Category: Politics

everything to do with the execution of politics

Closing Thought–14Nov18

I read an op-ed a couple of days ago and I had to give it time to sink in….someone thinks that Hillary is poised to run again for president………

A longtime adviser to Hillary Clinton has made a prediction in the Wall Street Journal that will be very good news to some Democratic voters and very bad news to others: Hillary Clinton is running again. So writes Mark Penn, a pollster and adviser to the Clintons from 1995 to 2008, in an op-ed co-authored with Andrew Stein, president of the New York City Council. Their premise is that Clinton will return to the Hillary Clinton of old, “the universal-health-care-promoting progressive firebrand of 1994.” Think of it as “Hillary Clinton 4.0.” In earlier iterations, version 2.0 lost to Barack Obama as a centrist and version 3.0 lost to Donald Trump after blowing it with white, middle-class voters. The new version of Clinton, however, has learned from all these mistakes.

“Clinton has a 75% approval rating among Democrats, an unfinished mission to be the first female president, and a personal grievance against Mr. Trump, whose supporters pilloried her with chants of ‘Lock her up!,'” the authors write. “This must be avenged.” She’s also had two years to assess her defeat to Trump and what she did wrong. What about the new generation of Democrats? They proved they’re not ready for prime time with the Brett Kavanaugh hearings. Meanwhile, Mike Bloomberg will support her rather than run against her, they write, and Joe Biden wouldn’t stand a chance. Clinton might not announce early, perhaps not until after Iowa, “but rest assured that, one way or another, Hillary 4.0 is on the way.” Click to read the full op-ed.

Seriously?

Why?

Please stop!  Let the country move passed the Clintons….

She will be a point of contention and will invoke the ire of that guy that sits in the White house as I type….the Dems need new blood…the Clintons are old hat and should go the way to the do-do.

The same for Pelosi….she will be a focal point of attacks and the Dem agenda will be pushed to the background…..again the Dems need new blood in the House leadership if they truly want to make a difference….looking to the past will give them nothing but heartache…Clintons and Pelosi are the past please Dems move on to the present and look to the future.

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Who Owns The GOP?

Well to answer that question I would say pick a large corporation and the GOP has fingers in their wallets….but the one that owns the most spineless representatives of both parties is the Military-Industrial Complex (M-IC)……

These vultures are making record profits……feeding the Saudis weapon systems so the Saudis can destroy the poorest country in the Middle East, Yemen…..

There have been a few in the House that are trying to curtail the US involvement in this conflict….but now the GOP has stepped up and done what the M-IC wants….kill as much attempts to end the US involvement as possible…..

…a measure is being advanced at the behest of House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) aiming to derail House Continuing Resolution 138, a War Powers Act challenge which would force an end to the US military involvement in the Saudi-led War in Yemen.

Under the War Powers Act, any individual lawmaker is intended to be able to raise the matter of an unauthorized war for debate and a vote on the floor. Efforts to do so have failed, however, as the House leadership has used the Rules Committee to sidestep the issue.

This move to derail the debate is part of the first day of lame-duck House business, and Rep. Ryan and the other leaders seem to be hoping to turn the legal challenge of the war into a partisan issue. Minority Whip Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) accused the Republican leadership of shirking Congressional responsibility.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), however, is hoping to drum up enough Republican support for the legal challenge to prevent this, arguing that the legality of the Yemen War deserves a full debate and vote in the House.

(antiwar.com)

Those wishing to contact their lawmakers to tell them to vote against the attempt to strip privilege from H. Con. Res. 138 should do so quickly, as the vote is expected on Wednesday. You can do so by calling the Capitol Switchboard at 202-225-3121, or find the phone number for their specific representative here.

Speak up!  The US does not need to be part of the Saudi genocide of Yemen.

Veterans March

As Veterans Day approaches our veterans need to come together and start demanding their rights and benefits….even if it means shutting down the DC machine.

I have given my readers an idea of how they could do this…..by taking a page from American history…..

https://lobotero.com/2016/11/11/we-need-another-bonus-army/

America has a long history of crapping on their veterans…..and the society as a whole is not much better.

In case my post was too long and you would like to know about the Bonus army then a short video may help…..

This is what our veterans need……a demonstration that they will NOT be ignored any longer…as it is now they are nothing more than political props to be trotted out during campaigns and then pushed aside when no longer needed.

