How low can he go???

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Just-When-You-Think-Bush-C-by-Bill-Hare-101118-164.html

About a year ago or eighteen months ago, I read six articles - three by foreign CEOs and three by American CEOs. Each CEO prefers hiring foreign workers because these workers seem to be able to solve problems. They seem to think more and better than American workers. In the United States of Mortal Sin the teachers teach to the test and do not challenge their students to problem solve.

Stupid does as stupid is!!!

http://original.antiwar.com/robert-koehler/2010/11/18/peddling-war-to-children/

This may be yesterdays news, but I honestly don’t understand why the TSA issue is such a big issue right now or why people are actually surprised by it, without being disrespectful to people who are sensitive to being ex-rayed naked or being groped, or worse, having to let their children being touched by strangers. Without any doubt, Celebrities will have their nude pictures being leaked onto the internet (some may actually receive a career boost from it), normal guys like myself have to content with finding our tush on sites like “rate my TSA shot”. I agree, it is grotesque and tasteless, and if it wasn’t for the people who are really being victimized like children, rape victims, or as one of your callers, a person with skin cancer, at best it would make a comedy piñata.

I personally am beyond the point of getting agitated if somebody gets aroused from seeing my bum up close (those poor souls). My outrage started much earlier: I felt very naked when the patriot act got rushed through, I felt naked when the NSA started to wiretap people without a warrant, and I felt absolutely violated when habeas corpus was suspended by the military commissions act. And when President Obama did not overturn the military commissions act to reinstate habeas corpus, and did not move to impeach Judge Alito to put at least the first nail into the coffin of “Citizen’s United”, that’s when I felt let down.

And I felt naked when all of that passed quietly under the pretext of fighting terrorism and was targeted towards terrorists, and almost nobody got even excited about it. Now suddenly, that they stick their hands into our pants and touch our children in the name of homeland security, everybody acts surprised. Suddenly the whole issue of government power becomes personal to us. What happens at the airport now is a perfect metaphor for what has been going on ever since the Supreme Court gave the election for George W Bush. (arguably even sooner)

Most people (including me), are upset because of our children, and we should be. What we are witnessing is a mutation of government and we are to blame, nobody else. It is a monster created by our fears, by our greed, but mostly by our ignorance. And our children as far as they haven’t already, will feel the consequences for the foreseeable future.

Isn’t this the point where even the most fanatic Tea Party right wing conspiracy theorist has to see the writing on the wall? Simply follow the money. Who pays for the x-Ray machines, and who is supplying them? Why was this method of securitizing chosen, when it is the most intrusive, while there are much more effective ways available to keep the air traffic safe that are less intrusive? Follow the money, and while you’re at it, look up who makes a fortune from having us occupy two other countries. It’s not a government conspiracy against the people. If at all it is a conspiracy by the super rich who use lobbyists to legally create legislation designed to funnel taxpayers’ money into the coffers of their clients. None of that is breaking news.

With so many special interests and lobbying groups, we have arrived at a point where government has no strength left to defend the constitution on behalf of the people. (preferably the 4th Amendment).

The government today is a mere shell of what the founding father’s envisioned. It has been dismantled, into a government by the corporations; for the corporations. Under this new lordship, our children are getting groped, Wikipedia and with it history, is being rewritten by fascist think tanks, and former President Bush feels completely safe and justified in admitting to having authorized torture. He even put it in a book. Who is worried about being photographed naked when they pretty much took everything away from us already? It's a circus.

In all this I am reminded of the sentencing speech by Spencer Tracy in The Judgment of Nuremberg, written by Abbey Mann:

“A decision must be made, in the life of every nation, at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat, when it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient, to look the other way. The only answer to that is, survival as what? A country isn’t a rock. It is not an extension of oneself. It is what it stands for, when standing for something is the most difficult. Before the people of the world, let it now be noted, that here in our decision, that this is what we stand for: Justice, truth, and the value of a single human being. “

Weren’t there Japanese war criminals hanged for water boarding?

In our current political climate it seems nostalgic and out of place to even assume that President Bush ever has to answer for his motivations for authorizing torture in front of a judicial body, even though it is the judgment of this investigation that would reset the standard for our own moral compass, our ethics and morality for future administrations and governments of this nation. Enough with the pardons, and enforce accountability. That would be change I’d like to believe in, and it would send a clear message to the conduct of the lobby industry. Even though the culture of lobbying and President Bush’s moral and ethical conduct are two separate things, they are both two branches of the same tree. After all, what may have started with the terrorists, will not end over there half across the planet in Iraq or Afghanistan, or with the Muslims there, in Europe or here, or the brown people, or the poor people, it may not even end with us being humiliated, molested, groped, fondled, photographed, it may not even end with our children being touched down by strangers in uniforms. Sir you are right, Osama Bin Laden has indeed won. Now we can experience a tiny taste of Abu Ghraib in the safety of our own airports. The war on Terror has finally arrived in America.

Time for a constitutional amendment making food, shelter, healthcare, and education a right

does anyone know how to stream thom's RT tv show? I keep getting a 404 error message on that RT America link. I couldnt find it on Democratic Underground web site. can anyone help? thanx

Social Security is doing just fine.

