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Category Archives: Smoke & Mirrors

Who Can We Trust??


The current Presidential race has shown the darker side of our politics and unearthed the deeper evil of the whole system. Fact checkers uncover the misrepresentation of statements, media sources reveal the truth behind the sitting elected officials and we still vote some of these people in time after time. First let’s think about politics overall, this is a business that hires people to lie, misrepresent and cajole to get us to vote their way. There have been many times staffers have been caught and fired but how many have never been caught and continue to do their worst? These are the things we as voters need to pay attention to. These “stuffers” have created the rifts between us religiously, racially and economically. All of this for an elected position that invariably will benefit the voter very little. Think about the “Watergate Scandal” of the 70’s when our President and his closest aides committed crimes in his behalf. It is entirely possible that these sorts of things are still being done but with more secretiveness. “Lest we forget” our political system is rife with corruption and deceit as evidenced by the lackluster performance of our Congress in the past 20 years. it is always said:” If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck and looks like a duck then it is most assuredly a duck!”

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Analysis of Scotus selection


Ten days before Justice Antonin Scalia died, launching the political battle over who would fill his vacancy, Chief Justice John Roberts delivered a speech slamming the Supreme Court nomination process. In remarks at Boston’s New England Law,The New York Times reports that Roberts denounced the politicization of the process that he says is really just meant to ensure that nominees are qualified for the job.

“We don’t work as Democrats or Republicans,” the chief justice said, “and I think it’s a very unfortunate impression the public might get from the confirmation process.”

Roberts pointed out that while nominees back in his day were easily confirmed, the last three justices — Samuel Alito Jr., Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan — have all faced split votes from the Senate. “Look at my more recent colleagues, all extremely well qualified for the court and the votes were, I think, strictly on party lines for the last three of them, or close to it, and that doesn’t make any sense,” Roberts said. “That suggests to me that the process is being used for something other than ensuring the qualifications of the nominees.”

President Obama nominated Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court last week, despite Republicans’ promises that they will deny any Obama nominee in favor of letting the next president fill the vacancy. It has become clear that the Congress is essentially Racist and disingenuous. Vice President Biden made it clear in a recent speech that the GOP Congress has  taken excerpts from a prior speech to avoid doing the job of vetting a candidate for the Supreme court. For the past 7 years we (voters) have been operating under a dysfunctional Government due to the Political machinations of our Congress. Voters are better than the people we elected to represent us but we seemingly have not considered this. Our Federal lawmakers are no more than 535 people who are taking our money for a job poorly done or not done  at all. If this were a contractor or service, we as consumers would be up in arms so the question is: Why are we not taking these people (Congress) to task  for not doing their job?

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Senator Franken Explains and Exposes


Senator Al Franken addressed the Senate’s failure to the country:

Senator Al Franken (D-MN) addressed the new justice vacancy in the Supreme Court on February 24. In opening, Franken told the Senate Judiciary Committee that “swift” action needed to be taken. He offered his “thoughts and prayers” to the family of the late Justice Scalia, adding he did not share Scalia’s views on the U.S. Constitution, nor on the country, and that Scalia had a great sense of conviction and humor. Franken then quickly gets down to the business at hand:

“Let us all remember that each and every senator serving in this body swore an oath to support and defend [the] Constitution,” said Sen. Franken in prepared remarks. “It is our duty to move forward. We must fulfill our constitutional obligation to ensure that the highest court in the land has a full complement of justices.”

Franken reminds the audience that the U.S. Constitution Justice Scalia loved is the same U.S. Constitution that allows the president to nominate a new justice, and with the “Advice and Consent of the Senate,” appoint a judge to the Supreme Court.

The senator notes with disgust that it took less than an hour after news of Scalia’s death hit the public for the GOP to announce they would not take up the business of considering a replacement until after the presidential election. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said the American people should have a voice in the selection of the next Supreme Court justice.

The only problem with the Majority Leader’s reasoning, Franken adds, is that the American people have spoken. Twice.

He reiterates that President Barack Obama was elected and reelected by a solid majority of the American people who understood his role is to uphold his duties according to the Constitution and that includes appoint a Supreme Court justice should a vacancy occur.

Here’s where it gets good. One of the highlights of this speech was when Franken suggests the GOP apply their own reasoning to the Republican-led Congress.

If we were to truly subscribe to the Majority Leader’s logic and extend it to the legislative branch, it would yield an absurd result. 