Begin with a MARCH!  But do not end there!

 

Veterans are numerous and with organization they can win their case with DC…..remember veterans have a proud history of demanding their rights and benefits…..granted the government over-reacted….but that is what you want….the more they act to more the news will focus on you and your problems and solutions…..just do it!

Time for Veterans to band together and demand the benefits and the entitlements they earned fighting senseless wars for politicians and oligarchs…..

It is also time for this country to be reminded of our veterans and all they do so others can stay home and snuggle with their loved ones…..Veterans deserve better than they get!

“For soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, coming home is more lethal than being in combat.”
~ Brené Brown, research professor at the University of Houston

Not all heroes wear the uniform of war.

In the United States, however, we take particular pride in recognizing as heroes those who have served in the military.

Yet while we honor our veterans with holidays, parades, discounts at retail stores and restaurants, and endless political rhetoric about their sacrifice and bravery, we do a pitiful job of respecting their freedoms and caring for their needs once out of uniform.

https://original.antiwar.com/jwhitehead/2018/11/08/a-badge-of-shame-the-governments-war-on-americas-military-veterans/

Time for veterans to stop depending on elected officials that care more about the cash they can raise than the vets they can help….veterans need to depend on themselves like they do on combat…..no one knows better than the person next to you in the “trenches”…..

Saying “Thank You” does not feed their children or repair their bodies….time for all Veterans to strike a blow for their broken promises……DO IT NOW!

A small token….but you have my support and the support of IST.

Closing Thought–09Nov18

By now we all know that Our Dear Supreme Leader has fired AG Jeff Sessions after belittling him for almost a year he waited to the results were in of the Midterms and he felt he had to act to cover his ass (the “HE” here is in reference to Trump….so there is NO confusion)…..

News has come out the Sessions is so depressed about losing his cushy gig that he has attempted suicide……

Following months of bruising criticism from Democrats and President Trump alike, an inconsolable Jeff Sessions was reportedly trying to commit suicide Thursday by smoking a joint. “I swore I’d never take the coward’s way out, but what choice do I have?” said a teary-eyed Sessions, carefully laying a sealed envelope containing his farewell note on a tool bench in his garage as he raised a lighter to the marijuana cigarette with trembling hands. “This is it. I’ve taken four puffs to make sure there’s no chance of survival. It should only be a matter of minutes now. Oh, what a wretched, ignominious ending. Goodbye, cruel world, I’m sorry I’ve failed you so.” At press time, Sessions reportedly realized he had died after being overcome by a euphoric, floating feeling.

Before you go off and pass on the info…please read closely…..this is a satirical piece from The Onion

Everyone knows the Jeff Sessions hates marijuana……

It is Friday and I leave you, my reader, with this small attempt at humor……I start my weekend as soon as I sign off for the week……enjoy yourself….be well, be safe…..chuq

“Making America Great Again”–Part 13

The series turns from warfare to the country’s fledgling problems……the War of 1812 has ended and now the country needs to move beyond a war footing and do what is necessary to keep the country together…..this is the era of revolutions…..

Maj. Sjursen continues to inform and educate with his series……..and now onto Part 13…..

Part 13 of “American History for Truthdiggers.”

It was a time of great change. And, as always, a picture—or in this case a painting—is worth a thousand words. In the portrait above, Patrick Lyon of Philadelphia is depicted as a blacksmith hard at work at the forge. He wears an apron and a shirt that shows his muscular forearms. This portrait was commissioned by Lyon himself, and it depicts a man proud of his labor, toil and strength. Here was a working man—blue-collar chic!

This is stranger than it may appear to modern eyes. After all, in the 18th and early 19th centuries, men who could afford to commission such paintings usually preferred to be portrayed in formal dress, adorned in powdered wig and leggings and surrounded by the expensive objects that implied an aristocratic status. Something had changed.

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/american-history-for-truthdiggers-birth-of-an-era-of-revolutions/

The series is approaching the time when almost everything changes…..the Jacksonian Era…..

Learn Stuff!

Class Dismissed!

Where’s That Middle Class?

I would post on that diabolical “caravan” but it seems to have vanished off the news…..go figure……

Now that the Midterms are over and we have a new Democratic House…..there is one question I want to ask them……”whatcha ya gonna do” for the Middle Class?

How many times have you heard a reference to the “Middle Class” by your politicians?

