Rick Santorum does a "Take Two" for Presidency Audition

Rick Santorum is the latest contestant from the Clown Car to step into the Presidential race.  He’s kind of another recycled moldy oldie.  How does Santorum ever think he can differentiate himself from the rest of the gaggle of geese running?  Santorum did say something about “standing up for the working man” and also critically mentioned “the influence of big money in government”.  We can hope.  But this is the guy who also made his kids participate in a funeral for a fetus.  Remember that?  How much absurdity can we take?  We shouldn’t even be talking about the President Campaign at this juncture.  It’s nearly a year and a half out from the Presidential race.  We should be discussing the functions of government, federal, state and local.   But that would be too much an overdose of reality.  Santorum gets more media play than Bernie Sanders did, even though Sanders is in double digits, and the bottom eight or ten candidates on the Republican side are in single digits.  So we get endless stories about the weather we never used to get.  There are seemingly minor police blotter stories punctuating even the national network news.   If there are “food deserts” there are also “media information deserts”.  (Selah)

Thom Hartman had a critique of FOX news watchers and concluded they were like PTSD or their brains are flooded with cortizol or something interfering with their higher brain thinking functions and are running strictly on fear and instinct being fed the constant stream of factual lies from FOX.   Just remember the major part that the Ebola threat played in delivering the Republican landslide of last year.  Then there was this default panic mode of “fight or flight” and once the elections were over with- - Ebola no longer seemed so darned important to the media.  There is a lie that the cop who killed the twelve year old boy with the toy gun- - that the boy was instructed three times to drop the weapon and put his hands in the air.  Videos of the scene reveal that less than two seconds elapsed between the cop stopping the car and the kid being killed.  Now FOX news is saying that in the cash for clunkers program- - that fifty thousand dollar trucks were routinely destroyed because “people couldn’t afford them”.  (?)  And will FOX news report what Rand Paul said today?  Paul said that US foreign policy is what has made ISIS as strong and well funded as it is today.  FOX news viewers are LESS informed than those who don’t watch any news at all.  Some people will plainly admit they know very little, but FOX news viewers believe they know everything about everything.  Many people are such FOX news addicts it’s like a drug of choice where “weaning them off” the stuff and on to something “less addictive” such as CNN, is a near impossibility.  As you know that GMO guy lied to Thom’s face numerous times yesterday.  He blamed the anti GMO people for the people in India and Shri Lanka being malnourished- - which is absurd because GMO products don’t produce their own seeds the way crops have for thousands of years, so if anyone is creating mass starvation it’s the GMO people.  They used to mix rice with sweet potatoes and other edible roots where they got their vitamin A, but with GMO products they don’t do it that way anymore.  The guy lied when he said Europe was now letting GMO products into their countries because they have “reconsidered”.  That is a lie.  He also said there were NO indications of harm to any human.  But Thom pointed out that they double down on Round-up and other herbicides and the guy lied saying “No product in the US escapes the FDA regulation on herbicides.  This too is a lie.  GMO people get a free pass.  Also as Judy and others pointed out there are adverse impacts to bacteria in your guts where 70% of the immune system lies and these good bacteria are destroyed- - so illness is much more commonplace.

 There is a story in Acts which illustrates why CEO’s who get paid raises in stock options- - don’t have the best interest of the company in mind.  It’s because they are less “owners” who have a vested interest in the continuing well run management of the company - - and more like real estate speculators or something, looking for a quick buck.  It’s almost like a pump and dump thing that stock brokers do.  It’s like when Paul and the ship’s crew advised against taking a voyage so late in the season- - but their decision- - for the welfare of the ship and crew- - was overridden by the ship’s owner who was thinking of getting a quick profit getting the goods to market.  And so the predictable results occurred of ship wreck- - which is what happens with corporations.   Tom said something puzzling.  When a CEO buys a block of stock he ‘retires it” taking it “off the market”, which jacks up the price of the remaining shares.  It’s the same amount of money chasing fewer tradable shares.  How DO you just “take a stock share off the market?”   The conservatives are dictatorial.  John Kasec just overrode the will of two thirds of the voters in Ohio who voted for collective bargaining of government employees.  But Kasec just got rid of that via executive order.  It’s against the law in Wyoming to even take pictures of horrendous pollution areas in the state.  This case will be brought to the Supreme Court for violations of the first amendment, “Free speech”.   One thing I also don’t understand is how rich people can actually MAKE money by being philanthropic.   Somebody explain that to me.   I understand how you can jack people around with stock options.   You can lay off people and jack up the profits of a company and double the price of stock- - then you get to exercise your free option by buying twenty dollars worth of stock for ten dollars.  But that is a dishonest racket because it’s the ultimate “insider trading” scam.  Who would ever WRITE an option like that?

