Hold Your Prayers, God is Busy in the Southwest These Days

Tags

immigration, religious right, right wing, teaparty

See, God is a little bit busy these days. If you hadn’t heard, a lot of children have been making their way to Merika these days, fleeing, you know, violence. Although nobody seems to talk much about that, the violence that is.

A vocal if hopefully small herd of mean people call them “illegals” and scream at the kids, telling them to “go back home”. Some have suggested that a well aimed firearm at the border might do the trick just fine, and no one of course should think they are meaning anything violent by that call to arms.

While not going quite this far, but *nudge nudge, wink wink* maybe they are, a couple of our pious types have ‘splained to us, the spiritually lacking, that this is all part of God’s plan. Brian Fischer, blasphemer-erradicator in charge of American values said thusly:

“Our southern border is there by God’s design. To disregard it, to treat it as if were not there, to regard it as something not worth respecting and defending, is an insult to the God who put it there for our benefit.”

Just forgettabout that “bring the little children unto me”. You missed the damn footnote: “unless they are from another country and *ick* brown or black, and are entering unto me illegally”.

 

Nodding in agreement is Texas *cough* Pastor Robert Jeffress who points out that God wants a fence between them and us, because, God was always clear about boundaries:

 

“Yes, Jesus loved children, but he also respected law. He said, render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” Jeffress clarified for the faithful on Fox News. “So, we need to do both. Show compassion, but secure the borders.”

 

Just forgettabout that stuff in the early part of the bible, about welcoming the stranger and hospitality and so forth. All that, we know, is made irrelevant by Jesus, oh except for that little part about not suffering men who lay with men to live. And maybe that part about witches too. That might stay in too.

 

What the religious right who pushes this vile push back against children, is that it was one of their own, George W., that “compassionate conservative” who signed into law the requirement that these kids can’t be returned to their country of origin without proper legal proceedings.

 

Just before leaving office, on Dec. 23, 2008, George W. Bush signed into law the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. This bipartisan measure, named for a 19^th century British abolitionist, was aimed at extending and beefing up efforts to prevent and prosecute human trafficking and protect the victims of trafficking.  More importantly, it described exactly how unaccompanied children crossing the border must be treated.

 

The crazies on the Right have of course ignored their own complicity in this legislation, and find it more profitable to insinuate that the President has in fact invited these kids from their violence-wracked homelands to America for some nefarious purpose:

 

I have to believe that when you don’t respond in any way that you are either inept or you have some ulterior motive of which you are functioning from,” Perry said during an interview on ABC’s “This Week.”

 

Ricky (I can’t believe these glasses haven’t made me smart yet) Perry actually said that, although what the conspiracy is for or about, is beyond his meager brain power to discern.

 

Meanwhile, the Right continues to live in cognitive dissonance which prompted one comedienne to suggest that the children should paste the name “fetus” on their forehead. That sounds harsh, but these are the same people who are willing to go to extreme lengths, i.e., Hobby Lobby, to protect the rights of a “fertilized egg”. To turn children away who are fleeing violence and possible death in their own country, seems a interesting juxtaposition to say the least. 

 

To say nothing of our sanctimonious lip service paid to all those poor Syrian children who are living in makeshift tent cities all over the Middle East, having fled the murderous bombardments of Bashar Al-Assad. No finer example is John S. McCain and his wringing of hands at the “humanitarian tragedy” that is going on. Yet we hear nothing from the old fart when it comes to protecting these poor children arriving frightened and alone because their families believe that the trek to Merika is far safer than allowing them to remain at home.

 

No, in fact McCain says no to authorizing money to the President to deal with the crisis, finding it:

 

“It would cost us very little to fly them back, as compared with the cost of taking care of them while they were here,” he said.

 

Mostly McCain has whined about not being allowed to take his cell phone with him in viewing the detainment camps in Arizona. His Senatorial rights, he claims trump these kids right to privacy. Change the policy, he bellowed.

 

We in America are again caught in that position we so often find ourselves in–telling the rest of the world how to behave, all the while doing the in-opposite at home. Another shaming moment in the US of A.

 

There’s a Scandal Alright–Just Not Where You Think

Tags

Benghazi, Dan Burton, Darrell Issa, House committees, Jonathan Kar

I’ve long wondered at the seeming inability of the GOP to remember that we actually keep records of  “that stuff”. They continue to forget that. I give a pass to the typical TeaPotter who is so ill-informed that they are left with nothing but misspelled phrases that they either paint on cardboard signs or attempt to regurgitate from memory. They can’t be expected to actually, you know, KNOW history.

As you know doubt know, the GOP has been looking for a way for five long years now to bury this president. All of their schemes have come to naught for quite obvious reasons, but even when we thought things might, just might, return to some semblance of normalcy after their debacle of 2012, well, sadly they learned nothing.

