The Least of These: The questions of the Court regarding the Affordable Health Care Act appear ominous from the four died-in-the-wool right wingers and the one right of center moderate Anthony Kennedy as I originally thought. It is exactly why I am so nervous about this. Why are we being dangled on a string when this life or death decision is, it seems, already decided if one can count to five? It is so hugely sad.

Last night Keith Olbermann demanded Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law scholar and expert on various progressive and libertarian legal issues, "cut to the chase." I thought that a bit rude to demand of such a distinguished man like Jonathan Turley. Now I rather know what Olbermann meant. I personally think the conclusion of the Supreme Court has already been made. None of the so called conservative justices would dare offend their compatriots by siding with an administration that passes Democratic legislation to actually lend a helping hand to people in desperate need and in health crises across this country.

So I ask now, Justices, respectfully, do not make me wait until June to see you bit by bit take an administration down to further your own alliance with HUGE corporate power as you did in Citizen United. Yes, please cut to the chase and do what as Macbeth said when contemplating the killing of King Duncan:

"If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly" because by your decision, Justices, on this issue you are committing as Christ is alleged to have talked about "the least of these" your brethren to an early grave.

This cannot and MUST not be allowed to derail the Obama presidency. The destruction an extremist right wing presidency could bring is inexplicable. We will be a doomed nation for decades if this is allowed to happen and for the least of these our brethren we should NEVER let it.

A Progressive Oasis: I have just purchased Rachel Maddow's new book "Drift -- The Unmooring of American Military Power." I am reading reviews that it is a wonderful book and an easy read. It was reviewed well by Glenn Greenwald. Frankly, that was good enough for me. Rachel is OUR powerhouse of progressive action. She has and I hope will for many many years be a progressive oasis in a conservative desert.

I humbly suggest you purchase her book if you can. I put the link below to link you to it.

I know you and I will enjoy it!

http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=drift+rachel+maddow&tag=googhydr-20&index=stripbooks&hvadid=18083526810&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=978488657393727352&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&ref=pd_sl_5itsnm0cq2_b

Masochists in our Midst: A quote from an MSNBC article which sums up my fear: "Some argue that Congress, for one, is likely to refuse to make changes to the law to develop alternatives to the mandate. “It isn’t going to get fixed,” said Robert Laszewski, who runs a consulting firm, Health Policy and Strategy Associates, in Alexandria, Va. “Republicans want to blow it up. They’re going to be happy that the Supreme Court threw a grenade in it.”

IN OTHER WORDS THE SUPREME COURT MUST NOT NEGATE THE MANDATE IN THE AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE ACT AKA OBAMACARE FOR IT TO WORK.

YOU MUST PRESSURE EVERYONE BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY THAT THE SUPREME COURT DOES NOT NEGATE THE MANDATE. THIS IS SIGNATURE LEGISLATION FOR THE PRESIDENT AND REPUBLICANS ARE SALIVATING BECAUSE THEY THINK IF THE COURT NEGATES IT WILL SINK THE PRESIDENT AND HIS REELECTION LOST. DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN!

I DO NOT CARE HOW YOU APPLY THE PRESSURE WHETHER IN WRITTEN WORD, CALLS TO THE SUPREME COURT AND ELSEWHERE OR GOING TO WASHINGTON TO PICKET WITH OUR GROUP BUT DO IT. YOU and YOUR CHILDREN'S LIVES DEPEND UPON IT. NOTHING SHORT OF LIVES ARE IN THE BALANCE!

WHY ANYONE ON PLANET EARTH WOULD OPPOSE SOMETHING THAT CAN AT LEAST HELP TO FIX OUR INSURANCE BLOATED HEATH CARE EMPLOYER-BASED INSANITY IS BEYOND ME. THERE ARE MASOCHISTS IN OUR MIDST WHO LOVE PAIN AND SADISTS WHO LOVE TO SEE IT INFLICTED ON OTHERS!

Not that Mad about Mad Men—Season Five: I LOVED Mad Men from the beginning. It was set in an era in which I worked for a large corporation and remember those times well. There was not a segment of Mad Men I missed. Just in case I had forgotten something I reviewed the prior episodes.

Having said that and respecting ALL the actors' craft (I love them all) the new episode left me cold. I simply do not know what it is trying to do. It seemed like it was a line up of great actors in search of a story. It was not coming through to me. Don Draper's hook up with his secretary left me head scratching. She is a younger woman who is so adept handling his children but clueless about the private nature of the man and throws him a surprise 40th birthday party -- oh yes we all love those turning of decades celebrations so much -- dances seductively in front of his co-workers in their own home and she thinks he will be thrilled at that? It stumped me. It was good to see the inclusion of the black experience in America but the rest of it seemed pointless.

I am a faithful viewer so I will go on no matter what but from first view of this new season I wonder if the writers can ever duplicate that which it was before.

