Senator Tim Johnson is an advocate for the family farms and ranches, and his inability to serve is a loss. I hear that he may be well enough to serve this fall.

I sure didn’t intend my remarks to be defending the Republican administration, I am non partisan, I vote for the man, not the party, and Tim Johnson would get my vote!

You have my sympathy.

Robert C. Wheeler
Chairman and CEO
Hill’s Pet Nutrition, Inc.

Dear Mr. Wheeler,

After having received my rejection letter from Hill’s today relative to my miniscule request for reimbursement of the costs associated with the loss of my cat, please be assured that as an informed consumer, I will never purchase another Hill’s product. I believe that Hill’s selectively and strategically voluntarily recalled a fraction of its affected products knowing that at some point claims could and would be restricted to a limited recall list of its choosing. I think we would both agree that the magnitude of this calamity will never be quite known such that its impact will always be inherently obscured by the voluntary nature of corporate policy and diversion.

From a corporate standpoint I certainly applaud such a move. From a corporate credibility and integrity standpoint I can only hope that Hill’s “pound foolish,” mentality will eventually erode both consumer and investor confidence in Colgate Palmolive. I will certainly do my part in every way possible to educate would be existing and potential customers of Hill’s products as to the manner in which your company chose to dispense with, what I am sure is, tens of thousands of long time, loyal customers.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Donald A. Mauch
296 Main Street
Norwell, MA 02061

While there no doubt are problems on both sides of the aisle, I would have to argue that Republican control of all three branches of our government for the past six years has nearly destroyed this country as the current Republican-neoCON administration and the Republicans in Congress (with the help of a few Democrats—shame on them) have shown that they worship at the altars of greed, big corporations, and money … while they openly trample on the Constitution, the foundations of our society such as habeas corpus, the military, our legal system, American citizens, etc., and make no bones about being perfectly okay with spying on everyone within this country (citizens and noncitizens alike) without a warrant or cause (which is illegal and unconstitutional).

Is poisoning everyone and everything in this country the only way to gather enough momentum across the citizenry to change things?

I hold the U.S. media largely culpable for not providing us with the facts—they, too, have their noses way up you-know-where. Some 90 percent of the media in this country is owned by five major corporations—do you think they’re going to allow some anchor to criticize them?

ANY politician who is not outraged at the actions, inactions and cover ups displayed in this horrible mess is certainly fair game, so that means all of them I guess.

And the idea to give more money and power to the FDA is just stupid.