President Obama/Elizabeth Warren for Senate Needed Now More than Ever Before

I was elated as I am sure many of you were by the decision handed down yesterday by SCOTUS. In reality we know, I think, the decision hung by a thread and in the end who could know calling the mandate a "tax" instead of arguing it vis a vie the Constitution's commerce clause was the magic bullet for Chief Justice Roberts to red rover to our side. I have thanked him more than once across the blogs.

In reality the word tax in this nation is like saying Kryptonite to Superman. A negative aura was cast on that word practically from the country's founding BUT we all know taxes are eminently necessary for our nation to function to protect its people.

I am convinced effective taxation comes from electing good, ethical, honest, smart legislators and government workers appointed by them to avoid the rip off and con game that has reached Herculean heights especially by the odious decision of Citizens United. I went to a Bill Moyers blog and found the following:

Robert Kaiser, Associate Editor of the Washington Post, explains that as long as Washington is a center of money and power, it will tempt some people. He illustrates his point with the story that titled his book:

I went to [lobbyist Bob] Strauss, and I said, "Explain to me why the lobbying business has boomed so, in the years that you've been in it, 35 years." And he thought about it for a minute, and he said, "You know, there's just so damn much money … ."

It is why we need at least two or even three of the conservative justices responsible for the malignant decision of Citizens United turning Washington into the golden calf on steroids for the 1% supplanted by this Democratic president who works for the 99%. We hope these justices will be replaced when and if he is elected to his second term. It is WHY it is imperative for the reelection of the president to occur. Without that this nation will be taken down a path of oligarchic bought government – regulatorily anarchistic, unbridled and unrestrained in its reach to the goutian 1% whose appetite for all the money including yours and mine is impossible to satisfy. If we do not see these justices replaced we will not see in our time and in our children's time a nation we, as progressives, thought we knew.

I enclose a link here or below to some thoughts I developed about so called “originalist” justices after the decision was handed down.

Onward as the re-election of the president and the election of Elizabeth Warren for Senate is needed now seemingly more than ever before!

http://www.natalierosen.blogspot.com/2012/06/constitutional-essence-of-healthy.html

The Constitutional Essence of a Healthy Nation

I am thrilled by the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act. Even more thrilling was Chief Justice Roberts of the conservative five breaking away from them and voting astutely with progressives. He encased himself in what I think will be one of US history's greatest decisions, perhaps, the Civil Rights Act of health care in our time. When the nation elects brilliant leaders chosen at the right time it does brilliant things. Elections matter! It was a great week for the president and was a happy day for me. 

Having said that, I think about the conservative perspective of judicial review -- the so called constitutional "originalists" often labeled "strict constructionists" who are philosophically consumed by wanting to deviate little from what they think the Founders in 1789 constitutionally meant and wrote. I am quizzical. The population of the US in 1776 was approximately 350 thousand people.  There were 13 fledgling former colonies and a psychology of individual states which the Founders were trying, with difficulty, to form into some sort of collective sovereign entity. 

It was a nation, too, trying to form a just construct while ironically retaining the unjust institution of slavery, the economic lifeblood of especially the south but the whole nation too, as powerful in its time, perhaps, as the military industrial complex is today.  It is a nation now of 50 states populated by approximately 350 million diverse people with a panoply of different interests forming a huge melting pot of ideas.  Could the Founders have envisioned this?
 
A document constructed then must change now in many ways as the social fabric of the nation changes. Does one really think, for example, that the Founders understood their Second Amendment to allow rapid-fire guns with double clip magazines, unlimited assault rifles or a powerful organization advocating for minimal gun control even when a House member or a president is nearly assassinated with ease? Could they have envisioned domestic criminal thuggish often psychotic violence which never ends placing millions of guns in the hands of the psychologically unbalanced who will be tempted to use them at any cost?  

The Founders' nation was originally composed of 13 colonies afterward states needing to maintain state militias because they had confronted the external force of British control. Who is going to overthrow a country of 350 million successfully now? HOPEFULLY, NO ONE will.  What external threat could be so powerful as to force millions of individuals in that complex sovereign nation to think they need and must have weaponry geared for internal and external war which could, in truth, be waged only by local police or the various military forces of government? 

Truly, though, what was the Founders' original intent?  I believe it was to form a document which could accommodate change and thereby withstand the test of time.  I do not think the Founders were so obtuse to believe their institutions should be quick-sanded in 18^th-century cement.

Progressives understand the nation changes. We understand its people through their institutions and its Constitution must reflect that change as well.  The brilliance of the document the Founders wrote about two and one-half centuries ago is that it is flexible enough to accommodate those social changes which, I believe, the Founders knew, eventually, would occur.  We are still a healthy nation.   I hope the essence of progressive thought and its humane Constitutional interpretation keeps us that way.

A HEALTHY AMERICA THIS IS A GREAT GREAT DAY!!!!

Sent to me by email: 

HUGE NEWS: The Supreme Court just upheld Obamacare—a law that is going to improve tens of millions of American lives and help millions of people get health insurance who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford it. This is a BIG deal.

In the coming days, people everywhere are going to be trying to make sense of what this decision means and the unfortunate truth is that most people don't know what's in the law that can help them—for example that it's one of the most pro-woman laws in recent memory. Further, studies show that the more people know about what's in it, the more they support it and more importantly, the more likely they are to use the great benefits in the law

This is an important opportunity to let people know how they stand to benefit—especially women. So we put together a quick list of what health care means for women and for all people. The list is below. Can you check it out and then forward this email to 10 of your friends?

Click here to share it on Facebook and Twitter

Here are some of the incredibly important protections and opportunities the Affordable Care Act offers women.¹

• Being a woman is no longer a "pre-existing condition." Yes, women were denied coverage for just being women before the Affordable Care Act was law.
• Insurance companies can't charge you more for being a woman either. Before the Affordable Care Act was law, women were sometimes charged up to 150% more than men of the same age.
• Breast cancer screenings, cervical cancer screenings, domestic violence counseling and screenings and a whole bunch of other preventive care measures must be covered by insurance companies.
• Birth control is now covered by health insurance.
• Children can stay on their parents' health insurance until they're 26 years old. And if you want to have kids, the law will help you get pre-natal care and counseling and help with breast feeding and supplies too.

