Calling Dr. Freud, Calling Dr. Freud

The Chris Christie bridge saga gets curiouser and curiouser.  The Rachel Maddow show last evening January 9 was incredible and I post a link to her Jan. 9, 2014 show here or at the end of this paragraph.  I suggest you listen and also read the Huff Post story I quote with indents that explains the Christie and staff motives as well.   There is more to it than meets the eye of simple revenge for an endorsement. Rachel checked back a few months to August 13 after which the revenge saga began and found a boatload of governor hostility over something else he, himself, created.  The story on Huff Po I pasted below makes INFINITELY more sense or go to her blog above or at the next link here to listen: http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show. My own opinion and editorial point is at the end of the email if you care to have my armchair psychological analysis.

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on Thursday presented a new theory why New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) may have wanted to close George Washington Bridge lanes -- a festering feud between the governor and Democrats over state Supreme Court nominees.

As the story stands, Christie's deputy chief of staff called for George Washington Bridge access lane closures that created a massive traffic jam in Fort Lee for four days in September -- a move that many have written off as political retribution for Democratic Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich's refusal to endorse the Republican governor's reelection.

Maddow on Thursday presented an alternate theory, saying Sokolich's endorsement "wasn't that important." Instead, she suggested the political payback was motivated by a tiff between New Jersey state Senate Democrats and the governor.

Maddow took viewers back to 2010, when Christie declined to reappoint a New Jersey Supreme Court justice, John E. Wallace Jr., for another term. The move left state Senate Democrats "absolutely outraged," Maddow explained, and they refused to confirm any Christie's nominees for Wallace's seat.

"It's been a big political crisis in New Jersey," Maddow said.

By last August, Supreme Court Justice Helen Hoens, a Republican, was up for renomination. When state Senate Democrats signaled they would challenge Christie's nomination, the governor said he wouldn't renominate Hoens.

"I simply could not be party to the destruction of Helen Hoens’s professional reputation," Christie said during an August press conference. "I was not going to let her loose to the animals."

"That was an angry Chris Christie," Maddow said. "So angry that he was doing something almost unprecedented in New Jersey: Yanking the tenure of a state Supreme Court justice, who he liked! That was an angry Chris Christie, furious with Senate Dems at a hastily called press conference that took place late in the day on Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2013."

As Maddow pointed out, the press conference was the evening beforeChristie's deputy chief of staff, Bridget Anne Kelly, sent an email requesting "traffic problems in Fort Lee" to David Wildstein, one of Christie's top aides at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the bridge.

What's more, Fort Lee is represented by Sen. Loretta Weinberg, the state Senate Democratic leader.

"Roughly 12 hours after Gov. Christie blows up at the Senate Democrats and torpedoes the career of a Supreme Court justice who he likes ... the leader of those 'animals' in the Senate sees her district get the order of destruction from Gov. Christie's deputy chief of staff," Maddow concluded.

"Or maybe it was about that endorsement. Until someone who knows the actual truth about this speaks, it remains a wide-open question.”

Christie on Thursday denied any involvement in the bridge closing, blaming his staff.

Christie's 2 hour press conference cared more about himself than the woman who died during the bridge closure or the child who was missing and the search delayed or many children late for school, parents late for work or who knows what else. Republicans do not care about lives so much as they care about themselves which is why they must be removed post haste!

MY ARMCHAIR PSYCHOLOGY:  Most think Chris Christie is very big and very strong.  I think he is, indeed, very big BUT a VERY weak man who is, in fact, a BULLY with an inferiority complex as big as his size.  He is a bully alright and if one scratches most bullies under the surface they do not feel strong at all. They feel very very weak and in my opinion Christie fits the bill.  Calling Dr. Freud, calling Dr. Freud.

Stay tuned!

General Disagreement

Bob Gates's memoir, many times against the president, has backfired (see link here or below) and it SHOULD. Those in the president's base, and I am one of them, to the contrary thought the president was too conciliatory to his generals and conducted policy most of the left of center held in dismay. It is refreshing from Gates's "memoir" to learn that, like President Kennedy, President Obama was skeptical and questioned his military. 

WE ARE NOT A MILITARY FASCIST state where the top does everything the military wants. As this article states had Kennedy done what the military wanted during the Cuban missile crisis we would all be dead.  The 1968 right wing presidential third-party candidate George Wallace's running mate, General Curtis LeMay, virulently critical of Kennedy, advocated war with the then Soviet Union. 

