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Anonymous vs Isis


This article from Fortune magazine and Don Reisinger is worth reading:

Anonymous Declares Cyber War on ISIS. Why It Matters

November 16, 2015, 1:58 PM EST       

When it comes to cyber war, Anonymous is good at what it does.
After claiming responsibility for the Paris terrorist attacks last week, ISIS has a new foe.
Hacker collective Anonymous posted a video Saturday on YouTube in which it declared a cyber war on ISIS. In the nearly two-and-a-half-minute video, a person wearing the group’s signature Guy Fawkes mask read a statement in French promising that the hacktivist organization would attack ISIS in cyberspace with the ultimate goal of weakening the terrorist organization.
“Expect massive cyber attacks,” the person said. “War is declared. Get prepared. Anonymous from all over the world will hunt you down. You should know that we will find you and we will not let you go.”
ISIS has claimed responsibility for the horrific attacks that killed nearly 140 people and left hundreds more injured on Friday. The attacks prompted the French government to go on the offensive against the group. Prime Minister Manuel Valls confirmed on Monday that French authorities had conducted more than 150 raids and completed a bombing campaign against suspected ISIS encampments in Syria.
Anonymous, however, has its own plans. And as history has shown that it is not one to be taken lightly.
Anonymous, made up of an unknown number of loosely connected individuals, is believed to have been founded more than a decade ago on the online forum 4chan. The organization was firmly principled when it was founded and remains so, says Ben FitzGerald, cybersecurity expert and technology director for the national security program at the Center for a New American Security.
“Anonymous has its own set of values and it’s going to defend those things aggressively regardless of whether it disagrees with the CIA or ISIS,” FitzGerald says. “It doesn’t align itself around familiar paths.”
Anonymous gained notoriety in 2008 following its cyberattack on the Church of Scientology. Soon after, the group went on to attack any organization or issue that it believed had wronged others. Indeed, the organization’s attacks have targeted everything from governments to illegal pornography sites. Anonymous has also been credited with attacking the Vatican, the CIA, and San Francisco’s BART transport system.
“Whether you agree or not, they have a clear set of principles,” FitzGerald says. “They’re not nihilists; they believe in things and take action on those beliefs.”
By 2012, Anonymous had become a household name in the technology world. It also built up a track record for impact. In 2012, Time, which owns Fortune, named Anonymous to its list of the 100 Most Influential People of 2012, saying that its attacks on networks had “earned its place on the list.”
While several similar hacktivist organizations have cropped up in recent years, few have been able to achieve the same level of notoriety as Anonymous. It is also among the more divisive of hacking groups, with some saying that it’s working in the best interests of the greatest number of people, and others arguing that it’s an illegal organization that must be stopped. Indeed, many law-enforcement officials around the world have targeted Anonymous and arrested dozens of alleged members.
Still, Anonymous has pressed on with no signs of slowing down. Just last year, after the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, Anonymous reportedly launched attacks on the city that took down e-mail servers and the phone system. The group last year also declared cyber war on the Ku Klux Klan.
“Anonymous is absolutely not slowing down,” says FitzGerald. “As they often say, they are ‘legion and they are hydra.’ They are based in multiple countries. They don’t have a directory of who everyone is. It would be very hard to track all of those people down.”
Anonymous, in other words, is fully capable of launching successful attacks—and ISIS knows it.
After the attack on Charlie Hebdo in January, Anonymous posted a video that said it would attack terrorists in connection with the killings. Soon after, it brought down sites allegedly connected with terrorism (including a dating site for ISIS members) and claims to have taken down tens of thousands of Twitter accounts of people suspected of having ISIS connections.
This, though, is different, Anonymous says. It warned ISIS after the latest attacks to “get ready,” adding that it doesn’t “forgive and we don’t forget.” While Anonymous did not reveal any details about planned attacks, the threat could be serious. Given its history.
“We should expect Anonymous to target ISIS members online and make ISIS member information publicly available,” FitzGerald says. “Anonymous will go after online personas and ISIS websites.”
Ultimately, however, it’s unknown how big of an impact the attacks will have on ISIS. FitzGerald argues that while ISIS is an Internet-savvy organization, Anonymous’ efforts may prove more of “a nuisance rather than a threat.” Regardless, he says ISIS needs to watch out.
“I think Anonymous will absolutely make good on those threats,” he says.
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Teachers Resignation-Wow!


