Thursday, June 02, 2005

Easy, Cheesy Sessions

I make what I call a “50 pound Lasagna.” That’s because by the time I get through it weighs about 50 pounds. I take great pride in my lasagna and on many occasions have been told it’s the “best lasagna” ever. It’s a meatless dish with cottage cheese instead of ricotta because I find ricotta a bit too rich. There’s a liberal amount of garlic, oregano, black olives and onions in the cottage cheese mixture and thinly sliced tomatoes in every layer. When I can I try to make sure to get fresh lasagna noodles instead of the boxed kind, it does make a difference. It takes a full hour to bake.

So imagine my horror when I was perusing Pete Sessions’ (R-TX, 32nd District) web page and came across the family recipes which included a lasagna that called for “smashing up” a bar of cream cheese, adding a 16 oz. container of sour cream and Healthy Choice marinara sauce. Then they instructed the reader to layer this disgusting mess over lasagna noodles, smother it with cheddar cheese, cover the whole thing with Saran wrap and stick it in the microwave for ten minutes!

Some people really do not know how to cook, or to govern for that matter. Some people take no pride in their creations and they are perfectly willing to spew out pigswill in the name of expediency or campaign contributions.

Sessions just introduced his Easy, Cheesy HR 2726 called the "Preserving Innovation in Telecom Act of 2005" that will give the phone companies what they have been denied all over this country, the ability to shut down municipal broadband projects. This should not surprise anyone given that Sessions’ campaign contributions reads like a “Who’s-Who” of Bell Bambinos and he did spend 16 years working for Southwestern Bell. His official bio says:

“Thanks to this private sector experience, Congressman Sessions understands the need to fight bureaucracy and to utilize market-driven solutions to effectively solve problems in our communities and in government.”

Well I’m glad he understands that because he certainly doesn’t understand how to make lasagna.

Go to his campaign disclosure forms and you see $23,500 just from SBC, Verizon and Bell South. And you’ll note the “Southwestern Bell Internet Services” listed as “spouse salary” with the amount being “na.” Then there's dividends and interest income listed from AT&T, Bell South, Cisco, SBC, Verizon and other telco related companies ranging from $1,001 to $1 million (each). That’s a lot of cheddar and all this for a former Eagle Scout.

Looks like Pete is cooking with gas.

Here’s one instance when I actually have sympathy for the cable operators. Those poor saps only put in $12,000 between Time Warner, Comcast and NCTA in the last cycle. What were they thinking?

Pete is certainly dedicated to “Preserving Innovation in Telecom.” And he seems to have a thing for Saran wrap although I couldn’t find campaign contributions from SC Johnson so that puzzled me. Guess he likes transparency or maybe he doesn’t like getting his microwave dirty.

For more fabulous recipes that you can whip up in an instant using fake food go to
http://sessions.house.gov/Biography/recipes.htm

For more legislation using fake motives to make the phone companies even more money, just keep your eye on Sessions.


My all time favorite source for campaign disclosure is:
http://www.opensecrets.org/

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