Tag: Political Power

Trump–This Is What Nazis Would Do

Yesterday Donald the Orange had to go outside and show his fascist tendencies and venture to a church for a photo op and use a Bible as a prop…..

After President Trump’s dramatic threat to bring out the military to quell protests, he walked from the White House to the nearby “Church of the Presidents” to pose for photographers while holding a Bible. He also invited his attorney general, national security adviser, chief of staff, press secretary, and defense secretary to join him for photos before he walked back across Lafayette Square Park to the White House. Some faith leaders weren’t happy with the move. The Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, to which St. John’s Church belongs, said she was “outraged” by the moment and noted that Trump didn’t pray during his visit. “He took the symbols sacred to our tradition and stood in front of a house of prayer in full expectation that would be a celebratory moment,” Budde told the AP.

“There was nothing I could do but speak out against that.” She told the Washington Post the church was used as a “prop” and that she was not notified Trump would be visiting. And Rabbi Jack Moline, the president of Interfaith Alliance, slammed the fact that peaceful protesters near the White House were gassed and shot with rubber bullets before Trump held his photo op. “Seeing President Trump stand in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church while holding a Bible in response to calls for racial justice—right after using military force to clear peaceful protesters out of the area—is one of the most flagrant misuses of religion I have ever seen,” Moline said in a statement. “This only underscores the president’s complete lack of compassion for Black Americans and the lethal consequences of racism.”

Not to worry his words have been recorded for all to see in years from now……

In an act unprecedented in American history, Donald Trump has repudiated the Constitution and is attempting to establish a presidential dictatorship, supported by the military, police and far-right fascistic militia acting under his command. The Socialist Equality Party appeals to the working class and all those committed to the defense of democratic rights to oppose this criminal action.

Speaking on national television, Trump proclaimed: “I am your president of law and order… Our nation has been gripped by professional anarchists, arsonists, looters, criminals, Antifa and others.”

Trump’s fascistic rant came only minutes after he ordered massively-armed military police to launch a violent attack on citizens engaged in a lawful and peaceful assembly outside the White House to protest the police murder of George Floyd.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/06/02/pers-j02.html

Is it me or did Trump look like his diaper was full while standing in front of the church….plus the Bible was upside-down…..if you cannot see any of this then you should not call yourself an American.

There is one problem with his lame ass threat……think 1878……

The 1878 Posse Comitatus Act places strong guardrails against a president using active duty military troops to uphold civil laws on US soil. Congress can waive the law, but it is not likely Democrats would cede such authority to Mr Trump given the politically and racially sensitive nature of the protests.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-george-floyd-protests-army-general-mark-milley-a9543496.html

What a douche bag…he still thinks that he was elected to have unlimited power with NO one to answer to…..and he surrounded himself with milquetoast sycophants that would rather spend time on their knees than tell the dumb ass the truth.

Look at this photo of Donald the Orange…..

Appears he is not sure what a book is used for….

(AP photo by Patrick Semansky)

Any Christian that supports this fool after this display is no more a Christian than I am…..enuff said!

One last question…what did they think would happen?

Did they really think that putting a man bereft of character, decency, and empathy in charge of the country wouldn’t make a difference?

Did they really think that dismissing each instance of his racism, bullying, fecklessness, megalomania, corruption, lies, and stupidity it wouldn’t have a cumulative effect?

What Did They Think Would Happen?

Here I want to throw a favorite Jefferson quote of those mentally challenged slugs in the Tea Party….”when injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty”.

I’ll bet your thought I was going to use the “Tree of Liberty” quote right?

Oh Hell I cannot disappoint…..”the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. it is it’s natural manure.“

Happy now?

We are witnessing a petty dictator trying to look like he is in control….being bully is not a strong leader…..it is nothing but a petty fascist struggling to appear to be in control.

Time to stand up or spend more time on your knees.

“lego ergo scribo”

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!

Let’s Blame The Illuminati

My Sunday begins and I am dreading my trip to the surgeon tomorrow see that he can look at his handy work…..maybe a beer and the garden will calm my mind…….but first…..

Personally I believe the “Ignorati” is in charge but for this post I would like to talk about the shadowy organization that some like Alex Jones believes is controlling everything we see and do…..yep I am talking about the “Illuminati”

Yep that organization that was born the same year as this country…1776……but is it really all that powerful?

If the Illuminati is real, it’s got to be the least secret secret society in the universe. It’s so bad at keeping itself hidden that its existence is proclaimed all over the internet by people whose investigative toolkit consists entirely of Google and a lively imagination.

The most recent would-be whistleblower, however, is far from your usual ex-sports commentator. Paul Hellyer, a former Canadian minister of defence, has blamed the Illuminati for suppressing technology brought to Earth by aliens that could end our reliance on fossil fuels.

Why the possessors of such fantastic kit should prefer to cash in on the extraction of still abundant oil rather than on their incredible, exclusive alternative is mysterious. But since the whole point about secret all-powerful elites is that they are mysterious, maybe that’s to be expected. Perhaps the Illuminati is like that…….