You might not remember Mark Rubio’s name in a couple of years but you won’t ever forget the name of your favorite elementary school teacher.

On October 23, 2015, Wendy Bradshaw posted her resignation from the Polk County Florida Public School system on Facebook. It went viral.

Today I resigned from the school district. I would like to share with you what I gave them. Feel free to share it if it strikes you as important.

She goes on to explain what many of us who actually listen to educators or are educators already understand—the culture of testing is bullshit in no uncertain terms, from how it evaluates students’ performances to how it evaluates teachers’ performances. Wendy Bradshaw knows early childhood development and the curriculum and the testing she must subject her students to is anathema to everything she knows about early childhood development.

The children don’t only cry. Some misbehave so that they will be the ‘bad kid’ not the ‘stupid kid’, or because their little bodies just can’t sit quietly anymore, or because they don’t know the social rules of school and there is no time to teach them. My master’s degree work focused on behavior disorders, so I can say with confidence that it is not the children who are disordered. The disorder is in the system which requires them to attempt curriculum and demonstrate behaviors far beyond what is appropriate for their age. The disorder is in the system which bars teachers from differentiating instruction meaningfully, which threatens disciplinary action if they decide their students need a five minute break from a difficult concept, or to extend a lesson which is exceptionally engaging. The disorder is in a system which has decided that students and teachers must be regimented to the minute and punished if they deviate. The disorder is in the system which values the scores on wildly inappropriate assessments more than teaching students in a meaningful and research based manner.

Bradshaw isn’t alone. The Polk, Florida Superintendent is between a rock and a hard place.

“My first reaction was: I understand her frustration and I generally agree,” said Polk Superintendent of Schools Kathryn LeRoy. “The problem is that the accountability system is smothering everybody.”
[…]
“We can’t afford to lose any more good educators,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to our public education system if we can’t recruit or retain good teachers.”

Wendy Bradshaw recently became a mother and being confronted with the reality of her child going into this system in five years brought her “dread.”

Their brains aren’t ready for some of the things they do. And Bradshaw says that with confidence because she has studied and researched early childhood development, with the degrees to prove it.“It makes zero sense,” she said, and is not necessary. “We got to the moon and back without learning how to read in kindergarten.”

The White House announcing a need to cut back on standardized testing mania is a nice thing to say and (hopefully) mean. However, the economic beast that drives this top-down, standardized testing approach must be dismantled.You can read the entire Facebook post below the fold and you can drop her well wishes on her page here.

Today I resigned from the school district. I would like to share with you what I gave them. Feel free to share it if it strikes you as important.To: The School Board of Polk County, Florida
I love teaching. I love seeing my students’ eyes light up when they grasp a new concept and their bodies straighten with pride and satisfaction when they persevere and accomplish a personal goal. I love watching them practice being good citizens by working with their peers to puzzle out problems, negotiate roles, and share their experiences and understandings of the world. I wanted nothing more than to serve the students of this county, my home, by teaching students and preparing new teachers to teach students well. To this end, I obtained my undergraduate, masters, and doctoral degrees in the field of education. I spent countless hours after school and on weekends poring over research so that I would know and be able to implement the most appropriate and effective methods with my students and encourage their learning and positive attitudes towards learning. I spent countless hours in my classroom conferencing with families and other teachers, reviewing data I collected, and reflecting on my practice so that I could design and differentiate instruction that would best meet the needs of my students each year. I not only love teaching, I am excellent at it, even by the flawed metrics used up until this point. Every evaluation I received rated me as highly effective.

