"When government fears the people, there is liberty. When people fear the government, there is tyranny"
--Thomas Jefferson
On Monday September
30, 2013 two guests on C-Span’s Washington Journal were Norman
Ornstein (American Enterprise Institute) and Thomas Mann (Brookings
Institution) co-authors of “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks”. The congressional scholars were talking about
the gridlock in congress, particularly with the advent of the “Tea Party” in
2010.
This quote from their book seems to sum up the new
Republican Party that has been created by billionaires including the Koch
Brothers, DeVos Family and other ALEC members.
“The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics.
It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional
understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy
of its political opposition. When one party moves this far from the mainstream,
it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively
with the country’s challenges.”
In 2012 billionaires plowed
huge amounts into the campaigns and lost big; take for instance, Sheldon
Adelson, the casino mogul. Adelson was the single largest
money man of the 2012 cycle, spending more than $53 million on super PACs
bankrolling a Romney victory as well as funding Senate and House races.
All the Republicans he backed at
state level — Rabbi Shmuley Boteach in New Jersey, George Allen in Virginia, and Connie Mack in Florida, among them — lost. Add the casino billionaire’s primary
candidate of choice Newt Gingrich, who he backed to the tune of $20 million, to
his negative tally. And while $53
million may sound like quite a chunk of change, it’s not much for a guy worth
$20.5 billion.
Forty-two Forbes 400 list members
backed Mitt Romney through his Restore Our Future super PAC — or more than 10%
of the country’s richest. Between them, they spent over $33 million on
attempting to remove President Obama from the White House through that one
political committee alone.
These
billionaires through the Tea Party Republicans not only want to repeal the
Affordable Health Care Act, but they want to repeal the last election. These billionaires are saying “we lost the
election but this is how we can win it, shutting down the government and using
the debt ceiling negotiations to advance our agenda.”
Senators Ted Cruz
R-Texas and Mike Lee R-Utah are spearheading the government shutdown. Both of these Senators are Tea Party
members. Cruz had made it known he
intends to run for President even though he was not born in the United States.
This duo also
went to the House of Representatives and advised Tea Party members to defy
their leader, Boehner and demand the Tea Party agenda or shut down the
government. Boehner has caved to the Tea
Party demands in order to preserve his role as Speaker of the House. He has sold his soul and will regret it, he
is now owned by the billionaires.
These Tea Party
members call themselves, Tea Party Patriots.
Vice-President Henry Wallace said:
“They claim to be
super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the
Constitution. They demand free
enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their
deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of
the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common
man in eternal subjection”.
This is America’s future if we don’t stop them now.
After watching Ted Cruz, the junior Senator from Texas
and Tea Party favorite spend 21 hours blathering in a pointless fake filibuster
against a House Bill he supports, I had a flashback to Blazing Saddles. The only thing more ridiculous than Cruz’
inane filibuster threats were the idiots who supported this Quixotic effort, and
tried to make it sound like something brilliant and worthwhile, like Fox News.
Fox News originally stood with the sane element of the
Republican Party that Cruz’ effort was pointless because it didn’t accomplish
anything and tied up the business of the American people. But after being whipped into submission by
their financial backers, Fox’s anchors began trying to convince their viewers
that Cruz was a genius who was now the true leader in the Senate.
The bill that Cruz was trying to delay would temporarily
fund government functions for the next two and a half months but would de-fund
the Affordable Care Act. Cruz was just
laying the tracks for the crazy train to come, the debate on raising the debt
ceiling.
The debt ceiling needs to be raised for the U.S.
Treasury to pay for debts incurred from legislation already passed by congress. Economists of all
political persuasions have warned that a failure to raise the debt ceiling by
the Treasury’s deadline of Oct. 17 could be catastrophic.
The Republican Party is splintered between the partially
sane faction and the totally insane faction, the Tea Party.
After the Supreme Court ruling in Citizen’s United, ALEC members such as the billionaire Koch Brothers can now buy seats in congress for politicians like Cruz who will advance their agenda to destroy America.
The ALEC funded politicians
in the Republican party have now raised the ante for America and whether or not
we are good for our IOU’s. Behind closed
doors, House Republican leaders bowing to the Tea Party laid out their most recent demands for a
debt-ceiling increase.