Some of their own kind (Pat Toomey)  even admit, that their membership so hates this man that they will vote NO on legislation as publicly supported as universal background checks. So of course we expected that rottweiler of a thug, Darrell Issa to continue his determination to find SOMETHING that can bring down this administration.

Benghazi was their choice, aided and abetted by one John S. McCain, who had a personal vendetta and was more than willing to rattle the sabre of “coverup” at least as it pertained to Susan Rice, a woman we can now categorically say was unfairly maligned and mistreated by Johnny and his misogynist guy pal, Ms. Lindsey.

Let me just say this simply. The Benghazi “scandal” is nothing more than a witch hunt. And history explains it all to us.

Darrell “my brother did it” Issa is chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. That is, innocent as it sounds, a very powerful committee, and one Issa has used since 2010 when he assumed chairmanship, to conduct endless hearings into the Obama administration, hoping to find ANYTHING that can be used to harass and drive from office the Negro in the White House.

It is also the only committee that is allowed to issue subpoenas under the chairman’s signature only. However, this has seldom been the practice. Normally, given that grave power, the Chairman has sought the agreement of a full committee vote before so proceeding. This has been  the case except for only two occasions in modern times. Hint: this is where the history gets important.

The most notable occasion when the Chairman took sole control over subpoenas was under the chairmanship of Dan Burton, (R-IN). Mr. Burton had a serious case of the ass against one William J. Clinton. Like Darrell, Dan fairly lit up the committee with his constant and outlandish claims of wrongdoing.

This resulted in a scandal of course–Mr. Burton spend years, over 1,000 subpoenas, and 7 million bucks of taxpayer money, trying to prove that there was scandal to be found in the fund-raising practices of the Democratic Campaign organization. Copies of audio tapes from a “witness” were released. Later it was determined that the tapes had been severely “edited” to appear quite different from their original content. Burton fired committee staff man David Bossie, the supposed “editor”.

However, the scandal went further, and finally, there were calls for Burton to step down himself. He never did of course.

Well, here we go again.

Mr. Issa decided that Burton’s sole possessor of the subpoena was a good thing,  and re-instituted the practice again. This brought a rather lengthy and well-reasoned letter from Elijah Cummings, ranking minority leader on the committee, and a man with a memory. He pointed out that unilateral usage of the power of subpoena had gotten the GOP into serious trouble once before, and it was better to return to the normal and regular practice of bipartisan issuance of these orders.

Of course, Mr. Issa declined rational behavior and has as we all know run a one-man-show of Obama attack. And the expected result has occurred.

For weeks the GOP has harped that the Obama White House was engaged in a cover-up regarding Benghazi. That cover-up has never been spelled out well, but it seems to have revolved around the White House changing the talking points (which implicated Rice somehow), to protect the State Department (and Hillary Clinton) from being accused of malfeasance.

This claim was bolstered by information from e-mails circulated between the  parties involved. We were told this by the GOP. Jonathan Karl broke the story for ABC, claiming as the GOP had alleged, that State Department officials had participated in changing the talking points, along with the White House. Karl implied that he had seen the emails himself and “quoted” from them.

When the true emails were brought forth, they told a different story–one that indicated that neither the White House nor the State Department had played a part in the versions discussed and finally issued by the CIA for distribution (i.e. to Susan Rice).  Now of course Karl claims he never actually saw any e-mails but his “source” shared “notes” with him of what he/she read.

The fair meaning  of what Karl claimed and the actual truth leave little doubt that there was a deliberate attempt to portray the White House and State Department in a bad light and to provide proof that they had acted politically with the intent to deceive. Since the e-mails were the subject of subpoenas, the likely “source” is undoubtedly someone on Issa’s committee.

It is ironic in the end that all this Benghazi “scandal” has been in part to dirty the White House, but also to begin the long process of discrediting Mrs. Clinton. While nobody is all that surprised by the GOP’s doing that, it must be remembered that when all efforts were directed toward destroying the President, the GOP actually held Mrs. Clinton up as the “ray of sunshine” in the otherwise dismal Obama landscape.

Now that the President seems invincible to their machinations, Clinton, the new threat, became the new target.

It’s all so predictable.

And that is what needs be investigated it seems–why are my tax monies being used to manufacture scandals for Republican political gain?

Riddle me that Batman.

Related articles

• Benghazi Backfires on Republicans as Democrats Eviscerate Issa and the GOP (politicususa.com)
• Will a GOP aide be fired over Benghazi email changes? (salon.com)
• CBS News: Republicans Changed Benghazi Emails (themoderatevoice.com)
• CBS: Republicans were source of inaccurate Benghazi emails (dailykos.com)
• Why the GOP may regret its Obama scandal obsession (tv.msnbc.com)
• Benghazi Backfires on Republicans as Democrats Eviscerate Issa and the GOP (easyjjgrand3.newsvine.com)

The Running of the Bulls. . .hit

Tags

editorial, IRS, tax exempt status

Okay, get your outrage ready followed by your thinking caps. It, to pare a Bette Davis phrase, “is going to be a bumpy ride.”