Like many other teachers across the nation, I have become more and more disturbed by the misguided reforms taking place which are robbing my students of a developmentally appropriate education. Developmentally appropriate practice is the bedrock upon which early childhood education best practices are based, and has decades of empirical support behind it. However, the new reforms not only disregard this research, they are actively forcing teachers to engage in practices which are not only ineffective but actively harmful to child development and the learning process. I am absolutely willing to back up these statements with literature from the research base, but I doubt it will be asked for. However, I must be honest. This letter is also deeply personal. I just cannot justify making students cry anymore. They cry with frustration as they are asked to attempt tasks well out of their zone of proximal development. They cry as their hands shake trying to use an antiquated computer mouse on a ten year old desktop computer which they have little experience with, as the computer lab is always closed for testing. Their shoulders slump with defeat as they are put in front of poorly written tests that they cannot read, but must attempt. Their eyes fill with tears as they hunt for letters they have only recently learned so that they can type in responses with little hands which are too small to span the keyboard.

The children don’t only cry. Some misbehave so that they will be the ‘bad kid’ not the ‘stupid kid’, or because their little bodies just can’t sit quietly anymore, or because they don’t know the social rules of school and there is no time to teach them. My master’s degree work focused on behavior disorders, so I can say with confidence that it is not the children who are disordered. The disorder is in the system which requires them to attempt curriculum and demonstrate behaviors far beyond what is appropriate for their age. The disorder is in the system which bars teachers from differentiating instruction meaningfully, which threatens disciplinary action if they decide their students need a five minute break from a difficult concept, or to extend a lesson which is exceptionally engaging. The disorder is in a system which has decided that students and teachers must be regimented to the minute and punished if they deviate. The disorder is in the system which values the scores on wildly inappropriate assessments more than teaching students in a meaningful and research based manner.

On June 8, 2015 my life changed when I gave birth to my daughter. I remember cradling her in the hospital bed on our first night together and thinking, “In five years you will be in kindergarten and will go to school with me.” That thought should have brought me joy, but instead it brought dread. I will not subject my child to this disordered system, and I can no longer in good conscience be a part of it myself. Please accept my resignation from Polk County Public Schools.

Best,
Wendy Bradshaw, Ph.D.

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Freshman Senator To His Colleagues: ‘The People Despise Us All’


At Last a Show of Courage! 

Nebraska’s Ben Sasse was elected to the U.S. Senate a year ago this week, one of a dozen Republicans who first won seats that day as their party captured its first majority in the storied chamber in eight years.

And like many of the 5,000 men and women who preceded him in the Senate, he soon came to regard that old sobriquet “World’s Greatest Deliberative Body” with a certain irony — if not bitterness.

“Let me flag the painful, top-line takeaway,” said Sasse on Tuesday. “No one in this body thinks the Senate is laser-focused on the most pressing issues facing the nation. No one. Some of us lament this; some are angered by it; many are resigned to it; some try to dispassionately explain how they think it came to be. But no one disputes it.”

That rather stiff eye-opener came near the start of Sasse’s “maiden speech,” a half-hour confessional he delivered on the Senate floor, witnessed mostly by clerks and C-SPAN watchers at midafternoon on Tuesday. While he spoke in a clear, level voice from the row of desks farthest from the front, the rest of the chamber’s seats were almost entirely unoccupied.

That, of course, is par for the course. Senators rarely sit to listen to each other speak, and first-termers often have trouble adjusting to addressing an empty Cave of Winds.

But those who were around got an earful on this afternoon.

“If I can be brutally honest for a moment: I’m home basically every weekend, and what I hear — and what I’m sure most of you hear — is some version of this: A pox on both parties and all your houses. We don’t believe politicians are even trying to fix this mess.”

Sasse did not spare his own party: “To the Republicans, to those who claim this new majority is leading the way: Few believe that.”

And, in reference to rules changes Democratic leaders made to get President Obama’s judicial nominations done while they still had the majority last year:

“Few believe bare-knuckled politics are a substitute for principled governing. And does anyone doubt that many on both the right and the left now salivate for more of these radical tactics?”