My Week with Marilyn -- A Film Review: Rented the Academy Award nominated film for best actress, "My Week with Marilyn" and since I lived during the Marilyn Monroe era but never knew this particular episode of her life it interested me. She was the film sensation of the 1950's and reflected much about the crushing superficiality of that time. As a child I could not appreciate her artistry because I WAS a child and because she was used mercilessly by Hollywood and the public who sold her as a piece of ornament or satisfaction for the lust of men and as an object of envy of women for Hollywood to make a buck. She was, in the final analysis, only human; the product of her childhood which was empty of love and absent parental care.

Looking as an adult at the artistry of Marilyn Monroe I see something quite different and lament the fact, as I do about all film and theater genus who die before their time, that we are deprived from enjoying more of their excellence. Other films Marilyn made outside of the ones of fluff had substance. Her roles in "Niagara," "The Misfits" and "Some Like it Hot" reflected her once-in-a-lifetime talent.

I walk away from this non-fiction film sad because Marilyn Monroe WAS sad. She was intrinsically sad. I thought the film quite accurately showed that sadness. The role of Marilyn was played, I thought, as perfectly as it could by Michelle Williams. It is difficult to play larger-than-life figures.

Some of the other characters were to me forgettable because Marilyn absorbs one's attention whether in real life or fantasy like a sponge. Marilyn oozed beauty and vulnerability. It is only natural that men and some women too must have desired to rescue this damsel in distress. Alas, maturity tells us only we can be the rescuer of us.

There was no Oprah show then to show us how to overcome the impossible obstacles placed before us in life. I wonder what Marilyn would have been like if she could have experienced the social revolution of our time. We will never know. The child in Marilyn never got to become an adult and we as the adults never get to see her morph into one.

Of Supreme Importance: I happened to catch the news tonight. The Supreme Court is on the verge of a major decision on the president's Affordable Health Care Act. It looks like our obstructionist opposition is getting out to protest as they insultingly call it "Obamacare." They SHOULD have some company. There should be MANY Democrats and like minded people who realize the importance of the president's health care act. There SHOULD be MORE in number show up of those who SUPPORT the president as those who obstruct our president.

This bill WILL provide needed changes, bring down health care costs as stated by the CBO and ensure EVERYONE access to health care. Most especially it will mean that NO ONE, NO ONE be without health care again or kicked out because of preexisting conditions as minor as allergies. It WILL save lives.

We know the mean-spirited rancid nature of our opposition. We must NEVER let the forces of regression, racism and obstructionist interposition prevail nullifying that which we as a people so desperately need.

PLEASE tell those whom you may know to organize especially in Washington in front of the Supreme Court, to uphold our president's Affordable Health Care Act, hammered out tooth and nail over years. Pull people from ALL those who support the president's cause to STAND UP against these forces of Medieval torture. FIGHT BACK and show them there are MORE of us then there are of them!

Rejoice: The death of evil and the killing of the Anti-Semite murderer of Jews in France: Who takes pleasure in a death? When it is the killer of two Jewish children and their rabbi father in France I DO! The headline, although I have not read the entire story yet, made me cheer and I am NOT ashamed to say it. I have always said I am left of center in my political views BUT my eyes see what they see and it is because of what my eyes see I am a supporter of the Jewish people, in general the State of Israel and the west. I have to be. I see free states as opposed to religious fanatical tyrannies. Yes, there are fanatics everywhere BUT USUALLY orthodox and other religious Jews keep to themselves and do not export religion. Children, any children, everywhere hurt NO ONE.

I did wonder why it took so long for the French government to perfect the killing but I do not care because we do not know how difficult this was to do and how hard it must have been to make the innocent secure as they secure members of their own French force. The murderer was a mind saturated with violence and well armed to take down any Jew or any French authority walking.

I say KUDOS to the French government. There is one more dead anti-Semite. That is a good thing. In the Vichy years of the Nazi period they NEVER would have investigated the death of Jews but rather, France, replete with anti-Semitism, contributed to it. THINGS change. They better well have changed. NO ONE anymore can wage war on Jews and think Jews will not fight back. If the French did not get him the Israelis probably would have.

The Holocaust has taught Jews everywhere we need to know about who cares about Jews. Jews do and some righteous others who see the longest hatred for what it is. The anti-Semitism that was centuries old in Europe can be seen now as its baton has been passed all over the Middle East.

The Jewish people LIVE and will NEVER submit EVER again to the disgusting anti-Semitism that was rife in France and ALL of Europe for centuries. The death of the murderous anti-Semite does not bring back the dead children and their father BUT they killed evil today in France and I am rejoicing!