Let’s get rid of the outrage first.

1. It’s bad to target identifiable public groups of people for special scrutiny unless they are promoting pedophilia or making Adolph Hitler’s birthday a national holiday.
2. A man as smart as President Obama is, is surely very good at getting elected and surely very bad at managing his Administration–at least he has a lot of really incompetent people working for him that aren’t doing him any favors.
3. Anything that gives Tea Potters the ability to dance in the street in glee is just wrong on so many levels–mostly because they dress like idiots who missed the bus to the Super Bowl tailgate party.
4. Fourth, Jon Stewart already said it better than you could anyway with this:

“Well, congratulations, President Barack Obama, Conspiracy theorists who generally can survive in anaerobic environments have just had an algae bloom dropped on their fucking heads, thus removing the last arrow in your pro-governance quiver: skepticism about your opponents.”

TeaPotters should of course get somebody to explain to them what he said meant.

Okay, outrage over.

Now, let’s examine the facts, which are still fairly small in number, which allows me the joyous whimsy of speculating all over the place about both what might have happened and why. Given that I’m reputed worldwide to be a fairly decent prognosticator (if you don’t count the times I was wrong), I’m sure you will find my analysis spot on as they say or don’t say. You choose. (We are not getting into the DOJ “new” scandal today, so relax, you won’t go into brain overheating).

Okay, let’s begin.

This goes back, in my humble opinion, and with a tiny bit of help from the ever bubbly Contrarian, to *drum roll* Citizens United. That amazingly short-sighted, ill-thought-out, and all around stupid decision opened the floodgates as you no doubt recall to all kinds of bad things. Corporations could give unlimited amounts of money to elect those persons who would support their cause that the only good dollar is one in the pocket of a rich person, for only they know what to do with it.

Okay, okay, so it also allowed all sorts of other “groups” to also gather and spend tons of dough to influence the minds of mostly mind-numbingly stupid voters.

With me so far?

So a lot, and I do mean a lot, of folks figured out that they wanted to get in on the action.

In the world of the IRS is a thing called a 501 (c) 4. This is a tax-exempt status, not quite as pure as a 501 (c)3 status. It allows you to collect money and not pay taxes on it, but the donor can’t claim it as a tax-exempt donation. The status is reserved for groups who operate “for the promotion of the public welfare.”

See the truck? See the truck drive through the gigantic hole in the wall?

What the hell is public welfare?

Well, I knew you would ask that.

The ACLU is considered to do so. But so is the NRA.

See the more rigorous status, the 501 (c) 3 status requires that you stay the hell out of politics in any way shape or form. The 501 (c) 4 status is a bit more lenient. It allows one to lobby for legislation and also to engage in political activities as “long as their primary activity is the promotion of social welfare.” The mack truck as you can see is still driving right on through.

So a whole bunch of organizations pop up, all claiming they are for the public welfare, when in reality they are really about promoting candidates and issues. Enter the TeaPotters and various other right-wing groups.  To be fair, and we aim for fair,  there are (although to lesser number) plenty of left-wing organizations who also are trying to do the same thing.

Now Cincinnati is the office that apparently is the hub of the IRS operation to approve or deny applications for this status. One can assume that following Citizens United in 2010, there was a general flood of applications as everybody including grandma wanted to get in on the action. (I’m told something like 60,000 would not be far off the mark) The status is valuable since, some of the money is tax exempt which allows more of it be used as the organization desires, whether it be to “public welfare” or quite frankly in some case to allow for bigger salaries to those who run the things. Hint: you can make a good living by setting up and running one.  Also donor lists are not required to be publicized.

What to do with this flood of applications which may well have driven the wait time up many additional months?

I figure that some mid-level bureaucrats, who were told in no uncertain terms to clear the backlog, and “no you were not getting any more workers” because the GOP just says NO!, dreamed up this computer program to sort through applications and flag those that would in all cases require further scrutiny–i.e., were they actually doing “public welfare” or only a front for a political agenda. (It’s fairly hard to argue that any Tea party group or any Occupy Wall street group could be anything but political.) The program used words like tea party, phrases like government not working, taxes, and so forth.

As I understand it, of the numbers of kicked out applications (requiring further scrutiny and action) 25% involved right-wing organizations. The rest involved either left-wing or other groups who did not meet the criteria, being not fraternal organizations of chickadee lovers, chocolate addicts anonymous, or things of similar ilk.