Washington’s blog is doing an expose on Thomas Drake, an early whistle blower in the National Security administration.  I watched a good chunk of that interview.  Bush threatened to indict him but President Obama actually did.   President Obama claimed to be the most transparent administration ever but I’ve never known that meant.   President Obama when asked about prosecuting Bush and Chaney for war crimes said “That’s all in the past.  We’re moving forward”.  First of all HAVE we moved forward or backward on so many issues in the past six odd years?  Backward.  That’s on budget and race relations, and even our desire to be at War somewhere.   Now the president wants to prosecute Whistle Blowers even though THAT is supposedly in “the past”.  Other than water boarding, are there ANY other issues where Obama has moved the agenda to the left?  Julian Assange points out that whether Wikileaks is even legal or not is taken out of the hands of Courts and Judges.  Courts were put in place in the Constitution for situations where they need to arbitrate and look at the evidence.  But now “the evidence” itself is deemed classified apart from any judicial decision.  Julian can’t even answer any charges because there have only been threats of charges. such FOX news addicts it’s like a drug of choice where “weaning them off” the stuff and on to something “less addictive” such as CNN, is a near impossibility.  As you know that GMO guy lied to Thom’s face numerous times yesterday.  He blamed the anti GMO people for the people in India and Shri Lanka being malnourished- - which is absurd because GMO products don’t produce their own seeds the way crops have for thousands of years, so if anyone is creating mass starvation it’s the GMO people.  They used to mix rice with sweet potatoes and other edible roots where they got their vitamin A, but with GMO products they don’t do it that way anymore.  The guy lied when he said Europe was now letting GMO products into their countries because they have “reconsidered”.  That is a lie.  He also said there were NO indications of harm to any human.  But Thom pointed out that they double down on Round-up and other herbicides and the guy lied saying “No product in the US escapes the FDA regulation on herbicides.  This too is a lie.  GMO people get a free pass.  Also as Judy and others pointed out there are adverse impacts to bacteria in your guts where 70% of the immune system lies and these good bacteria are destroyed- - so illness is much more commonplace.

The "China Lobby" and History Written In Advance

"So I guess the question is - - should we pay homage to a hundred year old map of the Mideast- - or allow current conditions to be taken into consideration in re-drawing national boundaries in the Mideast?

Could it be that we already know the “causes that led up to World War III - BEFORE it has even occurred?  Wanna bet?  You’ve heard of the Israel lobby but pre WW II there was a “China lobby”.   And it’s easy to get a sense of Déjà vu if you know the facts.  Our Presidents worked actively to “cultivate” an atmosphere for World War II a full decade before we entered the war.  We supported China and were openly bulligerant to Japan.  This was the era of the Christian missionary.  And people entertained thoughts of a Christianized China, as the right now may still hope for a Christianized Israel.  (Or am I kidding myself on that one?)   Roosevelt actively supported pro war efforts against Germany and wanted to declare war on Germany after Pearl Harbor, but thought that wouldn’t fly right off.  Thanksgiving weekend there was a newspaper in Honolulu of “Japanese slated to strike US at any time” and there were frequent references to “a triggering event in Pearl Harbor” years before the Japanese struck.  Of course as far as the whole oil embargo thing- - I don’t see why we were letting the Japanese have ANY oil AT ALL, knowing their intentions.   But you will remember that Israel tried to start WW III in June of 1967 by attacking one of our ships and making like the Egyptians or someone did it- - hoping the US would declare War on all of Israel’s enemies.  Roosevelt should have been as “honest” as Golda Meir.  She didn’t wait for an incident to get into a war.  She just struck.  But there is a Star Trek adage if you’re paying someone a back-handed complement you’d say to them “You have successfully manipulated that situation with the skill of a Romulan”.   FDR supported this Chang Chi Check myth that he was the true leader of China and Mao was “The JV team” or something, who had no future- - because as I say- - we wanted to cultivate this myth of “A China gradually becoming Christianized”.  When you read the blog it’s like History being written in advance.  Because the whole situation back then is playing out right now only with Israel and Iran, hoping for WW III to break out.   There are certain “sudden” and “shocking” events that we have been given ample warning of in advance, but choose to ignore it.