Crooked: If you read nothing else read Matt Taibbi's "Too Crooked to Fail" which appeared in Rolling Stone. It will tell you in language anyone can understand (including me who is math challenged to put it mildly.) It is funny, it is brilliant and written so you are guaranteed to laugh before you cry knowing EXACTLY what the Great Mortgage Fraud of 2007 was and its attendant Great Global Recession. Click here if you want to read the most entertaining rendition of an economic swindle you will ever read about this usually arid dry subject. If you cannot click on that I post the link below. 1000 pardons if I sent this before. I may have since it has taken me quite some time to direct my efforts!

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/bank-of-america-too-crooked-to-fail-20120314

The Eternal Jewish Constant: The very disturbing news story out of France is chilling. I post it here and below. An attack by a Neanderthal in black clothing on a motorcycle killed THREE Jewish children including a three year old at a school. It is sickening as an attack on anyone's child would be.

Because this dastardly act took place in France it seems remote but to me NOTHING is remote when it comes to attacks anywhere upon the Jewish people as the Holocaust history of the six million dead Jews of Europe proves.

I hope warnings go out to all Jewish schools and preschools in this state and even around the nation that they must always be vigilant and take necessary precautions against defilement or violence. Sometimes, though, especially in this country where the Jewish people feel relatively safe from the Jewish experience in Europe, we could let down our guard. We should not. We should treat every act of anti-Semitism anywhere in the world as if it were perpetrated on a house or in the town next door!


http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/19/world/europe/france-shooting/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

AARP Betrayal the TREASON of this century: I posted late last evening and did not do the best job of explaining what AARP may be doing surreptitiously to get cuts in Medicare and Social Security for their OWN greedy vile purposes so here is the link to the Huff Post story: See Here or go to:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/17/social-security-advocates-aarp_n_1355477.html#postComment

Let them KNOW you are on to them and let your Congresspersons know you are AGAINST Social Security and Medicare CUTS.

They do NOT need to be cut IF the 1% pay their fair share in their taxes they would not even feel. They are GREED personified. Social Security is solvent until 2037 and need NEVER be insolvent if our tax structure was equitable.

When I go into doctor's offices now I cannot BELIEVE all the seniors I see and incredulously to me am considered nearly one of them now. ALL those people or
most of them are being kept alive because they have Medicare. The conservative swine want to get rid of Medicare and replace it with vouchers you would have to buy from private insurance costing us exorbitant unfordable rates. As it is one must supplement Medicare anyway as it does not pay for everything as, of course it should! DO NOT LET THEM CUT MEDICARE AND SOCIAL SECURITY. Conservatives with their opposition to the president's Affordable Health Care Act spew utter LIES saying it would "kill granny" with death panels. If you really want to kill granny see how fast she dies with no Medicare.

Remember the 2000 campaign of the great Al Gore and his LOCK BOX for Social Security? Well, monies for Social Security and Medicare SHOULD be in there. Lock it in and throw away the key!!

AARP and Medicare Betrayal: Just posted on Facebook AARP: See link here for the story of AARP's POSSIBLE BETRAYAL: LISTEN UP AARP.. and those looking at this wall KNOW what AARP is trying to do. The AARP CEO's probably are a part of the 1% and they are betraying the very membership they are SUPPOSED to be about -- Seniors. They are behind the scenes advocating for cuts to Medicare and Social Security so the Congress won't take it out of the hide of the 1% wealthiest by taxing them like they SHOULD be taxed and save Social Security and Medicare. These are LIFEBLOOD safety nets. MILLIONS are alive today because of them. AARP, listen up and listen good ...when the 99% rise up we get what we want..we did in the Komens sickening plot to take down Planned Parenthood and we are getting somewhere with the 99% movement AND now we will take on AARP.

I will give up my AARP membership faster than I swat a mosquito if they aid in cutting Medicare and Social Security. They are greedy betrayers of those they are supposed to serve. TELL THEM DO NOT CUT MEDICARE AND SOCIAL SECURITY. There is NO NEED to. Seniors, GET READY TO SCREAM LOUD AND CLEAR. WE will CUT AARP membership in an INSTANT and get ready to join that which takes the place of this rotten to the core organization who is BETRAYING YOU!

Tell AARP you are mad as hell and you won't take it. Hit them in THEIR pocketbook before they try to take away your life.

A Letter to Bill O'Reilly--A response to something he blathered: Since when is the EXTREMIST right who watch Fox News AND you, Mr. O'Reilly, such democratic rational humanitarians?

No matter how you minimize MSNBC's impact and you spin whatever numbers you like it does not matter since no one questions you and those who do turn you off because they know they get nothing but lies and the spin of them.

MSNBC and Current too are the most excellent network commentary on the planet and whose broadcasters are unbelievably BRILLIANT.

Here is my day: Dylan Ratigan, Chris Matthews, Ed Schultz, the GREAT Rachel Maddow, and the WONDERFUL Larry O'Donnell are a must. I tape them all and watch two on Current TV -- Cenk Uygar The Young Turks and OF COURSE Keith Olbermann. On the weekend I watch UP with Chris Hayes -- a genius and after him Melissa Harris Perry -- brilliant and beautiful. Her verbiage is as wonderful as she is gorgeous!

