NRA–Is There A Future?

Closing Thought–03Jan19

Before I begin….I am a gun owner and believe in the 2nd amendment….however I do not think that the NRA speaks for us gun owners…it is about making money and control of the rudder of government….us owners are nothing more than a tool to gain their desire of control……

I read an article before the holidays about the NRA and how it may be losing its strangle hold on the message…..

Good news for humanity: the NRA is weakening. The gun-lobbying group is in “deep financial trouble,” Fortune Magazine reported, and warns that the NRA may not be able to keep going. “The group says it is under such financial distress because New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has convinced a number of financial service providers, banks, and insurance providers against doing business with the gun-advocacy group. As a result, the NRA claims that it will be forced to end its magazine publishing and television services, and will be forced to curtail rallies and potentially shutter some of its offices.”

Governor Cuomo got a lot of credit for what, in reality, took an entire movement comprising hundreds of organizations. (For many reasons, business magazines tend to downplay the powerful role of social movements in economic shifts.) The reality is clear to those who have been following the Parkland students and movement groups like #NotOneMore and Everytown for Gun Safety: their strategies are working and the governor is a welcome ally.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/12/13/the-end-of-the-nra-business-magazines-tell-activists-the-strategy-is-working/

The National Rifle Association (NRA) said it is facing financial ruin because of a “blacklisting” campaign headed by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, according to a lawsuit filed by the gun rights group.

The NRA said it may no longer be able to produce its magazines, run its video streaming service or hold rallies because the state of New York has caused “irrecoverable loss and irreparable harm” to the organization.

https://www.newsweek.com/nra-going-bankrupt-group-claim-it-will-soon-be-unable-exist-due-financial-1057187

Again this is not about our rights or gun control…it is about unbridled political power…..especially any abuses of our trust….and to my thinking the NRA has violated all trust that I gave them in the past.

Let it join the DoDo!

1949–Revolt Of The Admirals

Yep that time again…..an IST history lesson…..I try to find cool stuff for my readers to help them become more informed and hopefully entertained…..

There were coups waiting to happen….Aaron Burr comes to mind and then in 1933 and those that did not appreciate the policies of FDR…..in this case it is the grandfather of Bush, Prescott Bush…..

https://lobotero.com/2018/11/15/lets-go-to-1933/

World War Two has been won….now the country is trying to downsize from the massive war machine that is still around……1949 a step was taken that kinda pissed off a bunch of admirals……

The spark that set off the Revolt of the Admirals in 1949 was the cancellation of the Navy’s supercarrier, the CVA-58 United States, within a few days of the laying of the keel.

The situation was already primed to ignite. The Navy in the postwar period had become apprehensive, then alarmed, about the impending unification of the services under a single Department of Defense. The rise of the Air Force was a challenge to naval aviation.

No foreign nation posed a threat to the United States at sea. With its traditional role thus diminished in importance, the Navy feared that it might be relegated to minor functions.

The nation’s strategic focus was on atomic weapons, which were in the domain of the Air Force. At the Key West conference in 1948, the mission of strategic air warfare had been assigned to the Air Force. The Navy was determined to roll back that decision and gain at least part of the atomic mission.

To do so, it needed a “supercarrier” that could launch large bombers. It also had to discredit the Air Force’s B-36 bomber, which was performing the mission the Navy wanted. Cancellation of the CVA-58 in April 1949 sent the Navy to battle stations.

http://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2018/July%202018/The-Revolt-of-the-Admirals.aspx

Now let’s take a look at the situation and the events that followed……

In the summer and fall of 1949, hearings of the House Armed Services Committee crackled with tension as U.S. Navy admirals went before Congress to defy their civilian leadership. America and its allies stood transfixed as a parade of famous admirals demonstrated fierce opposition to service unification, displayed hostility and contempt for the civilian leaders of the Defense Department, and condemned cuts made to the Navy budget. Unsettling headlines such as “The Navy Boils Over” and “Bradley Accuses Admirals of Open Rebellion” drifted through the nation’s newspapers for weeks.[1] Known as The Revolt of the Admirals, this episode has been described as “the most flagrant challenge ever hurled by top-ranking American military men at the civilian leadership of the United States.”

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2018/12/12/i_am_the_monarch_of_the_sea_114023.html

There you go……a bit of history that is not taught and is seldom remembered……and then the old professor came along……

Learn Stuff!

Class Dismissed!

Democrats Will Be A Major Disappointment

A new year so why not start it off with a bang?