At some point, higher-ups learned of the practice. Discussions were had, and all seemed convinced that it was not aimed at “enemies” so much, as to simply weed out by computer rather than by hand, those applications that would require more time. The normal applications could thus be passed through within a reasonable time.

Of course, it became known up the chain of command what was going on. But apparently this raised no red flag (as it should have) as it was discussed and explained to them.

This is born out by the fact that during this entire episode, one Doug Shulman was head of the IRS. Now Mr. Shulman was appointed and began his leadership of the IRS in March of 2008, having been appointed by George W. Bush. He completed his term in November of 2012. He testified that there was no such thing going on in the IRS, as late as March of 2012. While it is still unknown whether he was aware of the practice, it is now thought that he probably did.

This suggests to me, that he did not consider it aimed at suppressing right-wing groups so much as helping to alleviate the backlog and limited to pulling out those applications that would otherwise require additional scrutiny anyway. It appears that the agency’s interests had turned to increasing revenue since the early 2000’s, and it was felt that as much as 1.2 billions were being lost to tax exempt groups in the 2012 election alone. Clearly some of this, if not most of it, should not be tax exempt under the current laws.

Shulman is and has never been a politico. His entire career has been spent in the business arena. That suggests that while his political affiliation is unknown,  he probably supports business interests and it seems unlikely to me that he would deliberately turn a blind eye to some deliberate effort to damage conservative groups, which typically favor business interests. Thus we can take him at this word I think that there was not attempt to “target” conservative groups per se.

This suggests that the real problem here is not one of an “enemies list” so much as what you get when you try so hard to depoliticize an organization that none within it have the political nose to see a HUGE problem for what was probably created as a benign process to speed up the process for legitimate applications while leaving more problematical ones for later.

In other words, any political junkie would have seen this immediately as “DANGER, DANGER WILL ROBINSON!”,  but they were not so seen by your average apolitical bureaucrat.

So that’s my initial take on it.

Of course weigh in.

Related articles

• The IRS should review all 501(c)(4) organizations (evergreeninstitute.wordpress.com)
• IRS nonprofit division overloaded, understaffed (publicintegrity.org)
• The Monday Long Read: Why the IRS scrutiny of conservative groups is less nefarious – and more necessary – than you think (americangladiators.wordpress.com)
• The IRS Shoots Itself in the Foot, Then Reloads (motherjones.com)
• The IRS Was Wrong – But Many Political Groups Should Not Be Tax-Exempt (business.time.com)

The Benghazi Hustle

Tags

Benghazi, GOP, Libya, State Department, teabaggers

Here we go again. Everybody hold tight because this merry-go-round is speeding around the curve and headed for–well just about anything that the GOP imagination can dream up.

In a valiant attempt to turn a mole hill into a mountain, Republican Tea Snorters are busy twisting and feigning shock and awe at the shameful and deliberate attempt by the Obama Administration to get “brave Americans” murdered by, well, you know, their true friends.

If one reads the headlines of the extreme-stream media, here is what you will find:

“Benghazi Witness: First Time in my Career that a Diplomat Has more balls than somebody in the Military.”

“Benghazi revelations today could obliterate Obama’s Credibility and Sink Hillary’s 2016 ambitions.”

“Issa seeks more whistle blowers after dramatic Benghazi hearing.”

“Two key witnesses refuse to testify at Benghazi hearing.”

“Benghazi Makes Watergate look like kindergarten: The End of Obama”

“Hillary perjured herself on Benghazi?”

“Benghazi Whistleblower: You Should have Seen what Clinton Tried to do to us that night.”

And on and on it goes.

Here’s what I think we know at this point.

1. A YouTube video riled up Muslims around the world and demonstrations were being held in a variety of places, Egypt among them.
2. A demonstration occurred at Benghazi, that was violent.
3. Ambassador Stevens was fairly well known to favor less security rather than more in an attempt to be open to the residents of the country.
4. Republicans had steadfastly refused State Department requests for more money to beef up security around the world.
5. The Ambassador and three others were killed in the first attack.
6. Air support could not have reached the outpost for hours, a minimum of 5-7 according to the military.
7. There was no basis for suspecting a second attack.
8. There were no deaths or serious injuries sustained in the second attack.
9. A team of FOUR, a military security forces was located at Tripoli but they were concerned about security there, and even John Bolton admitted that they were unable to determine whether the four men should leave that facility for Benghazi when the deaths had already occurred and there was no reason to suspect a second attack.
10. Senator Tom Corker from Tennessee, sat on the Senate hearings on Benghazi and said that he read all the material and thought he knew what happened and was satisfied.
11. The President termed the attack a “terrorist attack” the day following the attack.
12. That Susan Rice delivered the cautionary remarks that we were unsure what happened based on material supplied her by others in the State Department or other agencies.
13. That Al Qaeda is not an organization so much as an idea, and many Islamic groups claim “affiliation” without benefit of any actual connection. To this day, we don’t know I don’t think who this group consisted of.
14. There was no reason to believe that naming it other than a terrorist attack was some how beneficial to the White House in the midst of an election. Most presidents, following some catastrophe or other see their polling improve as people tend to “rally round” the Administration. If the President had war mongered the event, the GOP would have been arguing just the opposite–that he was making it much worse than it was in order to gain sympathy.

