Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Freedom Caucus: Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose



The Freedom Caucus is only about 40 members strong, yet heavily funded by the Koch Brothers.  Their members are in lockstep obeying every command of their financial backers and look more like the Manson Family than politicians.  Donald Trump’s enemies within are the GOP establishment, i.e. Paul Ryan and Mike Pence.  We are already living in the hell that was brought to the American people by the unholy alliance of the DNC and RNC.  That hell is our new found freedom that is we, the American people have nothing left to lose.


America is not broke, we’ve been robbed.  Since the year 2000 Americans have lost their homes, their jobs, their education system, their airwaves, their bank accounts, their health and their safety all the result of the actions of congress in the name of preserving freedom.  The budget that was presented to President Trump by his GOP-selected Director of Management and Budget, Mick Mulvaney slashes programs for the middle class and lower class while engorging the military industrial complex.  From Politico:

Excerpt:

Mulvaney justifies budget: We can't ask a coal miner to pay for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting

As they fleshed out the budget blueprint released Thursday morning by the White House, Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney said officials from the administration of President Donald Trump asked themselves: Can we ask the taxpayer to pay for this?

For a dramatic uptick in military funding, Mulvaney said, the answer was yes. For a wide array of domestic programs, it turns out, the answer was no.  Trump’s budget, which Mulvaney said was assembled in part by examining excerpts from the president’s speeches and media interviews, delivers on his campaign promise to build up the military, designating an additional $54 billion in defense spending…


And asked about cuts to educational programs, including aid to low-income students, teacher training and after-school and summer programs, Mulvaney said that they, by and large, are ineffective and cannot justify their existence.

“A lot of those programs that we target, they sound great, don't they? They always do. We don't put a bad name on a program. Programs are always wonderful. It’s always small business or whatever. They don't work. A lot of them simply don't work,” he said. “I can't justify them to the folks who are paying the taxes. I can't go to the autoworker in Ohio and say ‘please give me some of your money so that I can do this program over here, someplace else that really isn't helping anybody. I can ask them to help pay for defense. But I can’t do it anymore. I can’t go to them and say ‘I need your money to go help this program.’”

Ah yes, Mulvaney can’t ask the taxpayers to fund Meals on Wheels for the elderly or after school programs or to fund combating the opioid epidemic but he can ask them to plow more and more money into the Military Industrial Complex that funds his congressional campaigns. 

This GOP budget comes on the heels of a report by the ActivistPost that over a period of twenty years, the Pentagon cannot account for $10 trillion dollars. 

Excerpt:

$10 Trillion Missing From Pentagon And No One — Not Even The DoD — Knows Where It Is

Over a mere two decades, the Pentagon lost track of a mind-numbing $10 trillion — that’s trillion, with a fat, taxpayer-funded “T” — and no one, not even the Department of Defense, knows where it went or on what it was spent.

Even though audits of all federal agencies became mandatory in 1996, the Pentagon has apparently made itself an exception, and — fully 20 years later — stands obstinately orotund in never having complied.

Because, as defense officials insist — summoning their best impudent adolescent — an audit would take too long and, unironically, cost too much.

“Over the last 20 years, the Pentagon has broken every promise to Congress about when an audit would be completed,” Rafael DeGennaro, director of Audit the Pentagon, told The Guardian recently. “Meanwhile, Congress has more than doubled the Pentagon’s budget.”

Worse, President Trump’s newly-proposed budget seeks to toss an additional $54 billion into the evidently bottomless pit that is the U.S. military  — more for interventionist policy, more for resource-plundering, more for proxy fighting, and, of course, more for jets and drones to drop more bombs suspiciously often on civilians.

Maybe.

Because, without the mandated audit, the DoD could be purchasing damned near anything, at any cost, and use, or give, it — to anyone, for any reason…

Astonishingly, the Pentagon’s own watchdog tacitly approves this technically-illegal workaround — and the legally-gray and, yes, literally, on-the-books-corrupt practices in tandem — to what would incontrovertibly be a most unpleasant audit, indeed.

Budget after budget has slashed money to fund programs that are designed to ensure the health, wealth and wellbeing of the American people to fund war the myriad of hogs at the trough that goes along with it.  And, what do we get for sacrificing the lives and future lives of our kids?  From Stephen Lendman:

Excerpt:

Lies and Coverup of US War Crimes in Syria and Iraq

Early in his administration, Trump is guilty of horrendous crimes of war and against humanity in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere - governing lawlessly like his predecessors, escalating aggression, not ending it.

Delegating authority for military operations to Defense Secretary Mattis, National Security Advisor McMaster, Joint Chiefs chairman Dunford and other Pentagon commanders doesn’t shift responsibility of the buck stopping with him on all administration policies, none more serious than waging war.

Civilians in harm’s way pay the greatest price in all US war theaters. Pentagon terror-bombing massacres them indiscriminately in Syria and Iraq, all targets considered legitimate ones, including residential neighborhoods, schools, hospitals, mosques with worshipers at prayer, and others.

