Congressman Kimble Needs Your Help

According to Amazon, the paperback version of Profiles in Courageousness came out July 2nd, but that's not really true.  For a print on demand book like mine, things move a bit slower.  They haven't even uploaded the cover to Amazon yet and I am anxiously awaiting holding my very own copy of Profiles in Courageousness in my hands.

Creating my online persona has been a labor of love and I am very appreciative of the support that I have received.  If it wasn't for it, I would have stopped doing this sometime in 2009.  However, 267 days ago when my eBook came out, I soon realized that when it comes to promoting books, I'm clueless.   For that reason, I'm really calling on those of you enjoying what I do on Twitter and in this blog to help me.

If you've already bought the eBook, I'd love it if you bought the paperback, but it really isn't expected.  What would be great, would be a review (if you enjoyed it, of course).  I've gotten universally positive reviews, but I'd really like to get some more. 

If you have a blog, radio show, or show on CNN (I'm looking at you Jake Tapper), anything you can do to get the word out is so appreciated.

If you're on Twitter or Facebook, please just mention on your page or timeline that you've read the book and enjoyed it.  The only chance a small book like mine has is word of mouth.  This book is the realization of a dream for me and maybe my last chance at a second career in writing.  I don't mind spending whatever time, money, or sweat it takes to give it a chance to find an audience, but you can do a lot to help.

Thanks, in advance.

Meeting Michele Bachmann for the First Time

  

[The Following is excerpted from Profiles in Courageousness.  If you enjoy this blog, you're going to want to pick up your copy today.]

 

At this point, I was feeling toxic. Nobody wanted to talk to me and I just wanted a giant hole to swallow me up. What had I gotten myself into? My only friend was in the other party and his play in the NFL gave me absolutely no confidence in our relationship. When the moment finally came for us to take a short break, I welcomed it. I did what I did back in California when times were tough; I headed outside to be alone with my thoughts, or as alone as I could be on Capitol Hill.

As I stood on the porch, lost in my own thoughts, I failed to notice a woman approaching me. She was a raven-haired goddess, her black and white checkered shawl covering her simple black dress, but her conservative attire did nothing to hide the fact that this was a woman. Her perfume had hints of lilac and gardenia with just a small note of russet potato. I have always remained reasonably faithful to my wife, but I admit at that moment, I lusted in my heart.

“Don’t let Pelosi get you down,” she said, putting a comforting hand on my shoulder.

“I try not to, but I really wanted to make a good impression on my first day on the new job,” I said.

“Well you made an impression, but believe me, Pelosi is Un-American. I hope to have public hearings where we can weed out any Anti-American members of Congress for the good of this country. I hope you’ll support me,” she smiled.

“I definitely will. I think we’re cut from the same cloth. I’m Jack Kimble,” I said offering her my hand.

“It’s nice to meet you, Jack. I’m Michele…Michele Bachmann from Minnesota,” she said, shaking my hand warmly.

“I’m from California,” I replied, “but I was educated at Notre Dame, so I’ve spent time in the Midwest.”

“You’re not one of those California moderates, I hope,” she said looking me over carefully.

“No more than Ronald Reagan was,” I smiled. “I like my meat red, my cigars Cuban, my women subservient, and my cartoons GI Joe.”

“I like you, Jack Kimble. I think I’ll be keeping an eye on you. I expect to be hearing a lot from you in the next two years,” she said.

“Two years? I thought it was four!” I questioned.

“Four is the president, Jack,” she said, “We only serve for two before re-election.”

“Son of a ****”, I cursed. “This day is going from bad to worse.”

Congressman Kimble's Press Conference on His Marriage

I won't start in any particular spot.  This particular press conference is the hardest thing I have had to do in at least 3 or 4 years.   I guess to begin with, I have always had a love affair...actually that's a bad choice of words.  I have always loved Yosemite National Park.  It's one of nature's last frontiers and I have long looked forward to someday visiting the park.

So all those things I said about Yosemite were true, but they're not the whole story, and that's obviously why everybody's gathered here right now. So let me lay out that larger story that has attracted so many of you all here. I'm a bottom line kind of guy. I'll lay it out. It's gonna hurt, and we'll let the chips fall where they may. Yep, I'm going to be taking responsibility here. Oh yes, it's responsibility taking time right now.

In so doing, let me first of all apologize to my wife Keri, and our adopted daughter Ayn.  We may have adopted her to save our marriage, but the full responsibility for this breakup does not fall on her shoulders.

