NAFTA really helped Mexico. I don't think we faired that well though. 50 million unemployed there is only 33 million in Canada. Why are you considering immigration reform with that high of unemployment. Shut the borders and start looking after yourself. You can't help anyone in less your healthy first. Anyone who has been in a plane knows that.

the village idiot now has a library?? WOW

Blowing the Whistle on Obama's America

"On the campaign trail four years ago, US presidential candidate Barack Obama shared his views on whistleblowers. He said: "Often the best source of information about waste, fraud and abuse in government is a government employee committed to public integrity, willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism ... should be encouraged rather than stifled."

As president, the reality has been very different. During his first term in office, six whistleblowers have been charged under the Espionage Act for allegedly mishandling classified information. That is twice as many as all previous presidents combined. "

Watch the video here:

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/listeningpost/2012/06/20126816273761...

You know Kend I would not mind paying taxes...most people feel the same way, however, its how my taxes are spent and my voice is ignored that irks me...50% of every tax dollar goes to the War Budget to pay past and present wars. How lovely is that???The U.S. hasn't even payed for past wars and the government wants to start up a few more. Sounds ALOT irresponsable and smells ALOT fishey!
I'd much rather have 50% of every tax dollar go towards Health Care and Education. I'd much rather see us improve those two areas than continue to pay for unnecessary and illegal wars...Wars that slaughtering innocent lives, Wars that rob us of our Rights and Freedoms; Wars that cause greater problems and fuel the flames of hate and violence on all sides.
Now as for your Oil jobs...No thank you. Don't get me wrong I am not silly enough to think that oil is passé. There is no doubt that modern life is addicted to patrolium. Just looking around my office I can touch more than a dozen items that are patrolium byproducts.
That being said though it is time the U.S. got serious and established a strong and fruitful Green Energy Policy. Now I know you are against such clean energy like solar and wind, so save your snarky comments...I've already heard them! The fact of the matter is Solar works, and works really well, so well that when a person installs PV panels and a domestic solar hot water panel on their roof, the up front cost is paid off with in the first 3 to 7 years. Other than occasionally needing some maintanence, (currently most systems installed here in the U.S. are under full warentee for 5 years and limmited for 5 years after, however in countries like Germany and China, whoes Solar Energy policies are far superior to the U.S., offer better insentives to encourage and help people to get off the grid.
I don't see Solar and or Wind wiping out the oil industry; but I do see it as the next step in a world that is realizing* we can't keep relying on a wasteful and limited resource such as oil.

*Several countries have been developing and expanding their Green Energy Policies; Germany has done so well with their Solar Power Policy that they just recently announced that there original goal to be off line from nuclear power by 2030 is looking like it will be about 10 years sooner.
What is sad when it comes to Solar and Wind Power is that the U.S. could have gotten on board back in the early 80's...The technology was there...The U.S. just needed to invest in it. But instead 'Ol Ronnie Regain torn down the solar panels that Carter had installed when he was in office...Guess Ol Ronnie and his rich Oil and Wall St. friends weren't on board with a sound and peaceful means towards reducing waste, and creating in the long run "free" energy for everyone.

Hi, Mored...welcome! Come back and contribute your ideas and thoughts...the national security state is also interested in what we all have to say.

nachos I was just kidding I am fine with all the jabs. But let me be clear about something. The government Kinda pitches in, the employer pays the government then the government redistributes it through maternity leave, imployment insurance etc. Simply replace the word government with tax payer and you get the truth. America is a big country I am sure there is a lot of places there that treat there employees just fine. The best way to get good employers is to create low unemployment. Something your current Government is not doing very well at. I have mentioned many times we re looking for workers here desperately. It is the big bad oil companies though. They pay great and have great benefits. They are fast tracking all work visa,s for trades right now I heard. It is easy to make over a $100,000 a year here if you dont mind working in a work camp in the middle of no where. Maybe it is time to make a change. The land of milk and honey. Oh Canada.

2950-10K: You don't really believe that the Democrats really want total transparency...do you? Certainly not Obama...as I've shown before..He, and the rest of the Democrats are just as interested in keeping corporate donations secret. The Democrats are just playing politics and know that more people are apt to believe that it is only the Republicans who don't want transparency...so they'll play that one up until they vote on it (just enough Democrats will vote on it to make it look like the Democrats are for transparency..with, of course, the bad old blue dogs shifting the decision over to the Republicans). How many times do they have to play that game before people catch on?

DAnnemarc: Yes, I have listened to several excerpts and the full 20 minute speech...with captions even. JFK sounded like he was trying to tell us about a world-wide conspiracy (and it sure didn't sound like he was referring to communism..even though he did lead out with a joke about Lennin). I just wish he could have been more explicit as to what exactly he was trying to say. I don't know, man, was JFK a conspiracy theorist? ;-} And then "they" shot him! I guess "they" didn't have a Rachel Maddow around to ridicule conspiracy theory nuts! (see my last comment on 911..yesterday). And although they may not have thought about doing a false flag like running airplanes into tall buildings...but wait ...there was Operation Northwoods:

"Code named Operation Northwoods, the plan, which had the written approval of the Chairman and every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for innocent people to be shot on American streets; for boats carrying refugees fleeing Cuba to be sunk on the high seas; for a wave of violent terrorism to be launched in Washington, D.C., Miami, and elsewhere. People would be framed for bombings they did not commit; planes would be hijacked. Using phony evidence, all of it would be blamed on Castro, thus giving Lemnitzer and his cabal the excuse, as well as the public and international backing, they needed to launch their war.