For comedy its John Stewart. If I had 1/2 of the intellect of all of those commentators I would be a genius! I have one feeling when I watch them -- ENVY. I WISH I could be as intellectually astute as they. Even their fill-ins like Ezra Kline is cerebral dynamite.

You, Bill O'Reilly and your fellow right wing extremist commentators are nothing in comparison to them. What MSNBC and Current commentators have in their proverbial little finger you do not have, yes, you guessed, in your entire body. You only WISH you did. What the heck you take the money from Fox and live like a king; the same as those for whom you advocate.

At LEAST those on MSNBC are on the side of the 99% and guess what? The election is going to be decided right there. I cannot WAIT for November. Despite Fox's financial gargantuan status, despite your mouth dripping with your millions, despite the king of Citizen's United Mitt Romney and despite those racists who hate Obama NOT because of what he is about but because of an ethic status he had no hand in creating, HE will be reelected and you know it since the Republican field is an embarrassing Ringling Brothers circus. You and your alleged minions -- those lovely rational people whose spokesman you allegedly are -- will either get on board our train or be left in the dust! Your majority is slipping fast and you know it which is why, sir, you are the vitriolic blatherer you are!

For your Reading Pleasure: Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi has written a very engaging article. I suspect PERHAPS someone at BOA has read it. I put the link for your review: It's called: Bank of America Too Crooked to Fail

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/bank-of-america-too-crooked-to-fail-20120314

Lovely story about the most damaging, corrupt, sickening, disgusting corporate behavior in the history of planet earth. Not only according to this article, in my opinion, are they a traitor to their own clients like a doctor subverting his own patient giving him a false well diagnosis when the patient has cancer BUT they are a traitor to the nation that gave them life. Throw in this bag ALL the politicians in Washington Republican and Democrat alike who have given them the green light as long as I am sure they STUFFED their coffers. Cute of BOA to put toxic instruments
in a small corner, blow them up, if they fail make oodles of cash from the FDIC insurance which WE the taxpayers give them or secure low interest loans at the bargain basement window no one else has access to and leave their clients in the street. SHAME on them. Didn't their mothers teach them ethics?

BOA should CLEAN UP THEIR ACT before they make Occupy Wall Street angrier than it already is. They and all their compatriots like Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and other Wall Street banksters nearly took the global economy down while they ate ALL the money we and their clients had to offer them when they fail. One would THINK it would make them nauseated to be SO stuffed. Well I can tell you it makes ME nauseated since its my and all taxpayers' money! For an interesting paragraph in the article that particularly grabbed me look below:

Anyone who wants to know what the Occupy Wall Street protests are all about need only look at the way Bank of America does business. It comes down to this: These guys are some of the very biggest #$%^ on Earth. They lie, cheat and steal as reflexively as addicts, they laugh at people who are suffering and don't have money, they pay themselves huge salaries with money stolen from old people and taxpayers – and on top of it all, they completely suck at banking. And yet the state won't let them go out of business, no matter how much they deserve it, and it won't slap them in jail, no matter what crimes they commit. That makes them not bankers or capitalists, but a class of person that was never supposed to exist in America: royalty.

Self-appointed royalty, it's true – but just as dumb and inbred as the real thing, and every bit as expensive to support. Like all royals, they reached their position in society by being relentlessly dedicated to the cause of Bigness, Unaccountability and the Worthlessness of Others. And just like royals, they spend most of their lives getting deeper in debt, and laughing every year when our taxes go to covering their whist markers. Two and a half centuries after we kicked out the British, it's really come to this?

I continue to believe what MLK said: The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice. I surely HOPE he was right.

The prospect of an even more right wing Republican choice-Please read. A stream of consciousness: Santorum the rightwingnut extremist won both Mississippi AND Alabama in the Republican primaries. You heard the audience at the Republican debates. They would rather a person with no health insurance who is ill die on the street than provide help. We are the ONLY first world nation that has a significant part of the population who believes that and where now before the president's health care legislation kicks in, 25,000,000 have no health insurance. Religion, our Founders specifically did NOT want to mix with the state, WILL. That is what you will get IF that rancid Republican Party nominates an even more-extremist-than-Romney candidate. I cannot imagine that but it’s true. The only thing more right wing would be The John Birch Society (they are in the mix of Republicans too), the KKK, or the American Nazi White Nationalist parties and do not kid yourself some are probably in the Republican Party today as well. The old establishment Republican party is nearly dead or on life support.