Despite the Catfood Commission, Social Security will never increase the national debt. In fact Social Security is just about the ONLY government program that is well funded for as far as we can forecast. It has a huge surplus of well over 2.5 trillion dollars that will continue to grow to well over 4 trillion dollars before it begins to decline. Sometime between 20 and 30 years from now that trust fund will run out, and SS will have to run on its current revenues - just like it did for its first half century of existence. That is not "broken", that is what it was always intended to do. Once the trust fund is gone, we can continue to fund benefits at 80% of current levels basically forever. Not bad, do absolutely nothing at all and SS doesn't have to cut a penny, increase the retirement age or reduce any benefits for at least 20 years, and after that can go forever with just a 20% cut. So why do they want to make those benefit reductions now?

I have a better idea. Let's enhance Social Security so that it lowers unemployment, stimulates the economy, and restores confidence.

• Reduce unemployment by lowering the voluntary retirement age to 60 instead of raising it to 69. Life expectancy is mainly increasing because fewer people are dying young - but people reaching the end of their working years are not actually living significantly longer - and a lifetime of work, especially physical labor, is not easier on today's sexagenarians. 69 might be a good retirement age for a banker, but not for skilled iron-workers, or auto workers, or even janitors. Let them retire earlier and open up those jobs.
• Turn FICA into a true flat tax, rather than the regressive tax it is now. Currently FICA taxes are 12.4% of the first $106,800 in earned wages (split between worker and employer), and absolutely nothing on any income above that - and FICA taxes are not collected on unearned income such as dividends and capital gains. Let's make it a true flat tax, Collect it on all income - no exceptions. We could then easily pay for lowering the voluntary retirement age, and never have to reduce benefits, and at the same time we could probably cut the FICA tax rate to half of its current level.

Reduce unemployment, substantially reduce FICA taxes for most taxpayers, preserve benefits and create confidence in today's workers that Social Security will be there for their retirement. Damn, that sounds downright conservative!

Ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha....once again the Democrats & a spineless Prez has caved......You all just heard Senator Bernie Sanders saying that Democrats ought not to give in to billionaires tax cuts....well first it was millionaires don't deserve a tax cuts over middle class Americans...Noe the post has been shifted to billionaires.

Almost all members of congress are millionaires...you really think they are going to put your interest above theirs.......

Jerry Voorhis, Congressman from CA, one of the last defenders of a Free Currency, observed "Banks -commercial banks and the Federal Reserve- create all the money of this nation and its people pay interest on every dollar of that newly created money. Which means that private banks exercise unconstitutionally, immorally, and ridiculously the power to tax the people." In his 1944 book Beyond Victory Voorhis proposed replacing the Bank for International Settlements (precursor of the World Bank) with the International Clearing House, a simple honest trading mechanism to establish parity (as was established for agricultural commodities in this country under the Agriculture Adjustment Act of 1933) across international economies and their sovereign currencies. He also called for the US Government to take over the Federal Reserve ( I think according to the parameters called out in the same Agriculture Adjustment Act of 1933).

Where are the statesmen who understand the underlying problems and are willing to call them out in the same spirit of the American Revolution? Where are the statesmen like Congressman Wright Patman of Texas who will call out the corruption? Where are the people who will instruct congress as to the workings of the economy like the 1940's State Agricultural Commissioners Carl Wilken, Charles B. Ray, and Dr. John Lee Coulter who were so influencial in the adoption of the Steagal Full-Parity Amendment to the War Stabilization Act of 1942? Where are the crusaders like Congressman Henry Gonzalez of Texas to lead for real reform and the Federal takeover of the private banking institution called the Federal Reserve? Where is the President like John F. Kennedy who will have the nerve to sign another Executive Order 11110 and issue a usury free currency in the name of sovereign United States of America instead of spinelessly going along with a usury based system of bank notes loaned into existence by private banks?

These regulations we are talking about today are mere tinkerings and will do nothing to get at the heart of the problem. This writing is a paraphrasing of some of the writings of Rich Kotlarz. Check him out:

http://www.concordresolution.org/column.htm

Check out the writing of this guy and many more who are informed on the issue

http://www.concordresolution.org/column22.htm

On October 31st., the birthday of the Reformation by Luther, our minister gave a great sermon on the reformation. A scholar of the 16th Century, he described how people lived under feudalism, describing it as a triangle with the king at the top and then spreading out to a wide bottom and how everyone paid homage to those above them. It was a long time before there was much action on Luther's 95 paragraphs on reforming the Catholic Church, but in Geneva Switzerland, in the 16th century, they start believing in the equality of the common man . . . people knew if they went to Geneva, they could get a stipend to help them get settled and into where they could function and contribute to society . . . then realizing that they had to have rules to live by, they decided that the Bible was their best refuge, so in order to enable the populace to read the Bible, the first public schools were started. Recognizing that people did not do well when they were sick and unhealthy, the first hospitals were started . . . all of this in the 16th. century. How can people be free if there is just a small group of people who control everything . . . we can only be free if all of us are in the loop, living by the golden rule of helping one another and making sure that we all have opportunity to succeed. It seems that our country has lost it's focus. As our minister told us, about every 500 years, there is a new reformation, and he believes that we are in the throes of one and it will up to each and everyone to participate and cut the polarity and enhance the opportunities for all of us in the community!.