In just a very few hours the new Congress will be sworn in today and the work will begin.

It is no secret that I have been a critic of the Dems since Bubba Clinton was president…..and then his wife with her fake progressive stands……Clinton and the Clintonites have always been good at covering their “conservatism” by generating faux progressive policies…..and letting big business take over the party.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/04/27/how-clintonites-are-manufacturing-faux-progressive-congressional-campaigns/

Clintonites like MacCaskill, Webb, Kaine, etc…..they spout progressive but are no more progressive than Lindsey Graham….

2019 and one thing is for sure….The one thing a Dem can do is f*ck up a wet dream.

Dems already thumping their chest for 2020.

Like the hunt for the Dem to break out for 2020……who cares!

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/12/28/who-cares-which-democrat-comes-out-on-top/

Dems claim to be “progressives” and I just do not see it….they talk a mean game but when it comes down to the nut cutting they limp away in search of their spines.

They thump their chest about health care….they thump their chest about minimum wage……they thump their chest over race issues….they thump and they thump….it has been so for 30 years and yet these toads cannot get a thing done without checking in with their donors, their masters.

Then there are those so-called “liberal” groups…the ACLU, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, etc etc etc…….they are media whores…they choose the topics that will get them the most air time on the MSM propaganda machine……these people were approached to endorse the bill…none would sign on…..

Let’s take Yemen…….a couple of “progressives” floated a bill that would take the US out of that fray….this is a good thing only the floated legislation is about as useful as a flaccid wanker.

But read more about these “progressive” tools……

The Senate vote this month to end U.S. support for the war in Yemen marked a historic break from a bipartisan embrace of a pro-war foreign policy, yet it was accomplished without strong backing from Washington’s liberal foreign policy infrastructure.

The resolution, co-sponsored by Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., invokes the rights laid out in the War Powers Act of 1973 that assert Congress’s authority over war, and it was the result of many months of work by a coalition of progressive activists and anti-war lawmakers. The war is Saudi-led, but the U.S. has provided critical support, and an end to that support effectively means an end to the war.

https://theintercept.com/2018/12/23/yemen-war-resolution-vote-senate/

There was a time when I considered voting Democrat….and then Hillary ran and that fanciful idea was cleansed from my mind…..

The Dems have a majority but they have had it before and f*cked up a wet dream….what about this time……will they, the Dems, truly be a party of the people or will they return to the neoliberal bullsh*t they have embraced with the Clintons?

Unfortunately, Pelosi, Schumer and Hoyer are doing everything in their power to keep the progressive insurgency in check, and keep their neoliberal/corporate money machine in power. Beyond the many moral and ethical problems with this, it’s just plain stupid politics. About the only way Democrats could lose their 2018 momentum in 2020 is to return to the same old neoliberal, corporate-friendly policies that lost them the election in 2016.

They’re being supported by most of the mainstream media, many of the pundits who’ve been the architects of the Democratic Party’s precipitous decline over the last few decades, and a robust and well-funded neoliberal infrastructure composed of not-for-profits, many unions, foundations, and public interest groups, who’ve gone into overdrive on their anti-Bernie campaign. It was this neoliberal mafia that helped deliver the nomination to Hillary Clinton in 2016, which in turn depressed turnout to the point that Trump was able to win the election with just over 26 percent of eligible voters.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/01/01/war-democratic-party-continues

Warren will run for president…..oh goody! She is NO progressive….her rhetoric is good but actions say something different. Not a good choice.

The UN–Should We Go Or Should We Stay?

The Clash is blasting in the background…..

The United Nations has been a source of ridicule for Neocons for decades.

The Trump Administration has been pulling out of the major functions of the United Nations since they came to power….plus there are several functions that we have never signed up for in the past.

FYI, Politico has a slide show of all the treaties the US has not signed…..

https://www.politico.com/gallery/10-treaties-the-us-hasnt-ratified

I bring this up at this time because of something that the US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, has said……

As Nikki Haley finishes her tenure this month, the woman who has spent the last two years representing the U.S. at the United Nations has a question for the American public: Should the U.S. remain a member?

“The American people need to decide if it’s worth it,” she said in an interview with a small group of journalists this week. There is a lot of waste and abuse at the UN, she said, and it is often “politically unfair” to the U.S. and its allies. That said, she also noted that the UN was the vehicle for imposing tough sanctions on North Korea and an arms embargo on South Sudan.

