Day: May 7, 2015

Did Reagan Win the Vietnam War? | The American Conservative

Sit down and brace yourself!

Yes, Irene I read the American Conservative…..believe it or not there are some thoughtful articles being written by true conservatives as opposed to the whack jobs in the Tea Party……

This is the 40th year since the fall of Saigon…….and so far the US has not been able to reckon with that war……we have tried to put it all behind us but it still creeps out…..basically because there are many vets still living when their time comes and the last vet passes on the country will do all possible to remove this war from a collective memory….all it will be is a historical footnote on some dissertation……

I will try to keep interest in the Vietnam War up and relative……it should never be forgotten….no matter what you think of it……

 

Did Reagan Win the Vietnam War? | The American Conservative.

What To Do About Baltimore?

After all the deaths of unarmed civilians at the hands of cops and after Baltimore erupted into a night of violence the big question in the media is….what can we do about Baltimore?  They are all looking for answer on how to fix the problem and not one of them actually knows what the problem is to begin with….so how does one fix a problem without knowledge of it?

The media is leading the charge to find answers……every political pundit that has ever voiced an opinion on this subject now has what he/she has always wanted…..15 minutes of fame.

We are bombarded daily with the proper “fixes” to the problems…….more this or more that with a little less this….we are talking…..and that is the problem!  Talk is cheap and NO where will any of the ideas be used no matter how good they sound.

Why would I crap on this parade?

Profits!

No plan will be put into action that does not guarantee a return on money spent!

Does anyone remember LBJ?  How about his program the “War On Poverty”?

The effort centered around four pieces of legislation:

• The Social Security Amendments of 1965, which created Medicare and Medicaid and also expanded Social Security benefits for retirees, widows, the disabled  and college-aged students, financed by an increase in the payroll tax cap and rates.

• The Food Stamp Act of 1964, which made the food stamps program, then only a pilot, permanent.

• The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which established the Job Corps, the VISTA program, the federal work-study program and a number of other initiatives. It also established the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), the arm of the White House responsible for implementing the war on poverty and which created the Head Start program in the process.

• The Elementary and Secondary Education Act, signed into law in 1965, which established the Title I program subsidizing school districts with a large share of impoverished students, among other provisions. ESEA has since been reauthorized, most recently in the No Child Left Behind Act.

Many of the programs started by the War on Poverty are still in place but are a mere shadow of what was intended.  For every president since LBJ has attacked and made worthless the intentions from 1964…..and that includes Dem presidents also.

So the question I posed was….what to do about Baltimore?  First place blame where it belongs…on Washington and the Congress.  Make all politicians explain why they cut programs that had the most effect on the control of poverty.  Do not let them get off topic. which they will because NO one in DC wants to accept the responsibility for the problems in inner cities.

Second, an attempt to get ALL Americans to care about poverty…..as it is now…it is someone else problem.  Poverty is a national problem and must be addressed on that level.

I wish I could say that there was a quick fix…….there is NOT and talking about the problem has done nothing in 40 years why would it help today?

The money spent on our interventionism would every helpful in solving social problems……….but we know that the American people will never let that happen.

Baltimore is just the beginning……….there will be NO peace until the country makes ending poverty a priority……and we know from past experiences that talk is cheap and not a solution.

Huckabee Makes My 2015 Sh*t List!

From time to time a politician makes it onto my sh*t list……..and this election it is Huckabee.

He opened his mouth and inserted both feet…..my mother was a Jicarilla Apache and I have a soft spot for my Native American ancestry……then some lily white douche has to go and make a statement that gets my ruffles up…….

Any time this person would like to defend his accusation I will be right here….doubt very seriously if he has the cajones to debate…….

From this point on any and every thing that Huckebee sez will be WRONG!  Any good vibes he may have cultured with me is….GONE!

 

VIDEO: Candidate Mike Huckabee Connects Native Americans With Jihadists During Speech; DNC Responds – ICTMN.com.

Remember Yemen?

I realize that the American public have a lot on their plate these days….what with the situation over Jenner’s sex and the Royal Baby….how can they be asked to care about anything else?

But Yemen should be on their plate…..most Americans vaguely remember that the USS Cole was attacked in the Yemeni port of Aden by AQ…..anfd then we fast forward to the present…..Yemen is where our drones have been decimating AQAP for years now……the a little further into the present and Saudi Arabia is in the middle of bombing the crap out of the Yemeni Shi’as…..and this is where I would like to pick up the story……

For about 5 weeks now the Houthi minority, which happen to be Shi’a, have been attacked by the Saudis protecting something that we Americans can never understand…..in this 5 weeks many civilians have been killed and the Houthis are still on the rampage……the American Sec of State Kerry has voiced concern……Although she is considered a longshot candidate, Fiorina has positioned herself as a foil to Hillary Clinton, often attacking the Democratic candidate for her track record as secretary of state and on social issues. The line of attack has been warmly received in the Republican Party, and it is likely that Fiorina will be the only female candidate in the Republican field.

Concerned about the amount of civilian deaths?  Does he have selective amnesia?  How about all the civilians the US has killed in our drone strikes?  But that is not a concern of his?

This is all too amusing and not in a good way….the US sells or gives the Saudis their massive military capability to include cluster bombs…..