Their demands now include a one-year delay of the health
care law, fast-track authority to overhaul the tax code, construction of the
Keystone XL oil pipeline, offshore oil and gas production, more permitting of
energy exploration on federal lands, a rollback of regulations on coal ash,
blocking new Environmental Protection Agency regulations on greenhouse gas
production, eliminating a $23 billion fund to ensure the orderly dissolution of
failed major banks, eliminating mandatory contributions to the new Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau, limits on medical malpractice lawsuits and an
increase in means testing for Medicare, among other provisions.
To understand what it would mean to America if these Tea Party demands were met, one need only look at Detroit.
According to “The Black Agenda Report” by BAR editor and senior
columnist Margaret Kimberley:
If one picture is worth 1,000 words, then the pile of
petroleum coke,petcoke, which sits along the DetroitRiver tells quite a
story. Beginning in November 2012, the Koch Carbon Company began dumping the
petcoke, which is a byproduct of tar sands oil production and also a cheap
fuel. Koch Carbon is owned by those Kochs, Charles and David, the incredibly
wealthy right wing industrialists who play a very public role in bringing union
busting Right to Work laws, Stand Your Ground, and other horrors to state
legislatures across the country.
The petcoke originates from tar sands oil in Alberta, Canada; it is later
refined by Marathon Petroleum and then purchased by the Koch Company.
Petcoke has been called thedirtiestof
dirty fuels because it emits more carbon dioxide than coal and contains more
metal and sulfur. As a byproduct it costs nothing to produce yet can be sold at
a high profit. Without seeking permits, with no public notification whatever,
Koch Carbon began dumping the petcoke last year and it isn’t hard to figure out
why Detroit was chosen as the
location.
Detroit as a sovereign
public entity no longer exists. It is completely powerless, having been taken
over by the “lords of capital” personified in this case
by emergency manager Kevyn Orr. There is quite literally no one in Detroit’s government with
the power to stand up to the Kochs, Orr, or to anyone else who can do the city
harm.
This is the Koch Brothers and their Tea Party politicians America. Is this the America you want?
In the early 1970’s I worked as Administrative Assistant for
the Director of Nursing for a non-profit Catholic owned hospital. At that time everyone had access to healthcare,
there were free clinics in every community that were staffed pro bono by
physicians and nurses and health insurance was provided by employers with no
premiums. Non-profit hospitals wrote off
a lot of the care they provided for the indigent.
With the dawn of HMO’s a new for-profit healthcare delivery
system was born. Throughout the United
States there were State and County run
hospitals that provided not-for-profit care for their citizens.
Where I worked the hospital staff was very close knit and by
and large had chosen the healthcare field because of their dedication and
compassion. In the early 1980’s nursing
personnel who came to work in the facility where I worked related horror
stories of the for-profit HMO hospitals practices.
I was told by nurses that had relocated to Wisconsin
from States where HMO’s had taken over, that HMO’s were notorious for refusing
care to uninsured patients. Once the HMO
determined there was no insurance coverage, the patients were loaded up on the
ambulance and re-routed to the nearest county or state owned hospitals. Many of the patients died on the way. Soon these stories became common place and
were reiterated on 60 Minutes.
According to an article in the Santa
ClaraUniversity
publication entitled, A Healthy Bottom Line: Profits
or People?ByClaire Andre and Manuel
Velasquez from 1988:
In AlamedaCounty, a private
hospital turned away a woman in labor because the hospital's computer showed
that she didn't have insurance. Hours later, her baby was born dead in a county
hospital.
In San Bernardino, a hospital
surgeon sent a patient who had been stabbed in the heart to a county medical
center after examining him and declaring his condition stable. The patient
arrived at the county medical center moribund, suffered a cardiac arrest, and
died.
These two hospitals shifted these patients to
county facilities not for medical reasons, but for economic ones -- the
receiving hospitals feared they wouldn't be paid for treating the patient.
These patients simply weren't "good business."
It
took the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) of 1986 to
require hospitals to provide care to anyone needing emergency healthcare
treatment regardless of citizenship, legal status or ability to pay to rein in
HMO’s.
Under
Ronald Reagan, the American Medical Association, a for profit Association that
has fought against universal healthcare since its inception was given a free
ticket to set up reimbursement codes for care provided to Medicare patients.