And here are some of the important benefits for everyone.²

• Insurance companies can't take away your coverage if you become too sick.
• You cannot be denied insurance coverage because of a pre-existing condition.
• Seniors receive a 50 percent discount on prescription drugs when they hit the "donut hole."
• Small businesses get tax credits to purchase insurance.
• There are no more lifetime limits on your coverage.
• 15 million more people will receive coverage because of expanded access to Medicaid.
• Millions of Americans are going to receive tax credits to help them get insurance--people who wouldn't be able to afford it otherwise.
• 12 million seniors are currently receiving free preventative care through Medicare.

These are major benefits that will have a huge impact on millions of Americans' lives. Can you take a second to forward this list to 10 of your friends today?

Thanks for speaking out.

Nita, Shaunna, and Kat, the UltraViolet team

Sources:

1. "I Am Not A Pre-Existing Condition," RH Reality Check, October 14, 2009
"The Affordable Care Act Gives Women Greater Control Over Their Own Health Care." White House Fact-sheet
"Preventive Services Covered Under the Affordable Care Act," Department of Health and Human Services Fact-sheet
"Women's Preventive Services: Required Health Plan Coverage Guidelines," Department of Health and Human Services Fact-sheet
"Young Adult Coverage," Department of Health and Human Services Fact-sheet

2. Complete Transcripts of Supreme Court Hearings on the Affordable Care Act, The Washington Post, March 26-28, 2012

Fire -- No Time to Waste

The terrifying Colorado fires in the west are seemingly unstoppable and horrific. The fires, the floods and many many other weather extremes we have seen not only in this country but around the globe over this decade are yet more evidence of climate change. They emerge from a reality that is the spawn of the mendacity of big corporate everything (in this case the fossil fuel industry) creating the politics of superpaks tugging in tow cash and LOTS of it which rules the political day to cover-up truth. The force of the many cannot overrule this toxic force of the few as their HUGE money carves a tornado-like path through our nation cutting a swath through Congress, the courts, and now attempting to wrest control of the presidency.

This is what happens when rightwingnuts gain power, deny science and are hoodwinked to think that the 1% wealthiest are about them. They eschew truth in favor of child-like myth and, when, finally, it gets bad enough are forced to admit what progressives were iterating for years is correct. Now it may be too late. Global warming and the climate change it brings are NOT theories as common understanding of theory is defined by know nothings. They are FACT, indisputable and science-based fact as the Gorian truth "Inconvenient Truth" conveys. The burning of fossil fuels is killing us with its climate change inferno of poison ruining our earth and taking hundreds of thousands of humans with it on its journey to hell. Moreover, this scourge of the earth oil also is finite meaning it will not last forever. Then what?

Keep electing those who are in bed with big oil/fossil fuels and keep thinking that the 1% care about you. They do NOT. The money they have already made, BILLIONS, is not enough. They want it all, they want yours, they want mine, they want everyone’s and they may just get it IF we let them. Keep electing them to high office duping you with their long-proven and many-times-tried false economic ideology with its social anti-human stupidity going along for the ride. Keep thinking the sky god will come down from some mythical heaven and whisk you away to safety. It will NOT. You WILL die unless you wake yourself up from fanciful dogmatic nightmarish mythological lies and face the truth. Science rules, as it always has. Fossil fuels heat the planet and cause cancer to boot. Soon it will destroy life entire on planet earth if we do not find alternative means to drive our cars, heat our homes and make our products. Moreover, fossil fuels are NOT infinite and extracting oil from shale, otherwise known, as fracking is lethal as is nuclear power witnessed by the Fukishima/Chernobyl catastrophes. And, if nuclear power is not bad enough there is absolutely NOWHERE safe to bury its waste. Would you like that waste in YOUR backyard? No? Neither would I.

More inconvenient truths of science: Bacteria and viruses cause disease, hand-washing reduces disease, tobacco causes cancer, evolution IS truth, the sun is the center of our solar system, the earth is approximately 4.5 BILLION years old, and a force called gravity prevails upon it. The Timeline of human evolution as science knows it and is stated correctly in Wikipedia:

Great apes (humans, chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans) 15,000,000 years ago, subfamily Hominae Humans, chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas 8,000,000 years ago, tribe Hominini Humans, chimpanzees, and bonobos 5,800,000 years ago, bipedal apes (Australopithecus and descendants) 3,000,000 years ago, genus Homo Humans, Neanderthals, homo erectus, and their direct ancestors 2,500,000 years ago, species (archaic) Homo sapiens Humans 500,000 years ago Homo sapiens sapiens Modern humans 200,000 years ago.

Science deniers and religious fanatics WILL kill us all unless a country, the most powerful on earth and, indeed, the world sees reality as it is and not as they would like it to be. How the greatest power on earth contains some of the most irrational stupidity on earth I do not know.

America, look at the truth of science, stare it in the eye and then eschew things rightwingnut political that simply are not true or you will be responsible for much misery and even could end life on earth and, perhaps, even the earth itself as we know it. Do it fast as the end is in sight if not for you then for the next generations' posterity. The fire approaches and there is no time to waste!

One more thing about the Mafia Wall Street scam -- VENGENCE IS SWEET!

Just so you will know, that article by Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone "The Scam Wall Street learned From the Mafia" is about  ongoing trials of THREE men connected with the big banks who committed the illegal fraud of bid rigging and more.  One, I believe, has been found guilty and will be going to jail.  The point is at least some are being brought up on charges and MORE will so things ARE being done albeit slowly and NOT reported well by the lame stream media. The are being prosecuted in NY.   My point: 

This article should not leave you hopeless -- although I can see why many of us are -- some of the perpetrators will go to jail and it is just the beginning and that is the ONLY way these malodorous corrupt jerks will KNOW that they cannot do this again.  Fines do nothing because when you are with a firm making trillions a fine of say 50 or 100 million is a slap on the wrist.  NO they need to know these Wall Street banksters AND the big CEO's who run them will be sitting in a cell where their hundreds of million dollars will not matter.  The convicts they will be with will be in part made up of the of the lower rung of the 99% and will  NOT look kindly on the banksters and that is an understatement.  Do I want a pound of flesh -- YES I want a TON!

