Stamp Out Obama-trade Now!

How Congressional Republicans Lie to Approve Obama’s Trade Deals - - by the way the Constitution states that two-thirds of the Senate is required to ratify a treaty with a foreign power.  The President who "invented" fast track was Richard Nixon in 1974
Eric Zuesse

Obama’s trade-deals — especially TPP with Asia, and TTIP with Europe — are so vicious against the American people, the Obama Administration has labeled the documents “Classified,” and is threatening prosecution against any member of Congress who quotes from the texts; it would be “leaking classified information.”

However, empirical economic studies already indicate what would likely be the result from both the TPPand the TTIP: one independent economic analysis has been done for each of these two international-trade deals, and both of them come up with the same conclusion: the publics everywhere will lose wealth because of them, but aristocrats, especially in the United States, will gain wealth because of them. (It’s like what happened with NAFTA, but only far more so.) In other words: the same billionaires who fund congressional and presidential campaigns are the people who will be taking from the general public vastly more money via TPP and TTIP than the paltry billions they’ve invested to fool voters into voting into office the Senators and Representatives who are now rubber-stamping into law Obama’s ‘trade’ deals. (And, of course, the same aristocrats also funded both Obama’s and Romney’s campaigns, just as they did those of both Clintons and of the Bushes. At the national level, they essentially own, not the government, but instead the people who are governing. The people they own, are the ones that are supposed to “represent” us; and the U.S. Supreme Court has said that this is ‘democracy’ in accord with ‘the Constitution’ — because the people who appointed those Republican ‘Justices’ were also owned by the aristocracy.)

Getting ‘our representatives’ to vote for Obama’s trade-deals is, especially for Democrats (who won office with help from labor unions) like herding sheep to slaughter: some Senators and Representatives feel bad about where they’re going, but the system is set up so that they just “go along to get along” anyway; it’s the way to success in any corrupt society. As Huffington Post reported even as early as June of 2013, “The Obama administration has barred any Congressional staffers from reviewing the full negotiation text and prohibited members of Congress from discussing the specific terms of the text with trade experts and reporters.”

Note this phrase “trade experts.” The closeted Republican, President Obama, doesn’t want experts to explain things to members of Congress, these deals are so bad for their voters back home whom they’re being paid by the government to represent. And, since only members of Congress are being allowed to see the documents (under guard in a congressional basement), and even congressional staffers are generally excluded, members of Congress have no one to advise them on the complex details except the lobbyists who represent the people who fund congressional campaigns. Some of these lobbyists might even have managed to see the documents, because hundreds of international corporations helped the Obama team to draft these documents.

Consequently, whereas international corporations have helped to write the documents, the public has been excluded from the process. The Obama Administration says that a few labor leaders and environmentalists were also included on the “advisory panels” that helped to draft the documents. But all of the details are secret; and even a mere attempt by a member of Congress to confirm something could cause the congressperson to be prosecuted. Obama severely prosecutes leakers of information that his Administration has chosen to label ‘Confidential.’

When a member of Congress goes down to the basement room to see these documents, members of the Obama Administration are there to answer the congressperson’s questions. If one of these Obama people might happen to lie when answering, the lie cannot be prosecuted, because the Obama Administration prohibits recording devices, so that no record exists of what is being said there. Consequently, no member of Congress has any reason to trust what he or she is being told in that room.

The progressive congressman, Alan Grayson, a Democrat, told HuffPo: “Having seen what I’ve seen, I would characterize this as a gross abrogation of American sovereignty. And I would further characterize it as a punch in the face to the middle class of America. I think that’s fair to say from what I’ve seen so far. But I’m not allowed to tell you why!”

Here is what has leaked out, from wikileaks and a few other reliable sources, that can explain why he said it’s a “gross abrogation of American sovereignty”:

Under the terms of these trade-deals, national sovereignty over the laws and regulations regarding workers’ rights, consumer protections, environmental protection, and protections of investors against frauds, will be ceded to international corporate panels, each of which will generally consist of three corporate attorneys, whose collective decisions will be final and non-appealable (unlike decisions by courts in democratic countries). Consequently, whereas now in the U.S. and most other nations, governmental laws and regulations come from democratically elected representatives, the new system will override that, and replace it with panel-members who represent instead the controlling stockholders in international corporations — basically a few hundred individuals throughout the world. (And those people can always phone or email one-another if there are any problems to be settled between themselves.)

Some Republicans have spoken out against Obama’s trade-deals, but no Republican Senator has voted against these deals. All Republicans are actually in favor of ceding democratic national sovereignty to fascist-corporate unappealable panels. (If you believe that the wealthiest should rule, then that’s the natural position to hold.) The crucial vote in the U.S. Senate was on 14 May 2015, when the issue was whether to grant these deals “Fast Track Trade Promotion Authority,” which is what Presidents since Nixon’s time have used in order to get Congress to cede to the Executive, the U.S. President, virtually 100% of Congress’s Constitutionally mandated role in treaty drafting and approval — making it effectively an entirely Presidential matter. This “Fast Track” was invented by the Republican President Nixon in 1974, in order to bring about an Executive dictatorship in the passage-into-law of international-trade treaties that would otherwise stand no real chance of becoming law, because too many members of Congress would lose their seats if they voted directly for such horrendous treaties. So, instead, there is now instead, for these super-terrible international-trade deals, “Fast Track,” as constituting the crucial vote. This trick enables a member of Congress to say that he or she had voted for “Fast Track” instead of for the trade-deal itself. (He then has actually voted to eliminate the Constitution’s requirement that any treaty needs two-thirds of the U.S. Senators to vote for it in order for the treaty to become law; that two-thirds is reduced by “Fast Track” to a standard 50%. Though in the U.S. Constitution international treaties were handled as requiring especially high caution in order for them to be able to become law, Nixon created this way around the Constitutional requirement, this “Fast Track” trick that should be thrown out by the U.S. Supreme Court.) The presumption here, in shunting these important things off into a procedural trick, is that voters are stupid enough to be easily fooled, and this is it: “Fast Track.”

Whereas Democrats in Congress tend to be opposed to “Fast Track,” Republicans in Congress have always supported it with near-unanimity. However, some Republicans face such strong resistance from their voters back home, that they lie and say they oppose “Fast Track.” When that congressperson subsequently votes in the Senate or House to pass “Fast Track,” only few of their voters back home even notice. And this increases even more the congressperson’s contempt for his or her voters, that they’re just fools or “suckers.” And this, in turn, reinforces that congressperson’s belief that only his or her rich benefactors should even be of concern at all.