The
AMA produced a billing system for reimbursement of Medicare costs called
Diagnosis Related Groupings (DRG’s).
With DRG’s all patient care was broken down into each part of care that
was provided. For instance, instead of a
patient being charged for an appendectomy, the patient was charged for a
surgeon, an anesthetist, for each stitch, for each operating room technician,
surgery suite etc. There was a set
reimbursement rate. If the patient
acquired a hospital borne infection they had to be rediagnosed and each part of
the care was re-coded and Medicare was billed accordingly.
The
AMA proclaimed they had proprietary rights to the Medicare reimbursement codes
and every time their codes were used they received a kickback for the use of
their billing codes. To receive
reimbursement for care provided it was required by law to use the AMA codes,
thus a costly Medical payment monopoly was constructed.
For
instance:
*Doctor for appendectomy $5,000 x 20% for
AMA code = $1,000 total cost $6,000
Surgical Suite cost $500 x 20% for AMA
billing code = $100 total cost $600
*These
figures are hypothetical but you get the picture, the AMA received a percentage
of the medical expenses just for inventing the reimbursement codes.
And
on it went. That was why Medicare is
going broke. Laughably the AMA kickback
billing scam is called “Fee For Service”.
It is really a mafia type scam that was codified into law under Reagan
and exists today.
So
when Obamacare was cooked up by the insurance companies it was heavily weighted
to ensure not only insurance company profits for those at the top, it also
preserved the AMA kickback billing scam.
While,
there are some enhancements to patient care under Obamacare, like preexisting
conditions and keeping children on your policy till they are 26, the parasitic
parts of the for profit healthcare are codified into law. While it is marginally better than the system
we have now, the Obamacare system requires citizens to purchase insurance from
insurance companies through a tiered program that appears to have different
types of care depending on what you can afford.
There
is bronze, silver, gold and platinum coverage for sale. If you cannot afford to buy insurance from
the insurance companies participating in the Obamacare scam, depending on where
you live and your circumstances, money from the U.S. Treasury will be routed directly
to the insurance providers to pay for your care. It appears the more expensive plans have
lower deductibles and co-pays. If you
are in a State like Wisconsin where the Republican Governor refuses to expand Medicaid,
you may not qualify for any coverage at all.
When
politicians say nothing has been done to drive down the cost of insurance in
the U.S. they are correct, the AMA and insurance industry and Wall
Street are the biggest winners of the insurance scam and the American people
are the biggest losers.
No
industrialized country in the world has a for profit insurance system that
ensures profits, they have no insurance companies involved at all.
But
on the bright side, Obamacare seems unworkable as is and if changes are made,
maybe it will become a system closer to universal healthcare. Home Depot, Cleveland Clinic and others are
dumping their coverage for families of their employees, and maybe that will
force politicians to act in the interest of their nation and people and not
Wall Street health related profits.
This
may turn out OK in the end; we have to see what’s in it first. Republicans say it must be stopped because if
people start getting subsidies and care they won’t want to give it up. That alone gives hope.
The U.S. Congress who are funded by Wall Street
Banks are now using the Debt Ceiling to place primacy of Treasury debt owed to
Wall Street Banks and the Federal Reserve over Treasury debt owed to the
American People. Our Treasury Bonds
should have primacy over Treasury Bonds owned by crooked Wall Street Banks.
When congress says the Social Security funds are a
bunch of IOU’s, well so are the funds owed China, Japan and Wall Street, but congress
doesn’t tell China to pound sand.
The debt ceiling is nothing new; it was statutorily
imposed and has been in effect since 1917. Before 1917 there was no debt
ceiling in force. Isn’t that odd, that there would be a ceiling on the U.S.
Treasury borrowing after the 1913 establishment of the Federal Reserve Bank?
The United States has held public debt since the
U.S. Constitution legally went into effect on March 4,
1789. From 1796 to 1811 there were 14 budget
surpluses and 2 deficits. There was a
sharp increase in the debt as a result of the War of 1812. In the 20 years following that war there were
18 surpluses.