There was, of course, no answer to this rhetorical question.

So in sum, Sasse said: “The people despise us all.”

Sasse is young enough at 43 to see the Senate as a midcareer challenge, not a cap on his career. Even in a Senate where the average age has been dropping noticeably, Sasse’s fresh Midwestern face conveys an eye-catching youthfulness.

He, along with newly christened Speaker Paul Ryan, 45, and Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, both 44, are part of a new generation suddenly taking over in the Grand Old Party.

Of course, they are doing it largely by looking beyond Congress to the White House. Sasse took note of this as well: “To the grandstanders who use this institution as a platform for outside pursuits: Few believe the country’s needs are as important to you as your ambitions.”

Maiden speeches are an old tradition, little noticed in our times, by which newly elected senators introduce themselves — usually well after they have settled in to Senate life. Sasse is the last of the 12 Republicans in his freshman class to perform the ritual.

In another era, such speeches were not considered welcome until a new member had served at least a full year — if not longer. But that was when freshmen were expected to be seen and not heard. A Senate seat was considered either a lifetime sinecure or a life sentence (“few die and none retire”).

Nowadays, a majority of the Senate has been serving for less than a decade. Rubio, Cruz and Rand Paul of Kentucky are all running for president while still in their first Senate term — just as Barack Obama did eight years ago.

Nonetheless, the occasional maiden speech can draw attention. And the one Ben Sasse delivered is surely worthy of consideration.

Sasse referred several times in his remarks to “Socratic speech,” a kind of discourse in which all involved consider not only their own point of view but others’ as well. A good executive always takes account of all the arguments, Sasse said.

“Socrates said it was dishonorable to make the lesser argument appear the greater — or to take someone else’s argument and distort it so that you don’t have to engage their strongest points. Yet here, on this floor, we regularly devolve into bizarre partisan-politician speech. We hear robotic recitations of talking points.”

Sasse said he was amazed to find that the people who act like that on C-SPAN turn out to be quite different in person.

“It’s weird, because one-on-one, when the cameras are off, hardly anyone here really believes that senators from the other party are evilly motivated — or bribed — or stupid. There is actually a great deal of human affection around here — but again, that’s in private, when the cameras aren’t on.

Sasse had an unusual path to the Senate. He got a Harvard undergraduate degree, studied at Oxford and got graduate degrees from St. John’s College and Yale University (history Ph.D.). He worked for a prestigious business consulting firm, taught history and served as president of Midland University, a small Lutheran college in Fremont, Neb.

Prior to last year he had not sought elective office. But on Tuesday, he showed a thorough acquaintance with some pillars of Senate lore, including four-term Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York (1977-2001) and four-term Republican Margaret Chase Smith of Maine (1949-73). Both were known for the strength of their intellects and convictions and also for their commitment to bipartisanship in Senate deliberation.

“Each of us,” Sasse said, “has an obligation to be able to answer our constituents’ question: Why doesn’t the Congress work? And what is your plan for fixing the Senate in particular? And if your only answer is that the other party is fully to blame, then we don’t get it, and the American people understandably think that we are part of the problem, not the solution.”

Sasse also tipped his hat to the longtime Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, who devoted his life to lifting up the Senate as the great fulcrum of American democracy. Byrd served from 1959 until his death in 2010, the longest Senate career in history.

Sasse gave no indication of an ambition to serve as long as these antecedents, nor would the political conventions of our time suggest he would or could. But the attitude he brought to his first formal address on the Senate floor should be heard and heeded — no matter how long his Senate career may be.