  • Senators would become ineffective in the last year of their term.
  • The 28 senators who are now in the midst of their reelection campaigns and the 6 senators who are stepping down should be precluded from casting votes in committee or on the Senate floor.
  • Ten committee chairs and 19 subcommittee chairs should pass the gavel to a colleague who is not currently running for reelection or preparing for retirement.
  • Bill introduction, and indeed the cosponsor ship of bills, should be limited to those senators who are not yet serving in the sixth year of their terms. When a Republican says it’s been standard practice over the last 80 years to not confirm Supreme Court nominees during a presidential election year, Franken says, “I know that’s not true. And I’m not the only one,” mentioning several sources including the indisputable SCOTUS blog, which says, “historical record does not reveal any instances [in over a century] of the Senate failing to confirm a nominee in a presidential election year because of the impending election.” In closing, Senator Franken states the Supreme Court is a central pillar of our democracy. The women and men who sit on that bench make decisions that touch the lives of every single American—regardless of party or political persuasion. Franken urges his colleagues to “reject the impulse to put politics before our sworn duty” to uphold the Constitution. There is a video of Franken’s entire speech.
  • In his speech, Senator Al Franken describes the hypocrisy, negligence, and obstructiveness of Republicans that has taken place the entire seven years President Obama has been in office.
  • Franken tells the committee (and the public) that the day before, every Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to the Majority Leader vowing to deny a hearing to the president’s eventual nominee, saying they will not hold hearings on any Supreme Court nominee—until after their next president is sworn in on January 20, 2017. Franken calls their actions an historic dereliction of the Senate’s duty. He brings up that “Chairman Grassley gathered only Republican Committee members in a private meeting where they unilaterally decided, behind closed doors, to refuse consideration of a nominee.” Franken calls the action to refuse a hearing “shameful, and I suspect that the American people share that view.“

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War Is Just A Racket


Excerpt explains war and possibly the push by The Dupublicans to out boots on the ground in the middle east (again!)

War is Just a Racket

Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933 by General Smedley Butler, USMC. General Butler was one of the few Americans to be twice awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we’ll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

I wouldn’t go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

There isn’t a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its “finger men” to point out enemies, its “muscle men” to destroy enemies, its “brain men” to plan war preparations, and a “Big Boss” Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

See Also: War Is A Racket by Major General Smedley Butler

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4.2 Million Dollar Show With No Music


As if we didn’t already know!

 

 

Not Hillary. Benghazi was GOP’s fault.

by Corp Flunky

This story is a few years old, but now that we’ve cleared the air over Hillary, maybe it finally deserves more attention.

Jason Chaffetz is on tape saying he “absolutely” voted with the GOP to cut $300 million for embassy security.

The article also quotes Washington Post reporting showing that the GOP embassy security cuts were part of a multi year effort, lead by Paul Ryan’s budget, to cut the following.

For fiscal 2013, the GOP-controlled House proposed spending $1.934 billion for the State Department’s Worldwide Security Protection program — well below the $2.15 billion requested by the Obama administration. House Republicans cut the administration’s request for embassy security funding by $128 million in fiscal 2011 and $331 million in fiscal 2012….[In 2011] Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that Republicans’ proposed cuts to her department would be “detrimental to America’s national security” — a charge Republicans rejected.

[GOP vice presidential nominee Paul] Ryan, [Rep. Darrell] Issa and other House Republicans voted for an amendment in 2009 to cut $1.2 billion from State operations, including funds for 300 more diplomatic security positions. Under Ryan’s budget, non-defense discretionary spending, which includes State Department funding, would be slashed nearly 20 percent in 2014, which would translate to more than $400 million in additional cuts to embassy security.

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In A Country With Less Freedom


In a country with less freedom of speech and expression, the following people would be in jail for life:

Ann Coulter, Bill O’Reilly, Charles Krauthammer, Rush Limbaugh and a few others.

We have as many “terrorist” type groups in America as anyone else, some have the potential to do as much harm  as any others but fortunately a lot more people have no desire to broadly embrace them and their ideals (?). If we look at religion, we have as many sects and sub sects as the middle east fortunately we are not killing one another off because of the assorted interpretations of the known religious texts. The Middle east has within the Muslin umbrella of religion has alewites, Sunnis, Sufis, Shi’as, Wahhabis, Ibadan and these are just a few of the subsets which vary from country to country. To express an idea that does not mesh with the Government line  in many other parts of the world puts ones life in danger. In America that is not the case but sometimes the talking heads need a reality check and their forums reduced to a smaller audience. The freedoms of America allows for these diverse opinions and ideas which opens the door for more investigation in the basis of these ideas and opinions which in turn lets us see that the real basis is: notoriety with no foundation in truth. The worst thing about this is we have “conservative  Christians  who want to deny the rights of others because of their personal beliefs and often the misreading or interpretation of the Bible. These Christians  are no more than religious bigots with enough backing to gain the attention of like  minded followers who are for all intents and purposes terrorists with the same zest for punishment as any Radical Muslim cleric. In My Opinion!

