National Healthcare Debate

If you feel the same way that we do, PLEASE, write to your representatives in Congress, as well as any other influential people, such as Obama, senators Snow & McConnell, and Representative John Boehner. Let them know how we feel! They represent US!

I sent one today as well and is following this one and just in case you missed my opinion feature in the Sun News 09/17/2009 that also will follow.

As you can see there are a lot of us who feel very strongly about this Health Care issue, so if you are one of those people please write an E-Mail or FAX to your Congressional Representatives

Subject: The National Health Care Debate

Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:31:01 +0000

Honorable Senators and Representatives;
    I am a retired Obstetrician & Gynecologist, born, raised, and educated in California. I now live in Myrtle Beach, SC and practiced for the last 18 years of my medical career in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. I strongly believe in the fundamental goodness, planted within each human being and I have practiced medicine with this in mind my entire career. Nobody should be denied fundamental rights, including the right to emergency, life threatening medical care. I never practiced medicine in that manner and I don't believe that our present day actively practicing doctors do either.
   With these precepts in mind, I am here to state emphatically that Nationally governed and universally mandated medical care cannot work in the present set of working precepts that I have heard stated by President Obama and his Senate and House supporters. If government could have made a success of Medicaid and Medicare they would certainly have done so by now. You, "the government", has had well over 30 years to refine and streamline these government run programs and the only change has been the steady increases in the cost to the taxpayer and the steady decrease in reimbursements to the practicing physicians. To show their good and honest intentions, the President first stated that he would work in a bipartisan relationship with the Republican side and address the problem of Tort Reform as one example of this "good and honest intent". The latest Senate Health Care Bill, included a statement indicating the need for Tort Reform; but did not include one single change in our present medical liability tort system or even any future time when it would be addressed! The American Public is being fed a very large pile of "organic waste". Who would ever trust you lying and conniving politicians with the wealth and the health of our country, without much more scrutiny than you offer us at this time?
   Who ever you represent, whether it be me or my fellow countrymen from the other 49 states, I want you to know that we are no longer going to sit by and allow you to steal our country, laws, and freedoms, in the name of Democracy. If you don't listen, respond to public outcries, listen to your constituents, we will vote you out! Please listen to us and understand.

Respectfully,    Henry A. Gonzales, M.D.

Clyburn’s Health Care test proposal Sun News article on Sept. 4, 2009 09/05/2009

To the Editor,

There is an old saying that you can fool some of the people some of the time but you can’t fool all the people all of the time.

House Majority Whip James Clyburn is proposing a “Try, Test and Then What” approach of slipping in a Government run health care plan. Does he really think we don’t know what he is doing?

First, what plan would they use as the public option, HR #3200 or HR #3400 or one of the three Senate plans? HR #3200 has been raked over the coals by the taxpayers at the recent Townhall meetings and we know nothing about the others. We do know none of GOP plans will be used, that would be the end of Speaker Pelosi.

Second, what type of areas would be selected for test?   If Clyburn’s two main goals are solving the rising cost of private health insurance and seeing how many businesses would drop their employer provided plans, I think it would have to be areas which have a large mixture of large and small businesses, with company provided health insurance plans as well as individual insurance plans along with a sizeable uninsured population.

There is another saying that you have to get up real early in the morning to fool some of the people.

Even the best selected areas would produce the intended consequences that the Representative really wants. But think about this, why would the people that had insurance crossover to the public option knowing it is only a four year test? They may never get their old insurance back again if the test failed. If companies dropped their provided insurance and the employee’s crossed over to the public option and the test failed what would Rep. Clyburn’s exit plan be to get them reinsured? The exit plan would be to keep them on the public option. What would happen if the individual insured or just the people with no insurance signed up and none of the company provided people did, would the test be valid? Of course not but the Government would have to continue to insure them with the public plan and that’s the real intend.

Bingo, now we got the first inroad to a Government run Health Care plan which is what Clyburn wants. This is the back door way of getting a full blown Government Health Care plan passed and the taxpayer be darned. Nice try Representative Clyburn.

                                                                                    Jack Cruger

Dear Congressmen,

The rush to push government-run healthcare legislation through Congress is reason enough to staunchly oppose, but I am writing you today to let you know that I OBJECT to the government taking control of my private healthcare decisions.