OTHER ITEMS OF POLITICAL IMPORT

Howard Stern said he used to get beaten up by Blacks when he lived in New York, and maybe that’s what made him into a racist.  But Norman Goldman was also beaten up regularly by Black youths but he learned to “subdue the fear reaction of his brain”.  And in a line that would play very well on the Shawn Hannity show- - Jesse Jackson Junior says he used to get tense once he got famous of being around groups of Black youths.  Well as I have said in my blogs, personally I feel safer being around a group of black youths than if the youths are White or most notably just out of high school and in their early twenties, because there are a lot of psychos in certain neighborhoods.  So in truth I can’t relate to either what Howard or what Norm claims about themselves.  And in another scenario that would play well on the Shawn Hannity show- - Norman Goldman says the police in Waco didn’t make a big thing out of the arrests of people in those three motorcycle gangs.  Now they are saying that local authorities fear retribution by these thugs in the gangs.  170 gang members were arrested on a million dollars bond. Let’s keep our fingers cross no more blood gets shed.  They weren’t in any heavy military gear.  Just to stick up for the White race a little it could be that people minded their business and regarded it as a police matter and stayed out of it.  It wasn’t like marauding mobs of people threatening the police.  Just because it’s Waco in Texasistan, it doesn’t mean everyone is “whacko”.  To me it seemed like a fairly routine law enforcement exercise.  I would be disappointed to learn that four innocent civilians were shot and killed by cops.  But we don’t know and the officer giving the update says unless you’re an instant SCI expert there’s no way of knowing at this point.  Now President Obama has made an “executive decision” not to give the police any more heavy military surplus gear such as grenades and rocket launchers.  My response is somewhat ambivalent on this one.  I think the need for military hardware by law enforcement has indeed been over-played.  On the other hand I don’t like this “devil take the hind most” attitude of the President of “I won’t be here in two years anyhow so it doesn’t matter what I do or who I alienate” attitude of his he’s adopted as of late.  You saw it with immigration, and you are seeing it with the Trans Pacific Trade agreement, and you’re seeing it here by yanking military hardware for the police.  I would imagine that the cops already have a lot of this military equipment on hand right now, or might even considering selling what they don’t need to other police departments.   I don’t see everything in Norm’s black and white perspective.

 The city of Los Angeles has given preliminary approval of the council to a fifteen dollar per hour minimum wage.  They leap-frogged right over thirteen and went straight to fifteen so that now they’ll be even with Seattle.  As you know fifteen seemed extreme at the time.  It was the outside limit of the hopes of the most furvant fast food protestors.  I never thought I’d see a city like Los Angeles approve it so quickly.  I believe it’s too far above “the market” and will adversely affect the small businessman, who doesn’t have the reserve capital.   This is double the national minimum wage.  Basically we’ll just have to hold our breath and see what happens.

 They said that Ramadi was the “last major city” in Anwar province to fall.  So I take it that ISIS controls the whole province now.  They said in an article that the Sunnis will suffer from this more than the Shiites, and I’m wondering whether it’s because the government is Shiite and the government is cracking down on all Sunnis whether or not they are affiliated with ISIS.   Some say after that successful campaign over the weekend of the killing of a high ISIS official and the capture of his wife now being squeezed for information- - that “our side” gained a major leg up in terms of advantage.  But alas this isn’t the case.  No matter how much our side “bombs the crap out of ISIS” to use Shawn’s term- - it doesn’t seem to affect the ground campaign at all and so we have to decide whether or not to listen to John Mc Cain who is calling anew for “boots on the ground”.

Republican Candidate's Speeches Fall Flat in Iowa

HOT OFF THE PRESS:  The inside dope on how the 2003 Iraq War started or WHY it was started is because Saddam Hussein was pissed off at the other Arab nations for not coming to his support when Bush 41 invaded Iraq in 1991. You know that Saddam accused Kuwait of slant drilling under Iraqi territory for oil.  He was so mad and relations with these other Arab nations got worse and worse that he threatened to bankrupt them all by putting oil on the market at ten dollars a barrel.  It was in response to this financial "emergency" that President Bush knew for sure that Saddam Hussein had to be removed.

They held one of these “dinners” in Iowa for “normal” republicans and the audience did not respond to all the “red meat” cues.  Carley Fiurina mentioned how “hormones” shouldn’t preclude people from the Presidency.  Ben Carson talked about surgery being performed on an unborn fetus.  And Scott Walker talked about how as a little boy he did a fund raising campaign to put a flag in the town square.  Now they are doing a critique of Scott Walker in general and saying that Scott Walker is a highly unreliable flip-flopper and even worse on foreign policy because he’s even more poorly informed than other ill informed Republicans. One of Walker’s favorite Presidential decisions of all time is President Reagan’s decision to fire the air traffic controllers.  Walker says he isn’t after the private unions but only public unions, and of course the first thing he does after that is to get a right to work law passed in Wisconsin.  I just got most of a whole cigarette from Mario.

Most people have neither the time nor the patience nor lack of sanity to follow politics at this point a year and a half before the elections.  Jeb Bush is ‘opting out of the Iowa straw poll” as though you could “opt out” of a poll.  (Can you?)  Jeb Bush really bobbled the ball taking five attempts to get the answer “right” of whether he would have gotten us into war in Iraq in 2003.  Now there is a theory of “He had a scripted answer to a different question- - and just jumped the gun”, which raises the question if you’re at a diplomatic meeting on some international issue, do you “listen to the remarks and questions correctly” of the other diplomats to properly respond to them?   Hillary is being put under attack by Republicans on her Iraq War vote but it’s all just a ploy to drive liberals away from supporting Hillary for President in some vain hope that she won’t be the nominee because if she is the nominee these right wingers know she’ll win.  It is interesting is how rich the Clintons have become making 15 million or something after they were “broke” at the end of their Presidency.  Since there are so many political speeches flooding the air waves I have no idea why someone would pay massive amounts of money to hear Bill Clinton deliver one speech.  I mean- really!  That just doesn’t make sense.

 I watched the Mc Laughlin group.  The first segment was on the Trans Pacific Trade agreement.  The second segment was on this NATO type agreement that six Arab states want to contract with America, where America does the lion’s share of the defense.  Pat Buchannon was at one extreme and Mort Zuckerman was at the other extreme.  In other words, Mort takes the same line that all nations Sunni and Arab are our boosum buddies and we should now trust and support them inplicitly.  I'm not into this strange line of thinking that a peace treaty with Iran will "trigger an arms race throughout the Mideast and increase the liklyhood of war".   This verges on Orwellian thinking.  Keep in mind that these so called trusted allies Shawn is so in love with- - are sponsors of some of the most extreme laws against women and some of the most extreme terrorism the world has known.  If I were President I would have just cancled this conference after Arabia and these others snubbed me by not sending their top leaders to it.  But that's me.  The third segment was one on China's expansion in the south China sea to all of these islands claimed by various nations including the Philipines, whom we are allies with.  They are artificial in nature - - and almost used as an excuse for China to expand their waters far into what were formerly International Waters. 

 The Rude Pundit was late today because the Sprint lines were down.  I did not post any blogs either Saturday or Sunday.   I’m not crazy about the idea of rehashing the same old stories that have already been covered endlessly by the press.  If I bore myself, I most certainly don’t want to bore my readers.  We had Raison Bran for breakfast.  John poured milk from the bottle.  With Augustine’s help service was quicker today.   We had three triangle waffles and a piece of bacon.  I also got Owen’s bacon.  Connie gave me another triangle making two whole squares.  Paul gave me his plate of three more triangle cuts, for a total of 3 ½ waffles altogether.   I grew drowsy this morning after eight and suddenly the internet went out.  I took the black cord and plugged it back on.