They need to suffer as the WORLD has desperately suffered for one of the most egregious economic Wall Street crimes in history of this country maybe even all history of mankind because we are a globalized world and when America sneezes the world catches not a cold but diphtheria.  People die revolutions occur especially in Europe and ... MANY of those affected will continue to die.  THIS is the stuff of which Nazism and other social revolutions are born. 

For those who think your lives are too filled to pay attention I humbly suggest you DO as your children and your grandchildren and you too will suffer on a scale heretofore unknown.  In my novice opinion as in Paul Krugman the NYT academic economic genius's opinion what happened in 2008 and continues is a Depression and in another humble opinion of mine it is BIGGER by FAR than the Great Depression of 1929.  The market does NOT regulate itself but it requires those in government of the HIGHEST ethical standards to be elected and it requires those on the Supreme Court who are not tied to Wall Street's unethical hip creating a rancid decision like Citizens United or that making corporations people putting BILLIONAIRES in charge who know no ethics.  It's NOT, understatedly, fair.  Vet, ALWAYS vet backgrounds. 

It was done by a combination of Wall Street anarchy, greed, hubris and an unethical bastion of sinful behavior, fueled by HUGE money, an utterly corrupt American political system of big money owning the Congress and the courts worst of all the no ethics five on the Supreme Court and astounding public ignorance -- including my own ignorance then.  Well, I am ignorant of economics no longer.  I may not get all the minutiae and mathematical algorithms but I get the general excremental-beyond- words behavior.

PAY attention to elections!  They matter especially local AND most especially Congressional federal elections.  If you care about your economic condition you would NEVER EVER EVER put the party of these greedy bast$%#s of the 1% in power again. AND you should make your voice known to the president (hopefully a Democratic one) that you WILL watch his behavior scrupulously and who he hires for the most important financial cabinet positions.  The foxes CANNOT guard the chicken coup.   Look for candidates like Elizabeth Warren who truly do like Krugman KNOW what happened, want to fix it with honesty and ethics and NEVER NEVER let this happen again!!

The Mafia of Wall Street

Here is the greatest most amazing complete BRILLIANT article written so interestingly by
Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone Magazine.  In jaw-dropping detail he illuminates for you what these banksters on Wall Street did to all of us.  They did it to every state, city and municipality in this country, they did it to Europe, they did it to EVERYONE.  If you want to know why states with mainly Republican governors are introducing "austerity" cutting hundreds of thousands of state workers, firemen, policemen, teachers to name a few, read this article and you will have fun while you read who REALLY should be made to pay and restore jobs to the innocent.  Afterward you can cry as you watch jobs dry up, your 401K dry up, people die with no health care, and all the rest of the myriad bad luck that befell everyone it should NOT have befallen.

Then you can cry some more and wonder why these sons of b&tc#$%s ran away with HUMONGOUS salaries and bonuses to boot with OUR money for themselves and their greedy posterity.  It is sickening but fascinating at the same time.  The moral of story:  TRUST NO ONE and read the fine print.  KNOW what you are getting yourself into because one thing is for sure, the banksters and many if not most of your elected officials do NOT care about you!!!

As Sherlock Holmes would have said "You've been had, Watson, properly had!

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-scam-wall-street-learned-from-the-mafia-20120620

Obama mostly victorious on Arizona immigration law--one vote USE IT OR LOSE it!

This decision today on Arizona's draconian immigration law is an 85% WIN for Obama. Law enforcement CANNOT simply arrest anyone because they think he has brown skin and is illegal but rather they can check immigration status only IF another crime has been committed and they cannot hold someone AD INFINITUM while they "check."

Moreover, the Court allowed revisiting S.B. 1070 or the "papers please" Arizona law once this abhorrent-to-humanitarians-everywhere law goes into effect. The entire thing COULD be gutted as it is not the state's prerogative it is the Federal Government's domain. The state is NOT a sovereign entity in and of itself. Remember, we had a civil war to PROTECT the union. States cannot go around wily nily doing there own thing whether it's segregation OR immigration!!! Scalia and his four other merry men are utterly off base. Well, we knew that anyway.

To get back to a union of the people one nation and NOT for the corporation over human beings who have no money the conservative AT LEAST FOUR OLD MEN (FDR called his wrecking crew SCOTUS of the New Deal his nine old men) on this court they must be replaced!! To do that by law we MUST have a Congress willing NOT to be obstructionist when our Democratic president (I hope) replaces other justices. We need an ALL blue Congress and a Democratic president because the Republican Party is the party of oligarchic extremists. We need to get HUGE money OUT of politics, make a corporation NOT a person and protect the civil rights of human beings. Now at this moment in history it is ONLY the Democratic Party that is the vehicle to do this! Replace the House and turn it blue, keep the Senate and of course re-elect the president!!!

BTW, just thinkin, if a corporation is a person does not that mean that an individual gets TWO votes IF he is a member of a corporation--one as an individual and one as a corporation to influence politics by HUGE money which the average person does not have? We should have but one vote -- USE IT!

Sandusky -- A Metaphor for Our Time

One parent of a victim at the end of the Sandusky trial and guilty verdict said "no one wins here." To me that was the most poignant truth. Everyone loses -- the many who were the victims, Penn State, The Second Mile a place for troubled youth, and those who made the egregious error of not reporting the crime. The dastardly offense was committed against the innocent who had the glory of youth stolen, and also committed against those around Sandusky whose crime was that they were there, observed the unobservable, did not want to see and did not know what to do. The crime had tentacles reaching far and wide like a cancer spreading to all things near it even to us removed by distance but who had our senses assaulted merely listening to the evening news.

Why does man perpetrate on his fellow man so many egregious and intolerable things violent in extremis in deed AND word; unacceptable to humane men? The never-ending 24/7 media talk about it will make our ears bleed from the assault on our senses. But we must talk about it.

The brilliant MSNBC commentator Chris Hayes's book "Twilight of the Elites" illuminates that our institutions we heretofore trusted have failed us. We have been betrayed. From the church, to institutions of higher learning, to Wall Street, to our courts and to Congress we have been abandoned. Sandusky is a metaphor for all of it. If we do not care about one another as a species we are, indeed, like Sandusky, doomed by our own hand.