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/14/illuminati-running-world-not-mad-idea-questioning-hidden-power-elites-sane

Food for thought on this Sunday afternoon…..enjoy your day and I shall be back Monday after the doctor has his way with me…..chuq

 

Despots, Every One

I originally intended to do a post on the Arab nationalism and how they came to power and what it actually, (the term that is) unfortunately it is subject that could take me weeks to explain to the average American reader….it is a complex set of circumstances that grips a population and then tears at the psyche of the people at a later date….similar to what is happening in the Middle East today…..there were noble intentions in the past to bring the Arab world into the modern era…..but in the trip to the present the train of social justice was commandeered by those that set themselves up as despots and authoritarian leaders….”power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely”….that quote is never more accurate than in the Middle East……

In my search for accurate information I wound up with about 30 pages of notes…as I tried to arrange them into a coherent post I found I was making myself absolutely NUTS!  After sitting back, smoked a butt and thought about how and where to begin….I decided to play with my two best friends, Little Man and baby Girl…….after an exhausting round of Baby Girl teaching me to play “Fetch”…..I decided to try again…….

While reading various news sites trying to find a hook I came across a piece in the Zimbabwe Independent written by Alemayehu Mariam…..this person pretty much captured the whole thing that I was trying to say……..

Simply stated, a thugtatorship is rule by a gang of thieves and robbers (thugs) in designer suits. It is becoming crystal clear that much of Africa today is a thugocracy privately managed and operated for the exclusive benefit of bloodthirsty thugtators.In a thugtatorship, the purpose of seizing and clinging to political power is solely to accumulate personal wealth for the ruling class by stealing public funds and depriving the broader population of scarce resources necessary for basic survival. The English word “thug” comes from the Hindi word “thag” which means con man.

In India “thugees”, well-organised criminal gangs, robbed and murdered unsuspecting travellers over a century ago. Africa’s “thugees” today mug, rob, pillage, plunder and rape unsuspecting nations and peoples and secrete away their billions in stolen loot in European and American banks.

Thugtatorships in Africa thrive in the political economy of kleptocracy. Widespread corruption permeates every corner of society. Oil revenues, diamonds, gold bars, coffee and other commodities and foreign aid are stolen outright and pocketed by the thugtators and their army of thugocrats. Public funds are embezzled and misused and state property misappropriated and converted to private use.

Publicly-owned assets are virtually given away to supporters in “privatisation programmes’ or secretly held in illegal transactions. Bank loans are given out to front enterprises owned secretly by the thugtators or their supporters without sufficient or proper collateral.

One of the common tricks used by thugtators to cling to power is to terrorise the people with warnings of an impending Armageddon. They say that if they are removed from power, even after 42 years, the sky will fall and the earth will open up and swallow the people. Thugtators sow fear, uncertainty and doubt in the population and use misinformation and disinformation to psychologically defeat, disorient and neutralise the people.Africa’s thugtatorships have longstanding and profitable partnerships with the West. Through aid and trade, the West has enabled these thugocracies to flourish in Africa and repress Africans. To cover up their hypocrisy and hoodwink the people, the West is now lined up to “freeze” the assets of the thugtators. It is a drama they have perfected since the early days of African independence.

What can I say?  Thank you Mariam for making my effort a little less painful and much easier……..

This is a great word…….”Thugtator”…….and this is what will occur again with all the unrest in the Middle East….a savior will step forward and after power is consolidated he will become yet another despot that we in the West will jump behind 100%….after all the excitement and flash of reporting is done…the Middle East will once again become a land where despots continue to crap on their people…..and the US and the West will support almost unconditionally…..

And if a sort of democracy is ever established the outcome could be the same as the outcome in Kazakhstan where the latest election of a despot was a replay of his other elections…..from the Atlantic……

Three days before the vote, he published an op-ed in the Washington Post titled “Kazakhstan’s steady progress toward democracy.” He sent an adviser on a tour of Western capitals to promote the election; in Washington, the adviser — modestly, it turns out — predicted Nazarbayev would win between 80 and 92 percent of the vote.

Foreign election observers found evidence of ballot box stuffing and apparent multiple votes, charges that the government quickly denied. “I believe that it is the most ideal election ever in the history of all the elections,” said one presidential adviser, Yermukhamet Yertysbayev.

Democracy is a wonderful concept……but……despots rule in the Middle East…that is reality!

Does A Power Struggle Loom Large?

College of Political Knowledge

2010 Mid-Term Elections

Lecture #12

I remember back in the day, during the Cold War, every time the USSR got a new leader there would be the inevitable power struggle to see who would get power or retain power…..I am going to do a Beck-esque drawing a conclusion…only difference is that I do not have an irritating blackboard (BTW, a blackboard is so old school)…the power struggle I am referring to is the one that will happen on January 3, 2011 when the new Congress takes over and all the new faces and hollow shells will be jockeying for their little slice of the power pie….

Let us start with the House of reps and the leadership….Ohio’s John Boehner will be in the lead to become the Speaker of the House and to buy votes for his election to that position he has resoprted to some interesting tactics…..as reported by the AP….