The idea may actually have originated with President Eisenhower in the last days of his administration."

http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/northwoods.html

You can actually read the copies of some of the actual documents of Operation Northwoods at this web site.

And people have a problem believing our government would do such a thing as carry out a false flag operation by crashing planes into buildings?

You know...Operation Northwoods must be a very popular topic because all you have to do is type in "Operation" in Google search and the very first thing it pulls up is "Operation Northwoods".

Watching Georgie and Cheney on display this week made me feel ill. GWB and his adherents are clearly deluded about his legacy. I have come to believe that he was the Manchurian Candidate and like that template the conditioning failed in the end as evidenced by his falling out with the Dick. The mind control research carried out in the fifties and sixties yielded ultimately flawed results--the conditioning always deteriorated and failed to accomplish its full promise. (see 1976 congressional testimony hearings on the secret experimentation carried out in the cold war by intelligence agencies) and work of Colin Ross, M.D. GWB's refusal to pardon Scooter (he 'only' commuted his sentence) was the death knell of the Cheney/Bush alliance. In the beginning I believed GWB was himself evil but upon further reflection and as more has come out about his administration I think that honor must go to Cheney.

Palindromedary ~ Thanks for that WTC response yesterday. Not to change the subject again; BUT, let me change the subject again. Have you ever heard this speech about Secret Societies by JFK?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhZk8ronces

His words not only ring truer today than ever; but, explain everything going on in the world today--including 9/11. Yet somehow this brilliant and brave soul expresses the resolved belief in this speech that We the American People can defeat this "unwanted influence" in the world today. I'd like to believe him.

Shame he didn't do what Eisenhower did and save this speech for the farewell address of his second term. I wonder why he didn't wait for the end of his term? Can all this evil be simply the doing of human beings. I've heard it suggested that extraterrestrials might be involved. Ancient civilizations and Angels and Demons have also been suggested. Who knows? At this point I wouldn't be surprised to hear the Flying Spaghetti Monster blamed. Do you believe that all this evil is simply the dark side of human nature and nothing else?

And, of course, if there is more to it than meets the eye, what might that be?

I commented on this today on the Big Picture. With Louise a.k.a Thom I am concerned with the Civil rights of Dzhokar indeed while I think his act is reprehensible now that I understand the ostensible reason of why he did what he did, its surprising its very surpirsing more acts are not done every day in the U.S. like the Marathon Bombing. While frequent violence and killing relatively commonplace in the US., we have had Sandy Hook, Colombine, Aurora, Tucson, Dzhokhar's action is a textbook case of Blowback (as coined by Chalmers Johnson) (loosely interpreted), because the American Violence in Afghanistan and Iraq is known. This violence is an example of an individual who identifies with the plight of people our people though our government as irdered by our military inflicts violence on, ostensibly to fight an enemy. In the process there is large amounts of "collateral damage", innocents killed to further our governments ends.

It is not surprising that some idealistic individual who identifies with these people would want to give some American's a taste of their own medicine: i.e. the killing of innocents. The hope is that the people of the U.S. would think a little more before they inflicted violence on others. There are many reasons to condemn such idealism however, one might call it reprehensible, or foolish or even immoral but not stupid or cowardly. The largely immoral U.S. government may seek the death penalty against Dzhokhar which tio my way of thinking is at least as immoral as murder by individuals. I realize this above is not mainstream opinion.

This is not my main point however. In a land where murder by immigrants in particular muslims is viewed as terrorism, the far worse industrial accident in Texas is treated as a ho hum thing. If Dzokhar is a terrorist, isn't the C.E.O of West Fertilizer an industrial terrorist. If the government seeks the death penalty by reason of assault with a weapon of mass destruction, doesn't the ignition and explosion of thousands of gallons of anhydrous ammonia fit the bill as a weapon of Mass Destruction.

In addition, I would argue with Tom that we should go back to the 1890's and enforce the Death Penalty for West Fertilzer. The company should be nationalized its assets sold by the state its workers from its President on Down be fired. The funds which result from this sale should be used as a fund for the victims. The salutory effect of forced liquidation of this company is to hold accountable the prepetetrators and the people who profited from this enterprise. It would lead to less destructive passing on the negative extrernalities of negligent homicide to the rest fo society and would compensate as best as possible with minimal cost to the state the victims of this disaster. This is especially timely in view of Citizens United, if corporations are people then they should be subject to "execution" if they commit particularly heinous crimes. While I personally am not for the dealth penalty in general if we have it it should apply to corporate people as well as individuals. Equal protection under the laws demands an approach like this if Dzhokhar is subject to the death penalty then the Death Penalty for the CEO of West Fertilizer and his company.