The LA Clippers were defeated by the Houston Rockets in Houston today in a game seven they were actually decent enough to televise on free TV.  The Rockets were ahead 105 to 90 or something- - and at times were ahead twenty points.  This game hadn’t yet ended by ten after three.  The Anaheim Ducks were also playing the Chicago Blackhawks and beat them decisively four to one.  At one point it was 2 to 1 Ducks over Blackhawks.  This is game one of round three on NBC.  Of course ABC has been blacking out round 3 in NBA for years now.  So next week it won’t matter how long we stay at Mom’s.  I called Mom after the game was done and we talked a while but it was our shortest call of the past several.  Mom confirmed that intellectually she just doesn’t understand anything about Christianity or how we could “meet a historical figure like Jesus in Heaven or of what relevance that would be”.   She spoke of “having other commitments” to dodge a meeting with some lady.  I made a pitch for Mom to begin taking in more salt because she’s so often complained of going to the bathroom at night.  I told her consuming more salt helped me with that problem.  I also suggested that if she is getting too much Vitamin D, it’s all the more important to dilute the vitamins in her cells by drinking as much water as possible.  I didn’t quite say it, but drinking water can help with a headache, particularly if you’re coming off an excessive alcohol binge.  I also made a pitch for carrot-enoids and Aztezanten in particular, to help give her more energy.  I also expressed surprise that Mom wasn’t even ON the methylated B vitamin program.  All of my previous remarks about “You’ll feel a whole lot better in a few days to a week” were based on that premise.

When you think of all the physical ailments people of our age have, it’s only a wonder that Ted Cruz or someone doesn’t come up with a revived doctrine of “survival of the fittest”.  After all he can argue that they didn’t have any government health care at all in Jesus’ day and “Jesus expected that more people would die a natural death when God intended them to go”.  They could make a case that there are just “too many minorities and gays and elderly and infirm and poor people now” as though suggestive of some kind of passive or active genocide campaign.  It sounds crazy to our ears now, but a lot of what passes for normal now would have sounded absolutely nuts forty years ago.

Political News of the Day

The clown car is getting mighty full of candidates now.  Jeb Bush is in first place, having risen dramatically since he said he would have invaded Iraq just like his brother.  Tied for second place were Scott Walker and Marco Rubio.  In the tier below them were Rand Paul at nine percent and Ted Cruz.  Then at seven percent was Dr Ben Carson.  Chris Christie came in at five and a half percent.  Donald Trump didn’t even place on this poll but several were at one and two percent.  According to Hal Sparks, President Obama was always for gay marriage.  He was for gay marriage in 2008 but hid that fact from the voters because he feared he’d be unelectable.  President Obama is willing to sacrifice a lot of his principles out of fear.  We know that now.  Mitt Romney makes a lot of statements that sound “normal” but then he walks them back on orders from the Koch Brothers to get elected in the primaries.  Voters answer polls saying they are for the decriminalization of marijuana.  Unfortunately they don’t vote that way when the time comes.  Hal Sparks thus believes that privately people are significantly more progressive than they show at the polls.

This Tony Robins guy was shot seven times by a police officer Madison, Wisconsin, home of Scott Walker and all things prejudiced - -  gunned down in his own house, and they have that on video.  This was on March 6^th and I’m just watching it on “Democracy Now” this morning.  People had called the authorities because Robins had displayed some odd behavior, perhaps due to ingestion of drugs.  There seems to be an agreement that Robins did not have a firearm.  This hefty Black woman has this sweatshirt saying “Free the 350” because though only five percent of the population is Black- - over half the inmates in the local jail are Black, and so to even up the score- - they should free 350 innocent Black people, or Blacks who were apprehended strictly on racist grounds, not applied to white people.

The FBI is going after protestors of the XL trans-Canadian pipeline.  And the FBI is violating their own regulations to do this.  But President Obama controls the Justice Dept which controls the FBI and yet the President will go after Elizabeth Warren on TPP.  The President won’t go after pharmisuticals or Wall Street big wigs, but they will go after protestors in east Houston - - and Burlington, Vermont, of all things.  If you happen to be an investor in energy commodity futures, and you believe the XL pipeline will reduce oil prices, then you should be opposed to the XL pipeline.  The ruling by the FBI is that “The XL pipeline is vital to the security of the United States”.   So we have a “Security threat” posed by a pipeline that hasn’t been constructed yet.  One could make the argument that the way to reduce this “security threat” as well as environmental threat- is not to build the Pipeline in the first place.

Pope Francis’ latest remarks about Palestinian statehood has rattled the cages of a lot of Republicans.  The Pope has come out in favor of Palestinian political rights.  Some think the Papicy has become too political lately speaking out on issues such as world income equality or global warming.  It’s nice to have a powerful force for good on Out Side for once, especially when that Force has a world wide audience.  Bobby Jindell has stated that “Ministers ought to engage in political dialog of the town square” and all of that.  And I would tend to agree with that.  I have for decades been saying that pastors should get out of their shells and engage the world and not be so wrapped up in just their own little cloister.  But now when Pope Francis follows the advice Jindell has been giving- - the Republicans howl in protest.

 It’s resumed raining this morning and they are predicting yesterday was just an orderve to what we’ll be getting today and tomorrow.  It thus looks as if "El Nino" is returning as a climatic pattern in the state, getting two days of major rain this late in May.  They were showing all of these northern California lakes that have shrunk down to a fraction of their former size.  They are now showing these Medi-Cal commercials with little kids telling the government authorities to "restore Medi-Cal funding because our health depends on it".  Jerry Brown sees more income coming in now and says "Good, then lets boost the allotment of the Reserve Fund".  But in truth certain benificaries of "social services" have not yet gotten OUT of the prior recession, before we start thinking about the next one.  At times Jerry Brown can be really dense.  Luan was just looking tword the store outside and I went back in and sat in the front room for a while.  Then I got a dollar coffee and smokes from the liquor store.  Janet and Phyllis Green were ahead of me in line and Janet took two cups.  They were just opening up the dining room and initially I sat down then but later went to my room with my cup and drank it there.  I just wanted to check on things.  We had oatmeal for breakfast followed by two waffles and I had two pieces of bacon, one from Owen.  I didn’t get any extras from Paul. 

Last night on the news they said that the attention span of the Average American now is down to eight seconds, which is the same as a gold fish.  There was one TV show where one character was criticizing another and said “That guy doesn’t have the attention span of a hamster”.  It would be that hamsters are more mentally focused than we are now.  Obviously nobody could sustain employment with an eight second attention span.  What if a plumber you hired left after eight minutes of work after everything was all dismantled and said “Well, that’s the limit of my attention span”.   We rely on 140 character tweets and read only the most immediate of blogs, which often are kept short.  Thus my blogs are problematic, requiring actual time to read.  And just as a suggestion- - speed reading and my blogs don’t go well together because if you slow down you find out how much you missed in your first scan.  For some reason the blog of “Before the director announces Cut!” has gotten a lot of hits in the past week.  I read that thing this morning- - and basically it’s just a pasting over of a Word document, where a lot of current topics are referenced.  Strangely- - I talk about Governor Scott Walker’s recall, without ever referring to the governor by name.  This whole immediacy thing translates to lack of long term planning.  For instance, we don’t make a fifty year investment in our infrastructure and “build for our future” like we used to hear so much about when we were kids.  After 2008 spending in transportation has completely fallen out of fashion.  The thing now is to “get the better of the other party” in the present tense.  Too many corporations are obsessed with the quarterly report due out in a few weeks- - and no matter what you have to do to jimmy the results to look good at that moment, you’ll do it, regardless of the long time effects.  I find it a healthy thing to go back and read old postings to “see where I’ve been” and decide “where I want to go now”.  John Fugelsang was on for a few minutes before seven, but not a full hour.