Simply stated, the government has no business in the health care business! Do you in Congress think we the people are stupid, Clyburn is proposing a 4 year trial that would lead us into a Government run health care plan just buy the nature of the test.

Now we have this guy, Senator Max Baucus, with a non-public but all Government-controlled health care plan, which may reduce the deficit by $49 billion in ten years but tax everybody for everything in order to do it. That’s special isn’t it, we have a $14 trillion deficit and have you ever seen any Government program reduce the deficit. So what’s the plan next week?  

I have asked some of you before, when the President speaks about his plan, what plan is he talking about?? In a real world the people have the right and the freedom to select which health care company and plan they want, even if it was a company provided one. I think we should still retain that right and not have a one fits all Government plan which will be forced on us at some point in time.

Although cost is a huge concern (because I’m certain the working middle class will be required to fund yet another government plan), Americans are most concerned about government expansion and increased control over the lives of American citizens.

Any form of socialized healthcare will devastate our nation, and I urge you to stand for the rights of middle-class Americans who have made it clear that they DO NOT WANT GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE. We need Jobs first.

                                                                                    Jack Cruger

                                                                        E-Mail crugerjohn@yahoo.com

We are at a point, in our economy, that we should be ready for an upturn.  South Carolina now has and unemployment nearing 12% and nearing the critical mass work force.

Many of the jobs that will see an upsurge in employment will be in the construction industry and with that will come surges in the supporting industries, such as home goods and large durable goods.  Jobs in the landscaping industry, transportation of lumber, retail, and the list goes on. 

For the life of me I can not understand the positions taken by Rep. James Clyburn when it comes to his voting record on immigration and amnesty. Clyburn’s 6^th district has a very large population of black unemployed people and a large percentage of them are receiving Government checks of some sort and not working.

Black residents of South Carolina, as a whole, have a very high percentage High School dropout rate and could do the low level unskilled jobs.  But most of them are more than well skilled in the industries named above.

So what is Clyburn’s reasoning?  I can think of at least two. First, he will do anything House Speaker Pelosi tells him to do or he will lose his position as House Majority Whip.  She has said many times that she is for a very liberal immigration policy and amnesty for the illegal immigrants. Second he wants to maintain a very high number of people, in his district, below the poverty line so he can justify earmarks, grants and other forms of entitlements or “daily bread”, so they will vote him.

Below are examples of the Clyburn’s voting record on immigration from Numbersusa.com:    

2001: Voted in favor of a four-month extension of the Section 245(i) amnesty Rep. Clyburn voted to reward illegal immigrants with amnesty by voting in favor of a four-month extension of Section 245(i).  

1997: Voted against the Rohrabacher Motion to H.R. 2267 to kill the Section 245(i) amnesty Rep. Clyburn voted against the Rohrabacher Motion to H.R. 2267 to kill the Section 245(i) amnesty that allowed certain illegal aliens to pay a fee and avoid a 1996 law\'s provision that punishes illegal aliens by barring them for 10 years from entering the U.S. on a legal visa as a student, tourist, worker or immigrant. The Rohrabacher Motion failed by a vote of 153-268. 

I am of the impression the Rep. Clyburn is motivated by either Nancy Pelosi or Race and only race when he can use it to his advantage.

This is the letter I sent to Our SC Senators and Henry Brown.

TO Senators, Graham, DeMint and House Representative Henry Brown:

South Carolina is embarking on some major road building projects. The multi-billion dollar northern and southern sections of the I-73 Corridor, which will be bringing a much needed access to the Grand Strand providing much needed jobs in the short term. By opening an access to the beach will increase the tourists, stimulating our beach business, providing longer term jobs and providing incentives for major business relocation to our area.    

According to Senator Lindsey Graham the I-73 Corridor Project would not be included in the so called “investment plan” which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) just released study, projects that more than half of the hundreds of billions of dollars in spending on infrastructure in the economic stimulus package -- such as $26 billion of the $30 billion allocated for highways and $15.5 billion of the $18.5 billion for renewable energy projects -- won’t occur for more than two years.

It is amazing to me that there is money in this package for a vast array of other projects which won’t provide any jobs, as you guys in Washington have pointed out.  

In other words, the massive stimulus package is going to waste record amounts of money, won’t provide an immediate stimulus for the economy, and will only add to our nation’s soaring liabilities.