The bottom line to me here is simply. The Benghazi outpost was under-secured. Certainly the GOP bears SOME responsibility for that fact as do congressional Democrats who agreed that they didn’t need additional funds. There was apparently not good plans in place for an emergency like this. There should have been.

Beyond that, it was a sad tragedy. But let us remember. Americans are dying around the world every day. They are dying in service to the country, and as employees of corporations doing business in dangerous places. These four were doing their jobs. They perhaps did not receive the full support they should have, but such is life in dangerous occupations. I don’t mean to minimize it, but it should not be overstated either.

The GOP tried to make this into some scandal during the fall of 2012 to hurt the chances of the President to be re-elected, and enhance their candidates chances. That didn’t happen. Now they see polling that suggests that Hillary Clinton, if the nominee will beat any Republican so far put forth, easily and soundly.

Is it hard to see why this is happening now? Of course not. This is just an attempt to dirty up Clinton and force her to not run.

That’s my take on it.

And what is yours?

Republicans are united in their insanity that this will lead to impeachment.

Do you?

Related articles

• Republicans continue to press for answers on Benghazi (nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com)
• Yet Another Benghazi Nothingburger Today (motherjones.com)

To Drone Or Not to Drone

Tags

drones, foreign policy, warfare

Let’s just start out by saying: I’m conflicted here.

So don’t expect answers, just a lot of questions.

Under the Obama Administration, drone attacks of a lethal nature have increased from something less than fifty under Bush to something over 350 under President Obama. Some of this undoubtedly has to do with better technology, but more has to do with an increasing willingness to use predator drones as a means of assassinating so-called “enemy combatants.”

My moral sense, informed by my faith, tells me that drones are simply wrong, because war in general is wrong, and killing people deliberately is wrong. I find nothing in the teachings of Christ which can make war appropriate; indeed his life and death suggest that it is never appropriate. That said, my own church, and most Christian denominations support the concept of war in limited circumstances–something called “justified” warfare. That includes, but is not limited to wars of self-defense to repel an invader. The trouble is, the term just is pretty broad, and although there are a series of elements to it, in the end, each is big enough to drive a truck through. It ends up meaning, war is acceptable when we think it is.

Still, I could go much further than the Church and stick to my basic belief that the way to stop wars is to stop warring.

Yet, I live in a real world with real threats. Innocents around the world are dying by the hundreds each day due to the evil of lethal aggression from a variety of sources. There seems to be a duty to intervene to stop it. When and how and for whom tend to be the stumbling blocks. Sadly our intervention seems more determined by how “strategic” the country involved is. Do we want or need something from it? If we do, we are inclined to do what’s necessary to bring it to stability.

That stability, sadly, has little to do with what is morally right or wrong. It is the main reason we find ourselves hated by large numbers of people throughout the globe today. That is true of every continent. We have supported vile dictatorships in the name of that stability and the consequent protection of our “interests”. The people have not forgotten. Some, perhaps most, recognize that the American people at large don’t make these decisions–they hate our government but not necessarily us.

So, if we life in a world where war is going to go on regardless of our moral objections, where do drones fit in?

First, let’s set the record clear. There is nothing wrong with using drones on the actual battlefield. It is no different from a large cannon or a tank. Nobody argues that the use of drones should be prohibited here.

The area of contention is the use of lethal drone strikes in otherwise “neutral” territory. Best estimates suggest that the number of people killed by drones issued by the US, amount to somewhere between 2,000 and 3200, give or take. Somewhere between 18-23% of those killed were non-combatants or as we like to cleanly call them, “collateral damage”. This should give pause by itself.

There seem to be several points of inquiry about their use in general:

1. Who decides?
2. What are the standards by which decisions are made to identify a target?
3. Should Americans be subjects of attack?

Some argue that it is unseemly or somehow wrong that the President signs off apparently on each of these targets. They claim he should be more divorced from the action. Since he is undeniably accountable for the program and what it does or doesn’t do, I find this argument specious. In fact,  am slightly comforted that I can trust that a sane head is making the ultimate decision.

By the way, the very fact that President Obama has expanded the drone program so dramatically during his tenure in office, suggests that the Tea Party reactionaries who claim that Obama is in love with Muslims and is secretly working for them, are as we would expect, crazy as loons. Yet of course the Tea Party does not laud the President either for his actions, suggesting that their motives as we always suspect are more racial than rational.