So what does that mean for us? There is NO question for us. If you thought you might not vote THINK AGAIN. Elections matter. I do not care what your criticism of Democrats has been. It is a FAR FAR better more humane party than the horrific opposition. On paper it SEEMS President Obama would have an easier time with a Santorum-like candidate and Romney still cannot be counted out BUT and it's a HUGE BUT we CANNOT, MUST NOT, take ANYTHING for granted. We must get out the vote as if our very lives depend upon it because they do. Your children's life and their children’s lives depend upon our president winning this reelection. It is a deadly serious serious matter. Not only is Republican White Land racist beyond belief they are war like beyond belief and the environment will cease to exist as well so our planet will die a slow death and so will we. They will ensure America continue on a war-like footing, partner with big corporate money (like the Nazi state did) and create a real oligarchy and a war with Iran which COULD -- I say COULD -- mean WWIII and a draft of your kids. I do not think I am being a fear monger.

The Republican Party is the most dangerous party since the Civil War. They are NOTHING I repeat NOTHING like the party of Lincoln. They are the party of the Dixicrats of old which did everything they could to deny black people equal rights. If the hard work of Dr. King and others who followed were not part of our country's history there would STILL be segregation in the south and elsewhere.

So what does that mean for the other half -- us? We MUST take this election dead seriously. We MUST MUST get out the Democratic and Independent leaning Democratic (which is a huge number) out to vote. That is how our president wins. Some sickening voter ID back-to-Jim-Crow legislation that REPUBLICAN state legislators put in has been stopped by the courts hopefully into November BUT we do not know for how long and how many will not be stopped. The Justice Department is working on it. STILL WE CAN DO SOMETHING about this DISGUSTING voter ID legislation which is geared for nothing but to stop minorities, the elderly and the disabled (eligible to vote) not to vote. We can ensure Democrats and others who care about the trajectory of this nation MAKE SURE THOSE WHO NEED AN ID GET ONE and head this criminal Republican Party off at the pass. BEAT them at their own game and CRUSH them in November. I do not care if you have to walk, email, snail mail, telephone or smoke signal the vote for the president MUST prevail. Gain your enthusiasm. Erase the 2010 horrific Republican obstructionist election and re-elect the president, give him a Democratic House and keep the Senate in Democratic hands. IF YOU CAN support monetarily the re-election of the president campaign OR give to the national Democratic Party link: http://www.democrats.org/splash/sotu-nation-is-great

Think of it this way. IF the rancid racists make it in November, I will be going to the North Pole or worse. PLEASE tell EVERYONE you know to work for the president and Democrats in November and most importantly get people who would vote for the president the proper ID one needs to vote (each state is different.) NEVER GIVE UP, NEVER GIVE IN. Your life depends upon it and so does mine!

Eternal War and other things: Since I purchased Tom Engelhardt's book "The Amercan Way of War: How Bush's Wars Became Obama's" I have been receiving TomDisptach which is a well written blog of many different authors who write things about our nation's eternal wars, energy gluttonous activity, greed, the ultimate end of oil and many other realities of which one who has a vested interest in this nation should be aware.

It is an excellent web site if you are interested in these vital issues for you, your children if you have them and your children's children. The post of his web site is TomDispatch.com. The articles which were sent to me are below. Do NOT be a member of the mindless know nothings many in our culture who remain ignorant of national policy are. They are condemning this nation and your children to eternal war and to a possible early death as we drink the world's oil like a chocolate soda thinking there is an endless supply. There isn't.

Wikipedia gives a brief biographical sketch of Tom Englehardt:

Tom Engelhardt is the creator of the Nation Institute's tomdispatch.com, an online blog. He is also the co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of the 1998 book, The End of Victory Culture: Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation.

Tom Engelhardt graduated from Yale University and obtained a Master's Degree in Asian Studies from Harvard University where he was a founding member of the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars. He has written numerous articles and several books including The American Way of War: How Bush's Wars Became Obama's (Haymarket Books).

Tomgram: Michael Klare, Why High Gas Prices Are Here to Stay
[Note for TomDispatch Readers: TD has an offer today that shouldn’t be missed. The Race for What’s Left: The Global Scramble for the World’s Last Resources, the new book of one of this site’s most popular regular contributors, Michael Klare, has just been published. Once again, on issues that couldn’t be more crucial to us (and to the planet), he is -- as has been true ever since he pioneered the concept of “resource wars” in the 1990s -- ahead of the curve.

Think about this for a second and if it doesn’t stagger you, I don’t know what to say: the U.S. military consumes as much oil every day as the entire nation of Sweden.

Or take a guess on this question of the week: How much did it cost Mobil and its partners to build the world’s largest oil-drilling platform, a 1.2 million-ton monster that sits in 300 feet of water in “Iceberg Alley” in the Canadian North Atlantic and is armored with 16 protective “teeth” designed to absorb the impact of those approaching bergs? The answer: $5 billion for the Hibernia platform, which is now producing 135,000 barrels of deep sea oil per day.