I will not support anybody who votes for this debacle, allowing a long term debt which will not be paid off by any one who is living today.

I know we don’t have a chance of stopping this massive snowball on its journey through the all knowing elite halls of our Congress but please try to get the 45% in tax cuts which the Republicans have asked the President for and please, all of you, put a statement in the SC papers so we will all know your positions.

Commenting on the passage of the $825 billion Stimulus package:

Today the massive snowball mention in the letter above was passed in the House and to my surprise every Republican voted NO. This is what the Conservative movement wanted. Why did we want this you ask?  Simply, the Republicans were, by the Democrats instituting a house rule, left out of the debate on the bill.

The Democrats thought they would try to lure the Republicans in to voting for the package by putting some really stupid spending PORK in the bill. They new the Republicans were going directly to the President and tell them their ideas and would most certainly point these as examples of the spending they were against. The Republicans did point them out as reasons for not voting, knowing what the Democrats were up to, for the package, but also gave the President a much better plan that would stimulate the economy within months of the bill’s passing at half the price.

Since the President didn’t want the give Republicans authorship of any portion of the package he told them he would have the house pull the “stupid PORK” out of the package so they could tell the folks back home that they had a part in the shaping of the bill.

The one thing they would not pull from the package was the provision that would provide up to a whopping $5.2 billion for ACORN, the left-leaning nonprofit group under federal investigation for massive voter and voter registration fraud.

1. Cut the lowest two income tax rates for 2009 and 2010, from 15 percent to 10 percent and from 10 percent to 5 percent.
2. Extend through 2010 a patch to the Alternative Minimum Tax, which was originally designed to ensure that wealthy people pay taxes, but instead would hit millions of middle-income families with higher taxes.
3.  Expand the $7,500 first-time homebuyers tax credit, for a principal residence, to all homebuyers while limiting it to purchasers who can make a down payment of at least 5 percent of the purchase price.
4.  Provide a tax deduction for small businesses with less than 500 employees equal to 20 percent of their income.
5.  Offer new tax deduction for those who do not receive tax-preferred, employer-sponsored health care coverage. And provide assistance to the unemployed who do not qualify for a COBRA premium subsidy.
6.  Give tax exemption on unemployment benefits and extend temporary federal unemployment benefits through 2009, phasing it out through mid-2010.
7.  Allow companies to write off current losses against previous tax years for up to five years. Companies now can only "carry back" losses for two years. The tax break would not be available to banks and other companies receiving help from the $700 billion bailout package.
8.  Extend through 2009 a break for small businesses that allows them to immediately write off up certain capital expenditures.

 The cost of their proposal is approximately $478 billion.

The Republicans in as much said that if, the President feels that he and the Democrats have the ultimate plan, they should go it alone. The House Republicans put their Conservative principles on the line and if the plan works the Republican Party would be ruined for another 40 years. On the other hand if it doesn’t, which it won’t, the conservative Republicans will be back in four years and they had better not screw it up like they did before.

Let’s see if the Republican Senators will have the gravitas to do the same.

James Clyburn wants the new stimulus lending package distributed to the U.S. House Representative’s Districts, bypassing the State Governor’s office, and he (Clyburn, who is black) decided the way to do it was to play the race card by associating Governor Sanford family’s ownership of a Plantation.    

Clyburn, the highest-ranking black lawmaker in the House, is the King of the earmarks, in South Carolina, and keeps most of his family’s employers in business with our earmarked money, as was highlighted in a Sun News article by David Wren on Aug. 9, 2007.

Simply put Clyburn has been told by President Obama that he will accept no more earmarks and Clyburn is starting to panic. This means he can’t ride around in his big car which is supported by the taxpayer’s money, through the $160,000 salary he gets, and hand out earmarked checks supplying his “Plantation” with their “daily bread”.

Clyburn forgets that a large population of slaves were owned by and worked on Plantations owned by Black Plantation Owners in or near his Sixth District. “People who live in glass houses should not throw stones”.

This new $800 million stimulus plan, or “daily bread”, has enough pork (earmarks) in its detail and that is what Clyburn has his eyes on but at least this pork (now being called requested bailouts) is getting debated in Congress. Clyburn knows he can only keep control of his “Plantation” by getting the pork sent directly to him so he can play the “Big Hoss” role.