History's Milieu

The president's speech before the Latino community, the same group in front of which the Republican opposition spoke yesterday, was GORGEOUS. The president's speech was passionate and it was from the heart. I had more than one lump in my throat as tears streamed down my face.

He hit a grand slam as he continues to solidify our base increasing the Latino and other base votes. He needed to deliver this great speech and he hit it out of the park. I don't care about the political calculation I care about the results and the results today were breathtaking.

There is NO comparison between the president and his ineffective and mendacious Republican opponent. Give the president a Congress he can work with, turn the Congressional House blue, keep the Senate and you will see a second term that WE dreamed of in 2008. His opposition has been intractable, his opposition has been racist, his opposition has been the cruelest I have ever experienced in many years of watching politics. This may have been the hateful environment in which President Lincoln governed in 1860. In this era in our time history's milieu repeats itself. DO NOT LET IT!

THIS IS WHY WE MUST SUPPORT THE PRESIDENT in any way we can. His second term awaits!

ONWARD to re-elect the president and Elizabeth Warren to the Senate

In Sickness and in Health

Most who have awaited breathlessly the Supreme Court's verdict on our nation's healthcare by its decision on the Healthcare Affordability Act suspect what will happen. I certainly do. In general, no matter which institution one turns to for help in this nation one worries if help will be there when one needs it and those who have help now hope it will be retained.

I must have dreamed 2008. I thought the president would be supported like no other. Instead, he is road blocked at every corner. The heart-of-stone-five on the Supreme Court – Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, Alito, and more often than I would like to think the more rational Anthony Kennedy – seem to have little humanity. It is a sad thing. I do not know how to NOT pay attention as it affects me in profoundly negative ways. It is to me like a bad accident one cannot look at it but one cannot look away. A segment of our nation is uncompromising and extreme. These intractable five on the Court reflect the right wing extremism of that part.

I know what is coming. I click onto the news with fear that they will do what should not be done and that is leave millions without health care at the mercy of an insurance industry that cares only for its profits but that determines the life or death of people. It is a system that works only if one can pay for it or IF one is lucky enough to have a job.

It would be fine if one were buying a shirt to say the government cannot and should not dictate how it is sold but it is not a shirt. The Court's decision is about our health and our lives. Everyone will need health care and, too, ultimately everyone will be in a life or death situation. Health care, indeed, is not like buying a shirt and one half of our nation perhaps understands that. We understand, too, that policy reflects the heart of a nation and it seems this nation in our time has little of that heart.

When our generations are long gone I hope scholars will judge those egregious five, who like the Torquemadas of Inquisitional Europe hold lives in their hands, and historically relegate those five, quoting Ronald Reagan in pertinent part, “to the ash bin of history.”

A nation, as the traditional marriage vows dictate for individuals, should protect its people in sickness and in health. Right now most of our institutions fail at that social contract. As John Kennedy said “We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal." When a nation ceases to care about its people we the people are not protected at all and nations composed of those people die too.

The Disloyal Party of NO and Know Nothings

The Huffington Post headline is:  "Bloomberg Poll Shows Big But Questionable Obama Lead"

Why questionable?  It would NOT shock me at all if Bloomberg's poll with the president enjoying a big lead is correct. The president SHOULD be ahead even more.  HOPEFULLY finally the American people have seen how HORRENDOUS this disloyal opposition is. 

They are dastardly even near treasonous as their one goal is to take this president down by any means necessary and do often more than hint of violence. They are DESPICABLE.  The president has tried over and over and over again to compromise but they put one road block after another in front of him. The latest is this Holder contempt fiasco. Where were the Republicans when Bush took humanity to war on a lie destabilizing the entire Middle East? Where were they when Bush and his cronies exposed a CIA agent? Where were they in the Bush US attorney scandal?   

THEY ARE SIMPLY DISGUSTING racist hypocrites when the Republican State Convention of Montana constructed an outhouse with such profanity on it I cannot even bring myself to describe it here and Romney who spoke at the convention said NOTHING about it.  They called it "The Barack Obama Presidential Library," riddled it with bullets and wrote things the enumeration of which I cannot write.  These white trash Tea Party types held their white babies and laughed near the outhouse they constructed, and continued the celebration into the next morning.

I cannot believe the president remains so cool and dignified in the face of such racist insults, onslaughts, rudeness, disrespect and vicious obstructionism no president outside of Lincoln has had to endure.  I do not know how he does it.  It is no longer the Republican Party it is the Racist Party of White Christian.  They may as well have swastikas on their shirts.

Hang in there, Mr. President, and watch this rotten, disloyal party of NO and know nothings get creamed. I pray every day that they do! 

A Prayer

In case you have tuned out international and national politics allow me to introduce you to three stories which, three hundred years later from the founding of our nation by men of luminary genius, proves without question the toxicity of mixing religion and state. They knew its slaughter within centuries of European history and presciently understood religion’s divisive, uncompromising and extreme nature. Our Founders placed the so called “Establishment clause” within the Constitution in the important very First Amendment to the nation’s Bill of Rights saying:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion … ”

In my opinion those ten words and the ten Amendments to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, are responsible for creating a nation which has withstood for nearly 225 years some of the most contentious eras, divisive politics and even a Civil War. It has at times, perhaps, even in our time, teetered on the edge but standing nonetheless by our fundamental belief that there is something within worth saving and worth all the blood spent to save it.

The US supposedly sells the wares of its democracy all over the Middle East. Time after time what do people there do with the concept of democracy? They elect theocratic tyrannies. The Middle East, of course, provides us with crystal clear visionary evidence of the destructive nature of religion when made a part of the governing fabric of its ruling class. If Iraq is not enough to persuade one of the violent civil wars religious fanaticism creates, then perhaps one can look now to Egypt which has elected, by democratic majority, the Muslim Brotherhood in its president Mohamed Mursito, an advocate of state sponsored Sharia law (religious law), anti western, anti-Israel and anti women political/religious sentiment. The destabilization that began with the US invasion of Iraq spread to the revolution in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and, perhaps, beyond. A friend of mine asked “Why is it that in those extremely rare instances when the Arab world actually has a free election, they always seem to vote in dictators?” My only answer: religious toxicity.