The federal government actually paid off its debt
entirely in January 1835 only to begin accruing debt anew by 1836 when the debt
was $37,000. Another sharp increase in the debt occurred as a result of
theCivil War. The debt was $65 million in
1860, but passed $1 billion in 1863 and reached $2.7 billion by the
end of the war. During the following 47
years prior to the Federal Reserve, there were 36 surpluses and 11 deficits.
During this period 55% of the national debt was paid off.
Secret meetings to develop the Federal Reserve Bank began in
November 1910. A meeting of a handful of
rich political bankers met at a private resort on Jekyll Island, Georgia and secretly drew up a framework for the
nation’s new banking system owned by extremely wealthy European banking
families. While the Fed would handle
government debt, it would be a private institution. TheU.S. Treasurywould have a seat on the board, but would
exercise no further oversight.
The Federal Reserve would be privately owned by a for-profit
corporation, with no reserves and would pay no taxes on the trillions of
dollars it would make.
According
to WordPress.Com:
The Federal Reserve was chartered by an act of deceit, by
an act of congress when most of congress had gone home for Christmas holiday on
December 23rd 1913. The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 passed the house, but was
having difficulty getting through the senate.
No recess had been called, most senators had gone home, yet
three senators passed the act with a unanimous voice vote. There was no
objection. If there had been one person present in the absence of a quorum, the
bill would not have been passed.
In 1923, Representative Charles A. Lindbergh, a Republican
from Minnesota, and father of
the famous aviator Lucky Lindberg stated. “The financial system has been turned
over to the Federal Reserve Board. That board administers the finance system by
authority of a purely profiteering group. The system is private, conducted for
the sole purpose of obtaining the greatest possible profits from the use of other
people’s money.
Former chairman of the House Banking and Currency
Committee, during the great depression era, Louis T. McFadden in 1932 stated,
“We have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has
ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board. This evil institution has
impoverished the people of the United States and has
practically bankrupted our Government. It has done this through the corrupt
practices of the moneyed vultures who control it.”
Even Ben Bernanke admitted, it was none other than the Federal Reserve that caused the
Great Depression and the horrific suffering, deprivation and dislocation America and the world experienced in its wake.
According to Rense.Com:
On June 4, 1963,
a little known attempt was made to strip the Federal Reserve Bank of its power
to loan money to the government at interest. On that day President John F.
Kennedy signed Executive Order No. 11110 that returned to the U.S.
government the power to issue currency, without going through the Federal
Reserve.
Mr. Kennedy's order gave the Treasury the power "to
issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard
silver dollars in the Treasury." This meant that for every ounce of silver
in the U.S. Treasury's vault, the government could introduce new money into circulation.
In all, Kennedy brought nearly $4.3 billion in U.S.
notes into circulation. The ramifications of this bill are enormous.
With the stroke of a pen, Mr. Kennedy was on his way to
putting the Federal Reserve Bank of New York
out of business. If enough of these silver certificates were to come into
circulation they would have eliminated the demand for Federal Reserve notes.
This is because the silver certificates are backed by silver and the Federal
Reserve notes are not backed by anything.
After Mr. Kennedy was
assassinated just five months later, no more silver certificates were issued.
The Executive Order was never repealed by any U.S. President through an
Executive Order and is still valid.
In 1993, President Clinton and Vice President Gore launched their economic
strategy: (1) establishing fiscal discipline, eliminating the budget deficit,
keeping interest rates low, and spurring private-sector investment; (2)
investing in people through education, training, science, and research; and (3)
opening foreign markets so American workers can compete abroad. After eight
years, the results of President Clinton’s economic leadership are clear. Record
budget deficits have become record surpluses, 22 million new jobs have been
created, unemployment and core inflation are at their lowest levels in more
than 30 years, and America
is in the midst of the longest economic expansion in our history.
Yes, in 1992 after 12 years of
Republican rule, 10 million Americans were unemployed, the country faced record
deficits, and poverty and welfare rolls were growing. Family incomes were
losing ground to inflation and jobs were being created at the slowest rate
since the Great Depression. I remember it well. The Republicans hated Clinton and did everything possible to impeach
him. They pushed for war against Iraq, they ginned up the “Moral Majority”,
they voted against tax increases. Bill
Clinton passed a balanced budget without one Republican vote. Alan Greenspan at the Fed did
everything possible to slow down the economy but the Clinton boom went on. More Americans became stock holders, more
Americans had 401K’s, retirement funds, more college graduates, more everything
good and everything American. The
Federal Reserve became an insignificant background noise. Clinton was impeached but the American people
wouldn’t stand for his removal.