“There are rays of light,” she said. “But the verdict is still out.”

It’s easy to see where Haley is coming from — during her tenure, the UN has had to deal with scandals of the self-inflicted and political variety. It continues to suffer the repercussions of child sex abuse by UN peacekeepers. Meanwhile Russia’s veto at the Security Council, “one of the most frustrating things about the UN,” continues to protect Syria from facing accountability for chemical weapons attacks.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-12-21/nikki-haley-asks-should-the-u-s-stay-in-the-un

It is a great question.

The UN was a grand idea that the US did not take seriously out of ignorance and arrogance.

The whole idea of the Security Council with 5 permanent members that can veto anything put before it…..a stupid idea!

So I think we should consider our membership….either take the grand plan seriously or bow out and let the rest of the world get down to business.

What say you?

Afghanistan: A New Year’s Conspiracy

I would like to wish my readers a very and prosper New Years….I will try to make this year, 2019, as good if not better than last year….thanx for your visits and your support.

Down to business.

I begin my year with a conspiracy theory…..

As I was eating my New Years meal of corned beef, cabbage, peas and corn bread I was talking with my son-in-law and we were voicing our thoughts and opinions of the troop draw down…..as I was telling him why we should bring our troops home from these adventures I was struck by a blinding light of a conspiracy theory.

A little background……

I am opposed to mercenaries used by the US to fight our wars…..oh so I do not hurt their feelings….they like to be called private security firms…..if it smells like sh*t it usually is…..

Pres. Trump employs the sister of the chief mercenary, Erik Prince, as his SecEd…..so the chief mercenary has the president’s ear….to the point that he float a plan to use Blackwater to privatize the war in Afghanistan….

https://lobotero.com/2017/08/11/dont-privatize-the-afghan-war-just-end-it/

The plan was shelved and we heard no more after that…..

Afghanistan?

Wait!

Did not Trump announce a draw down of US troops for Afghanistan?

Do you see where my thinking is going?

…..(Pause here for some to catch up)……

Now that Trump has managed to remove most of the generals from his administration, people who would have opposed using mercenaries to fight the war, could the plan come off the shelf and dusted off?

After finishing the meal I decided to hit the reference button in my brain and see if there could be any validity to the fear that gripped me……

My research produced some evidence in favor of my fear…..

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis is out.

Mattis’ resignation comes amid news that President Donald Trump has directed the drawdown of 2,000 U.S. forces in Syria, and 7,000 U.S. forces from Afghanistan, a U.S. official confirmed to Military Times, a story first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

This month, in the January/February print issue of the gun and hunting magazine “Recoil,” the former contractor security firm Blackwater USA published a full-page ad, in all black with a simple message: “We are coming.”

Is the war in Afghanistan — and possibly elsewhere ― about to be privatized?

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2018/12/21/mattis-is-out-and-blackwater-is-back-we-are-coming/

Trump and Prince have a relationship and he, Trump, can look like he is keeping a campaign promise about our troops while making billions for Prince and whatever he names his near enterprise.

Here is his “pitch” for Afghanistan…….

Prince’s plan…..

Prince’s plan would see troops replaced with private military contractors who work for a special envoy that reports directly to the president.

“Right now, there are 15,000 US troops and another 30,000 contractors. All I need is … my plan would say 2,000 special forces remain and about 6,000 contractors. That is by any stretch a severe reduction in manpower and spending,” Prince told MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell Friday, adding later that his whole plan would only cost around $3.5 billion, much less than the tens of billions of dollars the US spent in Afghanistan last year

https://www.businessinsider.com/blackwater-founder-erik-prince-aims-to-privatize-us-war-in-afghanistan-2018-8

In depth plan……

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2018/09/05/heres-the-blueprint-for-erik-princes-5-billion-plan-to-privatize-the-afghanistan-war/

His, Prince, one selling point…it will be cheaper…..that is a LIE! Let me repeat that…IT IS A LIE!

But don’t believe me……

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2017/08/08/Five-Things-You-Need-Know-About-Plans-Privatize-Afghan-War

It is NO secret that I am antiwar and I am a staunch opponent to the privatization of war and the corruption and profit that is brings.

In Saner Thought

"It is the duty of every man, as far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error"..Thomas Paine

Day: January 3, 2019

NRA–Is There A Future?

1949–Revolt Of The Admirals

Democrats Will Be A Major Disappointment

The UN–Should We Go Or Should We Stay?

Afghanistan: A New Year’s Conspiracy