I continue to think the president has been, as I have always thought, in error to think Republicans could be bipartisan as Republicans are NOT in the least bipartisan. Perhaps Gates was a Republican plant OR Gates does not know what he is talking about as he tried to play both ends and in the middle during his career. 

Shame on you, Bob Gates, your expose is not only false but a betrayal based on less than intellectually smart argument. Attention must not be paid!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/08/robert-gates-obama_n_4563743.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

A Bridge Too Far -- the Demise of the potential presidential Republican Candidate Chris Christie

The story of Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey's administration and its politicization of the closing of the biggest bridge in the country, a gateway from New Jersey to New York, the George Washington Bridge, grinding traffic on that bridge to Fort Lee is just developing. Christie or his administration did it to get back at Democratic Mayor of Ft. Lee for not supporting Christie and there are emails to prove it. It is an American political scandal at its absolute worst.

I will formulate a better more cogent opinion but for now, Chris Christie's political future as the leader of the Republican Party much less as a front runner candidate for President of the United States is, I aver, FINISHED. The scandal is like a thread on a piece of clothing. Pull it and you unwrap the entire suit of clothes.

It is bad now and WILL get worse as more evidence and email see the light of day. Chris Christie is THROUGH and exposed the true meaning of being Republican. This party composes the worst of humanity under the cloak of religious righteousness and patriotism. Those who compose its leadership and its rabid followers are neither righteous nor patriotic.

Wait for the details of this scandal to be revealed in total but suffice it to say Chris Christie vying for the presidency is a DONE DEAL, finished, through and I for one am thrilled because I know politics and I know what the composition of the leadership of the lethal Republican Party is all about. It is a killer of democracy as shown by this scandal and as shown by voter suppression of the minority vote.

Thank you, Chris Christie, for being the bully that you are and exposing your party for what it is. I reserve the right to change my opinion as evidence is reveled. Until then Christie will be lucky if he stays in the New Jersey's governor's mansion let alone take up residence in the White House. The obstruction of this bridge for political purposes is criminal and possibly federally criminal. It may have led to at least one elderly woman's death and there could be other distressing consequences of the bridge closing three lanes of traffic creating gridlock for days in the world's most traveled bridge. Stay tuned there WILL be more!

Judas in Our Time

With friends like former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates who needs enemies? Former Secretary Gates was chosen by George W. Bush to be in his administration and President Obama, in a show of bipartisanship, selected Gates as Defense Secretary to be in his administration as well. See how fair the president can be? 

Mr. President, we your base gave you warning. You can trust Republicans as much as you can throw a building across the street. I am NOT surprised Gates stabbed the president in the back. I know free speech rules but Gates knew the way the president thought especially about the Iraq war and he knew the president was given a mandate by the people to get this nation out of Iraq. WHY did Gates take the job? Am I paranoid thinking Gates took the job to spy for Republicans and to get a scathing book out against the president just in time for the 2014 election?

Secretary Gates, with all due respect, you worked for George W. Bush who began a war over lies and created mayhem. No WMD's were found in Iraq and Iraq had NOTHING to do with 911. Gates's guy Bush he loves so much and whose expertise he claims is so great began a war, destabilized the entire Middle East and gave an open door for Al Qaeda to enter Iraq. Al Qaeda is there because the United States of America decided to topple a regime that hated Al Qaeda. A BRILLIANT move -- NOT. The bully Bush and his minions, militarily stronger by far than any other nation on earth, played "mission accomplished" on the USS aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln with Bush in his ever-so-male flight suit complete with outline of his visible genitalia and the famous huge "Mission Accomplished" banner behind the little Bush. The mission was NEVER accomplished. 

When President Obama took office Americans and Iraqis too were dying by the thousands and there were and are millions of Iraqi refugees. What, Secretary Gates, you wanted this nation to continue this now sectarian war for how long -- 100 years maybe? That is NOT why the American people gave the boot to the president's challenger McCain in 2000 and to Romney in 2008 as well.

The Republican Party behaves recklessly without thought of what, after the antique shop is broken, can be done to fix the mess we created. Now nothing can be done. Other nations no longer want the strongest and so called "freest" nation on earth to stay in perpetuity. Our actions tend to make other people angry. I wonder why? Oh yes, I forgot they hate us for our freedom not for our lethal actions. Think again.

Gates owes his Commander in Chief an apology. Former Defense Secretary Gates wrote a book shooting a president, his president, in the back while the president tried to get the nation out of the Iraq quagmire that Gates's boy Bush began; the same Iraq exists in the chaos of sectarian violence to this day because his boy Bush was such genius.