The standards, we understand are largely revealed in documents released. They suggest that the following must be met:

1. The target must be an imminent threat to US citizens safety and lives.
2. There must be no reasonable way to capture the target alive.
3. There must be no other rational alternative.

Since most if not all of those killed by drones have occurred in foreign countries, it is hard to explain how the first standard is ever met. One can only conjure up claims that this target was the one to give the “go” to a plot ready to be employed but for the target’s okay. I suspect that such a situation is rare.

The second standard would seem to be regularly ignored as well, since we know that special ops alternatives can and are used on occasion, and it is unclear when they cannot be used as opposed to when they can.

The third standard seems redundant.

The third issue, regarding Americas being targets seems to be the one that causes all the wringing of hands and hysterics. I find the claim that American citizens are citizens and therefore “different” completely bogus. If we contend that American citizens should not be subject to drone attack because it violates their constitutional rights to life and liberty absent due process efforts to remove them, than I think the same applies to foreign targets.

We claim that our “rights” are nothing less than human rights. We tell the world that they too should give their citizens nothing less, because it is simply morally right. We often attempt to interfere in other countries precisely in an effort to help the people there “obtain” their human rights. We maintain sanctions against countries that we find in violation of “human rights.”

Given all that, how can we treat those we capture and claim to be “enemy combatants” anything less than the right to be charged as such, and to be afforded due process. Guantanamo is a hideous example of the ugliness of American policy toward non-citizens. Before somebody suggests that it is no different from a POW camp, think again. Most  all POW’s wore UNIFORMS. Their ACTIVE engagement in warfare against us was not in dispute.

Many at Guantanamo dispute their designation. Some have been released years later because it was determined they were arrested in error. We have held some of these people for nearly 14 years not. It is immoral, period. To suggest that they are not entitled to  the basic right of having an impartial judicial determination of their “guilt” is inhumane in its narrowest sense. To suggest that we cannot “safely” conduct trials in this country is ludicrous and makes Timothy McVeigh and other terrorists who were tried here, some kind of “special case” which they were not.

At present, polling in the US suggests that 83% of the country approves of the drone program. Close to 2/3 believe that it is appropriately used against American citizens. There seems to be no real divide between Democrats and Republicans; this is one area where partisanship apparently does not play.

That is what I know. I’m sure there is much I don’t know. If you can assist me in my quandary, please do. I’m still not sure where I come out with all this.

You may way to take a look at the following:

The American People Love Drones

The International Law of Drones

Related articles

• US Government Says Drone Striking Americans Is Legal (earththreats.com)
• Watch: License to Kill: Government Authorizes Drone Strikes on US Citizens (abcnews.go.com)
• Leaked Memo: How Obama Justifies Drone Killing of Americans (atlantablackstar.com)
• The Debate on Drones: Away from the Politics, the Nameless Dead Remain (world.time.com)
• 10 Questions Congress Should Ask Killer Drone Policy Architect John Brennan (alternet.org)
• Predator Drone Hypocrisy (uscapostasy.wordpress.com)
• Drone strikes legal case revealed (bbc.co.uk)
• Attack of the Drones – USA (aworldchaos.wordpress.com)
• UN inquiry into drone killings (bbc.co.uk)
• Scarborough Rips ‘Double Standard’ On Obama’s Drones: ‘Self-Righteous’ Bush Critics Should Apologize (mediaite.com)

They’re All Bums–Well Most of Them

Tags

Catholic Church, filibusters, gun control, Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, pedophilia, President, senate, wacko right

Yeah, you heard me.

I try to get away from the idiots but they just keep coming. There is no end to the incompetent, self-serving bull crap going on in Washington. I mean it makes your head swirl.

First we got old Wayne La pee pee Pierre and his survivalist mentality. How’s this for logic: we can’t do background checks (which he FULLY endorsed in only 1999) because criminals won’t come in to submit to them.

Why shock me to death Whiney Wayne. I guess we shouldn’t have laws against bank robbery either, cuz you know, the bank robber he’s just not going to obey it.

Why can’t we have limits of the types of weapons that are sold? “Because we can’t trust these people,” according to Wayne. These people being the operative word here, as in “liberals” or “blacks” you know. Just because they say they won’t take shotguns and hunting rifles and regular handguns, “they” might just be lying.

Just as you Wayne lie to your constituents when you tell them that “who knows, the next disaster like a tornado the government might not show up, and well, people will have to defend themselves from marauding hoards.” Yeah you utter base excuse for a human being. That is so likely to happen.

If gun manufacturers can’t come up with better arguments than that, well, you deserve to be pistol-whipped boys.

BITE ME!

And then there is the king wimp of them all, Mr. Harry Reid, you know the soft-spoken little twit that Democrats are somehow forced to accept as Majority Leader in the Senate?

