUIRED by our By Laws
But it would be nice if the FOUR people who expressed an intereedto join during the June
meeting return.
At another time the Body might want to address the habit of not adopting the minutes until after One Third of the Meeting is over
That does seem Odd
Thursday, 18 June 2015
A Matter of Jurisdiction
At the June meeting of the LCRCC there was some confusion at least on the part of one of our members over a ruiing on the minutes
It seems that in the past the Body has Voted and Ruled that No Attendence List of the Members should be included in the Minutes put online by the Secretary
That should on the face be simple enough to do.,
Just don't put a list of those who attend a meeting in the version of the Minutes put online,
But with our Exective Committee simple things can become complex
We have been told that it does not matter because the information is public record.
True but that does not replace the fact that the Secretary is REQUIRED by the County Constitution to follow the orders of the Body,.
The Chair made the claim that all motions passed were voided by the last Executive Officers Election
We know that is not true
We also know that James Knox asked that very same question of the Robert's Rules of Order Online Discussion Forum
And was told that unless the a motion has a sunset clause it stays in efferct until the Body votes otherwise
They even gave Mr Knox the page number of Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised 11th edition where that is stated Page 111 footnote ***
We also know that Ms Althea Cole READ that footnote off that page in that edition during the meeting to the Chair
Who ignored it
So the question, Constutionally, as to what the Secretary is supposed to do is quite evident
That our Executive Board ignores such things is also quite evident.
At the end of all this one of our more informationally challenged members Huffily brought up the issue of a recording of the meeting being placed on line.
If my readers will recall the requirement was
That the Secretary of the Linn County Central Committee refrain from putting an Attendence List of the Meetings in the Online Minutes
This is our Secretary Gary Ellis
This is the Secretary when the Motion was originally passed Mary Ernzen
This is Me Dan Kauffman
We are not the same people. It would be really hard to confuse me with one of the two people above that are required to follow that rule.
To clear up any further confusion that may remain let me state for the record that what you are reading now is NOT
The Linn County Central Committee Minutes
And while I retain my right, if I so chooae, to post audio files of our Montly Meetings
So that the Country Republican Community may hear for themselves the Violations of our Contitutiion and Rules of Order are quite common during them
I will promise NOT to post an Attendence List of any kind
Wednesday, 17 June 2015
Sounding Brass
For sometime the question has not been will our LCRCC leadership violate the Rules of Order,
But how many times in a meeting will this happen?
The June meeting of the Linn County Central Committee had no surpriseds.
Some of my readers might have noticed I have not posted earlier this week as I normally do,
That may be a disspointment for some and welcomed by others.
I have been a tad ill and am still not fully recovered so instead of listing the entirety of Tuesday Nights Transgressions,
I will present the most flagrant.
The single most importand defense of the Body from Abuse of Power from the Chair.
Is the Right to Challenge or Appeal the Decsion of the Chair
It is described in Robert's Rule of Order as
When a presiding officer makes a ruling and a member disagrees, the proper thing to do is to rise and say, "Mr. President, I appeal from the ruling of the chair." If another member seconds the appeal, the procedure is rather simple: The president puts the question to the members, who decide whether to sustain his ruling. But under Robert's Rules, the presiding officer gets to speak first and last in any discussion about the appeal or her decision.
An appeal from the ruling of the chair
Can interrupt a speaker who has the floor.
Needs to be seconded.
Is debatable unless the immediately pending question is not debatable.
Can't be amended.
Requires a majority vote to overturn the decision of the chair.
Can be reconsidered.
That seems pretty simple and straight forward, Or it would be if our Chair FOLLOWED our Rules of Procedure
Rather than IGNORING A Challenge of the Chair's Decision as the Linn County Central Committee Chair Cindy Golding did during the June Meeting
The Republican Party or most of it stands for adherence to Constitutions and Rule of Law
Some of us Walk the Walk,
Some of us just Talk the Talk
Some do not bother to do either,
Unfortunatelu the LCRCC seems to be burdened with Leadership of the latter sort,
To paraphrase a section from Corinthians
Though They speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not Truth, They are become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
I will try to go into this matter in greater detail in a later post
Friday, 12 June 2015
Setting The Record Straight
I have discovered I need to "Set the Record Straight" and present a retraction for a charge I have made in a previous post.
the Linn County Central Committee Chair
Cindy Golding
Section V Paragraph 4 Sentence 3 which states
Checks in excess of $500.00 and not previously budgeted shall have the approval of the County Central Committee
That Claim was
WRONG
The check in Question was in Fact less than $500.
This lapse of mine was first brought to my attention by Jim Conklin a Former Treasurer while we were discussing some of my newest Hate Mail and later by Robin Tucker our Present Treasurer left a message for me on the subject in my Voice Mail,
The other Two Charges that
the Linn County Central Committee Chair
Cindy Golding
Removed funds from the Treasury with a Check that was NOT Signed by the Duly Elected Treasurer in Viiolation of the
Section V Paragraph 4 Sentence 2 which states
All checks shall be signed by the Treasurerand countersigned by the Chair or Co-Chair
And
the Linn County Central Committee Chair
Cindy Golding
Refused to sign checks presented to her in payment for the efforts of volunteers.
Said payments authorised by a Vote of the Linn County Central Committeee
In Violation of the
Section VIII Sentence 3 Which States
The Executive Committee is subject to the orders of the Linn County Central Committee, and none of its acts shall conflict with actions of the Linn County Central Committee.
AND
the Constitution of the Republican Party of Iowa
Article VI Section 3 Sentence 1 which states
Any County chair or co-chair may also be removed by the Republican State Central Committee upon recommendation of the appropriate District Executive Committeefor failure to fulfill the duties of the office
Still Stand
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