Shame on you, former Defense Secretary Gates, your actions and the book you wrote excoriating the president under whom you served is a betrayal. Thanks, Judas, thanks for NOTHING!

Summer, winter, spring and fall it's ALL related!

This article by Dr. Halter needs NO introduction.  Emphasis on those wingnut nincompoops who think winter's horrific weather we are now experiencing is proof that there is no global warming because it's so cold.  Are they kidding me?   There is ABUNDANT proof of global climate change also called global warming which INCLUDES extreme cold weather.  Read the article and you will know why. Summer, winter, spring and fall it's ALL related!

Dr. Reese Halter

Broadcaster, Conservation Biologist, Educator

GET UPDATES FROM DR. REESE HALTER

Earth's New Normal: Wild Weather 2014

Posted: 01/04/2014 11:58 pm

Follow

Climate Change, Wildfires, Green News, Blizzards, Droughts, Global Food Security, Heat Waves, Wild Weather, Green News

GET GREEN NEWSLETTERS:

SUBSCRIBE

Each year in early January (2011, 2012, 2013) I have tallied a scorecard on the vicious effects of burning in excess of 85 million tons of carbon fuels daily on our planet. Irrespective of where you live the human-induced effects of global warming are irrefutable and deadly.

The Waratah Coal Project is part of the expanding Galilee Basin in western Queensland that will bring Australia's coal export to whopping 240 million metric tons per annum -- a projected increase of five fold under Prime Minister Tony Abbott's new Coalition government.

As humans ramp-up the destruction of nature in Australia, Canada, Indonesia and elsewhere to feed the insatiable coal and petroleum markets in China, India and the U.S. the amount of melting ice at both poles continues to erode at an astounding rate.

In the Northern Hemisphere less Arctic ice cover in September means that a warming Arctic Ocean is easily able to infuse its latent heat into the Arctic atmosphere. As this occurs an all-hell-break-loose scenario is felt elsewhere - particularly on the eastern half on the North American continent and in the U.K.

A warming Arctic is loosing its ice cover quickly.

The Arctic is warming at least two times faster than the rest of our planet. It's not just the loss of the white surface, which reflects solar radiation back to space and helps keep Earth at a habitable temperature range for our species that is a concern.

A warming Arctic Ocean of 1.8 degrees (F) has caused the upper atmosphere to change, dramatically. The polar jet stream is a powerful upper atmosphere, sinuous river of air, which normally hugs the North Pole tightly, but since it has been super-charged with Arctic Ocean heat it's migrating with regularity - southward.

A meandering polar jet stream spells epic wild weather.

A meandering polar jet stream opens the deep-freezer door and pours frigid polar air onto the U.S. during the first week of January 2014.

A massive winter blizzard on January 3, 2014 throughout the Northeast dumped feet of snow with Arctic air spilling bone-chilling temperatures across at least half of the United States. On the Northern Plains, including Iowa, Minnesota, Dakotas and eastern Montana the mercury has plummeted with wind chills reaching in excess of -50 degrees (F).

The first blizzard of 2014 brought feet of snow across the Northeast and teeth-chattering temperatures across the Northern Plains.

It is so cold that Sunday's Wildcard Playoff game at Green Bay's Lambeau Field may eclipse the January 2008 NFC Championship of -4 degrees (F) - as the coldest NFL game ever played.

Meanwhile in Canada - no stranger to bitter winter temperatures - as the New Year began the eastern half of that nation was blanketed by frigid Arctic temperatures more reminiscent to those of outer space as record-breaking wind chills of in excess of -60 degrees (F) were recorded. In fact, in northern Manitoba on New Year's Eve (2013) the mercury touched -62 degrees (F) the same surface temperature as Mars; and by the way, the temperature in the North Pole that afternoon was -6 degrees (F).

The meandering polar jet stream is wreaking havoc on the other side of the Atlantic in the U.K. where the Brits have been lashed and pummeled, again by walls of 30-foot waves in concert with king tides (the highest of the year) and colossal hailstones leaving a horrible wake of destruction including destroyed roads, rail lines and floods that with regularity are breaching the defenses. That destruction may be tame compared to the 50-foot waves predicted for Monday (January 6, 2014).

The British coast was battered by 30-foot waves on January 1, 2014.

In the Southern Hemisphere, Australia is broiling and enveloped by yet another drought fraught with bushfires. 2013 was their hottest year ever recorded. At 2 degrees (F) above the long-term average it easily surpassed 2005 as the hottest year. Every month in 2013 was 0.9 degree (F) above the normal dating back to the inception of continuous record keeping in 1910. Australia has experienced just one cooler than average year in the last decade -- 2011.