If you wanted, you could spend your time turning Michael Klare’s new book, The Race for What’s Left: The Global Scramble for the World’s Last Resources, into an energy and resources version of Believe It Or Not that would stagger your friends. Klare has a way of landing us on a strange new planet called Earth, one stripped to its disappearing resources and filled with insatiable greed. It’s always a bracing experience, even when, as he assures us in his new book, the rush to the planet’s Iceberg Alleys to provide energy for the U.S. military and the rest of us fuel guzzlers may be the last "race" of its kind we are likely to undertake. Tom

A Tough-Oil World
Why Twenty-First Century Oil Will Break the Bank -- and the Planet
By Michael T. Klare

Oil prices are now higher than they have ever been -- except for a few frenzied moments before the global economic meltdown of 2008. Many immediate factors are contributing to this surge, including Iran’s threats to block oil shipping in the Persian Gulf, fears of a new Middle Eastern war, and turmoil in energy-rich Nigeria. Some of these pressures could ease in the months ahead, providing temporary relief at the gas pump. But the principal cause of higher prices -- a fundamental shift in the structure of the oil industry -- cannot be reversed, and so oil prices are destined to remain high for a long time to come.

In energy terms, we are now entering a world whose grim nature has yet to be fully grasped. This pivotal shift has been brought about by the disappearance of relatively accessible and inexpensive petroleum -- “easy oil,” in the parlance of industry analysts; in other words, the kind of oil that powered a staggering expansion of global wealth over the past 65 years and the creation of endless car-oriented suburban communities. This oil is now nearly gone.


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"Game Change," the HBO docudrama about the 2008 McCain/Palin presidential campaign, was excellent. The acting, in my opinion, was flawless. Since I am a political junkie and followed the McCain and Obama campaigns closely nothing that was illuminated came as a surprise to me BUT to see it played out gave a dimension that I never could have gotten unless I was closely working within the campaign, in this case, on the Republican side (a highly unlikely prospect.)

The production brought life to all the pages and pages of newspaper and other descriptions of the McCain campaign's minutiae I have read. At times I forgot that Julianne Moore was acting the part of Palin, the intellectually incompetent, inexperienced, grossly unqualified vice-presidential pick one heart-beat-away from an older medically compromised McCain. Moore brought much realism to the part. The same can be said for Ed Harris as John McCain and Woody Harrelson as Steve Schmidt, McCain’s campaign manager. All actors were brilliant.

For me, an ardent Democrat, it simply illuminates why I am one and how grateful I am that Obama won the 2008 campaign. It also illuminates why elections matter. What pabulum is fed to the media who feeds it to us is NOT, in truth, necessarily what happens behind the political scenes and the lack of veracity about it makes it all the more important to choose wisely those who would determine your life and death fate. Yes, elections matter but a sharp intellect of those who seek the high echelons of power through those elections, perhaps, matters even more!

Fukushima in Retrospect: The year anniversary of the devastating tsunami in Japan has arrived and it is no cause for celebration. Looking at my posts when the tsunami disaster and the Fukushima nuclear power explosions were occurring, I most humbly say, I was spot on correct. I STILL believe the information, horrific and apocalyptic, is mostly not being conveyed to an ignorant world. The amount of radiation leakage and its effects I believe are hidden and are STILL a significant reality.

It will take years to know the increase in cancer rate deaths of tech workers and cleanup personnel. Some believe it could be significant. Much of Japan's food supply and plant life is contaminated. It is a waiting game to see its conclusive effects over time. The larger question is how will it affect all of us? The power of government and the news media reveal little about it now. There is food contamination found even in Washington State and in California. Foods shipped east and winds which transport contamination particles from deadly Cesium and other lethal elements make it a factor. How much of a danger it poses to us in the long run no one yet knows. My personal opinion is it poses a consequential threat but because cancer takes so long to develop we may never know its direct correlation. My hunch will always say it is a direct one.

Since the American memory and attention span is measured in minutes, the story goes mostly unnoticed and under-reported. Even tsunami debris is from Japan washing up on our shores and more will. Heads here, as usual, are in the sand as attention MUST be but never is paid for more than a 48 hour news cycle -- and that's being generous. The fate of the nuclear power industry is at stake. Money in this country and the politics that are appended to it are all too often in our Citizens United culture the reason information is squashed.

I post a link to the MSNBC article here. I suggest reading it and demand that the nuclear power plants we do have are inspected, brought up to date and the ones we are thinking of building never are. The cumulative effects of radiation are known. The hour of nuclear madness has arrived and did so with the first explosion of a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima/Nagasaki in August, 1945. No amount of radiation is safe as the great Helen Caldicott stated. I quote from an article about her below and which in its entirety can be found here.