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What We Hear


Buzzwords, sound bites and catch phrases are not facts. The current political debates are popularity contests disguised as real information. These aspirants use what they can to excite , arouse and enthuse us with what they believe we want to hear. The reality is –  when the winner  is actually sitting in the Oval office , they will find that the promises, sound bites, buzz words, etc., no longer apply. The reality of the job kicks in like an overdose of caffeine. It will take the first four years to understand the job and act on things that were already in the works. There will be no repealing, revoking or deleting because they will have to be the CIC with military activities occurring in other countries, UN members that need attention aside from their immediate family’s needs. He or she will need to hit the ground running since time stops for no one nor does the country’s business. The question is who do we really want or who do we really need? There are no perfect candidates but we need to dismiss  the debates as  so much fluff or as we would a schoolyard scuffle between second graders. Our job as voters is to determine beyond the debates and oratory of the campaign who feel will do the job if we do not perform this exercise we will not have fulfilled our duty as voters and we can only blame ourselves if we end up with less than the best we can get. There is no such thing as “no matter who I vote for nothing will change”. This is why Illinois has the Governor they currently have and why we have the Congress we have. Remember Congress will be in place after the Presidential elections so who will we blame then?- “Ourselves if we become complacent and place our trust in Politrickers”.

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Rand Paul -has no Clue


Dupublican candidates statements on Vaccines refuted.

Elizabeth Warren takes on Rand Paul’s ‘profound mental disorders’

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) questions U.S. Federal Reserve Vice Chair Janet Yellen (not pictured) during a Senate Banking Committee confirmation hearing on Yellen's nomination to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve, on Capitol Hill in Washingt

attribution: REUTERS

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is not having any of your anti-vaxxer nonsense, or any of Sen. Rand Paul’s anti-vaxxer nonsense either. At a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee hearing on vaccinations, Warren had some questions for the director for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC:

“Is there any scientific evidence that vaccines cause autism?”“Is there any scientific evidence that vaccines cause ‘profound mental disorders’?”

“Is there any scientific evidence that vaccines have contributed to the rise in allergies or auto-immune disorders among kids?”

“Are there additives or preservatives in vaccines that can be toxic to kids?”

“Is there any scientific evidence that giving kids their vaccines further apart or spacing them differently is healthier for kids?”

“Is there any scientific evidence that kids can develop immunity to these diseases on their own, simply by eating nutritious foods or being active?”

(Answer key: No, no, no, no, no, and no.)Important questions, but one stood out: “Is there any scientific evidence that vaccines cause ‘profound mental disorders’?”

Rand Paul last week: “I have heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines.”

Game, set, and match go to the Massachusetts Democrat refusing to be drafted for president over the Kentucky Republican trying to rig the system to run for president without losing his Senate seat.

Originally posted to Laura Clawson on Wed Feb 11, 2015 at 08:00 AM PST.

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If We Could


If we could agree that our political process is broken perhaps we could agree that we have been under served for the past 10 – 20 years by our elected representatives. Looking at the debacles also called debates, it should give us a reason to think about who we really need to have running the country. No one person is going to be perfect however the onus of not being re-elected is a powerful incentive to try to get it right. If we could allow the evils of racism, religious intolerance and personal bias to race off into the sunset , we find that we are all facing the same issues on one level or another. Our common  problem  appears to be the people we elect to represent us. Each of us has an opinion on what we believe ( TRUE OR NOT) and that belief is changeable when all facts are known, but we must stay out of the tar pits of political rhetoric that is constantly in our ears and faces. Do you find it odd that so many are willing to lie to get elected and continue the lies once elected? The lies are no more than fairy tales with a supposed happy ending which is so far away that we forgot it was coming and accept what ever the ending is with relish. If we could, would we make the same election choices again? I hope not, yet we allow the political ads to sway us on voting much like the ads for the products we buy. The real story is the one we don’t want to hear because we have been advertised into believing what is wrong is right and vice versa. Why else would we be told to talk to our Doctors about medications when he should already know what we take and if this new medication is correct for us? This is advertising and it is the same as a political campaign. Would we really want to elect someone based on advertising?

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Rocky Mountain High!


Why is possible for a State to get Universal healthcare accomplished and the Federal Government cannot? Simply put 535 elected officials whose sole purpose is to do what their handlers want them to do and it is not in our (the voters) best interests. The ACA (Obama Care) had it been properly  addressed by our 535 pimps could have been like this proposal in Colorado.