Why Harry, when asked about his support for gun safety legislation, says, “these are all things we need to take a look at.”

Take a look at ?

Where the hell have you been for the last two months you mealy-mouthed sucker on the NRA teat?

You’re the freakin’ MAJORITY leader. You’re in charge of what gets brought to the floor. You’re supposed to be a good guy remember? What is there to “understand” about high-capacity clips? Shall we ban anything over 10, or anything over 6? Boy that took a lot of time to “study.” And doesn’t it behoove somebody on your staff to have actually read Diane Feinstein’s bill? Is it so much different from the last one you enacted? What exactly do you do all day, other than feed lettuce to the Turtle Man?

Get off your stupid ass and DO something, and while you are at it:

BITE ME!

Speaking of whom, or what, or it, Turtle Man McConnell, I hear tell you are gonna filibuster the President’s nominee Richard Cordray once again to head up the Consumer Protection Division? This after you all admit there is not a damn thing wrong with his qualifications. This is solely because you don’t like the agency. Well that’s a new one.

Never in the history of the Republic has a party filibustered a nominee simply because they don’t like the agency he or she is going to head. Now we understand that those beholden to big business want no part of protecting consumers. No that would be wrong, You’re the party of rugged individualism. People have to take care of themselves. I mean it can’t cost too much to have a lab test done to find  that the damn medicine that  Pfizer produces won’t kill me, immediately, or grow hair on the bottom of my feet in two years.

This crap is absurd. And your pal Harry, God bless his stupid little head, was so scared of your wrath that he ignored the real opportunity to put an end to this insane misuse of the filibuster when he had the chance. Jimmy Stewart is crying in heaven today.

So Mitch?

BITE ME!

And Harry?

BITE ME AGAIN!

The President mentioned that he went skeet shooting at Camp David. Of course the insane Right, went insane, insinuating that the President was lying. Not because they hate him, of course, and if he cured cancer, they would see it as a Muslim Brotherhood Plot. No. Not for that reason. They don’t trust him, since he’s done so many darn things that were illegal and well everybody knows all of our FREEDOMS are hanging by a threat.

So he no doubt lied about the skeet shooting, for some reason, but reasons don’t matter, and are too hard to figure out, so let’s just say he lied, because well Black people have a habit of doing that, *nudge nudge*.

So the White House produces a picture of the present firing a gun that all agree is the type used for skeet shooting.

So of course, IT’S A FAKE!

It’s another conspiracy folks and the survivalists sure do love them some conspiracy.

BITE ME! ALL OF YOU!

Some of you may have heard of Archbishop Roger Mahony, retired from the archdiocese of Los Angeles in 2011 after having served since 1985. He and his top aide, Thomas Curry were both implicated in covering up child abuse by a series of priests. Just released documents show they actively attempted to protect priests from prosecution and withheld their names from police.

They have, in their retirement, been stripped of all public and administrative duties. This was done by now Archbishop  Jóse Gomez.

Children, we are told were threatened if they told the truth of what happened to them.

There was one way that a Church which claims to be the holder of the Keys of St. Peter and THE church of  Christ, (which you may or may not buy. I don’t and I am a Catholic), and that is to expose and drive out of the priesthood anyone who assaults a child. Period. End of discussion. You can offer them all your prayers and whatever, but first you REMOVE THEM FROM THE PRIESTHOOD. They are not fit to be priests. They are not some common sinners. They are predators of innocent children.

To all you who make excuses for my Church and it’s utter failing in this matter, I say:

BITE ME!

Oh, and I’m in a darn good mood today. The Ravens won, I walked the dog, the housework is done, the Contrarian cleaned the oven, and he’s taking me out to lunch. I’m happy as a clam. You don’t want to see me when I’m hot. No I suspect you don’t.

Related articles

• Will Harry Reid’s Filibuster Deal With McConnell Bite Him On the You-Know-What? (themoderatevoice.com)
• Photo of Obama Shooting Skeet Stirs Controversy (usnews.com)
• Harry Reid: “I’m not personally, at this stage, ready to get rid of the 60-vote threshold” (washingtonpost.com)

Food, Huh! What Is It Good For?

Tags

crap I learned, diets, food, life in the foothills, lifestyle

Okay, you caught me. I’m avoiding politics. Just for a bit. I’m tired of reporting on idiots. Tired up to the tippy-top of my noggin with fools and dopes, and all manner of misanthropes who permeate our political landscape. The last was the isolated butt-stupid “law enforcement” personnel across the country who have determined that “they will not enforce unconstitutional gun laws”. These missing-links to humanity are nothing but assholes with inverted mouths. To suggest that they haven’t thought this through would be to suggest that they can think in the first place.

So.

What ya wanna talk about today?

Food? I thought so.