Minority Leader John Boehner promised this week that if southwest Georgia residents unseat Democratic Rep. Sanford Bishop, he will support placing GOP challenger Mike Keown on the House Agriculture Committee. It’s a promise designed to get Keown votes in a red-soil district that harvests the nation’s largest peanut and pecan crop.

As Republicans campaign to win a majority in Congress, Boehner has dangled similar promises in Georgia, Arkansas, Missouri, Minnesota and Hawaii, sometimes in districts where single economic interests like farming or defense dominate regional economies.

And then there are the other positions of influence within the GOP and the Repub Caucus…….as written in Talking Points memo…..

conservative activists don’t tend to hold the top two House Republicans — Boehner, and Whip Eric Cantor — in the highest esteem. Particularly Cantor. At the influential conservative blog Red State, Erick Erickson spoke for legions of conservatives, who are hoping against hope that Republican Conference Chair Mike Pence becomes a major influence peddler next Congress.”There are people, I’m not sure members, but people hoping to stop Cantor from becoming leader, because people don’t like Cantor,” says a top GOP strategist. “It feels like it’s going nowhere.

If Cantor gets the bump, that will leave the whip position open. GOP sources say the smart money is that Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) will get the nod over NRCC chair Pete Sessions. By building the Young Guns program, McCarthy has earned the sort of loyalty and respect from members and candidates that’s crucial for a successful Whip operation. How does the right feel about McCarthy? “McCarthy is a good guy and I appreciate both his work in building a new Republican majority [but] he is most definitely not by any stretch of the imagination outside of California, an across the board conservative.”

And then there is the leadership of the Republican Conference chairmanship……with Mike Pence planning to step down…there will most likely be a fight for that position and the first one to step forward is our old friend, Michele Bachmann….you remember her the crazy lady that thinks that liberals are un-American and set herself up as the leader of the Tea Party Caucus….she will most likely go head to head with Rep. Hensarling of Texas for the leadership position…..she will probably run an insurgent campaign because she will have little support among the old bulls of the Party……

Not everything will necessarily go so smoothly, though. There’s real potential for a power struggle on two of the Hill’s most powerful committees — Energy and Commerce and Appropriations. The current ranking member on Energy and Commerce, Joe Barton, is itching for a fight over the gavel, but he will be a political liability for Republicans, many of whom have battled with him in the past. After he apologized to BP CEO Tony Hayward, Republican aides suggested that he’d be term limited out of contention for the chairmanship, but the party’s rules aren’t clear on that point. It could come down to the caucus to choose between Barton and Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI).

Let us not kid ourselves…the Dems are in the middle of a power struggle too…..for minority leader of the House….so the Repubs are not the only ones looking for their day in the Ivory Tower we call…..Congress……

You see there are always power struggles within any political system…..but the few Tea Party candidates that won their election, if they hold true to their promises (and I am not holding my breath) then either the GOP bows to their will or takes them on….I see the latter…..

Disgruntled Clerics Challenge Iranian Leader

We have all seen the protests and violence that has happened in Iran as an aftermath of a questionable election and its results.  Many have said it is the beginning of the end of the Supreme Council and yet others have said that it will survive and continue its confrontational ways.

I found an interesting perspective written by Jason Ditz:

Iranian opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi has vowed to continue his campaign against the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which he has maintained is illegitimate in the wake of last month’s contested elections. Still, it seems the violent demonstrations have subsided, and Iran has returned to relative normalcy.

At least superficially. Privately many members of Iran’s powerful clergy remain dissatisfied with the reaction of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and a growing number are willing to publicly criticize both the vote and Khamenei.

In the end, the resentment and growing opposition in the clergy could prove a serious threat to Khamenei’s grip on power, and may well be a problem for him to deal with long after the contested presidential election is nothing more than a memory.

Still, it remains unclear just how far opposing ayatollahs will be willing to go against Khamenei’s rule. Nevertheless, the Iranian government appears to be facing one of the worst domestic crises of confidence since the 1979 revolution.

I feel that if there ever is going to be a shake up in Iran, that it will have to come from the clerics, as of today, they hold all the power.  But is any of them strong enough to challenge the cleric now in charge?

Pres. Lugo, The Baby Maker

Many of the South American presidents screw all their people, but there is one that prefers only the female ones.  After all it is Sexy Sunday!

Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo says he will not resign over claims by three women that he fathered children with them while he was a Catholic priest.

Mr Lugo came to power last August, ousting the right-wing Colorado party that had governed Paraguay for six decades.

The Pope only released him from his vows of chastity last July, two years after Mr Lugo renounced the priesthood.

This month, three women have come forward claiming that the former Roman Catholic bishop is the father of their children.

Mr Lugo, 57, acknowledges a two-year-old boy born to a former parishioner as his own, but has not commented on the paternity of the others, a 14-month-old boy and a 6-year-old boy.

Calling the cases “private” during the news conference, he told journalists he could not keep answering questions without neglecting his duties as president.

He said he would leave the matter in the hands of the justice system.

A Paraguayan bishop, Rogelio Livieres, had called for Mr Lugo to resign.

On Friday, a senator from a party currently aligned with Mr Lugo’s also urged him to step down.

Fertile little devil, ain’t he?