Even as Yemen said today that at least 20 Saudi-led troops were on the ground in the city of Aden, allegedly performing reconnaissance, Saudi Arabia’s recently concluded bombing campaign against Houthi rebels there was taking a hit in the form of a critical Human Rights Watch report. As CNN reports, HRW is accusing the Saudis of dropping American-supplied cluster bombs—which are banned in 116 countries that are not the US, Saudi Arabia, or Yemen, and which the AP notes have been compared to land mines for their propensity to explode long after a conflict has ended.

As an HRW rep puts it, “Saudi-led cluster munition airstrikes have been hitting areas near villages, putting local people in danger. These weapons should never be used under any circumstances.” The US has said it plans to stop shipping cluster bombs to nations that leave behind more than 1% of bombs unexploded, though not until 2018. The State Department hasn’t yet commented on the report. Video from HRW is in the gallery.

These are devastating to the civilian population…..just ask Israel….they have used them in the past against Palestinians……and we gave them this capability and we expect them to NOT use them at the first opportunity?

Are our policy makers this naive or just plain stupid?

Civilians are paying the price for a sectarian dust off.  The Saudis are creating a humanitarian crisis and with the help of the US….there is a blockade that is preventing goods being delivered especially medical supplies and much needed food stores.  Now the Saudis are using cluster bombs on Yemen which can only add to the misery of the civilian population.

We Americans have used a less threatening situation to become involved in an incident that isd not going to do much for our standing in the Middle East………..why are the people of Yemen so unimportant to the USA?

Texas Attack: It’s Not My Fault!

Yep every Tom,  Dick and Harry has heard about the attack on the ‘peaceful’ collection of cartoonists in Garland Texas…..if you have not then you have been doing something constructive and did not pay attention…..which means that you have not drawn a conclusion yet……..kudos to you.

The sponsor of this festival was American Freedom Defense Initiative (God I love these people…they give some quasi patriot name to their hate)…..anyway the president of this group Pam Geller has been spouting her hate for a couple of years now…..but of course she will defend on 1st amendment right……

Pamela Geller, whose group staged the Texas event that drew two shooters with alleged links to ISIS, is defiantly dismissing critics who accuse her of provoking the attack. The event featured cartoons lampooning Muhammad, and Geller, president of the American Freedom Defense Initiative, sees it as a matter of free speech. If Muslim jihadists were offended, well too bad, she writes in Time. “Putting up with being offended is essential in a pluralistic society in which people differ on basic truths. If a group will not stand for being offended without resorting to violence, that group will rule unopposed, while everyone else lives in fear.”

If society caves to the rules about what can and can’t be said as dictated by these extremists, it sets a dangerous precedent that encourages more violence, writes Geller. She thinks, for example, that if international media outlets had run similarly controversial Danish cartoons back in 2005, attacks such as the one on the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris would not be happening today. “This is a war,” she declares. “Are we going to surrender to these monsters?” Click for her full post. Or for an opposing view, check out a Salon piece that accuses Geller of being an “extremist” herself who is only making matters worse.

Personally you may hate as much as you, something at which we Americans excel, but when you turn that hate into an event then you 1st amendment rights should be called into question……

This woman, if I may call her that, and her group is an organization that I call “Hate For Profit”……..and I would imagine that now with her hateful prediction have finally come to truth she will make even more cash from like minded haters.

She is typical of a lot of the hate….”it’s not my fault”…….but that is inaccurate…..IT IS HER FAULT!  Hiding behind the Constitution to justify hate makes her a COWARD!  Period!

Sen. Graham: A Babbling Buffoon

It just amazes me at the depth of the ignorance of our elected officials and the ignorance of their words.  It is NO secret that I have a deep contempt for anyone in the US Congress…..I will admit that there are a few that actually want to work and not do endless fund raising but they are few and far between.

The idiots seem to be concentrated on the GOP side of the road and even more so in the movement we call Neocons or war hawks.  Babbling toads like Cotton, Gohmert, King and most idiotically Lindsey Graham of South Carolina…..pretty much the whole list of morons that were co-signers of the Iran letter sent by Arkansas’ Cotton.

This ignorance extends into the realm of foreign policy and world affairs……these people will say whatever gets them the most exposure which makes fund raising that much easier.  I do not care about their begging for cash what I do object to is their obvious lack of knowledge about the rest of the world which they claim to protect as long as America is the cock of the walk.

Out of the mouths of these idiots flows the excrement of ignorance……..if they spent a little time trying to understand situations instead of babbling on and on they might not appear as stupid as they do now……

The most recent idiocy came from the mouth of Sen. Lindsey Graham……..while speaking at the Jewish group AIPAC he showed just how thoroughly ignorant he really is………

“Everything that starts with ‘Al’ in the Middle East is bad news,” said U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina at an AIPAC dinner in Boston on Monday. “Al-Qaida, Al-Nusra, Al-Qaida in the Arab Peninsula,” said the senator, who may be running for president.

Obviously pandering to the members of AIPAC with the hope that a check is in the mail……The problem – linguistically – with Graham’s comment is that “Al” is the definite article in Arabic (i.e. equivalent to English’s “the”), and usually appears before most Arabic proper nouns, especially place and personal names.

Yes, it is a small thing……but one that irritates the crap out of me……he is a person that has our foreign policy and military in his cash stained hands…..and to me that makes him a dangerous loose cannon.