I been reading about food lately. I read The China Study, and now I’m reading, Healthy at Every Size. I won’t bore you with long drawn out descriptions except to say that the first does an excellent job of proving that for health reasons, a plant-based diet is probably the very best any person could choose. Of course only a tiny segment of the population is or ever will be prepared to never eat a hamburger, a glorious slice of Vermont Cheddar, or a gnaw upon a spicy rib bone. The second, fairly echoes my conclusion but goes ever so much further stating once and for all, that diets don’t work, except again for a tiny segment of the population.

I tend to agree with both. I cannot do a plant-based diet. I’m not that tiny segment. I have tried every manner of diet, and been successful on most all. Until I had lost the weight and tried to eat NORMALLY again. I do mean normally too. I put the weight back on faster than a nearing 40-year-old says “I do”, and as then some. It’s all quite predictable, for diets interfere with the bodies own dynamics, and as soon as the diet is done, the body starts to repair the damage at it sees things. It does little good by the by to try to tell it otherwise. It has a mind of its own.

You see this has to do with systems that are evolutionarily developed over millions of years to care for the body (itself) when the brain sitting atop all this mass of flesh was not smart enough to make the right decisions. A whole mass of interconnected “stuff” in our brains, bloodstreams, and so forth released chemicals, slowed them down, pushed them about, all to regulate what we ate and when. For a lot of millions of years, we did just fine.

Then the mirror was developed. And we saw that fat butt, and that round tummy, and well we became insane. We started to artificially alter our size. And our inborn systems have been rebelling ever since. You diet, the brain says, “we’re starving–quick slow systems down!” So our metabolisms fall making our calorie output slower than normal. We become hungrier, and  the normal level of our satiety is thrown off kilter. So when we stop starving ourselves, we eat more, more often.

Then the food industry comes into play. They want to make money. They don’t care about our natural mechanisms for maintaining a healthy body. They use high fructose corn syrup because it is cheap. It goes into everything now. It messes up the “satiety” bells and whistles. So we eat more and more often. They use all kinds of additives that affect the proper release of various chemicals and so forth into our bloodstream that help us to decide what to eat and when. They mess it up. So we eat Cheetos, instead of an apple.

The government is complicit. They subsidize farmers who grow corn. It stays cheap so it can be the favored supplier of sweeteners. In Europe, by the by, you can hardly find soda pop that uses HFCS (high fructose corn syrup), because it’s BANNED as UNHEALTHY. Here you can’t find any without it. It’s in bread and almost all boxed and pre-made foods.

The government promotes the use of milk, although studies suggest it plays a part in breast and prostate cancer, onset juvenile diabetes, and cant’ be digested properly by tons of people. There are no good studies that say its a good way to avoid osteoporosis either.

Fast food places supersize foods because the french fries are so damn cheap that they can double the size at about only 40% of the cost. And over time, the consumer becomes used to the larger size, and considers it the “normal” portion. The more we eat, the more we crave it. We mess up our internal systems. Go into a McDonald’s and ask for a “small” fry. They will not have a clue what you are talking about. There is no such thing as “small” any more.

We don’t eat because we are hungry. And we don’t eat what our body needs, we eat what our drunken brains have been taught to crave. We eat because it is noon, and we eat a salad because we want to be “good” until evening when we are starved and we devour a bag of chips and a twenty-ounce coke.

Now, I’m not trying to talk you into anything here. But these two books are worth your attention before you start yet another weight-loss scheme. If only to alert you that you can’t depend on the government to keep you safe, nor frankly even a lot of the various medical associations. You cannot believe how many of the things like Pediatric Doctors Associations (and similar things) are heavily contributed to by all the “bad” food makers to get a nod. These associations have a maddeningly bad habit of altering their “advice” to include “reasonable” portions of soda, chocolate, and all the other things we know are not real food in return for those hefty “donations”.

I’m simply trying to make better food choices, and exercise because I find it fun, and because it makes me feel better. I’m trying to make most of my diet from real foods, and meals created from whole ingredients.  Being healthy is, at my age, increasingly much more important than whether I can pop my buns into a pair of sexy jeans. Way more.

Related articles

• High fructose corn syrup linked with diabetes (thenaturopathicnutritionist.com)
• Soybean Oil: One of the most harmful ingredients in processed foods (sott.net)
• Dr. Mercola: Why Americans Are Less Healthy, and Die Sooner Than People In Other Developed Nations (consciouslifenews.com)
• This is how the food industry makes Americans fat and hungry (rt.com)
• Fructose Sugar Tells the Brain To Keep Eating (livescience.com)
• Imaging study examines effect of fructose on brain regions that regulate appetite (esciencenews.com)
• Diabetes Rates Higher in Countries Using Lots of High Fructose Corn Syrup (nlm.nih.gov)