Australia experienced the hottest spring on record and on January 2, 2014 South Australian temperature were in excess of 120 degrees (F).

Temperatures of 120 degrees (F) occurred January 2, 2014 in South Australia whilst New South Wales is enduring its worst-ever drought. And in tropical Queensland a swelteringheat wave has temperatures there reaching 117 degrees (F). Elderly people with chronic illness, especially diabetes and obese people are at terrible risk. In addition, all pets left outside in these inferno-like temperatures stand little chance of survival.

While most North American early January (2014) temperatures resemble the inside of deep freezer - California, on the other hand, is warm and bone-dry. A high-pressure system has stalled over the Eastern North Pacific Ocean diverting the moisture carried by the jet stream northward toward British Columbia and Alaska. As of January 1, 2014 California reached its driest mark since record keeping began in 1849. In Los Angeles where I live we average 14.93 inches of precipitation annually - this year we received 3.60 inches. San Francisco received a meager 3.38 inches of rainfall in 2013; its normal is 20.65 inches.

A strong ridge has developed off the California coast preventing the storms carrying moisture that normally falls as snow onto the Sierra Nevada's, which supplies about 85% of the the water for the eighth mightiest economy on the globe.

Currently 85 percent of California is experiencing a severe drought; this is very serious because without water the nations leading agricultural producer at $16 billion annually (including the world's largest almond crop at $3 billion, alone) is in dire straights. The drought is predicted to cost farmers at least $1 billion.

Droughts are plaguing a warming world and livestock as well as vegetation have no chance of survival without the life blood of Earth -- fresh water.
California's reservoirs are at less than 40 percent capacity. The Sierra snowpack is running 23-34 percent while Oregon's Cascades are even lower between 18 and 22 percent. Californian forests are tinder-dry and without winter snowfall and the spring melt-waters to recharge soil moisture preparing the trees for a hot, dry summer we can expect hellacious firestorms later this year.

When Californian forests are parched they burn during the normally dry summers, but this year (2014) without winter moisture the wildfires can begin early in the springtime.

Clearly, the most precious substance on a warming Earth is its fresh water. Until we address our voracious addiction to coal and petroleum and allow innovation our best friend in the 21st century to guide us beyond the present crisis, we can expect more brutal wild weather with its massive price tag of devastation to continue.

Earth Dr Reese Halter is a broadcaster, biologist, educator and author of The Incomparable Honeybee.

GOP’s 2014 horror strategy

GOP’s 2014 horror strategy: Exploit Americans’ misfortune, drum up fake outrage.

Read here or at the link below for details. Forward if you choose.

http://www.salon.com/2014/01/02/gops_2014_horror_strategy_exploit_americans_misfortune_drum_up_fake_outrage/?source=newsletter

Under the Bridge

Chris Christie, Republican want-to-be for the 2016 White House will NEVER get there.  A bridge he cannot cross – specifically the George Washington Bridge – has gotten in his way.  Slowly but surely he will be thrown under it as the truth about either his political operatives or him closing two out of three lanes of that bridge as political payback will come out.  Closing two out of three lanes of the George Washington Bridge linking NYC to Fort Lee, NJ tying up traffic for two weeks as political payback to a Democratic mayor of Fort Lee for not endorsing Christie for Governor is a dastardly act and it could have cost lives.  I direct your attention to the story about it entitled: "Chris Christie - The Bridge Story Gets Legs" here or at the link below.

There are NO surprises for me where Republicans are concerned. They are NOT concerned about the little guy but they talk a hell of a good game convincing those who know little about the man behind the Republican curtain that they do. All over the country the powerful among Republicans think they can fool the masses by anti-government speak, indicting the poor and with a mix of faux patriotism.  Then they bully those who get in their way as icing on the Republican cake of mass poison.  Those who know government can work for the people if ethical people who truly care are elected are simply dirty tricked by Republicans into submission through gerrymandering or suppressing the Democratic vote.

The fact that Chris Christie did not give a rat's petuti about those whom this political retribution traffic tie up could have hurt or even killed is business as usual in Republican land. Anti-human is now woven deeply into the bone marrow of the Republican Party’s essence.  It is no big surprise that Chris Christie and/or his minions may have done this heinous multiple lane closing on this heavily trafficked bridge as political payback for that Fort Lee mayor who would not endorse Christie.

