Can't win 'em all ...

The Statesman publishes rebuttals from candidates who we do not endorse — and as you've seen on recent Opinion pages, the responses are rolling in.

Normally these are fairly boilerplate rundowns of a candidate's platform, and that's fine. But sometimes a comment really jumps out — like this morning's response from Boise Republican Julie Ellsworth, looking to return to the Idaho House of Representatives.

We were unimpressed by Ellsworth's noncommittal comments about Idaho's road construction backlog, estimated at $240 million per year. Ellsworth wants to wait on an Idaho Transportation Department audit before committing to any increase in fees or taxes.

Taking a swipe at her opponent, Gail Hartnett of Boise, and labeling us as "taxaholics," Ellsworth writes, "It's no surprise that her 'tax-first' approach receives the blessing from a newspaper that endorsed John Kerry for president in 2004 and Jerry Brady for Idaho governor in 2006."

Of course, we also endorsed Ellsworth in the fall of 2004 (when she was re-elected) and in the fall of 2006 (when she lost). Perhaps she thinks we got those wrong as well.

Ellsworth in everybody's pocket

Julie Ellsworth is so beholden to lobbyists and to the Speaker and his ilk that she has no bidness in the legislature....her ethics are totally compromised.

Perfect politician?

Can't swing a dead cat without a politician fitting the description you give of Ellsworth. Where is the real problem? US taxpayers allowing Campaign finance! Can't blame any of these dead beats for what they do any more than we can blame illegal immigrants for coming to America when the same dead beats we elect are & have been promoting illegal immigration for years as a favor to contributors. We allow it.

Americans won't do those jobs, that's a hoot. When the union busting President of the US says that, it should be a wake up call. How much does it cost to pay employees a living wage compared to the loss of health care due in large part to illegal immigration? How much does the life of a kid poisoned by imports from China where slave labor is the norm? Add in the cost of crime & prisons. With the economy going south, how much will crime increase & where will the expense be? Americans did those jobs years ago when they paid a living wage. The only job in America worth having anymore is as a representative & they are compounding our problems through campaign finance. They don't work for US!

While everyone suggest vote, I'm beginning to believe we need to change that to, vote for the candidate who accepts NO money through campaign finance. What would happen? Suddenly all the contributors would find themselves without a pocket puppet. When we get the right people in office, people who represent US taxpayers, then tax campaign conributions given to candidates running but not on our payroll, incumbents. Next take contributions given to incumbents because they're on our payroll. Suddenly we have money for roads through those taxes & no need to raise sales tax. If contributors have $ to give candidates & pay lobbyist, they don't need tax cuts! Not one employer, contributor would allow their employees to take $ from an outside source if it were costing the boss $ as it does the average taxpayer voting these people into office. US government is a scam, the greatest scam the world has ever seen.

Does it really matter that a corporation creates jobs if those jobs also cost US taxpayers wages & $ as illegal immigration does? Look what it has done to our health care, Social Security, schools, crime, & where does it end. It isn't just illegal immigration, campaign finance has become a disease spreading throughout America, even individuals are falling for it. People donate $ in the names of their children, seven & eight year old kids who know nothing of politics & would spend the money on toys or candy before they would buy a politician. How rediculous, transparent, & selfserving is it that politicians allow this?

The same kids grow up & go to wars started by the same politicians, pay for years the debt created by the same politicians, conned into dying & calling it patriotism. The American people are so caught up in the political circus they leave common sense out. Want less government? Quit empowering dead beats by allowing campaign finance.

Look at the farm bill, $290 billion & we pay sales tax on groceries? With all the problems from illegal immigration, wages held down, & a tax before plants are even in the ground, why then sales tax on groceries? Our government, representatives no nothing of what they do, they do as they're told by the people who buy them into office. Contributors write the bills our representatives pass. Would we vote into office the contributor who spends the most on campaigns & lobbyist? WE are! They contribute to both parties in a two party race so their pocket puppet can't lose, contributors can't lose! Only We the People lose. When we lose representation through campaign finance, we lose America.

When did it first take over? We lost the war in Vietnam, Nixon, the President was a criminal, we're losing in Iraq, no bid contracts costing billions. We're $2 trillion in need of funding for our infrastructure, roads & schools need $, health care in the crapper, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid going broke, & all government agencies are failing. Is the FDA, USDA, FEMA, IRS, INS, Homeland Security, or any of our paid government agencies getting the job done? The largest meat recall in US history just happened & downer cows the focus while USDA inspectors & Humane Society tell the story of what realy went down.

Sounds a lot like the downwinders of Idaho, have to die before anyone will notice & you have to rasie all kinds of heck to get it in the papers! If a taxpayer steps up to report food saftey problems, our representatives cover up so they & their contributors don't have to face reality or lose $! I did & I was fired, Otter & Risch didn't care about the taxpayers when the highly subsidized dairy industry was turned into the USDA & the USDA didn't do squat. www.nextrevolution.net Got milk. Look at the Statesman, 5-22-08, downer cows bing forklift to slaughter & kids were eating the meat in school lunches? Would still be happening if someone didn't step up.

I've been around dairy a good deal of my life. My dad drove a cream truck in the fifties, sixties, & seventies, I milked cows for a farmer & have been around farming for years. When I drove for Darigold things weren't any better then in the sixties when I went with dad on the cream route, it was worse. Bathrooms stunk so bad you didn't want to go into them. Semi trailers hadn't been washed out in years. Rotten milk in trailers that sit in the high desert sun gets preety ripe. Milk leaking all over other milk, separating in the heat, still delivered & on the shelf?

These people didn't care if your milk was handled properly. We were always taking back milk that was no good, way off the scale in bacteria. Rerun three & four times to get it right. WINCO, Ridleys, & Pauls, all had bad milk, people were consuming thousands of gallons & if you tried to tell management you were a trouble maker? I've reported all kinds of sanitation problems or bad milk & management just said let it go. People will return it or throw it out.

Drive by Darigold & notice all the new trailers, wasn't the case a three years ago when I answered a letter from the corproate office about theft, fraud, & waste. Too bad the American people don't care enough about their kids to insist on food safety. Too bad the American people allow government to abuse whislte blowers when the kids & their parents who get tax credits are the reason whistle blowers step up. Want representation, you have to demand it, freedom demands respect & the American people are losing more everyday!

Politicians take money to get into office & cover up for contributors while handing over billions of tax $. It doesn't matter if your kid dies, plenty of them to go around unless you're to blame for death or injury, then government will take the kid away in a heartbeat. Politicians need your kid to pay taxes, work for dirt wages, go to war just like governmnet & contributors need illegal immigrants to do jobs that pay dirt wages, we're an investment. If politicians or their contributors get a kid killed it's no big deal, they'll find another.

How backwards can the empire be & why do the people go for it? Politicians have a reason for everything they do, $$$! Representation has little or nothing to do with the democracy we're promoting while killing thousands of innocent people in other nations, it's all about $. Some peole go on about how great America is. Thos epeople don't realize that we're losing more everyday & they are helping by promoting a government in the pocket of corporate unAmerica only interested in their bottom line, $$$!

Will she turn green, grow a wart on her nose...

and chase after a small farm dog?