Debt held by
the publicincludes
Treasury securities held by investors outside the federal government, including
that held by individuals, corporations, theFEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM and foreign, state and
local governments.
Debt held by
government accounts or intra-governmental debtincludes non-marketable Treasury securities held in
accounts administered by the federal government that are owed to program beneficiaries, such as theSocial Security Trust Fund.Debt held by government accounts represents
the cumulative surpluses, including interest earnings, of these accounts that
have been invested in Treasury securities.
Did you get that?
Debt held by government accounts that are owed to program
beneficiaries, such as Social Security Trust Fund. Monies owed to the Social Security Program
have equal parity with those monies owed to China, foreigners and the Federal
Reserve.
That is to say, that the government debt that is
owed to Social Security Trust Fund are surplus funds that were invested in
Treasury Securities that is owed to the American people plus interest on those
securities. The Debt owed to the
American people MUST have priority over Wall Street Banks and the Federal
Reserve.
The Federal Reserve is responsible for printing up
over $43 trillion dollars to bail out banks.
Their 100 year charter ends in
December 2013. Americans have lost their homes, their jobs, public education, cities are bankrupt, and we are in the worst depression since the great depression.
Time to end the Federal
Reserve and take America back. Wall Street bankers cared less about
bankrupting the country, their bonuses were insured by the Federal
Reserve. Let them take the hit this time. The banks are criminal
enterprises and need to be cut loose.
End the Fed.
When
World War II brought industrialized nations into combat on an unprecedented
scale, it was important to keep a steady supply of food and munitions coming to
its soldiers. Morale and efficiency of
troops were directly related to good food and nutrition. For that reason, food rations provided to
American soldiers were monitored by the Army Medical Corps to ensure
superiority of the supplies to American troops over that of German or Japanese
troops.
There
was significant cost and difficulty in supplying a fresh supply of food and
beverages to the front line. According
to the US Army, American soldiers consumed about nine million pounds of food
daily. Large amounts of food had to be
brought to the battlefront which would be nutrient rich, in eatable condition,
and available quickly.
The
American soldier's ration was made up of easily mass produced, canned, and
shipped goods such as beans, packaged meats and vegetables, soluble fruit
drinks, chewing gum, and cigarettes. American
soldier’s rations were processed and not freshly made but the availability of
genuine vitamin-rich foods was taken seriously as a matter of national security.
The
Germans and Italians had trouble supporting their troops and munitions workers
with food in the same way. The Germans
were largely dependent on domestic food resources which, while enough to
survive on, could not provide both soldiers and munitions workers with enough
nutrients to remain at full efficiency.
As a
result, the Germans suffered a loss in the supply of food and munitions due to
worker malnourishment while the Americans were able to provide for the Allies.
Well-fed and nourished soldiers and workers had a distinct advantage over
their malnourished counterparts; this was the clear advantage that the United States brought to the Allies.
The school lunch program
was started in 1946 by President Harry S. Truman. A study revealed that many young men had been
rejected from service in World War II due to medical conditions caused by
childhood malnutrition. After its inception in 1946, the school lunches served
more than 180 million lunches to American children attending public school or
private non-profit schools.
In 1966, President Lyndon
Johnson expanded the nutritional program to include breakfast for school
children. Many children had to skip
breakfast because the poorer families could not afford to feed their children
breakfast. Educators realized that
hunger was linked to poor performance in school and by 1975 breakfast was offered
to children in public or non-profit private schools.
In 1968, a summer meals
programs was offered to low income children.
The Summer Food Service Program operates
in low-income areas where half or more of the children are from households with
income at or below 185 percent of the Federal poverty guideline. Residential
and non residential camps also may get reimbursement for eligible children
through the SFSP.
In 1972
the Congregate Nutrition Services was established and in 1978 the
Home-Delivered Nutrition Services was established to provide nutrition services
to the elderly. Services were provided
to facilities such as senior centers or by home-delivery to older individuals
who are homebound due to illness, disability or geographic isolation. The elderly nutrition programs ensured people
could remain in their homes and saved the government money.