Even though I am against this legislation I am in favor of a system that allows for the Governors to be the only ones in their State to request money from the Federal Government, and spend that money on projects which are state wide. The requested money should fit within the spending appropriations bills that are debated in Congress. Earmarks are not debated and slipped into the bill after the House committee approves the approbations and before the total House votes, by the District Representatives.       

It is unfortunate that Speaker, Nancy Polosi, has seen fit only to allow the Republicans to submit proposals which will be judged, not debated. She is also seeking more than the $800 billion, now being requested.       

Many States, including South Carolina, are running out of money to pay unemployment benefits. Governor Sanford states in the Op-Ed he wrote on Dec. 30, 2008 that he would not request additional Federal money until he received confirmation that an independent audit would be done on the operations of the Employment Security Commission (ECS).

This just one of the many reforms the Governor has asked for during his admistration and apparently falling on the deaf ears of the Budget and Control Board (BCB), which in my opinion should be abolished

I believe a procedural and operational audit of the (ECS) should be done for the short term but also a complete reengineering of the entire business model, including the 158 different agencies, of all the processes currently employed from the Governor’s office on down the chain of responsibilities.

Now to be realistic about this, the problems we now face have been of a crisis nature and have been willfully over looked, by all levels of Government from the President of the United States on down, to recognize this crisis as the equal of a Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.

Only just recently the Congressional Budget Office said that the federal insolvency crisis is so deep every U.S. household would have to cough up half-a-million dollars each just to save the federal government from bankruptcy.

I have to thank my lucky stars I have never had to collect unemployment checks, so I can not relate to what it feels like to do so. I do know that the federal government created this debacle and is now not in any position to add to deficit problem by piling on more burden.

So guess what Congress does on June 12, 2008? The House passed the Emergency Extended Unemployment Compensation Act, H.R. 5749, by a vote of 274-137, a margin large enough to override a veto.

 H.R. 5749, the Emergency Extended Unemployment Compensation Act, will immediately provide up to 13 weeks of extended unemployment benefits in every state to workers exhausting the 26 weeks of regular unemployment benefits.

In states with higher levels of unemployment (six percent or higher) such as S.C., an additional 13 weeks would be available, for a total of 26 weeks of extended benefits. Relief would run through March 2009 and benefit 3.5 million Americans.  [Congressional Budget Office]

The Federal unemployment trust funds, which have more than enough reserves to cover the cost, will finance these benefits.

Governor Sanford really had no option but to request the money since we (S.C.) have the third highest unemployment (8.3%) in the nation and have been paying out more benefit money than we have been taking in for a long time. We have previously borrowed about $14 million to keep up. Remember the key words in the statement above are that the Feds will finance these benefits, meaning loans that have to be paid back.

The way state unemployment moneys get into the State fund is from employers paying into it. Since they (the employers) are not paying enough to keep up with exploding demand they will have to pay more into the fund. South Carolina businesses now pay one of the highest unemployment insurance rates and with this new extension burden their rates will have to be at least doubled to pay off the Federal loan as well as fill up the State’s coffers.      

The businesses owners will then get caught up in a vicious life threatening position leading to a decision off either laying people off or shuttering their businesses. As you can see this becomes a vicious circle.   

President Elect Obama said recently that his stimulus plan would cost a trillion dollars over the next two years hereby adding to the inherited deficit of $1.2 trillion. This he said will save or add 4 million jobs of which 600,000 would be in the public sector, meaning on a government payroll.

The Wall Street Journal stated that when this latest round of bailouts and the spending that Obama is talking up is finalized, the federal government will be sucking out 28 cents of every dollar produced in the American economy.

This stimulus plan will make the vicious circle’s circumference much, much wider. All these jobs in the public sector are being created through massive Federal loans where as these jobs will eventually go away if not paid back and if the objective is not met of putting money back in the coffers of the State and Federal governments, the impact of “these unemployed workers” will result in a massive tax increase on everything we can possibly think of, and some that we can’t.

This plan is like a financial advisor telling me, with a credit card debt of $10,000, to go ahead and spend $20,000 more and that will fix my problem.

This new Obama plan should not be approved as a panacea for all. The targets should be very clear and specific. There are two areas of national security importance that should have the very highest priorities, and they are:

1. The hardening of our bridges, upgrading and repairing our roads and transportation systems.
2. And a massive up grade to our power grid and communications systems.     