Christie is about the 1% and the fact that usually savvy New Jerseyians never figured that out is surprising and ultimately sad because NJ is not in great economic shape.  Christie in true Republican austerity form cut education and other social programs drastically while giving tax breaks to the very rich who do not need it and do not create jobs from it.  Chris Christie will NEVER be elected president because his past blunders and political bullying of the weak will be stripped down to the bone for the entire nation to see.  He cannot simply bully the sludge he created out of the way at least not to trod a path to the White House!

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/01/02/1266625/-Chris-Christie-The-Bridge-Story-Gets-Legs?detail=email

Bush League -- When Republicans Rule

Many of my thoughts end with the pronouncement WHY DEMOCRATS MUST, IN 2014, TURN THE HOUSE BLUE, KEEP THE SENATE AND, IN 2016, WIN THE PRESIDENCY.  I place that thought at the beginning of my opinion because of its importance with an explanation below.  I include with it a letter written by Ralph Nader to George W. Bush which shows what happens when Republicans rule. 

History is, indeed, written by the winners but what did we win?  A letter penned by Ralph Nader, a man with whom I am still angry for the Al Gore loss in 2000, explains it well.  I paste his letter below.  Why did the progressive Nader run when he knew that would take enough votes away from Democrats to allow Bush the presidential win?  Perhaps, simply, ego's rationale.  If Nader had not run Gore would have won Florida and the presidency in 2000.  Instead, we suffered the foreign and economic policy disasters of George W. Bush. Discerning eyes see clearly the dangerous trajectory in which his henchmen and Republicans before him, placed the nation and what happens when Republicans rule.

A different national history would have been written had there been an Al Gore presidency.  Global climate change would have been addressed, Iraq never would have occurred and I aver even 9/11 warnings, Bush ignored, would have been heeded by a President Gore.  Moreover, Wall Street fraud would have been diminished and, perhaps, the nation never would have been catapulted into the greatest recession since the Great Depression.  At the least there probably would have been "a much smaller 2008 recession, probably no foreclosure crisis and probably budget surpluses instead of deficits" (footnote 1)  would have been on the ledger.

In addition, one of Al Gore's signature legislation would  have been to address the devastating effects of global climate change.  Yes, climate change and global warming are facts, EVEN in winter's frigid cold with massive storms.  It exists in the extremes of summer's heat too with out-of-control fires, a multitude of tornadoes, hurricanes, severe droughts and the melting of polar ice caps.  99% of climate scientists say it is so and like evolution I, without a scintilla of hesitation, believe it.  The other 1% of scientists who disclaim it work for the oil companies who simply want to gorge on earth polluting dollars and try (like tobacco companies of old) to deny it killing hundreds of thousands as it even threatens, ultimately, the existence of life on earth as we know it.

George W. Bush and his entire administration are war criminals but because might often makes right and history is written by the winners no one of consequence will be indicted for the greatest war crimes in the history of this nation bar none. The lies perpetrated by Bush and his neocon henchman created the Iraq debacle. 

Destabilization through US invasion of Iraq based on Bush administration lies made the powder keg of Middle East nations fall like dominoes into sectarian violent chaos killing hundreds of thousands including thousands of Americans. Still, after over a decade, the fire of war rages, fruits of its chaos grow and thousands still die while millions are displaced.  God only knows what the huge totals really are and how these wars will end. 

Adherents to the moral principles of Nuremberg weep especially when Republicans rule!  

Scroll down and read a 100% correct opinion of George W. Bush written by the progressive Ralph Nader.

Footnote 1 -- Jerry Kronenberg, freelance writer, economic editorialist and cable TV commentator.

-----Original Message-----
From: Ralph Nader <info@nader.org>
To: Natalierosen@aol.com
Sent: Thu, Jan 2, 2014 4:00 pm
Subject: In the Public Interest: Letter to George W. Bush