Not Playing by the Rules is Bad Karma

Congress is debating two important topics today.  One is the trans Pacific trade agreement.  The other is whether to continue the patriot act.  Because it's going to expire in a few weeks and I believe congress should let it expire.  This time when they talk about a "clean bill" or a "clean extension" being put forth, this is what we DON'T want.  I think this Patriot Act should be allowed to Sunset, at least in its most dangerous aspects of it.  When it comes to trade - - what we need is action on piracy of computer technology by China.  We need to eliminate the tax provision that enables companies to relocate to another shore- -and get paid for it with tax deductions.  Often like if your company was in Ohio- -a lot of the auxiliary businesses also are impacted- - because these were fellow suppliers that are now gone.  We need to crack down on currency manipulation by China.  In short, as they said with Health Care "What we need to do is to scrap this whole bill with a blank piece of paper and take it from there".  I agreed with the statement as it related to the Affordable Care Act, and I agree with that same proposition now.  (Selah)

John Kennedy said in 1961 “We go to the moon not because it is easy, but because it is hard”.  And so taxing carbon is “hard”, but it’s something we need to do to save the planet out of responsibility to our descendants.  It’s something that we owe them.  We can’t just assume “Oh God will protect us and save us from blatant mistakes, for which we should know better”.   We need to regulate firearms not to be “restrictive” but to save human lives- - and realize that the average gun owner seems to be altogether less “mature” than they were in the old west as to when and where to use that gun.  You didn’t have all the nut cases floating around a hundred and fifty years ago.  Likewise we should rebuild our infrastructure not because it is easy, but because, frankly, it’s NECESSARY.  Capish?  Thom Hartman is talking about how the interstate highway system generated a profit for business.  A sound infra-structure stimulates commerce.  The actual programs such as sewer systems and Amtrack and the Post Office are not SUPPOSED to in themselves generate a profit.  These items are to “promote the general welfare of society” to enable commerce.  A lot of Sales people ride Amtrack to generate commerce and make their business deals and such.  We are coming up on Memorial Day weekend, which is the peak season for highway travel.  This generates all sorts of commerce of people going on vacations.  But if roads are shut down, this slows commerce. The Highway fund has “run out of funds” and the Republicans like it that way.  If you ride the train to visit Grandma you may be buying food or perhaps stay in a hotel or something that generates commerce.  Two days ago this Am-track railroad jumped the track in Philadelphia and was derailed.  Seven people were killed and many others were severely injured.  There is a safety system where by computerized means they can slow down the train automatically as it approaches a dangerous turn.  The train was traveling at 106 miles per hour, which was over a hundred percent in excess of the posted speed limit for this turn.  There was a similar such rail accident in Spain two years ago that made the news.  Now the Republicans are saying “This incident should not be used as an EXCUSE to spend more money on infrastructure and safety”.  Hartman points out that the Republican method is to let the infrastructure deteriorate to the point where they say “This government system is failing so let’s privatize the system”.   It’s all “point of view”, you know.  For instance G E and some of these other trans-national corporations weren’t “fooled’ by NAFRA and CAFTA and these other agreements.  They KNEW exactly what would happen when they engineered these treaties to maximize their own personal profits.  These corporations WANTED to export jobs to China and Latin America and the like.  The Republican’s whole business is not in maintaining “the commons” as such but rather to eliminate the commons- - and also eliminate high paying manufacturing jobs in this country- - so that rich corporations can pocket the profits.  Someone said the average passenger railroad goes only 68 miles per hour now, as opposed to around ninety when I was a kid.  Meanwhile in China and Japan most of their railroads travel in excess of 230 miles per hour- - or in excess of three times the speed, and a lot more safely.  Now they are experimenting with railroads that travel with some kind of magnetic repelling suspension that are in excess of three hundred miles per hour- - or fifty percent of the speed of a trans-continental flight.  But of course this is minus all the airport security and congestion there.   “The republicans are constantly looking for ways to take natural monopolies and give the money to corporate interests who boost their campaign donations”.   Decades ago Bay Area Rapid Transit had the sort of safety technology we are discussing installing now.  So why can’t we now have this technology in the “northeast corridor” of the United States?

Let's talk about "Thinking outside the box".  Some may state it other ways such as "Not playing by the rules" or "Cheating your Fate".   Since I am a determinist- - I don't believe these endeavors in the long run will be successful.  We could speak of "The Gnostic Question".   Let's go back to Adam and Eve for the moment where God says to Adam and Eve after they transgressed "Who Told You That You Were Naked?"  God knew they had encountered "An Outsider".   This is where Gnosticism comes in.  It's in essence giving one the Ability if not the Permission 'Not to Play by the Rules".  I wrote in March of 2010 (or about then "To think outside the Box is to disparage the Box".   Cross out "Box" and put in 'Rules" and you see my point.  In Marco Polo there is a longstanding rule of "Don't Get Out of the Pool".  In football there is a rule that you as a receiver can't go out of bounds and then reenter the field of play and then catch the forward pass".   "The Game" won't allow you to do that.  Let's talk about "The Game" of Love.  People from Shakesphere onward have spoken of you the game of Love is hard with many ups and downs.  But if you refuse to play the game and then just get the girl in a secluded spot and take her by force- - Rape Her- - then you aren't playing the Game any more.  People say we should look at our choices in life.  But have you considered what those choices are.  You're on the High Plains like South Dakota or something and you're turned your furnace off for the year.  Then a few days ago nature throws you a curve and you get snow flurries.  You have two choices.  You can freeze to death- - not a real fine option- - or you can go down to the basement and re-light the pilot light.   When you walk from point A to reach your goal of point B, you make a "choice" each time you place one foot in front of the other.   If a bandit comes to you on the sidewalk and points a gun at you and says 'Your money or your life", you have no real choice, unless you're Jack Benny in a famous skit where he says, "I'm thinking it over".   Likewise you can't mount a defense for murder in saying "The girl ASKED me to kill her" and someone asks "How's that?" and you say "Well, she told me she'd rather die than have sex with Me".   Chuck Smith was one of the marketing geniouses of our time, marketing Born Again Christianity to hippies.  But I talked with someone in Cypress summer school in mid 1971 who put forth the idea that some of these people are so stoned they might be hallucenating Jesus and think they're saved.  Their mental thought process is thus compromised.  And they will carry that "compromised thought process" with them throughout their Born Again "walk".   It thus dawned on me that old saying in the song "Kicks" of "Don't you see no matter what you do, you'll never run away from You.  And if you keep on running, you'll have to pay the price".   What Gnosticism is is NOT as its detractors would insist of "Looking deep within your soul to find Salvation".  If you know Greek, or even Spanish for that matter, you know that the word "To Know" employed here means meeting an OUTSIDE FORCE or entity that wasn't a part of your life before and hence knowing him or her will ALTER your life course from what it would have otherwise been.  So it's a Lie to say that only Christians have "The Other" as their supreme God.  Because the heart of Gnosticism has this "Meeting of a god or savior type figure".  Indeed Gnosticism isn't a corruption of Christianity but Christianity is a Judaizing corruption of Gnosticism, from the "Syrian church" of the second century.  People are what they are.  You may call someone a wild beast or a monster or a piece of low down slime- - - but we call people these things because they don't follow the rules as we are governed by but their own rules.  As we showed in our examples - - people are bound by who they are and have fewer "choices" than we think we do.  In fact I believe it was St Thomas Acquinas who spoke of "Natural Law' and "The natural order of things".  God created our immortal souls a certain way- - and he created moral and natural laws" that Thomas Jefferson picked up on.  But what if you BECAME when you died what you were ACTING like.  You could turn into some hidious Monster or a piece of pond scum or whatever.  Maurice on the Bewitched show- - if he was annoyed with you and thought you were a braying jackass- - then he'd just haul off and TURN you into a - - Braying Jackass.  Capish?