Israel, a country I happen to love, too, has its religious fanaticism which paralyzes any progress toward a genuine peace by religious edict refusing to abdicate settlements on the West Bank which could pave that road. It is in the Bible, you know, that God ordains one people and nobody else to have that particular West Bank land. Even worse, if that were possible, recently as stated by Alex Klein in the Daily Beast a progressive blog:

… vandals scrawled Hitler-friendly hate speech across Israel’s most sacred memorial [to the Holocaust], Yad Vashem. The culprits were likely extremist Jews [from the haredim, or ultra-orthodox sect].

It was deduced that it was probably they from the error-strewn Hebrew writing usually written by an orthodox sect who speaks mainly Eastern European Yiddish and not well-versed Hebrew. The extremist orthodox Jewish sect claims Israel should not exist until the Messiah arrives. They do not say which plane he will be on or even WHY, indeed, THEY are there.

Our own democracy, which pays at least lip service, to the Founders’ separation clause, harbors our own threats of religious insanity by creating a religious party in the form of one of the two main parties, the Republican Party, whose membership requires a litmus test of an unquestioning Christian fealty in the extreme. No one could, within this Party, rise in its ranks if their belief is not deemed Christian enough. It seeks the conversion and strict adherence to its Christian religious principles (whatever those are) enmeshing it tightly within the fabric of the state.

We are close to becoming, in pertinent part, that which our Founders, men of the Enlightenment, loathed – a religious fanatical state as our country is ripped in two separating one half from the other. I pray every day that this does not happen but I fear every day that it will.

Mount Everest of Money

Someone on the Huff Post blog had a GREAT IDEA HOW TO FIGHT THE CHOKING OF OUR ELECTORAL PROCESS THROUGH OBSCENE MONEY GIVEN BY REPUBLICAN DESTROYERS OF DEMOCRACY -- DO THE OPPOSITE of what these treasonous obliterators of our country’s democratic processes are doing. I hear from Democrats AND Republicans alike about how much they loathe humongous money in politics. To HAVE to spend 2 billion for a presidential campaign is MORE than obscene it is ruinous. Think of what good could be done with that Mount Everest of money for the jobless or the sick.

This is what this ruinous Supreme Court has done. Even Anthony Kennedy, a fairer justice of the unconscionable five, had NO conscience on the Citizens United decision. The five will have a legacy of those poisonous justices who decided the historically embarrassing Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson decisions and it will NOT be a proud one. They may have the conservative money dogs salivating and bearing their teeth but to those who look to this country as an example of equitable thought and fair play they will forever go down as contributors to the evisceration of American democracy. Conservatives are NOT about loving this country because if they did they would want at least a relatively level playing field and at least some democratic fair play.

IT IS TIME TO THINK ABOUT DOING THE OPPOSITE. THE ONLY WAY MONEY CAN SUCCEED IS IF THE POPULATION IS SWAYED BY THE COMMERCIALS MONEY BUYS. I CANNOT IMAGINE THAT ANYONE WOULD VOTE FOR A PERSON BECAUSE OF A SKEWED AD AND I ESPECIALLY CANNOT BELIEVE THAT ANYONE EXCEPT THE 1% RICHEST WOULD STEP ON THEIR OWN TOES AND VOTE REPUBLICAN!

IF YOU LOVE YOUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN, HAVE A VESTED INTEREST IN THE NEXT GENERATION OR SIMPLY FOR YOUR OWN CONSCIENCE BOYCOTT POLITICAL COMMERCIALS BY USING YOUR MUTE BUTTON AND BOYCOTT THOSE COMPANIES AND GAMBLING CASINOS THAT ARE TIED TO KOCH, ADELSON AND OTHER MULTI-BILLIONAIRE REPUBLICAN MOGELS WHO HAVE BOUGHT OUR COUNTRY.

BIG MONEY ONLY WINS IF WE THE PEOPLE LET IT.    DON'T!!

A Nation of Immigrants

I am very happy with the president's prosecutorial change easing the grip of arrest, indictment and deportation of thousands of innocent children born to undocumented workers. They often know no other life but life in these United States bestowed upon them by their parents. This is why progressives and others of like-minded humanitarian belief MUST support the president.

His move was a FABULOUS move from a political perspective securing the Latino vote now even more solidly than before. In reality, though, to me, it does not matter whether this is a shrewd political calculation or if its motivation is as pure as the driven snow. That is not important. What matters is the freedom that this gives to children of an oppressed minority most of whom love this country, want to work, be educated, make a living and be left alone to thrive within it. Now their children can, albeit in two year increments, attempt to do that. What is important is the removal of the state placing a tyrannical yoke around the neck of those who wish this country no harm, indeed, conversely want to contribute to the success and defense of this nation. This still is not a passage of the so called Dream Act which I hope, if electoral reversal of an obstructionist Congress can be achieved, will ultimately occur.

We in this country, a country of immigrants, always have moved toward a wider expansion of human rights, an inclusion of a more diverse people and not in reverse away from that in transit to a previous century. We can and we will never go back. We will always move forward and rejoice in a coming change in the demographic hard wire of this country. It WILL be, ultimately a new day and the opposition Republican Party of white knows it. This president shows time and time again he is the superior candidate to the chilled, stiff and uncomfortable-in-his-own-skin Romney.

IF the president enjoyed a Congress with whom he could work, which was not obstructionist cheering as they do in near treasonous fashion for the country to fail, then this president could and would catapult our nation to a positive new day. Let us for him and for us return the House to a deep blue again, keep the Senate and surely keep the White House which we will so constructive humanitarian change can occur.

I believe this is a WONDERFUL day. I applaud the president and now on to November and let’s win then!

A WONDERFUL DAY!!!!!!

No time to compose a glowing opinion.  Suffice it to say: This white Jewish woman is SOOOO happy!   THIS is why progressives MUST support the president!!!!!  YEEEHA   He will be having a press conference to explain.  Unless I get this wrong this is a FABULOUS thing.  spread the word to ALL Hispanics.  This is a WONDERFUL day unless the Republicans screw it up!

"US to stop deporting and grant work permits to younger illegal immigrants"

Here is the story or

http://leanforward.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/15/12238478-us-to-stop-deporting-and-grant-work-permits-to-younger-illegal-immigrantws?threadId=3443189&commentId=67086087#c67086087

ONWARD to re-elect the president!!!  AND those whom you know in Mass tell them to come out to support Elizabeth Warren (her Republican opponent would NEVER support this but SHE WILL!)  

