Sunday, July 14, 2013

Your're OUT!!!. . .


. . . my representatives in government. . .


(by Charlie Reese,  a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper)
"Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The President does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a President to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits.. ( The President can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.)

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House?( John Boehner. He is the leader of the majority party. He and fellow House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want. ) If the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to. [The House has passed a budget but the Senate has not approved a budget in over three years. The President's proposed budgets have gotten almost unanimous rejections in the Senate in that time. ]

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.

If the Army & Marines are in Iraq and Afghanistan it's because they want them in Iraq and Afghanistan ..

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible. They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses. Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees... We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!"






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Saturday, July 13, 2013

Idle Hands. . .



The architect behing the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, wants to build a vacuum.  At least that what he asked his captors for permission to do.

His CIA handlers agreed.  The logic in approving the request, was that it would the preserve prisoner's sanity so he will stay mentally fit to someday stand trial.

Mohammed earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from North Carolina A&T State University.

A former senior CIA official indicated that after 183 episodes of waterboarding and 180 hours of sleep deprivation, the vacuum was a good idea because “We didn’t want him to go nuts”.







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Friday, July 12, 2013

Transparency. . .

?????

A U.S. special operations commander has ordered files about the raid and assassination of Osama Bin Laden sent to the CIA and purged from Defense Dept. records appearing to have bypassed federal rules and possibly the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. A CIA spokesman said it is "absolutely false" that records were moved to the CIA to avoid the legal requirements of the Freedom of Information Act. The records transfer was part of an effort to protect the names of the personnel involved in the raid, according to the inspector general's draft report.  Moving those records did allow the Pentagon to tell The Associated Press that it couldn't find any documents inside the Defense Department when the latter had requested them more than two years ago, and would represent a new strategy for the U.S. government to shield even its most sensitive activities from public scrutiny.  (Thanks to http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/08/19353473-pentagon-secretly-moved-bin-laden-raid-files-to-keep-them-from-public?lite)





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Thursday, July 11, 2013

My View. . .


I could be wrong, and I certainly am no lawyer, but it seems to me that in the George Zimmerman  murder trial,  some of the defense's arguments are just plain missing the point.  If Trayvon Martin  actually texted someone in the past about purchasing a weapon, does that mean he deserved to die?
If Trayvon Martin actually had traces of marijuana in his system, does that mean he deserved to die?  If Trayvon Martin was on top of George Zimmerman at some point in the scuffle, does that mean he deserved to die?  George Zimmerman was intentionally following Trayvon Martin for a period of time.  When the two finally clashed, Trayvon Martin actually put up a fight. Does that mean Trayvon Martin deserved to die?

In many photos of George Zimmerman, he appears to be introspective to the point of remorse.  The entire situation was most certainly unfortunate, to say the least.  Maybe the prosecution was overzealous in seeking a second-degree murder charge?

And without a doubt in my mind, Florida's 'Stand Your Ground' (or as I prefer 'The Cowboy Law') is one of the most stupid laws of which I have EVER heard!






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Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Our own. . .

. . . creations. . .


(from The Fourth Gospel:  Tales of a Jewish Mystic by John Shelby Spong)
". . . How difficult it is for religious people to embrace an unbounded God.  We have through our history sought to define God as a particular being, albeit one possessing supernatural power.  With God defined as a being, we then had to locate God in a place.  Ultimately that place was thought to be somewhere above the sky in a three-tiered universe.  Then we had to build for this God earthly dwelling places that we called "houses of worship."

Next, we began to assert that God's very words were captured in the words of our sacred scriptures.  Then we convinced ourselves that God's very nature could be defined in our creeds, doctrines and dogmas.  We then built mythologies around each of these human creations, assuring ourselves that God was content to live within our developed theological and liturgical limits. 

When these "sacred idols" began to be destroyed by the expansion of human knowledge, we acted as if God had died.  The God who lived above the sky was rendered homeless when we began to embrace the infinity of space; yet we continued to address God as "our Father who art in heaven."  Next, the scriptures, which we once thought of as God's literal words, began to be understood as tribal tales and as human interpretations; but when we read then in public worship, we still asserted that "this is the word of the Lord."  Then the creeds, the doctrines and the dogmas-which, we asserted, had captured God's revelation-began to be understood as political and cultural compromises; but we, in our fear, had in the past invested these human forms with such authority that those who questioned them were burned at the stake as heretics, and we claimed the word "orthodox" for our own human formulations. . ."




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Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Kids!!!. . .

. . . play nice!


(from http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/05/19304066-white-house-hails-june-jobs-report-gop-searches-for-flaws?lite)
". . . According to the latest jobs report, the US economy added 195,000 jobs in June and the unemployment rate holds at 7.6 percent...The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 7.6 percent, though the report was highlighted by the jobs figure, which outpaced most forecasters’ estimates...the report on Friday offered a modest political boon to President Barack Obama. Despite dire warnings about the effect of the ongoing sequester – the automatic, indiscriminate cuts to federal spending that were enacted earlier this year – the economy continues to add jobs, though not at the type of robust pace that would be needed to further reduce the unemployment rate.

But Republicans seized on some indicators of persistent economic weakness in the jobs report, namely a surge in part-time workers reflected in the statistics, and an uptick in the U-6 unemployment rate from 13.8 percent in May to 14.3 percent in June. The U-6 rate is a broader measure of unemployment, which includes discouraged workers and the underemployed.

“There’s some good news in this report, but economic growth is still tepid, the unemployment rate is far too high, and the president continues to promote policies that undermine robust job creation,” said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, in a statement..."





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Monday, July 8, 2013

Dream . . .



This is the kind of bull-pucky that our 'friends' in the media provide daily; a recent article about 'The American Dream', chock full of what they produce best - NOTHING!!!

This little gem begins by reminding us that we too can achieve success.  Then they promptly tell us the definition of success,  "The big home in the suburbs, the luxury cars in the garage, the kids off to a good college and the retirement in a sunny locale."  Funny how Merriam-Webster views success in  more spiritual, less-tawdry and materialistic terms as "favorable or desired outcome; also : the attainment of wealth, favor, or eminence". 

From the stock, bullshit 'American Dream' teaser and half-assed success definitions, this fine piece of writing moves on to another constantly and frequently misrepresented concept, the economy, and says that the weak job market is thwarting the best efforts of good honest folk (like you and me) to 'get ahead', by which I PRESUME they mean attain the aforementioned (theirs, not Merriam-Webster's) 'success'.  Now I'm not unrealistic or particularly cold-hearted about the job situation and the difficulties some people are currently experiencing with employment and lack thereof.  But somehow I think that our journalistic scribes are providing us with third-grade-level oversimplifications of the situation.

The particular tome that provoked my ire went on to, in short, states that although many present-day citizens truly believe that Americans all have an  equal ability to achieve success if they merely (and that's a BIG merely) work hard.  It does not venture (at least I did not detect it) into any possibility that there exist many additional factors in education, employment, the economy and geography that exert substantial influence in the seeking, achievement and  maintenance of something called success.

The best, and most intellectually substantial,  part of the article was a quote from the academic world that, in summary, stated possibly Americans need to rethink the definition of the American Dream, putting less focus on having a huge house and lots of cars and more focus on building successful communities. Whiles supporting our families is certainly important, “we need to scale back what the American Dream means to us.” 

And may I add, we must be more critical of what we read in the news and not be so childishly willing to accept everything in print as true and factual.








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