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Legends and What You Stand For


If the legend of Pinocchio were true, there would be no room to move in the Congressional chambers. We unfortunately are plagued with many representatives who can hardly tell the truth. Many are hard pressed to believe the truth. Given the tasks set before them as Legislators(?), one would believe they would not spend taxpayers funds on issues that have been previously resolved  (4.2 Million dollars on Benghazi). This being a run up year to a national election may have some influence on these activities. At some point in the past we had representatives who in spite of their later known personal issues joined with like minded representatives of the other parties to create and enact laws that benefitted most of us (especially the 99%). What have  now is a group of self aggrandized  elected officials whose sole purpose is to control the government and insure  that they can accommodate the needs of their large donors. It is unfortunate that the smaller  issues that mean more than the current prominent ones will and have gone unattended. The lies: planned parenthood has been attacked based on an edited tape and picked up by Conservatives as the truth, thereby causing the funding for women’s health to be reduced or defunded. This Lie has been picked up by the radical fringe of the Dupublican party as truth without as much as a cursory investigation and no thought of the effect on their constituents (who they never consulted). The pity of it all is that anyone who never had to use the services of Planned Parenthood do not understand the dire effect of  this defunding. The very people who need health services the most will be affected  regardless of  any abortions performed by Planned parenthood. The Fact that no government funding goes to any abortion services does not seem to affect the blatant disregard to the overall function of the agency. We have become so much like the Radical Islamists as to be identical except for the murderous rampages and beheadings. Our Radicals are the so called “religious right, moral majority or perhaps conservatives”. These disparate groups have gained a high profile due to Mainstream media coverage which plays to their radical thoughts and theories as if it were the National Trend. If we as rational people do not pay close attention we will have the closest thing to a dictatorship as any other  nation that is now fighting that same type of government. Then its the Email flap, how much will this cost us? It is important to remember the Alexander Hamilton quote: ”  Those who stand for nothing fall for anything”.

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Asked And Answered


‏

 

The Planned parenthood sting video has been disproven yet the Federal legislators are still whipping the same dead horse.  What does it take for our “elected officials” to start paying attention to facts rather than political talking points that elicit “knee jerk” reactions from the public.  Looking at the facts shows that none (zero) of the Federal  fund go towards abortions, a majority of the funding is committed to Women’s health. We as voters have been subjected to half truths, innuendo and often outright lies so we would elect or re-elect representatives. Isn’t it time to remove the ” TV entertainment” style  of campaigning from our elections? We already have enough political theater with our 535 seat fillers in Washington and many states so let’s get down to real business and make our  elected officials accountable. These office holders have  made subterfuge and advertising type messages an art form while we  (the voters) wait for the other shoe to drop. It highly probable that this form of governing will continue until we (voters) look behind the curtain of election speeches, talking points and barnstorming tactics to see that we have our representatives colluding to do us no good on any level according to the wishes of their big money backers.

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No Bomb!


 Posted from the Daily Kos

Thu Sep 17, 2015 at 03:17 PM PDT

“They didn’t think he had a bomb.”

by BSSanders

Great Post Sent to Me Today

I said: it’s sad they thought that kid had a bomb.
She said: they didn’t think he had a bomb.
I said: yes, they thought he made a bomb and even called the police.
She said: They just wanted to humiliate a little Muslim boy. They didn’t think he had a bomb.
I said: Don’t be a conspiracy theorist. They might be a little prejudiced, but I’m sure they thought he had a bomb.
She said: OK.
But they didn’t evacuate the school, like you do when there’s a bomb.
They didn’t call a bomb squad – like you do when there’s a bomb.
They didn’t get as far away from him as possible, like you do when there’s a bomb.
Then they put him and the clock in an office: not like you do when there’s a bomb
Then they waited with him for the police to arrive, and then they put the clock in the same car as the police.
Then they took pictures of it.

I said: Damn…..They never thought he had a bomb.

EQUAL RIGHTS are HUMAN RIGHTS
The Irving PD, & the School Admin will be rightfully sued.
They can now pay Ahmed’s way to MIT.
Thanks.
“They never thought he had a bomb”

Originally posted to B S Sanders on Thu Sep 17, 2015 at 03:17 PM PDT.

Also republished by Barriers and Bridges.

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Politricking


We can look forward to 1 year of mind-boggling and exasperating rhetoric and politispeak. We have 17 plus candidates aspiring be a candidate for the Presidency of these we must choose who we deem to be the best option. If we really pay attention to what is being said rather than the entertainment value of their words and actions we would quickly see that none of them really have any idea of what is needed by the 99% of us. Their focus is to do what ever they can for the 1% (who are their handlers). Take one item that is out there: dismantle the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and replace it with ?. Change social security by raising the retirement age, cut benefits for higher income seniors (what ever that is), means test benefits and revive the privatization plan for the program. Just looking at these two important issues, who do you think these people will represent if elected. If you take into account the Pundits on “Faux News”  (whose incomes certainly preclude their having to live hand to mouth when they retire) and other media outlets are all touting one faction or another rather than covering  the issues as the (news) should. The modern day election cycles are all about who can trash the other side the most and get the most attention even if their messages can be rated from suspect  to outright lies. The real changes in government is in the hands of the voters not entertainers or politicians but we have ceded that power to the people we elect.