These two things alone should provide about two thirds of the 600,000 jobs and since many of the States have plans already in place, at least in the infrastructure area waiting for money to start, we should see some near term positive impacts.

The I-73 could be the first to get started. The State should get away form their not invented here syndrome and explore some innovated design and build methods such as the type used by the State of Texas.  

The power projects will take some major design time, so let’s hope some are already on the drawing boards, which could mean building a parallel grid and phasing in the customers and suppliers from the old one over many years.

The U.S.A. becoming as near to energy independent as possible should be the next priority, which means the first two priorities will have to be ready to facilitate all the new alternative methods of power and fuel generation along with the old ones.    

These stimulus packages will never be paid off in our lifetime or for that matter our Great, Great Grandchildren’s and I believe it will only lead to a massive tax increase in the years to come. Since the taxpayer we will not have any say in this matter, remember we were against the UAW bailout by 85% and the TARP by 73% but that didn’t stop the President from signing up, so Governor Sanford might just as well take some of the money.   

(803) 212-6032

Dear State Senator Ray Cleary:

The more I read about you guys in Columbia, the more I don’t understand why you can’t seem to get the priorities of the State in the right order.

With the major crime rate in our State, I would think that the $6 million that the State government is spending on security, of the Statehouse in Columbia, could and should be used for law enforcement solving the major crime problems in our State.

It is really sad when our local elected officials have the ego to think that they, by diverting law enforcement officers from other more important assignments, should be protected from the bad guys while our citizens are mowing each other down on our streets.

Maybe you think that a bombed Statehouse would make the State run better. What’s next? Flack jackets? Well maybe not a bomb but certainly a good house cleaning would in my opinion.

I also don’t understand why every other State in the Country has the Governor responsible for the preparation and approval of the State budget and not some Budget and Control Board within the State legislator. The Governor is the Commander-In-Chief of the State and is responsible to set the policy direction and their priorities. He should be the one to draft Budget

Airport and Horry County Council Shanagans

Well when was the last snow storm in Myrtle Beach? Ok, we do get some snow flurries, what once in the five years I have been here, but did you know that the Myrtle Beach International Airport is ready for the next big one.

This was let out of the bag and reported by the Myrtle Beach Herald back in February 2006 as well as the Sun News at which time it was reported by the AP:

(Myrtle Beach-AP) January 27, 2006 - Officials at the Myrtle Beach International Airport are ready for a snow storm.

The Federal Aviation Administration has awarded the airport a $355,000 grant to buy a snow plow, a giant broom and other snow removal equipment.

Never mind that Myrtle Beach has averaged zero inches of snow for the last 50 years.
 
Horry County Council Chairwoman Liz Gilland admits it may sound absurd, but she said it does make sense. A storm dropped 13.5 inches of snow on Horry County in 1989.

But Liz, how would the people get to the airport even if they got the runway cleared? Has the county also purchased snow removal equipment that we don’t know about?   

Why is HOODIES reporting on this old news at this time? Because we believe the taxpayers, not only here on the Grand Strand but the U.S. got “Hoodiewinked” as well. You see the FAA’s Airport Improvement Grants lists maintenance equipment and vehicles as an ineligible project, snow removal equipment is not. Since we have little or no snow accumulation the real reason this equipment was requested was so the trucks and the big snow broom could be used for the continual maintenance and upkeep of the airport. Check out this link http://www.flymyrtlebeach.com/news.cfm?id=6

Maintenance equipment is supposed to be purchased by the, owner manager of the airport, in this case, Horry County, and funded by the local taxpayers. This makes sense because airports have different regional maintenance requirements. Also the category “maintenance” could lead to $100 screwdrivers and $200 brooms.

This request was slipped into a county resolution, and included in the request for the funds for the “New Passenger Terminal” and taxiway improvements and was granted. We all know how that turned out.

We know this was done on purpose because as reported in the Sun News, airport director Bob Kemp was quoted as saying “if we don’t buy this as snow removal equipment we were going to have to buy it as maintenance equipment out of our own funds”.

This illegal action just keeps getting better; you see since we got the “snow removal equipment” we can now get legal federal funds to build a storage building for the “snow removal equipment”. It will probably be big enough to hold a 747. How good is that?

You wonder why the Horry County Council is losing face with the taxpayers? There seems to be one debacle after the other.  I could name them, but just go to the other Posts on my BLOG, and please if you know of any others please write them up in the comment section of this BLOG Post.