While
the school lunch program was placed under the Department of Agriculture to
ensure a market for surplus food, it really should have been under the
Department of Health and Human Services.
So the United States has a long history of recognizing the importance of
nutrition for its entire people as a matter of strength and national security,
not to mention compassion for its citizens.
Now fast forward to
2013. From The Atlantic Wire:
House
Republicans Vote to Cut $39 Billion From Food Stamps
The House passed a bill on Thursday that would cutas many as
3.8 million Americansfrom
food stamps, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The cuts would
come from a combination of ending state waivers for able-bodied, unemployed
adults, and from tightened eligibility requirements. Currently, experts
estimate that 48 million Americans will participate in the program in
2014.
The vote was
close, at 217-210, with 15 Republicans siding with every Democrat in the
House against the bill. Using2012 data from the U.S. Census Bureau, we
calculated how many households in each member's district received food stamp
assistance last year comparing that to how they voted.
It should be noted that Eric Cantor's wife, Diana Cantor works for a private bank subsidiary that bills itself as a "haven for wealthy individuals and families."
That’s right folks,
Republicans are too stupid to understand the dangers of a sick, malnourished
populace. The Republicans stripped the
nutrition funds from the Farm Bill, but kept
their personal farm subsidies in tact.
So while Republicans are
cutting food stamps at a time when real unemployment is around 18-20% they are
rolling in farm subsidies. Examples:
Congressman Stephen Fincher (R-TN) wants to cut food stamps, a lot. He quotes the Bible from the House floor saying the poor deserve to
starve, and said the government should not steal “other people’s money.” As a wealthy Tennessee farmer, he personally collected$3.5 millionin federal farm subsidies over the
past decade.
Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) LaMalfa's family rice farm has received
more than$5 million in
commodity subsidiessince
1995.He said helping the poor should be the job of individuals or the church
because then "it comes from the heart, not from a badge or from a
mandate." Farm subsidies? Apparently that's different.
Rep.
Frank Lucas (R-OK), an
Oklahoma Republican, benefited indirectly through payments to his wife, Lynda,
who received $14,584 in disaster payments last year, the group found. He sits
on the House Agriculture Committee.
Rep.
Mac Thornberry (R-TX) , a Texas Republican and one-third owner of
Thornberry Brothers farm, received $9,181 in 2012 in direct and disaster aid
payments.
And there are many, many more congressional members with their “snouts
in the taxpayer trough” as Americans die of illness and
starvation to balance the budget.
Remember the lesson
Truman learned from World War II: Morale and
efficiency of troops were directly related to good food and nutrition.
Thanks for the M.R.E.'s by Paul Krugman
A few days ago I talked to a soldier just back from Iraq. He'd been in a
relatively calm area; his main complaint was about food. Four months after the
fall of Baghdad, his unit was
still eating the dreaded M.R.E.'s: meals ready to eat. When Italian troops
moved into the area, their food was "way more realistic" — and
American troops were soon trading whatever they could for some of that Italian
food.
Other stories are far worse. Letters
published in Stars and Stripes and e-mail published on the Website of Col.
David Hackworth (a decorated veteran and Pentagon critic) describe shortages of
water. One writer reported that in his unit, "each soldier is limited to
two 1.5-liter bottles a day," and that inadequate water rations were
leading to "heat casualties." An American soldier died of heat stroke
on Saturday; are poor supply and living conditions one reason why U.S. troops in Iraq are suffering
such a high rate of noncombat deaths?
So, the Republicans continue their war on
the American people. What is it they
hope to win? A sick, malnourished,
under educated, unemployed nation is not a nation of strength. America is worth the investment in its people.
After Vladimir Putin wrote an o-ed in the New York Times
reaching out to the American people after their rejection of bombing Syria
to teach President Assad a lesson, America’s
ruling class was outraged. In President
Putin’s opinion piece, he warned of the danger in promoting the idea that a
nation’s people are exceptional.
“My working and personal relationship with
President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully
studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with
a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United
States’ policy is “what makes America
different. It’s what makes us exceptional.”
It is extremely dangerous to encourage
people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big
countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic
traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies
differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we
must not forget that God created us equal.