Forward or Back

The headlines that greet me today: "New Weapons Push Syrian Crisis Toward Civil War" and "Scores Die in Attacks on Shiite Targets in Iraq." A civil war in Syria, yet another bombing in Iraq--a country in which the US was supposed to usher in Jeffersonian democracy; add to these headlines the problematic onslaught climate change, world wide economic mayhem, indescribable poverty and a formerly democratic country which led the world by its example ripped down the middle with intractable racist and other differences that live on from the birth of a nation. This is the nation and world in which we live. This is the nation's generation the collective we bestow to the next who are born to live in it.

When I was a member in good standing of the left at Boston University in the late 60’s I thought my generation was truly going to usher in a new world; that we were going to change things dramatically and peacefully for the better as our message was, we thought, humanitarian--peace and love. We were going to make life better for everyone here. We were, when we gained power, going to create a fairer, just and more equitable world where race was not an issue, war was eschewed and the people were going to reap the economic benefits of unlimited wealth equitably fulfilling the nation's promise etched on the bottom of Lady Liberty, at whose feet my own grandparents wept. They disembarked from a hostile humanity that said Jews could not even live but in this new nation they knew they could because Lady Liberty told them so singing sweetly her famous lines:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" 

Now what exists is a world that is worse than anything I could ever in my naive mind have thought. If I were a believer in Biblical thought (I am not) truly I would think we are living in End Times. Is perpetual war, the killing of innocents, and dire economic conditions going to usher in that beautiful world I envisioned so many years ago? Is this how people want to live in never ending war, a climate that has gone haywire in pertinent part through man's contribution, an economy where only the rich are content but we the living masses of the middle class are crushed? Does the top 1% want to bequeath this world to even their children? How could they?

Lady Liberty's song has, in our day, hit a sour note. The flame has been doused with the accelerant of bitterness, division, discord and enmity where the members of Congress refuse even to eat with others of the opposition. The nation is filled with stupidity and 10 second sound bites that say nothing and explain little about the complexity of our time as we are permanently driven to our respective corners inexorably trapped unable to move.

Can we simply just get along? Did we ever get along? We now are far from the melodious notes of Liberty's song and I wonder will it ever sing sweetly to us again? Will we remain uncompromising and extreme killing a nation for political sport and power which will do nothing? Will we ever move progressively forward or will we move reactionarily back? Lady Liberty’s sweet song can be renewed, its once eternal flame rekindled and its message of hope restored. I yearn for the day it is and wonder if I will ever live to see it.

Europe in economic crisis mode: What do I know?

In case you have not heard there is a European debt and looming catastrophic economic crisis. Studying articles I can understand the US bankster-induced economic implosion beginning over 30 years ago and coming to a head during the George Bush Republican theft of power 2001-2007 I have culled a few, what I think, are salient economic truths for bad times. I know I am NOT an economist and I further know that is a distinct understatement. Nonetheless I, naturally, have an opinion or two.

Europe is on the precipice of an economic cliff which is not only contagious to other European states it is a pathogen for this country as well. Why should we care about Europe? We care about Europe because we are a global economy and Europe is our largest trading partner. If Europe goes down the economic drain it will rein in spending and that whooping cough spreads its disease quite obviously to us as trade between the US and Europe would be significantly reduced. Companies in this country would suffer, employees would be laid off, unemployment would increase yet again, our already weakened economy would drift back into double dip recession or worse depression and, well, here we go again. As my Jewish mother following centuries of Jewish tradition would say when contemplating an impending tragedy – Poo poo God forbid perish the thought!

There is agreement on a way out, I think, by many who truly know about things economic and who have concentrated study on the 1929 Great Depression. My particular favorite economic academics are Paul Krugman and Robert Reisch. They know what works to prevent further contagion and what is curative for an impending deep recession or a looming depression.

In our country most Republicans who are not cerebrally dead ... well, a few who are not, know the prescription too and it is, even they know, most definitely NOT austerity. Those who say austerity is in order do so because it sounds so good and they simply want to ensure in patriotic fashion our president and by extension the country fail so they can regain power. Is that patriotic or treasonous? You be the judge.

It is well known that austerity in a major recession or depression is like withholding food from an anorexic. It WILL kill. A nation's debt is NOT like household debt where cutting one’s spending and reducing debt is the elixir.

It’s a COUNTRY for goodness sake and GOOD government’s job is to save its people from danger in this case joblessness by providing jobs to those who need it while inducing the private sector to invest to create jobs understanding that those who have jobs, even public sector jobs, WILL spend what they earn and jolt the larger economy thereby increasing the tax base. Spending through job creation is what an economy in crisis needs. Austerity as we see in Europe brings joblessness, reduced spending and ultimately increases public anger. Does debt have to be dealt with at a future some time? YES OF COURSE but not now.

Europe needs rescuing and a country such as Germany which has a stable economy and wealth has been the one to help but does so not from the goodness of its heart. ALL of Europe needs an infusion of significant cash to stabilize the Euro -- NOW.

Austerity threw nearly all of Europe into fury as singularly 25% joblessness can do so well. Revolutions are made from fury and revolutions by their very nature ARE violent. WWII sprang in part from such fury and gave the world the gift of fascism and on the other side of the spectrum, the gift of Stalin. When in crisis people simply love to be told, nay ordered, what to do and Hitler we remember made the trains run on time while creating a war machine that surely ramped up the economy. What a price the world paid for that!

Just what we want a repetition of Europe’s historical tyranny – NOT. An austerity prescription now whether in the US or Europe is, as I see it, trouble. Then again what do I know? Do not take my word for it Google Paul Krugman and/or Robert Reisch to get their opinions. Better still read another favorite of mine NYT Joe Nocera’s wonderful NYT editorial today on the European crisis here.



http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/12/opinion/nocera-how-not-to-solve-a-crisis.html?hp

Déjà vu all over again in Florida; voter civil rights in the crosshairs

The voter rights suppression attempt by the corrupt Florida Republican Governor Rick Scott MUST be remedied post haste by Attorney General Eric Holder. He must do so as President Kennedy through his Attorney General Robert Kennedy did in July, 1963 by sending Deputy Attorney General Nicolas Katzenbach demanding he do so to enforce desegregation imperatives. Kennedy employed federal marshals and the Alabama National Guard which, by the threat of physical force, demanded Wallace step aside and not block black students from attending school. Stopping the impudent and insolent Rick Scott is as important as THAT except now it is about voter suppression -- illegal and unconstitutional in our time.