My question really is, do we need a new or even a makeover and extension of the old airport? I have never been backed up at MBIA. I had to wait once for my luggage a little longer than I would have liked but that’s about all. With the down turn of the economy, the price of fuel, the airlines are canceling service at the MBIA as well many other airports around the country.

The cost of building, a new terminal or extension there of, is probably at a high point at this time, driven by the cost of fuel. If anything is to be done I would say at most add a luggage carousel and another gate.             

Carolina Station:

As I left the Horry County Council meeting on July 1, 2008, my friend Joe said “Jack we have lived in the last great generation”.

The decision made at that meeting, approving the Carolina Station project, will cause the next generation not to be so great by leaving them with major County budget shortfalls for the next 30 to 40 years or more.

Carolina Station is a planned unit development (PUD) on 6259 acres in the Loris area off Highway #905. This is a mega development of 13,800 homes, housing 41,000 people, 3 or 4 schools, commercial business and buildings. Carolina Station will be a major size city within Horry County, being develop by International Paper Realty (IPR), and will resemble the new Market Common in Myrtle Beach.

The Horry County Council approved the project even after hearing valid pleas of water availability not being addressed and with the school board pleading for an extension so they could present the Council with a reasonable impact study showing the financial load the new schools would put on the Horry County Budget and ultimately on the Horry County Taxpayers. Since this project is not going to start anytime soon it would seem reasonable that a sixty day extension would not impact the start. 

Anybody who lives around the area and uses South Carolina roads know that the roads are barely adequate to support current traffic load and by adding the approximately 27,000 cars plus service and support vehicles along with construction equipment traffic, will add a whole new meaning to the word gridlock.

Now to be fair the Carolina Station project will take many, many years (like 20 to 30 years) to complete, so hopefully added road lanes and roads would be added, however, being County and State roads we all know how good they are in keeping up with road expansion and improvements?

That is precisely why Horry Country P.R.I.D.E.Com (Promoting Responsible investment in Infrastructure, Development, & Environment) decided to get involved. PRIDE is an On-Line group of citizens who are concerned that taxpayers currently pay more than a fair share of taxes, especially concerning Mega projects such as the Carolina Station. Usually in project developments of this size the developers tend to error projections showing net revenue to the county on the plus side. They also set aside land at inflated values instead of cold hard cash. The fact is that they have to do both.

Special interest groups such as realtor associations, builder and developer groups all have the attitude the more money they can get the tax-payers to pay the bigger their profit.

The developers, Realtors and the County Council got the upper hand at that July 1st meeting but they certainly now know there is a watchdog group, of concerned taxpayers, who by utilizing the power of their vote will soon be able say we at least helped the next generation get a jump on being  great too.

EARMARK REFORM:

U.S. S.C. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVE, JAMES CLYBURN

Democrats put in place a structure that calls for new transparency, accountability and disclosure, and we have reduced the total dollar amount earmarked in appropriations bills by 43 percent.

The above was taken from SC Rep. James Clyburn’s Web-site, so what is this new structure? Does it allow for the, or delineate the setting aside Earmarks that would have highlighted the questionable actions of Rep. Clyburn directing millions of Earmark dollars to organizations that family members belong to or work at? And does the new structure allow for the House Majority Whip to set aside about $40 million in Earmarks, which he was the sole sponsor?

What really bothers me, besides the volume of money, was how many people of the Clyburn Clan are earning a living which is derived from the taxpayer money. As an old saying goes, anybody who would allow themselves, to be dependent on the Government for their “daily bread”, they, will eventually have to submit to the demands of the Government.

Who really knows the reasons the organizations are given the money, is it because members of the Clyburn Clan are working there, or were they hired with the intent of being put a position where they could solicit money from Rep. Clyburn?

All these connections between Rep. Clyburn, his Clan members and the Earmarked organizations, which are confirmed on Clyburn’s Web-site, seems to me to be a lot more than a heap of coincidental confluence and in my opinion, it smells of wrong doing.   

A John Adams Quote comes to mind: “Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases”.

Rep. Clyburn’s increased importance came with him becoming the U.S. House Majority Whip which gives him a lot of power and now his actions affect the entire State.  Since he also accepts campaign money from the entire State he should have his E-Mail allow submissions from all districts.