However I believe there is an "A-moral" or if you will "natural" means of expanding your choices, though I prefer to refer to them as options.  Options give you new Choices you didn't Have before to consider the merits of pursuing.  We have spoken of this as "karmic space".   Some may ask me "Your karmic funnel example shows a gradual transition from predestined servitude (slaves to sin, so to speak) and also a Freedom with true Choices (options).  In chess it's nice to have as many options as possible.  The other view is some fifth dimensional STRING - - be it an Astrological trigger or whatever- - where a fifth dimensional event imposes itself on you as an outside force and alters your life from what it would otherwise have been, preferably in a Good way.  It's a little like another Bewitched episode where Samantha stops time and Darren is let in on it.  And Samantha and Darren discuss how to manipulate a situation that's gotten out of hand in sort of a "back tracking- - covering your tracks kind of thing".   Thus being "Pulled out of time" is a blessing.  I believe the Gnostic experiance may be something like this.  But often it goes further as we see on these "Once upon a Time" episodes.  It's not just MEETING someone new or being a chance you'd have never gotten otherwise- - but perhaps meeting the AUTHOR of your own destiny.  Jesus told his disciples at the Last Supper "I no longer call you servants but friends. A master doesn't inform a servant what he is doing.  But I have told you everything".   Thus we have a true advenagious "Knowing' right here.  This can happen in a fifth dimensional string.  So the contrast in image between suddenly and gradually- - just covers two aspects of a similar property in karma.

The Constitutional Limitations on Government We've Forgotten About

President Obama reminds me as a "three and out" kind of person.  He talks about the "fourth quarter" but he isn't smart enough to realize that on the fourth down, the wisest thing is often just to Punt.

The numerological significance of 5-13 is that it's two sides of the 5, 13 and 12 Lunar-solar-pentagram triangle referenced in the book Arachne Rising.   It's also the birthday of Robert Ranjel - - one of my brief avatars of a past life.  This little article is just a reminder of how far Government has strayed from the Constitution.  I subscribe to the 'original intent" doctrine, which should be employed with any historic document including the Bible "according to the best of our ability".   This is because- - it happens that words and expressions can change meaning and conotation over the years.  Also the Courts can get a little carried away with legislating from the bench.   "We the People" never gave the Supreme Court the sort of massive power they exercised in Citizen's United or Roe verses Wade.  I have no problem with "Settled Law" but this supposes that the Courts don't render decisions that are completely at odds with normal Society.  There is another posting I downloaded in my personal files which goes into explicit detail as to how much the first ten amendments have been violated by modern government.  I think the phrase "Interstate commerce" has run amuck - - so that No Act of commerce by citizens now is beyond the scope of the over-reaching hand of government.  Besides this desire of Government to micro-manage all our affairs is just counter productive.

Stephano greeted Marlena personally at the crime scene in Italy and is now threatening to murder her.  Chad in the past few years has lost his mother, his half sister, half brother, and another half sister.  I think Will Horton is only going to run into a buzz-saw of trouble in Poplar Bluff.  There is an object lesson here is that the adage is true of "Don't send a boy to do a man's work".   When we take on governmental over-reach we also must bear in mind not to send inexperianced candidates- - who almost pride themselves on their ignorance of basic civics - - to do the Statesman's work of reforming our governmental system. I got two cups of coffee from Dora in the courtyard. 

It seems that cloture vote in the trans Pacific partnership treaty was yesterday, which passed, and that should have been the end of it.  But then after they’ve won, the democrats in the guise of Harry Reed makes a deal with Mitch Mc Conell- - putting the whole thing back to square one.   If we can’t stop this bill in the Senate- - I don’t think anything essentially different is going to happen in the House, regardless of what Norman Goldman says.  I watched a number of speeches, including notibly the half hour speech delivered by Bernie Sanders on the subject of the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement.  Senator Sanders touched all of the right bases.   For treaty after treaty they have told us lie after lie, and now they want us to be fooled yet a third or a fourth time.  "Fool me once - shame on you.  Fool me four or five times- shame on Me!"

By John Whitehead,

Constitutional and civil rights attorney, and founder of the Rutherford Institute.

“The government is merely a servant―merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.” ― Mark Twain

How many Americans have actually bothered to read the Constitution, let alone the first ten amendments to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights (a quick read at 462 words)?

Take a few minutes and read those words for yourself—rather than having some court or politician translate them for you—and you will be under no illusion about where to draw the line when it comes to speaking your mind, criticizing your government, defending what is yours, doing whatever you want on your own property, and keeping the government’s nose out of your private affairs.

In an age of overcriminalization, where the average citizen unknowingly commits three crimes a day, and even the most mundane activities such as fishing and gardening are regulated, government officials are constantly telling Americans what not to do. Yet it was not always this way. It used to be “we the people” telling the government what it could and could not do. Indeed, the three words used most frequently throughout the Bill of Rights in regards to the government are “no,” “not” and “nor.”

Compare the following list of “don’ts” the government is prohibited from doing with the growing list of abuses to which “we the people” are subjected on a daily basis, and you will find that we have reached a state of crisis wherein the government is routinely breaking the law and violating its contractual obligations.

For instance, the government is NOT allowed to restrict free speech, press, assembly or the citizenry’s ability to protest and correct government wrongdoing. Nevertheless, the government continues toprosecute whistleblowers, persecute journalists, cage protesters, criminalize expressive activities, crack down on large gatherings of citizens mobilizing to voice their discontent with government policies, and insulate itself and its agents from any charges of wrongdoing (or what the courts refer to as “qualified immunity”).

The government may NOT infringe on a citizen’s right to defend himself. Nevertheless, in many states, it’s against the law to carry a concealed weapon (gun, knife or even pepper spray), and the average citizen is permitted little self-defense against militarized police officers who shoot first and ask questions later.

The government may NOT enter or occupy a citizen’s house without his consent (the quartering of soldiers). Nevertheless, government soldiers (i.e., militarized police) carry out more than 80,000 no-knock raids on private homes every year, while maiming children, killing dogs and shooting citizens.

The government may NOT carry out unreasonable searches and seizures on the citizenry or their possessions. NOR can government officials issue warrants without some evidence of wrongdoing (probable cause). Unfortunately, what is unreasonable to the average American is completely reasonable to a government agent, for whom the ends justify the means. In such a climate, we have no protection against roadside strip searches, blood draws, DNA collection, SWAT team raids, surveillance or any other privacy-stripping indignity to which the government chooses to subject us.

The government is NOT to deprive anyone of life, liberty or property without due process. Nevertheless, the government continues to incarcerate tens of thousands of Americans whose greatest crime is being poor and brown-skinned. The same goes for those who are put to death, some erroneously, by a system weighted in favor of class and wealth.

The government may NOT take private property for public use without just compensation. Nevertheless, under the guise of the “greater public interest,” the government often hides behindeminent domain laws in order to allow megacorporations to tear down homes occupied by less prosperous citizens in order to build high-priced resorts and shopping malls.

Government agents may NOT force a citizen to testify against himself. Yet what is the government’sextensive surveillance network that spies on all of our communications but a thinly veiled attempt at using our own words against us?

The government is NOT allowed to impose excessive fines on the citizenry or inflict cruel and unusual punishments upon them. Nevertheless Americans are subjected to egregious fines and outrageous punishments for minor traffic violations, student tardiness and absence from school, and generally having the misfortune of being warm bodies capable of filling privatized, profit-driven jails.