In the Public Interest by Ralph Nader Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. Letter to George W. Bush Ralph Nader January 2, 2014   George W. Bush George W. Bush Presidential Center PO Box 560887 Dallas, Texas, 57356 Dear Mr. Bush: A few days ago I received a personalized letter from your Presidential Center which included a solicitation card for donations that actually provided words for my reply. They included “I’m honored to help tell the story of the Bush Presidency” and “I’m thrilled that the Bush Institute is advancing timeless principles and practical solutions to the challenges facing our world.” (Below were categories of “tax-deductible contributions” starting with $25 and going upward.) Did you mean the “timeless principles” that drove you and Mr. Cheney to invade the country of Iraq which, contrary to your fabrications, deceptions and cover-ups, never threatened the United States? Nor could Iraq [under its dictator and his dilapidated military] threaten its far more powerful neighbors, even if the Iraqi regime wanted to do so. Today, Iraq remains a country (roughly the size and population of Texas) you destroyed, a country where over a million Iraqis, including many children and infants (remember Fallujah?) lost their lives, millions more were sickened or injured, and millions more were forced to become refugees, including most of the Iraqi Christians. Iraq is a country rife with sectarian strife that your prolonged invasion provoked into what is now open warfare. Iraq is a country where al-Qaeda is spreading with explosions taking 20, 30, 40, 50 or 60 lives per day. Just this week, it was reported that the U.S. has sent Hellfire air-to-ground missiles to Iraq’s air force to be used against encampments of “the country’s branch of al-Qaeda.” There was no al-Qaeda in Iraq before your invasion. Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein were mortal enemies. The Bush/Cheney sociocide of Iraq, together with the loss of tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers’ lives, countless injuries and illnesses, registers, with the passage of time, no recognition by you that you did anything wrong nor have you accepted responsibility for the illegality of your military actions without a Congressional declaration of war. You even turned your back on Iraqis who worked with U.S. military occupation forces as drivers, translators etc. at great risk to themselves and their families and were desperately requesting visas to the U.S., often with the backing of U.S. military personnel. Your administration allowed fewer Iraqis into the U.S. than did Sweden in that same period and far, far fewer than Vietnamese refugees coming to the U.S. during the nineteen seventies. When you were a candidate, I called you a corporation running for the Presidency masquerading as a human being. In time you turned a metaphor into a reality. As a corporation, you express no remorse, no shame, no compassion and a resistance to admit anything other than that you have done nothing wrong. Day after day Iraqis, including children, continue to die or suffer terribly. When the paraplegic, U.S. army veteran, Tomas Young, wrote you last yearseeking some kind of recognition that many things went horribly criminal for many American soldiers and Iraqis, you did not deign to reply, as you did not deign to reply to Cindy Sheehan, who lost her son, Casey, in Iraq. As you said, “the interesting thing about being the president” is that you “don’t feel like [you] owe anybody an explanation.” As a former President, nothing has changed as you make very lucrative speeches before business groups and, remarkably, ask Americans for money to support your “continued work in public service.” Pollsters have said that they believe a majority of Iraqis would say that life today is worse for them than under the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. They would also say George W. Bush left Iraq worse off than when he entered it, despite the U.S. led sanctions prior to 2003 that took so many lives of Iraqi children and damaged the health of so many civilian families. Your national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, said publically in 2012 that while “the arc of history” may well turn out better for post-invasion Iraq than the present day violent chaos, she did “take personal responsibility” for the casualties and the wreckage. Do you? Can you, at the very least, publically urge the federal government to admit more civilian Iraqis, who served in the U.S. military occupation, to this country to escape the retaliation that has been visited on their similarly-situated colleagues? Isn’t that the minimum you can do to very slightly lessen the multiple, massive blowbacks that your reckless military policies have caused? It was your own anti-terrorism White House adviser, Richard Clarke, who wrote in his book, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror, soon after leaving his post, that the U.S. played right into Osama bin Laden’s hands by invading Iraq. Are you privately pondering what your invasion of Iraq did to the Iraqis and American military families, the economy and to the spread of al-Qaeda attacks in numerous countries? Sincerely yours, Ralph Nader P.S. I am enclosing as a contribution in kind to your presidential center library the book Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions by Clyde Prestowitz (2003) whom I’m sure you know. Note the positive remark on the back cover by General Wesley Clark.  follow on Twitter | friend on Facebook | forward to a friend  Copyright © 2014 Nader.Org, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in at our website. Our mailing address is: Nader.Org P.O. Box 19367 Washington, DC 20036 Add us to your address book  unsubscribe from this list | update subscription preferences

A Song of Life

I think a human being is like all the substances of life. Time can tear down. One is always competing against nature's cruel indifference. The tough stuff that happens can eat at you year after year after year and if you are not made of strong and smart stuff to survive you falter like Sisyphus, punished for his human frailty, trying to push that boulder up the hill. It becomes ultimately impossible and you just succumb to the forces of nature against you. I think that is an apt metaphor not only for me but for many of those for whom the advantages in life did not always fall their way.

Yes, life is hard. For some it is extremely hard and it takes its toll. BUT the human spirit is resilient and creative. One can lead that "purpose driven life" said by Pastor Rick Warren -- a person who is most definitely NOT my political ally but nonetheless has some worthy thoughts to consider.