Helen Caldicott, the Australia-born American physician and anti-nuclear activist of the late 1970s and early 1980s, was a practitioner of pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Boston, U.S. A leading critic of nuclear technology and armament industries, she tried to raise the world's conscience through her almost solitary protest writings and TV and radio appearances against the dangers of nuclear technology for the environment. In the light of Fukushima (2011), Chernobyl (1986) and Three Mile Island (1979) nuclear accidents (all of which happened after 1978) and the great concern they generated in the world during the last four decades, Caldicott’s 1978 book Nuclear Madness assumes prophetic significance.

Enlightened Faith: On March 2, 2012 the Metro West Daily News printed an article entitled “Islamic Center in Wayland hosted talk on Founding Fathers.” It discussed the lecture given by Rev. Gary Kowalski, a graduate of Harvard College, the Harvard Divinity School and minister at the First Parish Church in Sudbury. I attended that discussion.

Rev. Kowalski gave an extraordinarily informative and riveting lecture on the connection between our Founding Fathers, their acceptance (or rejection) of faith and its place within the founding constitutional document of the American republic. He understood the historical etiology of the Founders’ experience and its relation to the constitutionally-constructed mandate of the church/state separation clause. He did not say that the Founders had no religion but he DID say that the Founders’ religion was a personal one wrapped in the cocoon of self separate from the political sphere except that the state could not interfere with any man’s freedom to believe (or not) as he chooses. That foundational edict is significantly different from government requiring specific religious mandates to which every person must subscribe.

The Founders, as he said and I know, were men of the Enlightenment who, while not eschewing the belief in a supreme Creator, wrapped that religious belief in their own sphere which was NOT a part of the larger governing body politic. Some Founders had religious doubts, some were not Christian, some were Deists, some loved science and were uncannily prescient about it. Most knew the lethal difficulty religious belief presented to a nation that fused it with the state. They saw and understood the wars it engendered in the European experience the embers of which branded fear and scars upon their consciousness. There would be in our nation’s founding document NO religious litmus test for citizenship or for the acquiescence of power.

Our Founders, I believe, would wax aghast at the religious nearly Puritanical irrational frenzy creating a new Scarlet Letter for those, in present time, who do not subscribe to one particular faith. The Republican Party has now become, to the detriment of this nation which usually rejects extremism, a party constructed mainly of right wing extremists where religious subscription, particularly Christian, is mandatory doctrine for entrance into this political club. Our Founders did not mean this to be so. Many would be dismayed at how anti-science, anti intellectual and supremely ruinous the country has become because of issues of faith. They would, though, not be surprised at the toxicity religious belief can engender and knew the discord it could sow.

Religion, uncompromising and extreme, is destroying the very fabric of church/state separation from which this nation was stitched. Rev. Kowalski's book is a scholarly examination of the nature of what our Founders believed and what they envisioned for a new nation. Our Founders did not want to pound religious doctrinal faith into the republic’s sinew but to extricate religious doctrine from the marrow of its governing bones. Rev. Kowolski’s book Revolutionary Spirits: The Enlightened Faith of America's Founding Fathers is an excellent read.

Why Primary Voting Matters:

Ohio primary results: This is why it mattered if Democrats voted in the primary. Can you imagine? The president in the all important Ohio running with NO opposition in a primary garnered more votes than any Republican. May this continue!! Keep urging your fellow Democrats and anyone else in other states to get out to vote in the primary despite the president being unopposed. ;-)


Barack Obama 547,588 votes

Mitt Romney 456,513 37.9%
Rick Santorum 446,225 37.1%
Newt Gingrich 175,554 14.6%
Ron Paul 111,238 9.2%

Robotic Romney -- Liar-In-Chief: Well I predicted a slight error. I thought Santorum at the end would squeak out an Ohio win BUT I was not wrong by much. Santorum may as well have won as Romney wins Ohio by 1% point. This was a state he was predicted to take significantly. He has HUGE problems now that it was a squeaker win for him. Okay, good let's see him work for it.

My God, America, what Obama has in his small pinkie finger the robo candidate Romney does not have in his entire body. He is a DISGUSTING candidate, -- utterly AWFUL, robotic and the worst of the liars on the Republican slate bar none and THAT is going some. He lies despite having TAPE -- TAPE I say -- showing otherwise for the health care mandate, he was ALL for it and for it federally as well. The tapes are there, the evidence is there. He would be a candidate for LIAR-IN-CHIEF! UGH. A worse Republican field I have never in my decades of life seen. Simply horrible! It COULD -- I say could -- be a brokered convention. I don't think so but it's possible.

As Obama/Biden email sent to me (and probably to you too but it's worth repeating:

We now know for certain that, no matter who the Republican nominee is, we're not only up against the same economic policies that helped create the worst economic crisis in our lifetime.

We're also up against a set of rigid social policies that would take us back almost a century.

What we've seen over the past few days is nothing short of terrifying. We're facing an all-out-attack on women's health care, and now is the time to pitch in and fight it!

The leading Republican candidates for president embraced a bill that would allow any employer to deny any employee coverage for contraception -- or any other medical service they personally object to.