I would secondly say to Keri, anybody who has observed her over the last 26 or 27 years of my life knows how closely she has stood by my side in campaign after campaign after campaign and literally being my campaign manager and I hope that she will return to our home when she thinks things over.  I have no idea where she put my brown socks and we will be back in session very soon.

I would also apologize to my staff, because as much as I did talk about going to Yosemite, that was one of the original scenarios that I'd thrown out to Joe E. Lee, that isn't where I ended up. And so I let them down by creating a fiction with regard to where I was going, which means that I then in turn given as much as they relied on that information, let down people that I represent across this great district.

I've let down a lot of people. That's the bottom line. And I let them down and in every instance I would ask there forgiveness. Forgiveness is not an immediate process, it is in fact a process that takes time and I'll be in that process for quite some weeks and months and I suspect years ahead as I attempt to show my wife that I love her and that I am willing to buy incredibly expensive jewelry for her.  I truly believe she is my soul mate and I stand by everything I said about her in my eBook Profiles in Courageousness, available at better eBook stores and soon to be available in paperback this Summer. 

It would be very easy to blame the homosexual agenda for the disillusion of my marriage.  In Congress, I have spoken for sometime about just how damaging to our heterosexual marriages, allowing gay marriage would be.  Today, I am sadly living proof.  However, I know in my heart that God wants me to overcome this hurdle he has placed in my way and I will endeavor everyday to do just that by remaining true to the morals that have always been the bedrock of my life of public service.

My situation is one where I am unfortunately victim as well as guilty party.  The pictures that I sent of Yosemite were Photoshopped and they fooled most people, but it began to unravel when a Twitter user named @LitThom recognized one of the bears I claimed to be in a karate fight with and suspected Photoshop.

The sad truth, is that I spent the weekend at a Fairfield Inn in Akron, Ohio.   I had been lured there, but a woman who I believed I had been having a torrid online affair with on Club Penguin for the past 2 years.  She was a beautiful 22 year old woman who lived not far from my home district.   Unfortunately, I discovered this weekend through the course of several very long phone conversations that the girl that I knew as Lennay Kekua did not in fact exist, but was a hoax being played on me by a very disturbed individual named Ronaiah Tuiasosopo.

In retrospect, leaving my wife and daughter for a woman that I had never met, was one of the biggest mistakes I've made in some time.   It is my hope, that my wife will accept my failings as I accept hers and that she will take me back. I truly am a victim here, but with God's help, I will overcome and my family will become a shining city on the hill and together we will be a new Jerusalem.   Thank you.  Thank you very much.   Stay Free America!!

Congressman Kimble to Appear in Vagina Monologues

[Reprinted from the Oakdale Value Shopper with Permission]

It's not the sort of thing you'd expect from 4 ruggedly conservative Congressmen, but this April 12th and 13th, Congressmen Jack Kimble, Jim Sensenbrenner, Louie Gohmert, and Steve Fincher will be appearing in a production of The Vagina Monologues at Glendale Valley Community College.  We're joined by Congressman Kimble to talk about the production:

OVS: Welcome Congressmen

JK: Thanks for having me

OVS:  So, have you always been a thespian?

JK: No, this is actually my first play since second grade [laughs], but I think politics is a lot like show business for ugly people.

OVS: So 4 male Congressmen are performing a play about women's vaginas.  Doesn't that strike you as odd?

JK: Not really. We make laws about women's vaginas all the time.

OVS: Well, how do you think women will feel when they see four Congressmen doing this play?

JK: I hope they will feel empowered.

OVS: Will this be your first time in drag?

JK: We're not doing drag.  We made a decision that we're going to present this dressed tastefully in suits and ties.

OVS: So, tell us about your part?

JK: We don't really have parts. It's a series of monologues that we have divided up between us.  Steve Fincher and I will take the younger monologues, while Jim and Louie do the more mature ones.  I think the monologue I do called "When I was 12 my Mother Slapped me" is very powerful and I think "My Angry Vagina" Is very funny.  I think the best moment in the show might be when Louie talks about the birth of his granddaughter.

OVS: What made you decide to do this?

JK: It just seemed like a natural extension of a lot of the legislation we were working on regulating women's vaginas and uteruses? Uteri?  Anyway, we're willing to try about anything to reach out to women voters.

OVS: I am really looking forward to seeing this.

JK: Tell your friends.

An Easter Gift for my Constituents and Friends

There are two huge pieces of news on the book front.   First, Profiles in Courageousness will be coming out in paperback form and secondly, it's been proofread and copy edited.  The new version will be appearing in the eBook stores soon and when that happens, I will make sure that anybody who bought the first version will be able to get the proofread copy free of charge.