The Middle Class use to be the poster child for capitalism and for the US.  The Middle Class expands and the economic society is healthy and progressing….

Sad to say that the Middle Class nowadays is nothing but a slogan in the same vane as “patriotism, veterans, etc”….a campaign slogan that few believe any longer…..

Like or not the “bourgeois is getting recast as the proletariat”…..interesting concept right?

The American Conservative has a view on the Middle Class that every American should read……

Everyone loves the middle class. Everyone claims to be middle-class—some to put a gloss on their sketchy escutcheons, others to dodge chastisement for their awkward riches. But in fact both the socioeconomic reality and the concept of the middle class have been turned on their heads and, at the same time, trivialized into a mere lifestyle choice.

Economically, the middle classes were once proprietors, self-employed owners of property and their own labor. Morally, they were the equivalent of “solid citizens”: decent, hard-working, law-abiding, temperate, proper, staid, virtuous, and—well, moral. The qualifications for being middle class have gotten a whole lot looser, to say the least.

The European term “middle classes” originally served to describe merchants, tradesmen, investors, and skilled craftsmen. The habitat of these classes was the walled city—the burg, bourg, or borough—hence their appellation, les bourgeois. The bourgeoisie occupied a middle ground between the nobility and the lower classes of peasants and servants.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/what-middle-class/

Wages flat….not what Trump wants the “Middle Class” to believe…..we are now divided into two distinct classes…..wealthy and worker…..as long as the corruption continues the chances of a reset are looking better and better…..

Things are changing……

“Out of the frying pan, into the fire” is an apt description of our current place in history. No matter what you think of globalization, I believe we’ll soon discover that capitalism without it is much, much worse.

No one needs to convince establishment economists, politicians and pundits that the absence of globalization and growth spells trouble. They’ve pushed globalization as the Viagra of economic growth for years. But globalization has never been popular with everyone. Capitalism’s critics recognize that it generates tremendous wealth and power for a tiny fraction of the Earth’s seven billion people, makes room for some in the middle class, but keeps most of humanity destitute and desperate, while trashing the planet and jeopardizing human survival for generations to come.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/11/01/catabolism-capitalisms-frightening-future/

The Middle Class is disappearing……what will the new “House” do to change that?

Closing Thought–08Nov18

Does anyone these days remember the “Axis Of Evil”?  No?  In 2002 it was Iran, Iraq and North Korea….and later that year under-secretary of state John Bolton added Libya, Cuba and Syria……well not much has changed since Bolton took over the reins of State as SecState……he now has his version of the “Axis” and he had to find a word to differentiate his from GW Bush’s….how does “troika” sound (side note…is that not a Russian word?  Interesting choice of words.)?

Since he could not include North Korea because Our Dear Supreme Leader has made nice nice with their dictator and we have invaded and occupied Iraq….what was he to do…..and then he hit upon a region that has been largely forgotten since the 1980’s…….Central and South America…..

More than 16 years after arguing that George W. Bush should add Cuba, Syria, and Libya to Iran, Iraq, and North Korea in the “Axis of Evil,” John Bolton has coined a new term. In a policy speech at a conference in Miami, the national security adviser dubbed Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela the “Troika of Tyranny” in the western hemisphere, the Hill reports. “In Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, we see the perils of poisonous ideologies left unchecked, and the dangers of domination and suppression,” Bolton said. He referred to the leaders of the three countries as the “Three Stooges of socialism,” who are “true believers, but they worship a false god.”

Bolton jabbed at the previous administration’s policies, saying the Trump administration is concerned with “sanctions, not selfies.” “Under this administration, we will no longer appease dictators and despots near our shores in this hemisphere,” said Bolton. “We will not reward firing squads, torturers, and murderers.” He praised the election of right-wing leaders in Latin America, including Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. Bolton announced new sanctions on Venezuela and Cuba, including a ban on American citizens trading in Venezuelan gold, and said Nicaragua would “feel the full weight of America’s robust sanctions” until it allows free and fair elections to take place, the Guardian reports. (A source says President Trump discussed an invasion of Venezuela last year.)

What a grand imagination from the “Walrus” ………

For further reading…..

http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/john-bolton-takes-latin-american-troika-of-tyranny-to-task

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/11/07/the-troika-of-tyranny-the-imperialist-project-in-latin-america-and-its-epigones/

Ain’t it grand?

(What happened to Russia-gate?)