Fri Oct 23, 2015 at 01:00 PM PDT

Colorado Poised to be First State with Universal Health Care

byIvanJMillerFollow forColoradoCare

 

Today the campaign committee for universal health care in Colorado, ColoradoCareYES, delivered to the Colorado Secretary of State 156,107 signatures to place universal health care, ColoradoCare, on the ballot in 2016. Celebrations across Colorado — in Denver, Ft. Collins, Colorado Springs, and Grand Junction — marked this historic moment. In Colorado, when government fails or falls under too much influence of lobbyists and the powerful, citizens can put an issue on the ballot by submitting petitions containing signatures from over 5 percent of the voters who voted for Secretary of State in the last election. This was no small undertaking. The completely grassroots campaign required $590,000, and 580 volunteer petition carriers spending thousands of hours talking to their neighbors at farmer’s markets, festivals, and on the streets. Today’s success shows Coloradans are ready to take back their health care from Big Medicine and the rules its lobbyists have written in Washington. Help launch the campaign: Join us!The U.S. health care system is broken beyond words—spending over twice as much as other developed countries, getting poorer results, and paying for an incredible swarm of bureaucrats in the space between patients and providers. Because the current Congress is barely capable of staying open for business, it is up to the states to make innovative change.

T.R. Reid, Spokesperson for ColoradoCareYES, explains:

“State-by-state change has been the template for some of the most important policy reforms in American history: women’s suffrage, the minimum wage, the progressive income tax, same-sex marriage, etc. Most recently, Colorado led the nation by ending the prohibition and criminalization of marijuana and replacing it with policies of rational regulation. If we can convert one state at a time, it will not be long until the U.S. joins the democratic, economically advanced countries of the world with universal health care.”

If a state meets or exceeds the goals of the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), it may obtain a waiver to opt out of ObamaCare. ColoradoCare is just such a plan: it replaces ObamaCare with a universal health care plan. ColoradoCare covers all residents with comprehensive health care and no deductibles, while saving Coloradans $4.5 billion in 2019. This figure takes into account increased spending on previously unmet health care needs. This is possible because the current system is so overloaded with administrative bureaucracy and profits for insurance administrators that ColoradoCare can remove $6.2 billion of administrative waste.Premiums are collected in a manner similar to the successful Medicare and Social Security programs — via both a payroll and non-payroll premium tax based on income. To avoid the partisanship and the inflexibility of government-managed programs, ColoradoCare is organized as a cooperative business. The cooperative business model is democratic and has a proven track record. Credit Unions, REI, Rural Electric Cooperatives, and the Green Bay Packers are cooperatives. Colorado residents would own ColoradoCare: Coloradans would elect the trustees and they would benefit from any savings.

We believe we can campaign smart with a ground game and win on the ballot in November 2016. Strong support is expected from Colorado businesses as they learn that they would save billions and get out from under the responsibility for administering employee health care. The choice for Coloradans will be clear-cut:

•    Choose the current system designed in Washington and continue paying $4.5 billion more than with ColoradoCare, continue paying for $6.2 billion of wasteful administrative interference between patients and providers, and leave many people without health insurance and even more Coloradans underinsured
OR
•    Choose ColoradoCare: Made in Colorado, locally controlled, costing $4.5 billion less, and covering everyone without deductibles.

Coloradans will have a full year to understand the choice, and we believe they will choose wisely.The opponents are the owners of Big Medicine, who believe they are entitled to control the political and economic foundation and future of the health care system —big insurance, big pharmaceutical, and big hospital chains, with the big chambers of commerce that they dominate leading their resistance. The airwaves will be sold through Citizen’s United Express to the purveyors of dirty and dishonest advertising.

Today’s grassroots insurgency is reminiscent in many ways of the Spirit of 1776, when the Colonists decided to end the rule of the oligarchy of King George and the 0.1 percent of that day. The American Revolution replaced King George’s wealthy oligarchy with the novel idea of the time, democracy — a system in which the majority of the people, not the most wealthy and powerful, made the rules. In today’s politics, the corporate oligarchy and 0.1% have hijacked our democracy, and it is time for the people of Colorado to use the ballot initiative to take our democracy back.