The government is NOT permitted to claim any powers that are not expressly granted to them by the Constitution. This prohibition has become downright laughable as the government continues to claim for itself every authority that serves to swell its coffers, cement its dominion, and expand its reach.

Despite what some special interest groups have suggested to the contrary, the problems we’re experiencing today did not arise because the Constitution has outlived its usefulness or become irrelevant, nor will they be solved by a convention of states or a ratification of the Constitution.

No, as I document in my new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the problem goes far deeper. It can be traced back to the point at which “we the people” were overthrown as the center of the government. As a result, our supremacy has been undone, our authority undermined, and our experiment in democratic self-governance left in ruins. No longer are we the rulers of this land. We have long since been deposed and dethroned, replaced by corporate figureheads with no regard for our sovereignty, no thought for our happiness, and no respect for our rights.

In other words, without our say-so and lacking any mandate, the point of view of the Constitution has been shifted from “we the people” to “we the government.” Our taxpayer-funded employees—our appointed servants—have stopped looking upon us as their superiors and started viewing as their inferiors. Unfortunately, we’ve gotten so used to being dictated to by government agents, bureaucrats and militarized police alike that we’ve forgotten that WE are supposed to be the ones calling the shots and determining what is just, reasonable and necessary.

Then again, we’re not the only ones guilty of forgetting that the government was established to serve us as well as obey us. Every branch of government, from the Executive to the Judicial and Legislative, seems to be suffering this same form of amnesia. Certainly, when government programs are interpreted from the government’s point of view (i.e., the courts and legislatures), there is little the government CANNOT do in its quest for power and control.

We’ve been so brainwashed and indoctrinated into believing that the government is actually looking out for our best interests, when in fact the only compelling interesting driving government programs is maintain power and control by taking away our money and control. This vital truth, that the government exists for our benefit and operates at our behest, seems to have been lost in translation over two centuries dominated by government expansion, endless wars and centralized federal power.

Have you ever wondered why the Constitution begins with those three words “we the people”? It was intended to be a powerful reminder that everything flows from the citizenry. We the people are the center of the government and the source of its power. That “we” is crucial because it reminds us that there is power and safety in numbers, provided we stand united. We can accomplish nothing alone.

This is the underlying lesson of the Constitution, which outlines the duties and responsibilities of government. It was a mutual agreement formed by early Americans in order to ensure that when problems arose, they could address them together.

It’s like the wagon trains of the Old West, comprised of individual groups of pioneers. They rarely ventured out alone but instead traveled as convoys. And when faced with a threat, these early Americans formed their wagons into a tight circle in order to defend against invaders. In doing so, they presented a unified front and provided protection against an outside attack. In much the same way, the Constitution was intended to work as an institutionalized version of the wagon circle, serving as a communal shield against those who would harm us.

Unfortunately, we have been ousted from that protected circle, left to fend for ourselves in the wilderness that is the American frontier today. Those who did the ousting—the courts, the politicians, and the corporations—have since replaced us with yes-men, shills who dance to the tune of an elite ruling class. In doing so, they have set themselves as the central source of power and the arbiters of what is just and reasonable.

Once again we’re forced to navigate hostile terrain, unsure of how to protect ourselves and our loved ones from militarized police, weaponized drones, fusion centers, Stingray devices, SWAT team raids, the ongoing military drills on American soil, the government stockpiling of ammunition, the erection of mass detention centers across the country, and all other manner of abuses.

Read the smoke signals, and the warning is clear: It’s time to circle the wagons, folks. The government is on the warpath, and if we are to have any hope of surviving whatever is coming at us, we’ll need to keep our wits about us and present a unified front. Most of all, we need to restore “we the people” to our rightful place at the center of government. How we do that depends largely on each community’s willingness to get past their partisan politics and blind allegiance to uniformed government officials and find common ground.

To put it a little more bluntly, stop thinking like mindless government robots and start acting like a powerhouse of citizens vested with the power to say “enough is enough.” We have the numbers to stand our ground. Now we just need the will.

The Inexerable Forces Leading to a Police State

On Monday Sean Hannity was seemingly obsessed all three hours with a speech Michelle Obama made in the form of a commencement address.  My guess that her entire speech was way less than three hours.  But Sean wallowed in it.   It could be that the Obama’s are just plain “fed up” with all of the racism in this country and how it’s getting worse, and how they are objects of it.  Now today Shawn Hannity is back to Obama bashing saying he is the biggest failure as a president ever.  So in Shawn’s mind- - keeping his word (however reluctantly) in getting us out of the Iraq War in a promise to the voters, killing Bin Laden, and getting re-elected and cutting the unemployment rate more than half, are somehow not real accomplishments.  Hannity is down now in being pro Sunni no matter what sort of extremist positions that entails.  Apparently four Arab league countries snubbed the US because they are sending lower deligates to some conference.  This is because we are making the nuclear agreement with Iran.  But the way Shawn and Netenyahoo tell it “Obama has opened the door with his actions to Iran to an all out Mideast nuclear arms race”.   Hannity has such a natural talent for twisting word meanings like pretzels nearly 180 degrees opposite of their normal meanings.  It’s almost as if Hannity dreads peace with a former opponent.  However Shawn’s good buddy, Mark LeVin is a sponsor of this “Stop Obama-trade now” in an obsmatrade.com website that I looked at.  Hannidy hasn’t said word one about the TPP and I’m wondering why.  Dick Morris and many prominent Republicans are down as opposed to the trans pacific partnership deal.  One provision is not only to give complete amnesty to Latinos already in this country, but to fling open the borders entirely like they did in Europe.  Now in England rich people can have cheap domestic help like never before because Hungarians and Croatians can apply and work for less than half the salary these rich people were paying out for housekeeper and the like.  There are no visas or work permits involved now.  They can just waltz right in.  

Norman Goldman is doing a live show now.  Thom Hartman read from the “Man’s bill of rights” out of his book “Unequal Protection”.   Abigail Adams wanted her husband and the signers to include women in their “Endowed with equal rights” phrase, but they refused to do it.  A man assumed ownership of all the property of a woman when they were wed.  Should the husband die, the woman only gets a third of her husband’s estate, but she has no executive power over that estate- - and an executor is her overlord, almost as with a minor child.   The smartest thing she can thus do is to get remarried.  The custody of her children in case of divorce is not in her control.  A caller to Thom Hartman’s show stated that people in this country have always been able to sue if they suffered economic loss due to some new government regulation.  I don’t know what he’s been smoking but that’s not true.  But even IF there were such a rule, it would be by a standard court with a regular jury- - and not by corporate bosses in a foreign country.  Thom stated his clear position that there should be NO such court of arbitration, which is really just like a corporate rubber stamp- - imposed by a foreign country.  There IS no more “dolphin safe tuna” any more due to the fact that some Mexican fishermen sued in a NAFTA court.  And right now Phillip Morris is suing in a tobacco case they will most likely win- - because after all due to regulations in Austrailia or whatever- - Philip Morris has lost sales revenues.   Norman Goldman says that there has been a major decline in religion according to some C N N poll.