Pentagon claims about taking great care to avoid or minimize civilian casualties are bald-faced lies. High crimes are either denied or blamed on others. So-called investigations when conducted are whitewashed to absolve US forces of accountability.

Most Americans have no idea about high crimes committed in their name, with their tax dollars, in all US war theaters because media scoundrels are part of the cover-up - either reporting nothing or sanitizing what’s ongoing…

Liberation isn’t the objective. Iraqi ground forces are as vicious as ISIS, shelling and killing their own people indiscriminately…  

America is the most vicious, unaccountable aggressor in world history, responsible for millions of casualties, civilians harmed most of all - directly from war, related violence, preventable diseases, starvation, displacement, along with overall deprivation and desperation…

Discussing military operations in Mosul, neocon/CIA-connected Washington Post editors lied, accusing Russian and Syrian forces of “deliberate(ly) bombing…civilian targets, including hospitals, food stores and aid convoys, at the cost of thousands of lives…

Fact: Russian and Syrian forces scrupulous try avoiding civilian casualties - why liberating Aleppo entirely from US-supported al-Nusra terrorists took so long.

Fact: No Russian or Syrian airstrikes targeted hospitals, aid convoys or other nonmilitary sites. Claims otherwise are Big Lies…

America’s permanent war agenda threatens humanity’s survival. Is catastrophic thermonuclear confrontation just a matter of time?

Everything the Bush and Obama Administrations told us that has allowed them to wage endless wars was a lie.  Now the Trump Administration is promoting the same bull shit to continue with their global savage pillaging.  The lies spread in the US about Russia are just that, lies.  From Paul CraigRoberts:

Excerpt:

Ukraine Annexed Crimea in the 1990s


Something else “our” government and its media whores did not tell us is that under the Crimean Constitution of 1992, Crimea existed as a legal, democratic, secular state. Crimea’s relationship with Ukraine was based on bilateral agreements. In 1995 Ukrainian special ops forces and Ukrainian Army troops invaded Crimea and annexed the territory.

The Autonomous Republic of Crimea was established by the 1991 All-Union Referendum in which 94% of Crimeans voted in favor of re-establishing their status as an autonomous republic. Crimeans repeated the vote in 2014 by an even higher percentage, and this time prevented another Ukrainian invasion by reuniting with Russia.

Why didn’t you know this? Why instead do you hear nothing but lies about a “Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea”?

Trillions and trillions of dollars, stolen from our schools, pensions, healthcare, wages and bank accounts to fund wars and what do we have to show for it?  From Black AgendaReport:

Excerpt:

U.S. Becomes Ungovernable, Elites Blame it on Russians

U.S. rulers are experiencing a “crisis of political governance, a meltdown of the political system,” due to the “collapse of the parties of the duopoly,” said Dr. Anthony Monteiro, the Philadelphia-based Duboisian scholar. The policies and practice of both parties “became antagonistic to the minimal expectations of the masses.”  

The elite didn’t see it coming,” said Monteiro. “In order to reestablish their legitimacy, they have to say that the Russians hacked the election and are threatening western ‘democracy,’ itself.” The real crisis is “their inability to govern the country.”

That is what “freedom” looks like, ungovernable.  When the 911 attacks took place, George W. Bush said “they hate us for our freedoms” and launched a wars on Iraq and Afghanistan.  The reason for the wars was to bring them freedom, now that they have nothing left to lose.  We overthrew the elected government of Ukraine, stole their gold and shipped it to the New York Federal Reserve Bank and installed a puppet regime to bring Ukraine freedom.  Now Ukrainians have nothing left to lose.  When Assad was reelected in Syria, we brought in terrorist rebels from other countries that we armed and trained to bring freedom to Syria.  They are now known as ISIS and Syrians have nothing left to lose. 

If the bar for success is “freedom” and freedom means nothing left to lose, than the more than $20 trillion stolen from our treasury to fund endless wars and hostile financial takeover of other countries, then the past Bush and Obama Administrations have been wildly successful.  Trump won by telling the American people he would end these senseless wars, he would negotiate drug prices, I would do everything to combat the heroin epidemic, he would end Obamacare for a national program that would cover everyone. 

According to Mick Mulvaney:  Trump’s budget was assembled in part by examining excerpts from the president’s speeches and media interviews, DELIVERS ON HIS CAMPAIGN PROMISE to build up the military, designating an additional $54 billion in defense spending.  Jebus, doesn’t even come close.  But there is one Fox News Host who is screaming out to Trump.  Janine Pirro:



Pirro is right it is time for Donald Trump to search for those people in congress that will work with him to ensure ALL Americans have healthcare, not insurance.  Make sure the people have jobs, good paying jobs that support families make sure these wars are ended to pay for infrastructure.  It’s time to address the opioid addiction foisted on the American people by the Afghan war and big pharma.  It’s time Mr. President listen to Janine Pirro.  We don’t want freedom if freedom means nothing left to lose.



By Patricia Baeten

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