ColoradoCareYES is building a Campaign Launch Fund and organizing to campaign smart and use people power to overcome the financial edge and dirty advertising of Big Medicine funding through Citizen’s United. The time is now. The infrastructure for the smart campaign requires $200,000 by the end of the year. We need support from around the nation. Early donations help the most — they help us grow and gain more donations as our year long campaign gains momentum.

Contribute and join us at www.ColoradoCareYES.CO.  Help the movement grow and spread to other states.

Ivan J. Miller, Executive Director
ColoradoCareYES

Ivan J. Miller, PhD is the Executive Director of ColoradoCareYES, the campaign committee promoting the ColoradoCare

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What If?


What if the Select Benghazi committee really wanted the truth? It would be a relief however if the truth is the real basis of this expensive inquiry? As a citizen I have listened to what the committee said they were looking for but the real story even though it is readily available does not appear to be on the table. To make a short story: The location of the embattled building was an out post embassy which did not have the extensive security that the full embassies have. It did have a safe room however that safe room was not air tight and it has been determined that the death of the ambassador could have been from smoke inhalation (not verified yet). It has been revealed that an alert was issued but due to weak security of the outpost there was not enough time or personnel to hold out. Given this little bit of information I have managed to find, I am wondering where the  expensive Congressional committee got their information and why it may be incomplete. As an aside, we have all heard of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes but do we really understand his process? The detective’s methods involve looking at all of the apparent evidence then studying the no so apparent evidence and forming a conclusion with all available  evidence. All of this evidence tell a complete story not a “chicken little” scenario. The Benghazi committee aside from spending taxpayer money is doing no more than proffering a political “witch hunt”. It is fine that the incident is being investigated but do it the right way. We have already had a failed investigation in the ’50s by former  Senator Joe McCarthy, which damaged lives and our country, we have a current Congress that has taken the President to task  for the ACA (Obama care) while not doing their due diligence and that is to read it then tweak it as needed. What if our Congress really attempted to do the job we elected them to do instead of looking for political advantages that net us as voters nothing but more of the same ineptitude we have been experiencing for much too long. What if?

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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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Russian Invasion


What if we had listened to General George Patton near the end of WWII? He advocated going after Russia then rather than later ( Remember General MacArthur? in Korea?). Russia has always been no more than a bully for years but with the might of their army they have bit by bit worked to consolidate and enlarge their grip wherever they could. The Syria situation requires the support of the entire UN to correct, the United States can no longer be the only front-runner in the resistance  and criticism of the Russian incursion in Syria. The middle east has never been at ease with themselves so we have Russia aiding and abetting wherever they can to help their own cause. They have turned to the Stalinist practice of taking what they want through might (as they see it, right).The confrontation if coming from the U.S. alone would be as close to a war declaration as you can come without the actual declaration.  The refugees have exacerbated the situation and created a  distraction for the Russian ambitions, which also aids the Syrian strongman’s cause. In case anyone missed it, this Russian “assistance” is no different than the events in Ukraine. We have had several U.S. congress member advocating more U.S. involvement including ground troops but have we not had enough loss of life after the past 10 to 12 years of an undeclared war in the middle east. The last “war” was beneficial for many big money people (including former VP Cheney) and gained us nothing but a loss of resources and lives. The aftermath left the people here in an economic spiral whose coming was ignored and obscured by the “war” in the middle east. Reasonably speaking: why did we go into Vietnam when France ran like a thief at the first opportunity, why did we go into Afghanistan when Russia cut their losses and ran? The answer as I see it is a financial windfall for munitions manufacturers (big Money). Along with the loss of life and the ongoing (even now) health problems for our veterans and the effects on their families, we had a government that ignored the issues for years. The current Russian invasion in Syria has so far no direct effect on us yet but we must be vigilant and insure that we press our elected officials to do what is correct.

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