And when one young woman spoke up about that bill's very real health risks, she was crudely and viciously attacked by their allies. Not a single one of the leading Republican candidates stood up for her.

There are 450 other state bills where this one came from.

This issue isn't going anywhere.

So if you want to make sure our next president isn't someone who wants to take us back to the Dark Ages and actually thinks a woman's access to health care is debatable, then it's time to take action and help build the campaign that's fighting back.

Obama 2012, Democratic House, and Democratic hold the Senate!

Rush Away from Rush: Here are companies with a conscience. They have suspended their advertising with Clear Channel's Rush Limbaugh. They are:

Quicken Loans, Pro Flowers, Carbonite, Citrix, Go To Meeting, Legal Zoom, Sleep Number and Sleep Train.

If you need anything that these companies have to offer DO buy from them. There may be others which boycott the gas bag and if so add them to this list. To the contrary, companies which do not care and decide to stick with this immoral piece of trash then pull your patronage from them.

We hit where it hurts. MONEY is Limbaugh's Kryptonite. Hit him and hit him hard. Show no mercy as he would show none to you. It is a miracle he even made his limp apology to Ms. Fluke. To quote a Yiddish word: Ms. Fluke is a MENCH i.e. a good person; Limbaugh is NOT!

To my Jewish Compatriots--Escape from Hasidism: Here is a link to an article from Salon.com below. It is about a formerly Hasidic ultra orthodox woman who escaped the tyranny of the Satmar Hasidic sect. She wrote a book entitled: Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots.

It is an excellent article. Perhaps when I have time I will read the book. As I have said frequently I do not criticize religion. Believe what you want. I DO, though, criticize ALL religion that is fundamentalist and extreme whose rules are made by men, for men and are about men even if those rules mean the subjugation, submission and brutality of women which even some women within the sect tolerate simply to get along.

It is shameful no matter what it is Hasidic Judaism, wingnut Protestant Fundamentalism or Islamic Fundamentalist. It is all bad and in many cases means the mental crushing of women if not in body then certainly in spirit.

Impeach Chief Federal Judge Richard Cebull: Richard Cebull is Chief Justice of the United States District Court for the 9th District of Montana. Last week he sent an email to several of his friends that was so racially disgusting and so inappropriately injudicious for a sitting Chief Justice to even think of sending it boggles the mind. It went viral on the Internet as one might expect. I refuse to print the contents of the email in my opinion piece because it is so offensive to me. If one wants to see what he said simply search for his name and the racially disparaging email he sent to his buddies about our president and the president’s mother. You will, of course, easily find it.

I first heard it on the constant stream of news I have on during the day. I was so infuriated that I called the Montana 9th District Court where he sits. I was unable to get through as I am sure others felt as passionate as I. However, I got through to another justice and left my opinion with his secretary to convey to Chief Justice Cebull.

The email Justice Cebull sent was so loathsome it calls into question his ability to serve on the court with temperate equanimity and fairness. He has written an apology to the president but, in my opinion, his apology is not enough. It rings hollow. Chief Justice Cebull of the United States District Court of the 9th District of Montana should resign or face impeachment, conviction and removal from this federal court. What he did was unbecoming of a Chief Justice of the US Federal District Court, unforgivable and worse dangerous because it feeds into the racist disgusting politics of the Republican Party and its Tea Party appendage. Our president must be saddened to hear the vitriol and racist comments, as he yet again receives another. He has received more racially tinged caustic and threatening remarks than any other sitting president in the nation's history.

This judge contributed to this verbal violence against our president as if he committed an act of violence against the president himself. No forgiveness is possible and no apology is sufficient. The Chief Justice should be impeached and made an example of what will happen IF you do not watch what threatening racist comments you say to a sitting president especially if you hold high office. Attack the president politically fine, for policy issues sure, BUT NOT because of his race. It is dangerous , demeaning, insulting and unconscionable. I hold these Republican men of power accountable for the compromise their words pose to national security. The words are an act of terrorism, unforgivable, and unbecoming a United States District Court chief justice or any justice. Chief Justice Cebull should be punished by the loss of his prestigious position because of them!

Dialing for Dollars: A phone scam perpetrated on our troops by BBG Communications is SICKENING. BOYCOTT BBG Communications. DO NOT USE THEM. Use anything but them. They tell NBC Today show that they are not responsible for the humongous fees for 2 minutes of calling time they charge our troops to call home and tell them that a German company is responsible. Another corrupt corporation passing the buck yet again. Just what we who think corporations are often SICKENING making big bucks off war. This is yet another example. Maybe they will think twice about their unconscionable practices when we ALL boycott them. USE anything else but BBG Communications.

These companies are IMMORAL UNETHICAL snakes who would steal their mother's eyeballs for a buck. BE VIGILANT. Do NOT let them do this to our troops and hit them where they feel it the most in their bank accounts!