In terms of this celebrity couple and the custody of the embryos “en vetro” I would normally invoke the disillusion doctrine.  All the bonds are broken in case of divorce and they divide up possession of all the “property” be it houses or the kid, the cat, or financial securities.  But in this case the couple wasn’t even married but only engaged.  So I say “Look to what it says in the contract”.   In California there is an express requirement that rules for the “disposal of the embryos” be included part and parcel in the original contract - - in case of divorce or a parting of the ways.  But the man in the relation says “This clause was omitted in our contract so I’m not bound by anything”.  I disagree.  The whole contract isn’t illegal but the OMISSION of the clause was illegal.  Therefore the “omission” is not admissible as “evidence” in a court of equity.  Do you follow my train of thought?   On another topic- - Bernie Sanders needs a new ad campaign to highlight his “Rugged Vermont American Heritage” and just maybe to play up the pro gun angle.  Maybe they could do Thom Hartman endorsing Senator Sanders and show both of them out on the target range.  Have Sanders to utter that immortal like of how “We need to end corruption and get back to traditional American values”.  (Selah)

What if I told you - - we may have already lost our Free Will, our Choice in the matter as to whether we will ever reform our government so that it again represents the will of the People.  In a police state you can no longer do that, and we may have hit that "critical mass" that inexerably will move us with unstoppable force- - to becomming a police state.  The only remedy may well be to leave the country, just like Randy Rhodes did just about a year ago this time.  I was just reading about militarized police departments and a review of “The Policeman’s Bill of Rights” and an older 2014 blog on how the Obama Administration goes after whistle blowers.  There was a video on how paranoid our whole government is and just who they are arming to the teeth these days.  They have a bunch of secret training and "provisional contingencies" and seem well PREPARED for what the government sees as at least an Attempt for people to rebel against our government.  In other words, THEY, the government, foresees our need to rebel in some sort of uprising even though most of us don't yet see that need.  At least yet.  What seems clearer than ever to me is that there can be no peaceful or violent “Revolution” because our Big Brother government will crush them all.  We seemingly would only look forward to increasingly over-bearing governments.

The reason why I’m a determinist is because once “Events” get “Established” you soon develop a runaway train of cause and affect you can’t get out of.  In fact in hyperbolic graph number one (discussed in a posting a few weeks back) you show “Free Will” as the operative horizontal component and Time as the vertical component.  So it is my contention that true Free Will can only exist OUTSIDE or apart from the element of Time as we know it.   But if “The Event” gets established as the price of “Loss of Free Will” then, you ask, “What happens when events become Dis-established, as you mentioned then”.   Events are dis-established with the LOSS of any more Time.  In our other hyperbolic graph back then - - we talk about “bubbles” and you know what a financial bubble is.  It was argued then (though subtally) that when “bubbles” burst- - this is the Universe that CONTAINS the events bursting.  It could be argued that said “Event” can no longer exist in this Universe.  But with the runaway freight train of cause and effect now “derailed” it can be argued that you now regain Free Will.  I am convinced this would happen if the financial markets collapsed, because what the ordinary person did- - - would once again MATTER.  It doesn’t now.   In Spanish they have two past tenses.  They have a “Perfect” tense (or some “P” word) and they have the “Imperfect” tense.  The perfect tense is the snapshot, the photograph, like these hyperbolic graphs.   The “Imperfect” tense mode of past events is the “motion picture” mode of ongoing, stable time.   In this mode of relating, events are neither established nor dis-established, but this is “Everything that goes on in-between”.  (Selah)

IN VETRO DISASTERS  rel. May 13^th 2015

Mumbo  (from “Wild Life”)

I Can See the World Tonight  (Flaming Pie)

Ninety Nine & a Half (Credence Clearwater)

Mother Divine  (George Harrison outtake)

In the Vanilla Sky  (Mc Cartney) **

Stardust Memories  (Ringo Starr)

The Man’s “Bill of Rights”  (Thom Hartman)

Mama’s Little Girl  (Paul B Side)

Peggy Sue (Live John Lennon) (?)

South California Purples (Jimi Hendrix)

Jenny Ray (Paul Mc Cartney)

No Obama-trade  (Dick Morris)  *

The Mark is Rising  (from “Tug of War”)

Don’t Let Me Wait Too Long  (Material World)

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised  (1968 Artist)

T O Y A W T B / Dress Me Up as a Robber  ***

We’re All Water  (Yoco Ono)

Front Photo is that drawing of mine with pink dominated of circles (or Orbs) - and a yellow thing that says “Aloha” on it- - and other scrambled abstractions and repetitions.  (I've used it in a blog photo post) Title letters are white and the underlying background by the letters is hot pink.  The back photo is that fake “Mc Laughlin Group” recording discussion about Jeff Lynne's comic dark side, never included on an album with Stu, that friend of his,  Mal Evans, and two others.  There are vague liner notes alluding to this world being in chaos.  The Jimi Hendrix selection is the first track of side two of “War Heroes”, the vinyl album.  *the brief reference to "Climate Change" is edited out but otherwise this speech is featured as is at the website. ** We had to bump the original song in this slot- - which can be found on "The Psychicellic Album" no 3 bonus album.  *** The cap letters stand for "The One You've Always Wanted To Be".

This is May 10, 2015 and Mother’s Day.  Larry Williams’ birthday is May 10^th and the Beatles on this date exactly fifty years ago were recording “Bad Boy” and “Dizzy Miss Lizzy”.  I flunked that question.   My guess is that they were off getting their “M B E” award.   I listened to most of Breakfast with the Beatles.  They began with that ghastly trial version of “Your Mother Should Know”, which I’m not sure is on Anthology II or not.  They concluded their show with “Good-bye, My Love”.   They played “Mama’s Little Girl”, which in my mind must pre-date the break-up of the Beatles because Ringo sang “Mama’s Little Boy” on the 1969 Christmas album.  They played a whole lot of women’s name songs.  I’ve always liked the guitar playing in “Anna” named after the hurricane.  I like the stereo resonance of the American version.  “Martha, My Dear” is a song that I always thought would fit very nicely on “Revolver”.  They played “Ivan”, which makes me think of Dietre O Donahew, because she played it so much.  “Jenny Ray” is a song that is on an official release album “Chaos and Creation in the Back Yard”.  I always thought it to be an outtake, and it’s a song I’ve intended to put on a “Beat of” Paul series someday.   I didn’t know that “Peggy Sue” was on “Rock and Roll”.  I thought it was just some obscure live recording of Lennon.  They played “Deep Blue” from my favorite George Harrison single of all time, and “Mother Divine”, which is an out-take. 

Scott Walker Could Be Our Next President

Scott Walker portrays himself as some unstoppable wonder kind.  Some claim that Hillary could defeat Walker in his home state because Scott is lagging in the polls.  But that being said my fear now is that Scott Walked could well be our next President.  Justice Ginsburg is in her eighties and if she retires you're going to get another conservative justice that will lock in worse than ever a "hegemeni" of the far right for the next ten or fifteen years.  So far in his life Scott Walker has been unstoppable.  If the Koch Brothers have already selected him as the Republican nominee of 2016 than watch out!  He single-handedly got photo ID for voters and wiped out labor unions making Wisconsin a “right to work state”.  He tooted his horn endlessly when he spoke at this American Freedom Conference in South Carolina.  There are so many of these ultra conservative conventions now.  He hit all the right notes in attacking planned parenthood, defunding that- - and talking about God and prayer.  Supposedly he turned a major deficit into a major budget surplus and drove the unemployment rate in Wisconsin to 4.6%  I have heard from Hartman and others that “Wisconsin was left a shambles” but I could not even find an anti Scott Walker entry except for a minor thing on labor unions.  Before governor he was county commissioner of Milwaukee and turned that entity around.  He claims he’s made Wisconsin the 12^th best state to do business in as opposed to 43^rd or whatever it used to be.  I doubt many of these statistics.  Unfortunately he knows how to handle (jerry-rig) Google and “get negative things about him off the internet”.  Carley Fiorina was interviewed today on Meet the Press and she handled herself fairly well, given her record of failure.  She just says “Well the tech industry was in a state of flux”.   But she gained credibility with me for being against the Trans Pacific Trade agreement, and gave some good reasons.  It dawned on me that it doesn’t matter when Scott Walker declairs for President.  He could wait six months if he wanted to because today candidates don’t have to try and round up campaign financing.  Scott Walker is all set for that with a pre-commitment from the Koch brothers.  Just think about it.   President Walker may be just around the corner.