I am prodded to ultimately leave behind good works and words; deeds and thoughts that count to make the lives of others better and to know they are not alone.

I am reminded of Don McLean's song: "Vincent" pasted here and at the link. I always loved that song as it spoke to me - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dipFMJckZOM. It may speak to you too.

Darrell Isa and the Republicons – Faux Outrage on the Right

I enclose here or below the NYT investigatory report entitled: 

"New York Times Benghazi Investigation Confirms Paper's Early Reporting On Video's Role" 

The article confirms the original statement on a TV news show by the administration's UN representative, Susan Rice, for which she was pilloried by Republicans. She said that the video released by a right wingnut Christian religious fanatic against the Muslim's holy Prophet was the rationale behind the embassy explosion.

Like everything, all House Oversight Committee Chair Darrell Isa and the Republicons can do is express faux outrage milking anything they can to indict and even impeach the president. Isa has WASTED MILLIONS on fake investigations that turn up NOTHING. From Fast and Furious, to the IRS NON scandal scandal to the Benghazi bombing they can find not a SHRED of evidence to even hint of executive culpability. Why? There is NONE.

Did Isa and the Republicans kvetch when Bush led the nation into a phony war killing thousands of Iraqis and Americans in the now even more explosive Middle East? Answer: OF COURSE NOT. But if it is against this president he will not hesitate to "investigate" even IF it is over nothing and abig time waste of tax payer money about which the Republicons are allegedly so concerned.

An FYI: Russia just suffered TWO successive suicide bombings killing two dozen. Point: It is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to protect against every fanatical suicide bomber who thinks that God is on his/her side. Free speech prevails in this nation even for a murderous Christian right wing religious fanatic who, too, thinks God is on HIS side and knows the violent response his blasphemy-to-Muslims film will provoke.

Ambassador Stephen's death was a tragedy no doubt but he knew it was a most dangerous position in which he placed himself. Give the president a break. He understands exactly what he is doing unlike most other Republicon presidents and Vice-Presidents who drag this nation into phony wars costing trillions!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/29/new-york-times-benghazi-investigation-video_n_4515646.html

An Open Letter to the Makers of The Wolf of Wall Street, and the Wolf Himself--A review by one who knows!

The latest movie craze: "The Wolf of Wall Street" with Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah (Moneyball the movie) Hill feeds into our fascination with Wall Street greed and those who milk the system for billions even trillions and get away with it leaving the innocent holding the poorhouse bag.

For those who are thinking of seeing the film or for those who have already seen it I thought you might find this piece in LAWeekly interesting. It is written by one who would know a thing or two about it, the daughter of the "hero" of the film.

Truth is ALWAYS more interesting than fiction.

Here or http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2013/12/wolf_of_wall_street_prousalis.php?

The Spirit of Christmas

It is more important than ever to keep Congress and the Presidency in Democratic hands. The presidential opposition's obstructionist vilification will kill human dignity and human rights. Therefore, they will kill most of us.

It is to this end, the dedication of the rest of my life will be, to work for humanitarian causes within the only structural non-violent vehicle that is available to us today. For now, it is solely within the Democratic Party.

Yes, Christmas is for turning the other cheek BUT be mindful of those on the opposite side of the isle who every time we turn our cheek are sure to slap the other also. NO COMPROMISE, NO FALTERING, NO FAILING and NO CAPITULATION to bigotry of any sort.

And oh, yes, it is the responsibility of the collective many, i.e., our government, to help the poor especially when it was at the hands of the very very rich who ensured their poverty while those billionaires walked away with bonuses for doing it. No goods were created by the fraud of the 2% but it made them humongously rich while ensuring economic quicksand for everyone else.

The shoe must now be on the other foot. Make the top 2% pay by electing Democrats who would close the mile high tax loopholes the top 2% enjoy. Regulate Wall Street to the heights of Everest and jail those who abuse the laws concerning it. We must be an advocate for our neediest. That is, indeed, the spirit of Christmas!!

Happy holidays to all!

"The Federal Reserve was created 100 years ago. This is how it happened."

The title was taken from the Washington Post article by Neal Irwin, December 21, 2013 in which said:

A century ago this week, Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act, creating a central bank for a nation that was only beginning its economic ascendance. This is the story of how it came to be, from a nearly catastrophic financial panic to secret meetings of plutocrats on the Georgia coast to the pitched battle in the halls of Congress, excerpted from The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire.