After,
Putin’s Op-Ed, Senator John McCain R-Arizona appeared
on Jake Tapper's "The Lead"
and when asked what he thought about Putin's Op-Ed in the NY Times McCain
stated he would like to write on op-ed for Pravda. McCain who had been
pushing for American intervention in the Syrian civil war, supports not only
bombing Syria, but arming the rebels with heavy artillery to overthrow
the Syrian government.
What really struck a chord with McCain was that Putin was able to write an op-ed to reach out directly to the American People in an American newspaper.
Shortly after McCain joked about writing an op-ed in
Pravda which is one of the oldest Russian newspapers founded 1912, the editors of Pravda told a blog
affiliated with Foreign Policy magazinethey’d be happy to consider an op-ed
submission by the senator.
An op-ed article McCain has written was published in Pravda.RU
which was founded in 1999. Even though the website also bears the name Pravda, it
is not connected to Pravda newspaper.
So, anyway let’s take a look at McCain’s op-ed. While Putin’s op-ed centered on
the American government’s foreign policy, McCain’s op-ed was a sophomoric
attack on Putin personally, and talks down to the Russian people as if they are
removed from events in the United States and the World.
Let’s look at the The Daily Beast’s Headline,“McCain Blasts Putin in Pravda: He’s Made Russia a ‘Friend to Tyrants’.
The title alone looks like something one would expect from a
Pravda-esque newspaper, not an American Free Press newspaper. Talk about cheerleading.
So let’s get into the nuts and bolts of McCain’s Op-Ed
according to the Daily Beast.
Sen. John McCain lambasts Russian President Vladimir
Putin in anop-ed published on the Russian news site Pravdaon Thursday, calling him a corrupt autocrat who
suppresses democracy, political dissent, and economic progress to maintain his
iron grip on power.
Sheesh, sounds like the Republican Party, "suppresses
democracy, political dissent and economic progress to maintain his iron grip on
power". Just one example of
Republican’s doing the same thing would be cutting food stamps for poor,
working class, children and disabled veterans.
In an appearance on “Morning Joe” the following statement
was made by Senator Tom Vilsack D-Iowa with regard to SNAP (Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program):
VILSACK: I should point out
that when you talk about the SNAP program, or the food stamp program, you have
to recognize that it's also an economic stimulus. Every dollar of SNAP benefits
generates $1.84 in the economy in terms of economic activity. If people are
able to buy a little bit more in the grocery store, then someone has got to
stock it, shelve it, package it, process it, ship it. All of those are jobs.
It's the most direct stimulus you can get into the economy during tough times.
Well, head for the fainting couches, America’s Pravda, Fox News and affiliates were
all in a tizzy.
From Glenn Beck:
Beck:
The Administration Has The Ability To "Jedi Mind Trick" Almost Every
American.On the
August 17 broadcast of Premiere Radio Networks'The
Glenn Beck Program, host Glenn Beck suggested that President Obama
must be using a "Jedi mind trick" to convince Americans that food
stamps stimulate the economy, referring to Vilsack's comment.
As Don Imus calls it Fox and Fiends:
CARLSON: Let's talk about
a new stimulus program that maybe you didn't know about. Did you know that the
food stamp program in America is actually an economic
stimulus? We have spent more on food stamp program [sic] in the last couple of
years than ever before in American history. More and more people are,
unfortunately, using this program. But the spin of this program now is that
actually people who are on food stamps stimulate the economy because every
dollar generates $1.84 into the economy. You buy more groceries if you're on
food stamps. Do you buy that? Do you buy that as a stimulating part of the
economy? Well, I know that the Secretary of Agriculture does, Tom Vilsack said
this.
BRIAN KILMEADE (co-host):
So if you give people money that they didn't earn, and you tell them to go
spend it on stuff they normally couldn't afford, everyone is better off.
ERIC BOLLING (guest
host): Can I say something very quickly? Jay Carney earlier this week or last
week came out and said unemployment benefits are stimulus as well. This is --
this is an administration that just doesn't get it. It's really -- it's
socialism. They're pointing right to being socialist. The more you give, the
more you stimulate? No. Sorry. It's got to come from the private sector. [Fox
News,Fox & Friends,8/17/11, viaMedia
Matters]
Back to McCain’s Op-ed:
In the op-ed,
titled "Russians deserve better than Putin," McCain claimed he's
"more pro-Russian" than the country's own leaders.