Rude Pundit was having a hissy fit about a new anti abortion law in Oklahoma where women are forced to “suffer the indignity” of waiting 72 hours before they snuff out a human life.  What if they reduced convict’s death watch to 72 hours.  Then they are “forced” to go to an anti abortion web site called “a woman’s right to know”.   Shudder the thought you’d have to know the consequences of something before you go out and do it.  Of course there are almost no places in Oklahoma where you can get an abortion.  [applause]  I read all this stuff last night and the Rude Pundit repeated all these points on the Stephanie Miller shows this morning.  Last night I went out and we got to talking about politics and I told Nancy Bell and Connie that I didn’t vote for President Obama last time because as a Christian I could not support someone so avidly pro abortion with his ‘wrongful life suits’.   But I ran into a major buzz saw on this issue from Nancy and Connie who it turns out are both rabidly pro abortion.  There is a myth that nobody is “pro abortion” but “pro choice”.  Believe you me these two are avidly pro abortion.  Connie admitted to having had an abortion.  Nancy really reacted when I spoke of “the frivolous reason of pregnancy being inconvenient”.   She played the feminist card on me saying “If you were a woman you wouldn’t say that”, discussing how painful childbirth is.  Of course the media at large is not very pro abortion now at all.  The last taboo is doing ads for “How to get a quick abortion before your husband knows what’s going on”.   The abortion rate has gone down steadily over the past twenty years.  I remember that Mo Udall guy being chided for being “Mo uterus” because “feminine rights were out of fashion this year”.  Nobody apparently cared about feminist rights last year in that Colorado senate election against Gardener. 

Thom Hartman says that "People all too often use projection of their own weaknesses accusing others of them".  So, he goes on, "People who say there are too many synical people around are themselves synical".   Apparently- - President Obama has been saying things about Elizabeth Warren that aren't very nice calling her just another opportunistic politician.  Thom suggests that perhaps President Obama is synical about the motives of others because his own motives (picking up on a theme of this writer) are not all that pure as the driven snow.  President Obama may see himself as a politician first, and way, way down on the list is this whole bit about "being an agent of change".  Why is it the ONLY program that the President is not backing away from and the ONLY program with a good chance of passage with this congress- - is the Trans Pacific Trade partnership, alias SHAFTA.  This will do more damage to America and the Constitution than all the other things Republicans accuse the President of - - - put together.  Hartman says that these rich companies like Apple are sitting on billions of dollars in cash and have NO INCENTIVE to invest in American jobs right here in this country, the way President Reagan "predicted" they would when he endorsed this trickle down economic philosophy.  Just remember that with trickle down, all you've got left after that are a bunch of peons.  (Selah)  This ties in because the Trans Pacific Partnership - -is less about PRODUCING anything but rather KEEPING the profits- -with a trade agreement tailor written to International Corporation specifications giving them everything they want.  One of the worst traits of the bill is this provision of "Denying us profits" or reduction of profits by- - for instance - - illegal oil drilling- - or doing anti smoking commercials whose effect may well be to reduce the sales of tobacco products.  Keep in mind in the old days- say a hundred years ago- - companies just didn't have the capital to relocate overseas to hire workers for a tenth of the domestic minimum wage.

Pat Buchannon is so strong on the idea we should not give aid to the Ukrainians.  But when pressed on the matter he gave a simple confession.  “If we go to war with Russia, we’ll lose”.  That’s the best reason at all for not making war.  If there were some UFO ray we could aim at all of Putin’s nukes to neutralize them, it would be an entirely different story.  Pat claims that all Putin wants is autonomy for governmental areas in the eastern Ukraine.  Somehow I doubt that would appease Putin.  We could try it- - and I’m make sure they signed a whole l,ot of documents saying “This ends the hostilities.  This satisfies all your demands”.  You know they are going to say very soon afterward “This is not enough for us.  We want full Russian control of certain provences in Ukraine.”  And then we’d give them that and they’d come after us for yet more.  So we might have to go to war with them anyway just like Nazi Germany.  At least then all of these appeasements bought us a little time to properly prepare for all out war.

Stephanie and Chris say that if you agree with any talk show host all the time, then you’re an idiot.  I don’t even agree with Hartmann all the time.  But since I have made this “proclamation” about dissent- - I would not assume an air of hostility twords callers who don’t like Hillary.  She did make up the story about landing on the tarmac and getting fired upon and having to run for shelter.  Hillary DID go to great lengths to destroy her E mails, and it’s suggested that maybe some of it involves foreign donations to her campaign fund, which is illegal.  Hillary is known to get a little “testy” when she disagrees.  I personally don’t have a problem with that, but some feminist bashers might allude to some “PMS attack” or some sexist remark like that.  I think Hartman is too Putin friendly and “RT” influenced.  He has pushed me to the left a little on certain economic issues, though.  Nancy is like a FOX news junky who’s also a pro abortionist.  She repeated again this theme of “I don’t like President Obama because he’s constantly whining about all the programs he hasn’t been able to get through congress”.  Now I’m confused.  Is she saying that she APPROVES of Obama’s legislative programs and somehow the President hasn’t tried hard enough to get his programs approved?   Nancy spoke of how ‘Obama Care is socialized medicine”, which clearly reveals her ignorance of what “socialized medicine” is.  That is like the VA where the government hires and pays the doctors.  We are the farthest thing from that.  In an attempt to agree with Nancy on SOMETHING I said “Well- I will say that everyone I’ve talked to personally about the ACA, hates it and claims that the new regulations have screwed them over financially.  I agree with that.  So what is harder to find.  Someone who really liked Gene Scott, or somebody who believes Obama Care is the greatest thing since sliced bread?   A part of me believes President Obama was so desperate for “any kind of victory” that he was willing to pass the affordable care act- - regardless as to how cumbersome or half baked the bill was- - or that long term it was a crappy idea.   In the back of my mind is this fear that “Voting for Hillary is just like voting for a third Obama term”.

Last night it was Eye on LA and the Tom Vergeron’s very last program as host of America’s Funniest Home Videos.  I called Mom last night but our conversations are taking on a predictable pattern, where Mom runs down the same litany of complaints about her living situation.  They are valid for sure, but it’s the same routine.  Now though she says she has to take eight vitamin pills in the morning from Judy.  Apparently all of Mom’s medications she used to take at the Regency have been restored.  She still isn’t sleeping well.  She wakes not that long after midnight- - - and remains sleepless most of the night.  This isn’t due to any out-gassing of the carpet, but rather the enormously stressful, and distressful - - situation she’s in with other people having complete control over her life.  I have a taste of what that’s like and I bear witness that it is no fun at all.  After this I watched “Once Upon a Time” with more spiteful women obsessed with evil and revenge.  That whole plot line gets old after a while.  Someone should read the Bible in front of these people and introduce them to a thing called Christianity.  Then it was a dash of AD.  I haven’t been following that series closely at all.