In addition, I am as always on a crusade to save Easter from the Communists, Atheists, and Unitarians who wish to destroy it.  To that end, I am encouraging wholesome family values by giving away my eBook free of charge.  Simply go eBookit.com  and enter the coupon code "Easter".  You can even get the book in PDF format if you don't have an E-Reader. This free book give away will only last until tomorrow night at 8PM Eastern time.

To all my Christian friends, have a joyous and Happy Easter.  To my non-believer friends, no hard feelings about the whole crucifixion thing.

[Update] If you enjoy the book, please spread the word.  A review on Amazon or elsewhere would be great, but so would just telling your friends.  

Mister Emanuel's Opus

Reprinted from Last Stand for Children First - www.laststand4children.org

If you've ever seen Mr. Holland's Opus, you will remember the amazing moment at the end of the movie when many of Mr. Holland's former students reunite to play the symphony he wrote, but never got to really do much with because he was too busy teaching his students and helping them in their lives. 

I can only imagine when these Lafayette School students become adults and reunite to thank Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel for closing their school and providing them with much greater educational opportunities.  One can't help, but feel sorry for these kids who don't even have woodwinds and must rely almost entirely on strings and one drum to make their music. 

Lafayette School is just one of 54 schools that the Chicago Public Schools are planning to close.  Lafayette's Illinois School Report Card shows just what a colossal failure it is.  With 98% of the student population living in poverty, should they really be earning the upright bass?  Why not teach these students instruments that they could play on street corners and help their families out?  It seems to me fine arts money could be better used on more affluent students in the first place.

Mayor Emanuel has never visited Lafayette School nor have any School Board members, but they must have done their homework shutting down this school and making these students go to a new school 10 blocks away.  It may even be a good chance for the 166 students at the school with special needs to learn some life skills.  Now, if only the parents would stop complaining and start letting the Mayor do what's best for their kids.

Congressman Kimble Introduces Freedom to Commute Bill

It was a rainy February morning in Oakdale.   Matilda Jenkins, a single mom doing her best to raise her four year old child, was late for work again and the bus still hadn't arrived.   Would this be the day her boss fired her?  Would this be the day she would have to tell her precious son that there was no money to pay the rent?

She crossed her fingers, prayed and waited.

Everyday, this all too familiar scene is repeated at bus stops and subway stations across the country.  In the most advanced and most prosperous country in the world, it doesn't have to be this way.

Transportation choice gives commuters alternatives to traditional public transportation. Why shouldn't commuters be given a voucher — public money — that they can spend on private transportation?

Rather than paying $1 or $2 every trip to be jostled on a hot and crowded bus, under my Freedom to Commute bill, the money would follow the commuter and allow him to take that $4 a day that he is paying for a bus or subway token and use it to buy a new car or a taxi fare.

Transit unions routinely block attempts to implement transportation choice, including a pilot program that I pushed in 2010 that would have helped more than 20,000 commuters transfer out of chronically late, overcrowded public transportation. The unions don't want the competition.

My bill passed the House, but fell 12 votes short in the Senate.. No other bill has come close to a floor vote. And many of the busses I identified in my legislation remain dilapidated and overcrowded. three. years. later.

My new Freedom to Commute bill takes a new approach to transportation choice that  I hope will temper opposition.

My bill would use money currently earmarked for services for children and the elderly to pay for 1,000 vouchers each year of up to $10,000. Commuters in districts with the most bus and subway stops would be eligible.

Opponents of transportation choice, say that such a program will take needed funding away from public transportation, making the system worse for those who will still be dependent on it because of age or infirmity.  There are no easy answers here.   Would you deny a commuter the right to better transportation simply because other people may be impacted by his decision?

Getting people off mass transit could be a boon to our infrastructure that could only help sales of both cars and gasoline.  My bill would help both low- and middle-income families who feel trapped on public transportation. Turmoil with mass transit cuts and union action has many commuters investigating other options.
 

Thousands of commuters don't have the financial capacity to buy a car or may look far too shady to get picked up by a taxi. They deserve a shot at a better ride, and they deserve it now.

Lawmakers: Don't let another three years slip away without implementing a transportation choice program, even a limited version like mine. It's a starting point. Don't let those who work in our city's continue to be held hostage by the transit unions.

Matilda Jenkins was one of the lucky ones.  While vacationing in Chicago, she was there when Oprah gave her entire audience new cars.  Unfortunately, many hundreds more continue their wait for the crowded bus and hope to keep their job for one more day.

It's time — beyond time — to say that commuters should no longer have to sit at the back of the bus or anywhere else on the bus for that matter.   It's time for transportation choice.