I believe the federal government and the Justice Department have the ability to prosecute and DEMAND the malevolent, impudent and insolent Scott stop his voter suppression tactics. Nicholas Katzenbach issued an order for the racist Governor Wallace to step aside at the University of Alabama to allow black students to attend or troops would FORCE him to do so. Wallace stepped aside. Wallace did not like it, of course. TOUGH that he did not like it.

Scott is trying clearly to undermine the Democratic vote by suppressing the minority vote. Attorney General DO NOT LET HIM. DEMAND he cease and desist or if he does not he faces arrest for violation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and obstructing justice.

Rick Scott's actions are an affront to our nation, to our Constitution, to democracy itself and cannot continue. If Scott continues his threatening tactics arrest that insulting, scurrilous, bloviating, malodorous excuse for humanity and force him to comply. It is déjà vu all over again and cannot stand!

Truth or Consequences -- Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's Half Truth and Lies

Factcheck.org is, as I see it, the best public policy center for assessing the truth of, as Al Franken said in the title of his book, the lies and the lying liars that tell them.  I am pasting Factcheck.org's assessment of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's fiscal claims.  It is as follows:

In his ad, Walker says in the three years before he took office, “Wisconsin lost 150,000 jobs” but that now, “employer confidence is up” and “since the start of the year, Wisconsin has added thousands of new jobs.”

It’s true that Wisconsin lost nearly 150,000 jobs in the three years before he took office. More precisely, Wisconsin lost 145,000 between January 2008 and December 2010, the month before Walker took office. The entire country was reeling from the recession, and the percentage of jobs lost in Wisconsin mirrored the percentage of jobs lost nationally (both losing a little more than 5 percent).

Now, for the second part of Walker’s claim, that “since the start of the year, Wisconsin has added thousands of new jobs.” Do you see what he’s done there? Walker has skipped entirely over 2011, his first year in office, and instead referenced job statistics for the first two months of 2012. Even so, the ad was barely true when it came out, and less so today after some unfavorable data for March. Between January and February, Wisconsin added 10,100 jobs. But then the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that Wisconsin lost 4,500 jobs in March. So now, there’s been a net gain of 5,600 jobs in 2012.

But if you look at the jobs picture since Walker took office, Wisconsin has lost a net 14,200 jobs. In fact, Wisconsin has lagged behind the rest of the country in the recovery. While Wisconsin has lost jobs during Walker’s time in office, the country as a whole saw jobs increase by 1.8 percent.

Needless to say, Wisconsin is not on track for Walker to keep his campaign promise to bring the state 250,000 new jobs by 2015.

As the Greater Wisconsin Political Fund correctly pointed out in a , in 2011 recent ad, “Wisconsin lost more jobs than any other state. Dead last.” That fact was also featured in an ad from the Barrett campaign. From January 2011 to January 2012, Wisconsin lost a net 12,700 jobs. According to a review by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal, that was the worst performance among all 50 states.

Walker: “We wiped out a $3.6 billion deficit without raising taxes.”

Walker’s claim that “we wiped out a $3.6 billion deficit without raising taxes” is also dubious. The state Constitution requires a balanced budget. And it’s true that Walker offered a balanced budget using the cash accounting method. However, using Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) accrual accounting methods, there is a $3 billion deficit in each of the next two years. We won’t bore you with the differences in accounting methods. It’s perfectly legitimate for Walker to cite the cash accounting figure in his ad, but that may confuse some folks who may remember that Walker cited figures using an accrual accounting method when he argued for cuts in state health programs, because that made future deficits look worse.

Next, did Walker balance the budget without raising taxes? Walker did not propose any general tax increases, and he implemented several corporate tax reductions. But his claim that he didn’t raise taxes is not entirely true. The nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau labeled two tax credit reductions as tax increases. One measure reduced the earned income tax credit for people with two or more children, a change projected to net the state an added $56.2 million over two years. Another reduced the homestead tax credit, bringing the state $13.6 million over two years. Walker argued those were spending cuts, not tax increases. But suffice to say, those who got those credits before, and don’t now, probably consider them to be tax increases. Walker also raised tens of millions of dollars by increasing a number of fees.

The moral of this story is beware of Republicans toting "facts" as often their "facts" are not the truth and their untruths, indeed, have consequences in extremis for our nation.

Al Gore has it correct -- OUR NATION HAS BEEN HACKED!

Read and heed. Vice-President Al Gore says it all much better than I ever could. Even if you do not agree with my political/philosophical point of view I urge you to listen. Purely, simply and I think objectively VP Gore states the reason why Romney and all Republicans if elected will ultimately kill this nation as we knew it. It is a GREAT interview by Spitzer of Current TV (FIOS Channel 192) and one which should make everyone pause for thought and leap into action against this diabolical takeover by the millionaire/billionaire 1%. It is here or below.

http://current.com/shows/viewpoint/videos/al-gore-takes-on-scott-walker-romneys-health-care-record-voter-suppression-and-citizens-united/

An Existential Perp Walk

I keep reviewing the Walker/Barrett fiasco of last evening's Wisconsin recall and Barrett loss. What went wrong? I keep telling myself not to worry as ultimately the country will see that Republican politics is not about most of them and almost always means things like Great Recession economic downturns. I keep saying to myself the status Republican quo will not stand and like 2008, the majority of the country feeling the sting of Republican politics and its attendant side cars of lies and fraud will put the Republican Party in electoral bankruptcy where it truly belongs. When Republicans rule they miserably fail because their philosophic base thinking Republicans are for them find out they surely are not and drown in Republican decision-making which puts billions in the hands of the very few but which cares nothing for most of the others who put them in office. Often, it takes Democrats to rescue the nation.