I take the following from the article verbatim and link its entirety here or below.  It is a interesting account albeit a historically debated one, which you can read at the link below.  For those who want to know why we are the economy we are one should know about the history of a central bank and the early 20th century creation of the Federal Reserve.  There is no other institution on planet earth that will have as much influence on your life and the life of your posterity as the Federal Reserve!  The author's article begins as follows:

The mustachioed man in the silk top hat strode to his private railcar parked at a New Jersey train station, a mahogany-paneled affair with velvet drapes and well-polished brass accents. Five more men — and a legion of porters and servants — soon joined him. They referred to one another by their first names only, an uncommon informality in 1910, intended to give the staff no hints as to who the men actually were, lest rumors make their way to the newspapers and then to the trading floors of New York and London. One of the men, a German immigrant named Paul Warburg, carried a borrowed shotgun in order to look like a duck hunter, despite having never drawn a bead on a waterfowl in his life.

Adapted from “The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire,” by Neil Irwin. Irwin, a Washington Post columnist and economics editor of Wonkblog, was the Post’s beat reporter covering the Federal Reserve and other central banks from 2007 to 2012. The book tells of how the central bankers came to exert vast power over the global economy, from their 17th century beginnings to the present, and tells the inside story of how they wielded that power from 2007 on as they fought a global financial crisis. Excerpted by permission of The Penguin Press, a member of the Penguin Group (USA), © Neil Irwin.Buy it from Amazon here.

Two days later, the car deposited the men at the small Georgia port town of Brunswick, where they boarded a boat for the final leg of their journey. Jekyll Island, their destination, was a private resort owned by the powerful banker J.P. Morgan and some friends, a refuge on the Atlantic where they could get away from the cold New York winter. Their host — the man in the silk top hat — was Nelson Aldrich, one of the most powerful senators of the day, a lawmaker who lorded over the nation’s financial matters.

For nine days, working all day and into the night, the six men debated how to reform the U.S. banking and monetary systems, trying to find a way to make this nation just finding its footing on the global stage less subject to the kinds of financial collapses that had seemingly been conquered in Western Europe. Secrecy was paramount. “Discovery,” wrote one attendee later, “simply must not happen, or else all our time and effort would have been wasted. If it were to be exposed publicly that our particular group had got together and written a banking bill, that bill would have no chance whatever of passage by Congress.”

For decades afterward, the most powerful men in American finance referred to one another as part of the “First Name Club.” Paul, Harry, Frank and the others were part of a small group that, in those nine days, invented the Federal Reserve System. Their task was more than administrative. Because the men at Jekyll Island weren't just trying to solve an economic problem — they were trying to solve a political problem as old as their republic.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/12/21/the-federal-reserve-was-created-100-years-ago-this-is-how-it-happened/

Neil Irwin's book "The Alchemists. " I provide at link to it here and below.  I have not read this book yet but I hope to.  It is summarized as follows 

When the first fissures became visible to the naked eye in August 2007, suddenly the most powerful men in the world were three men who were never elected to public office. They were the leaders of the world’s three most important central banks: Ben Bernanke of the U.S. Federal Reserve, Mervyn King of the Bank of England, and Jean-Claude Trichet of the European Central Bank. Over the next five years, they and their fellow central bankers deployed trillions of dollars, pounds and euros to contain the waves of panic that threatened to bring down the global financial system, moving on a scale and with a speed that had no precedent.

Neil Irwin’s The Alchemists is a gripping account of the most intense exercise in economic crisis management we’ve ever seen, a poker game in which the stakes have run into the trillions of dollars. The book begins in, of all places, Stockholm, Sweden, in the seventeenth century, where central banking had its rocky birth, and then progresses through a brisk but dazzling tutorial on how the central banker came to exert such vast influence over our world, from its troubled beginnings to the Age of Greenspan, bringing the reader into the present with a marvelous handle on how these figures and institutions became what they are – the possessors of extraordinary power over our collective fate.  What they chose to do with those powers is the heart of the story Irwin tells.

Irwin covered the Fed and other central banks from the earliest days of the crisis for the Washington Post, enjoying privileged access to leading central bankers and people close to them. His account, based on reporting that took place in 27 cities in 11 countries, is the holistic, truly global story of the central bankers’ role in the world economy we have been missing.  It is a landmark reckoning with central bankers and their power, with the great financial crisis of our time, and with the history of the relationship between capitalism and the state. Definitive, revelatory, and riveting, The Alchemists shows us where money comes from—and where it may well be going.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Alchemists-Three-Central-Bankers/dp/1594204624