"I make
that claim because I respect your dignity and your right to
self-determination," he wrote. "I believe you should live according
to the dictates of your conscience, not your government. I believe you deserve
the opportunity to improve your lives in an economy that is built to last and
benefits the many, not just the powerful few."
The ranks of the world's billionaires have yet again
reached all-time highs, both in terms of the number of billionaires (1,426) and
record net worth ($5.4 trillion). The United States still has more
billionaires than any other country, but once again the world's richest person
comes from outside its borders.
“35% of U.S. households live
on $35,000 or less. The hope of making it into the middle class for this
group is getting tougher and more financially challenging”
“The
international Gini index, found U.S. income
inequality at its highest level since the Census Bureau began tracking
household income in 1967. The U.S. also has the
greatest disparity among Western industrialized nations.” The most
striking number in today’s U.S. Census Bureaureport on poverty isn’t even about poverty. It’s about
middle-class, working America. According to
the Census Bureau, American men who work full-time, year-round earned less in
real terms in 2012 than they did in 1973.
"(Putin) is not enhancing Russia's global reputation. He is destroying it.
He has made her a friend to tyrants and an enemy to the oppressed, and
untrusted by nations that seek to build a safer, more peaceful and prosperous
world," wrote the senior senator from Arizona, who is also a leading Republican voice
on military affairs.
“In public opinion polls conducted in
21 countries following the re-election of George W. Bush, majorities in 16 of
the 21 countries view Bush's re-election as negative for world peace and
security.
The most negative overall opinions were
recorded in Western
Europe, Latin America, and Islamic countries. Nearly half of
those surveyed now view the U.S. influence in the world as mostly
negative.”
McCain - "President Putin and his
associates ... don't respect your dignity or accept your authority over them.
They punish dissent and imprison opponents. They rig your elections. They
control your media," McCain wrote.
2000 election:
In the early morning hours of November 8, Fox News Channel
declared that the pivotal state of Florida had gone for
George W. Bush. At 2:16 a.m. Fox announced
that the Texas governor had won
the state, thus securing the 271 electoral votes needed to win the presidential
election. The other television networks followed suit in a matter of minutes.
The call was subsequently withdrawn, and to date the Florida outcome remains
undecided.
The individual responsible for recommending that Fox call Florida for Bush was John
Ellis, who led the network's decision desk. Ellis was not a disinterested party
in the presidential election, but the first cousin of the Republican candidate
and his brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush.
"It's not the people who vote that count. It's the
people who count the votes." (Josef Stalin)
McCain - “To perpetuate their power
they foster rampant corruption in your courts and your economy and terrorize
and even assassinate journalists who try to expose their corruption."
U.S. courts:
The Supreme Court
by a 5-4 vote allowed unlimited political spending by corporations, striking
down much of the McCain-Feingold campaign reform act.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a key part of the
Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Civil rights activists called the decision devastating, and
a dissenting justice said it amounted to the “demolition” of the law, widely
considered the most important piece of civil rights legislation in American
history.
U.S. journalists:
According to The New York Times, the
Obama administration has waged the most aggressive campaign against
whistleblowers in U.S.
history, responsible for six of the nine total indictments ever brought under
the 1917 Espionage Act.
McCain - "They write laws to codify bigotry
against people whose sexual orientation they condemn. They throw the members of
a punk rock band in jail for the crime of being provocative and vulgar and for
having the audacity to protest President Putin's rule," he said.
The Supreme Court Justices denied the government's
petition in Federal Communications Commission v. CBS to review a lower court's
decision that the hefty penalty for the brief moment when cameras caught
Jackson's accidentally exposed breast constituted an unlawfully arbitrary
departure from the FCC's prior policy of looking the other way when network
censors failed to catch fleeting expletives.
"We have to remember who Putin is," McCain said.
"He's a KGB colonel apparatchik, who has never abandoned the Russian
ambitions for an empire, and influence in the world." Some day, maybe McCain will come out of his ivory tower and see the America we live in.
Well, for what it’s worth, a tit for a tat, Putin 1 McCain 0.