I begin to feel positive again until I remember the gargantuan money machine that the Republican Supreme Court majority put into play. Could one obscure decision, Citizen's United, have had such deleterious affects? The answer is a resounding yes. It is that coupled with an electorate which, in many cases does not understand things political, does not know the difference between the political left and the political right, forgets history longer than one week and will succumb to the Republican Party's paid-for-in-cash immoral propaganda which makes a few very very rich but certainly does nothing for the rest of the country which is not. Quoting another blogger who says:

Obviously, the politics of this country is moving towards the extremist ideology where some people would rather continue to defund social rights programs that it took years to create and establish while allowing the rich to not do their part. Politics is one thing, but where this country is headed seems clearly in the hands of misguided voters who believe in 30 second political sound bites that ultimately, don't have their best interests at heart. The voters in Wisconsin will reap what they sowed and so will this country if its voters continue this walk down into madness thinking it [Republican politics] will fix our ills. This event helps to validate my view that when I retire, this is not the place to be as people here have become more divided, selfish, corrupt, and greed stricken while we still debate the merits of viable health care and give tax breaks to the rich and corporate welfare to the war machine and certain big businesses. Although born and raised here, I love this country but not what it has become, especially the priorities of its people and definitely not exactly my ideal place to consider retirement.

Whenever I contemplate remedial policy for Republican toxicity I am stopped by a synapse that echoes Citizen United. Unless or until that rancid and destructive decision is either overturned OR, in the interim, the Democratic Party finds a way to compete with gargantuan big corporate oligarchic money running through the life blood of this nation and ultimately costing lives from its disease then truly there is, existentially, no way out.

The investigation of Scott Walker and that of his cronies’ nefarious possibly criminal activity should continue. In the interim the Democratic Party MUST find a way to compete with the opposition's money-smothering bought elections so that the existential perp walk path this country is on can be transferred to the very selfish, mean, Republican conservative base where it belongs.

Want to kill Medicare and Social Security vote for Scott Brown -- NOT

Is killing Social Security and Medicare for you?  No? If you want to see WHY you should NOT EVER EVER consider voting for Scott Brown click here or below and it will give you some excellent reasons why you should NOT consider EVER voting for him and why Elizabeth Warren is our ONLY Class A candidate for whom we should vote.


http://bluemassgroup.com/2012/05/scott-brown-the-truth-will-out/

CEASE and DESIST -- Arrest Rick Scott and his Secretary of State

There is NO question that the Dept. of Justice under Eric Holder CANNOT let the unconstitutional and possibly criminal actions of a Rick Scott and his Secretary of State stand.  They would love nothing else but to illegally and unconstitutionally purge hundreds of thousands of potentially Democratic voters from the voting registration list in Florida. 

They have thrown dirt in our Justice Department's face and by extension have kicked mud in the face of our president by refusing to obey the Justice Department's letter to stop their rancid actions.  Eric Holder and the civil rights division of the Department of Justice, MUST show spine as Nicholas Katzenbach exemplified during the Kennedy years when he stood in front of the racist Wallace and told him in no uncertain terms he WOULD face arrest if he did not step aside, comply with the law and let black students attend the University of Alabama. Atty Gen. Holder probably would not be in the position he holds if it were not for the brave civil rights protest, life and death struggle waged in the 1960's to create a fair and level playing field for minorities. 

Scott and his henchmen's actions are not far removed from Alabama's racist Governor George Wallace as Scott and his Secretary of State are systematically denying minorities, seniors, the disabled and even military men of their right to vote. It is all in an effort to defeat the president and it is why the attorney general's staff MUST go to Florida, tell those who are implementing these unconstitutional edicts of voter purge and suppression to CEASE AND DESIST or face arrest.

Perhaps the fear of prison would be enough to STOP what is the most egregious assault of voting rights since before the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Make clear that WE can be as strong as our opposition.  Show Rick Scott and his cronies up for the cowards and corrupt sinister men they are.

Prosac Will NOT Work

The word depression conjures up a variety of mostly negative definitions. It can be defined as a depression in the ground which your car must avoid or new shock absorbers will need installing; it can be a tropical depression which sometimes brings hurricanes; it can be an emotional depression which sometimes brings suicide OR in the case of this opinion, depression spelled with a big "D", can bring economic catastrophe which may usher in all the previously mentioned definitions of depression.

An economic depression with austerity as its remedy can create holes in the roads from lack of infrastructure repair, and climate change emanating from a do nothing government controlled by tooth fairy believers who think praying it away will work just as effectively as alternative energy.  Republicans will usher in more staunch believers in the oil barons who dupe the gullible to lasso their billions. It can bring job loss, home foreclosures, and people thrown out onto the street with no health insurance who become sick, massively depressed and suicidal. Who could blame them? The consequences of yet another economic Depression are dire and as I define it we may be catapulting ourselves into not only another national Depression but into a global THIRD.

To review: 1929 most of us know was the first Great Depression; Dr. Paul Krugman, the academic economic genius, terms 2008 – the so called Great Recession -- a Depression in his new book entitled "End this Depression Now" and, yet again, if we are to believe a hysterical and corporate money-soaked media which wants you to buy their advertisements, a THIRD Depression looms. This time the media may be correct.

Funny or not so funny this occurs just in time for the American electorate to vote charlatans, immoral austerity cranks and uncaring know nothings into Congress and ensure a victory for their puppet one percenter Willard Mitt Romney. He will take a victory walk directly into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and effectively make this dire situation worse. He will make a colossal amount of bucks for himself (as if $250,000,000 of his estimated wealth is not enough) and, for his crony present-day robber barons of Wall Street. The wealthiest 1% will, in celebratory TV series Glee-like form, do a line, disco or chorus dance when he arrives.

The argument of the know nothing right is that more government austerity and regulatory anarchy is needed. Eliminate government spending, let the market have its way and voila Depression cured. I think NOT. I am not an economist as most who know me understand my hysteria over anything math. However, Dr. Krugman explains here and below for those who want to read his expertise why for a country as opposed to an individual austerity remedial effects for debt are different and why the consequences of austerity could be so calamitous. It WILL bring global and national economic collapse.

The THIRD Great Depression looms. The Republican austerity agenda eliminating social safety nets when desperately needed most will NEVER make this Depression disappear ... EVER and no amount of Prosac for this Depression will help. Read and heed Dr. Paul Krugman. He is always right!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/opinion/krugman-the-austerity-agenda.html?src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB