Day: October 28, 2016

A “New Deal” For Black America

For months I have been bitching that the candidates are engaging in a battle of personalities and leaving the issues by the wayside…..matters not which candidate they both are not telling the American people what the NEED to hear.

But recently Mr. Trump gave a speech that was heavy on issues….well as heavy as it can get these days……this time he talked about what he will do for Black America.

Donald Trump’s poll numbers among black Americans are abysmal—he’s polling at around half the 6% Mitt Romney received in 2012—but he hasn’t given up trying. On Wednesday, he offered a “new deal for black America” in a policy-heavy speech delivered to what the Washington Post reports was a largely white audience in North Carolina. The “deal is grounded in three promises: safe communities, great education, and high-paying jobs,” Trump said, per the Hill, blaming Democrats for “total violence” in inner cities. He promised to provide incentives for companies to move to “blighted communities,” and to allow cities and states to declare such places disaster areas to receive federal funding.

Sorry sports fans but is this NOT the same promises given every election to Black America?  And how has that worked out for them?

Will there be a separate plan for poor Hispanics in the inner cities?  How about those poor whites?

It is so vague that anyone could have made them…..as usual there is NO specifics on just how he plans to accomplish these lofty heights….this is as lame as lame can get….but I kinda expect that now this far into the campaigns…..

Back to the insulting mind games…..back to the immature playground squabbles…..

Please let this goddamn thing be over with soon!

Is Justice Truly Blind?

International justice is administered through the International Criminal Court (ICC)……blood thirsty dictators have been brought up on charges and other rulings have been made official…..

There has been considerable (and a mostly successful) effort to set up an International Criminal Court (ICC). The purpose is to have a body that can prosecute serious crimes against humanity no matter who committed them and to try people for gross violations of human rights, such as those committed during military conflicts. Why have some nations, such as the United States, feared a loss of sovereignty even when that would not happen, and thus sought to undermine the ICC?

Read “International Criminal Court: Introduction” to learn more.

However if one goes back through their rulings it seems to be against mostly third world figures and people…..there has been very little justice dealt out to the “civilized” nations…..

Personally, I think that all nations should be held accountable for their actions especially when in involves the massacre of people and the destruction of the civilization….

Every nations must be part of the ICC if they are represented in the UN…that way ALL nations can be held to the same standard.

But that is not how the ICC works….and a few nations are calling it quits over the one-sided rulings and actions……

A third African country says it will leave the International Criminal Court as fears grow of a mass pullout from the body that pursues some of the world’s worst atrocities. Gambia announced the decision on TV Tuesday, accusing the court of unfairly targeting Africa and calling it the “International Caucasian Court for the persecution and humiliation of people of color, especially Africans,” per the AP. The move comes after South Africa last week notified the UN secretary-general it would leave the court; withdrawal takes effect a year after the notification is received. Early last week, Burundi’s president signed legislation to leave the court as well. The EU director for Human Rights Watch calls the decisions “shameful.”

Gambia’s decision is striking because the ICC’s chief prosecutor is Gambian. However, the country’s information minister says the court is involved in “the persecution of Africans, and especially their leaders,” rather than those in Western countries. He singled out former British Prime Minister Tony Blair for his role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Only Africans have been charged in the six ICC cases that are ongoing or about to begin, though preliminary investigations have opened elsewhere. Signatory countries have a legal obligation to arrest anyone sought by the tribunal, but some African states have allowed people wanted by the ICC, notably Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, to visit, and some say leaders ought to be immune from prosecution.

These nations have a point…look at the rulings in the last decade or so…..it will bear out their accusations…..

Demographics And The Vote

The election is sliding into the national thought process (finally)……we are bombarded daily with a wealth of polling and each one has little to do with the eventual outcome…..but it helps drive the conversation by the media……but not the people that will have to make a choice.

This time around the cultural wars are playing very small in the campaigns….nationalism is on the rise……so far the only divide that is making sense (at least to me) is the education of the voters……

It has been widely reported that Donald Trump’s strong appeal to elements of the white working class (especially males) endangers Republican support among women, minorities and the more-educated in the current presidential campaign. What has had less attention is that these shifts, if they persist after this election, endanger long-term Republican control of Congress and state legislatures.

The less-educated tend to vote less often: they are less reliable. That’s one of the most fundamental realities of voting behavior, not only in the United States, but across the world wherever free elections are held. Now, it may be that enthusiasm for Trump will elevate turnout among this sector in this election; we will know more about that in the weeks after November 8.

Source: Demography and Doom: Trump’s White Working Class Base – LA Progressive

This brings us to millennials (18-34)…….this demographic is not as predictable as the media would have us believe……

Polls indicate that Donald Trump is going to be crushed by Hillary Clinton this November when it comes to millennials, who could make up the nation’s largest voting bloc. But in reality, the GOP nominee may do much better with young voters than we have been led to believe.

A real-time Electoral College tracking map published by Mic shows Clinton dominating among millennials, with Trump ahead in only five states. Given that there are 69 millennials who are currently eligible to vote, this forecast appears devastating for the GOP.

But there is one critical factor that most of the polls and tracking maps are not taking into account: voter turnout.

In the 2008 and 2012 elections, President Obama mobilized minorities, women, and young people. There was even a record turnout of young voters in 2008, when a large majority of them voted for the then-Illinois senator.

Source: Trump and millennials: He might do better than we think | TheHill

Personally, I think this election will be closer than most anticipate……Trump will most likely lose….but he will fare better than the polls that the media loves to quote….keep in mind how wrong these polls were in 2012…..

Just saying!

The Right’s Made-up ‘Constitution’

It is election time and as regular as a morning dump the Right is busy using the Constitution as a political prop.

These are the same people that have this leather bound copy that they wipe out every chance they get when trying to make a point.

And yet they will rabidly support such issues as a limit on a freedom like religion or do all they can to limit the vote and let’s not forget their assault on individual freedoms…..

But with all that “concern” over our freedoms and the sanctity of the document they go out of the way to make shit up that they swear is part of this original document……

I recall reading a piece back in 2013 I believe that talks about this faux understanding of the US Constitution…..

America’s right-wingers talk fervently about protecting the Constitution but seem to have little understanding of what the Federalist framers were doing in creating a powerful central government,

The Cato Institute’s Handbook for Policy Makers says, “The American system was established to provide limited government.” The American Enterprise Institute states its purpose to “defend the principles” of “limited government.” The Heritage Foundation claims its mission is to promote “principles of limited government.” A multitude of Tea Party associations follow suit.

At first glance the concept of “limited government” seems like a no-brainer. Everybody believes the power of government should be limited somehow. All those who think totalitarianism is a good idea raise your hand. But there is one problem with the ultra-conservatives’ “limited government” program: it is wrong. It is not just a little bit wrong, but demonstrably false.

Source: The Right’s Made-up ‘Constitution’ – Consortiumnews

The Constitution has become a go to prop for a campaign along with veterans and fake concern about the future of this country.

The problem is that many will believe the lies because their knowledge of the Constitution is limited to a few parts of the Bill of Rights….the rest of the document is a complete mystery to them.

‘McCarthyism,’ Then and Now

Is it not about time for one of my more irritating historical perspectives?

What can I say…..hang on and learn something…..

Today it is a return of McCarthyism….or so it seems……

But first…..unless you are my age then the term means very little to you…..so a little help would be in order……

Mass hysteria has reared its ugly head for as long as humans have existed. Adolf Hitler worked enough people into a frenzy to justify the murder of millions of Jews. Jesus Christ, known by all as peaceful, if controversial, was brutally nailed to a cross because a few high-ranking officials felt threatened by him. Although one would hope that people would learn a lesson or two from the mistakes of the past, it seems that history, as the old cliché goes, is forever doomed to repeat itself.

Enter Senator Joseph McCarthy. While he may not have caused genocide or murdered a prophet, he was able to whip up hysteria in America in the early 1950s. McCarthy’s issue of choice? Communism. The American Heritage Dictionary defines McCarthyism as “the political practice of publicizing accusations of disloyalty or subversion with insufficient regard to evidence.”

There is a quick history lesson….but what does that have to do with today’s world?

In 2016 the specter of a strong Russia has returned to the world stage and as it was in the 50’s accusations are being thrown around like Mardi Gras beads…..

I’m often taken to task by some of my readers for characterizing the current anti-Russian hysteria as “McCarthyism.” After all, they say, Sen. Joseph McCarthy was right – there were, indeed, high-ranking individuals in the US government covertly sympathetic to the Soviet regime. And, yes, we now know that many of these were working directly for Soviet intelligence.

This was the predictable result of our wartime alliance with Russia: combined with the left-wing proclivities of the Roosevelt administration, and the “Popular Front” politics of the Communist Party USA during this period, it’s surprising that Soviet penetration of US government circles wasn’t more extensive than it turned out to be.

Source: ‘McCarthyism,’ Then and Now – Antiwar.com Original by — Antiwar.com

It appears that we have returned to the days of McCarthy and started blaming Russia for all the ills of the world…..again.

What Can Cambodia Teach The US?

How long has the US been fighting the Taleban in Afghanistan?  Don’t hurt yourself…..15+ years…..and by all reports it is not getting any better.

We have been fighting for a long time and our promise of destroying the opium production of the Taleban which is used to fund their ops has been a dismal failure…….

Opium production in Afghanistan rose by 43 per cent to 4,800 metric tons in 2016 compared with 2015 levels, according to the latest Afghanistan Opium Survey figures released today by the Afghan Ministry of Counter Narcotics and the UNODC. The area under opium poppy cultivation also increased to 201,000 hectares (ha) in 2016, a rise of 10 per cent compared with 183,000 ha in 2015.

The higher production can be explained by the larger area under opium poppy cultivation, but the most important driver is the higher opium yield per hectare. The largest yield increase occurred in the Western region where the average yield grew by 37 per cent and the Southern region, with a 36 per cent rise. Since these two regions account for 84 per cent of the total opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, the yield increases in these regions had a strong impact on the national potential opium production.

That is not the only problem……the allies are losing territory at an alarming pace….whole provinces have been lost to the Taleban.

But what can the US and its allies do to end this?

Cambodia in the 1970’s comes to mind….well at least to my mind….and that is what is important…….

In Afghanistan, as in Cambodia, bombing has hardened and radicalized the insurgents. Dean hoped that including elements of Prime Minister Marshal Lon Nol’s government, as well as religious leaders, in a coalition government would countervail the power of the Khmer communists and force them to temper their extremist ideology. The Taliban are a rural insurgency and incorporating them into a coalition government would expose them to huge changes that have taken place in Afghanistan’s cities in the past 15 years.

America’s continuing failure in Afghanistan, as in Cambodia five decades earlier, remains “the refusal to find an alternative to military solutions.”

Source: Learn From Cambodia and Reach a Settlement With the Taliban | World Report | US News

Sadly, a solution to our Afghanistan problem will not be on the table….for the winner of this election will just double down on the tactics used today……

There is an answer….but few want to pursue it.