Skip to main content
I wrote to my congressman, John F. Tierney to ask him to vote against the bailout. Not only did he do so, but he wrote me back and has earned my respect. I thought I would share his reply to me and my response to him. Here is his considered response to my request on him website to vote against the bailout:


----- Original Message ----
From: Congressman John F. Tierney
To: fishdan@yahoo.com
Sent: Monday, September 29, 2008 7:17:34 PM
Subject: A Message From Congressman Tierney



September 29, 2008

Mr. Daniel Fishman

Beverly, MA 01915

Dear Mr. Fishman:

Without getting into the fine details, I thought I would let you know that I voted against the so-called Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (H.R. 3997) when it was brought to the House floor earlier today. There were compromises made in this version of the bill, ostensibly to gain bipartisan support. Unfortunately, such compromises were made at the expense of key priorities -- investment in helping homeowners, protections to ensure that the taxpayer will not have to absorb the full cost, and incentives to get the economy back on track.

This bill can be improved, and a different approach can be taken so that foregoing issues can be appropriately addressed.

As of this writing, it is expected that Congress will revisit this matter before the end of the week. I will keep you updated.

Thank you for weighing in.


Sincerely,

John F. Tierney
Member of Congress

Please feel free to visit my website at
http://tierney.house.gov/ to learn more about my legislative initiatives.

And here is my open response to him:


Dear Sir:

Thank you for your email, and I would like to take this opportunity to applaud you as a man of principle.

I am one of those who has recently grown weary with partisan bickering I have recently felt that a class of professional politicians has usurped the rights of the people to govern themselves. Yet you have restored my feelings that the people ARE being represented. When the Speaker, the President, Congressman Frank and others ally themselves to push something through and congressmen such as yourself vote their conscience, fulfilling the wishes of the people, it restores my faith in representative democracy.

While you and I have differed on many votes, in the future I will know that you are first and foremost voting with the consideration that befits a representative of the people. When we differ, I will reconsider my position, and where our positions cannot be reconciled, I will be assuaged in knowing that men of good conscience do differ in opinions, and you have voted as you honestly saw fit.

Thank you for your service to the 6th District. I have included our brief correspondence on my blog http://www.fishdan.com

Daniel Fishman



Pretty cool eh? My only complaint is that even though he responded via email, I had to use the web-form to get back to him. Some of you may be shocked that I, a fervent supporter of Ron Paul, could be so happy with my democratic congressman. The truth of the matter is -- I don't have a problem with party at all, so long as elected officials are doing what they think is right, instead of blindly following the party line. Case in point, Joe Lieberman. The guy believes something. We should all be so lucky as to have persons of principle in office.

Well, I guess I am.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

 In software engineering, accumulating code behind a release wall is akin to gathering water behind a dam. Just as a dam must be built higher and stronger to contain an increasing volume of water, the more code we delay releasing, the more resources we must allocate to prevent a catastrophic flood—major bugs or system failures—while also managing the inevitable trickles—minor issues and defects. Frequent, smaller releases act like controlled spillways, effectively managing the flow of updates and reducing the risk of overwhelming both the system and the team. The ideal of ci/cd may not be achievable for all teams, but smaller and faster is always better.

Preventing accidental large deletes.

Instructions for Developers on Using the safe_delete Stored Procedure To enhance safety and auditability of delete operations within our databases, we have implemented a controlled deletion process using a stored procedure named safe_delete . This procedure relies on a temporary table ( temp_delete_table ) that lists complete records intended for deletion, not just their IDs. This approach helps prevent accidental deletions and provides a traceable audit log of delete actions. Why We Are Doing This Controlled Deletions : Centralizing delete operations through a stored procedure reduces the risk of erroneous or unauthorized deletions. Auditability : Using a temporary table to store complete records before deletion allows for an in-depth review and verification process, enhancing our ability to confirm and audit delete operations accurately. Security : Restricting direct delete permissions and channeling deletions through a specific proced...

October is Cyber Security Month

The President has declared October as Cybersecurity month.  It's not a bad idea -- just like you change the batteries in your smoke detectors once a year, maybe you should review your electronic vulbnerabilities? My top ten security tips: 1) Change your passwords.  You've had them too long, you use the same password in too many places.  Somewhere someone has hacked a site that has your username and password in plain text.  Now they are getting ready to try that username/password somewhere else.  Beat them to the punch. 2) Use a safe browser.  That means anything that's not Internet Explorer.   I prefer chrome. 3) Use 2 step verification for your email account.  If your email doesn't provide 2 step authentication consider switching. 4) Get a free credit report  and review it.  You are entitled to one free report a year.   BE VERY CAREFUL!  There are man scam sites that offer free credit reports.  Go through the s...