Texas is being inundated with lots of continued flooding and heavy rain.  Their Governor, that Abbott fellow, has declared 37 counties to be a disaster area.  But did you know that Abbott also got a law passed which puts a state wide ban on - - wait for it - - fracking.  Denton, Texas did a vote of the people and banned fracking in their city and Abbot disallowed that.  Can you believe that?   I’ve also heard of the governor of Michigan taking similar measures against cities.  It would be neat to put all these Republican governors on some kind of mass impeachment trial. But you know, the state legislatures could pass a law saying the sort of gene splicing done by Monsanto and Du Pont is now illegal and the assets of these countries would have to be “forfeited” just like if narcotics are found in your car, even if you borrowed it from a friend, who didn’t know the sort of druggies you hang out with.  Just call it a “state forfeiture” and the right wingers should be “down!” with that, you know!   It seems unlikely that any corporation with its hands on the balls of world food production is ever going to loosen their grip on the vitals of the food supply no matter HOW much money you offer them to “get out of the business”.

So how do you get gizzed all over by Al Gizera?  (sp)   One of the writers on Washington’s blog got screwed over by Al Gezera - - in an interview that was never aired, and told the guy, “Oh, that was just a trial run” and them refused to reimburse him for his expenses.  Who ever suspect Al Gezera was such a weaselly organization?  But suppose we get to the Judgement Seat of Christ and we're told that our whole life was just a "trial run" and really "didn't count".  You know all the Rich people out there would have a cow over that.  If they knew the wealth they acquired counter for nothing and all those accolades for supposed "good deeds" counted for nothing?  In like manner a poor person who accomplished little in the physical world and his spiritual life was almost as impoverished- - he now learns he's getting a fresh deal of the deck, and is naturally delighted.   So Neil Savedra's remark of "There are no do-overs" will be proved once and for all to be a Lie.  What if all of Neil's "smart ass remarks" over the radio- - - were judged as "less than nothing" in God's sight?  I'm just saying we have absolutely no idea what awaits us in the After Life, and this scenario is only one of Endless Possabilities.  (Selah)

I would like to modify Thom Hartman's view on Calvinism just a little.  There is a line in Julius Ceasar not to trust Cassius "because he has a lean and hungry look" and then says "Give me people around me who are Fat".   My belief has always had this lurking in the back of my mind.  Certainly Pastor Mark has a phobia of outsiders.  But there is generally a phobia of those "Who don't see themselves as rich and blessed".  Anobody who is truely (as opposed to falsely) looking go God for "something' in their lives - - is someone under Bovine theology whom you can't trust.  The best way you "know you can trust someone" is whether you see yourself as "blessed" and also (of course) whether others agree that you are "blessed".  Their favorite line of Jesus is 'To him who has - - more will be given, and to him who has not- - even that which he has will be taken from him".   Now what they do in France when supermarkets throw out food is that they pour bleach all over the excess food- - to insure that the poor won't be rummaging through your stuff".   Of course the Thomas doctrine, also known as the Abott doctrine (of Texas) is in play too.  Your goal is to be the LAST person whom God EVER has grace on.  After YOU get "saved" well, that's IT.  Roll up the rope ladder and leave no more rungs for the poor people to come up after you.   But Thom's point is well taken that Jeb Bush's favorite author is one who is anti-democracy.  As I have said "The conservatives just LOVE big government- - especially when they strip voters of popular sovereignty (see above) It's democracy that these people have a basic problem with.  They will do everything in their power to suppress that.

Stephanie Miller had new lyrics to that old song “Life is a rock”, which has at the end of the line “At the end of my rainbow is a golden oldie” updated to “ - - - is a nineties Oldie”.  The truth is that Bart Simpson got too old to play on the Simpson’s and for the later stuff after 2000 he got his son to play the part.  A golden rule in call in shows is never to say “As I was telling your screener”.  Radio talk show hosts hate intrusions of Reality” and now we know the real reason why they took out the sky ride in Disneyland.  It’s because it gave certain nosey people a chance to scope out the land and see things they weren’t supposed to see.   One time in a parrellel universe there were Blacks running the voter registration place and were giving whites who came by a literacy test to see if they were intelligent enough to vote.  So the whites were instructed in “Next line, please” in the song “Jimmy crack corn”.   The first part of the verse goes “When I was young I used to wait on Master and give him his plate” and the whites were unable to come up with the next line” and the Black registrar would say “Well you know in all them there Institutions for the Mentally Retarded all the residents know those lyrics and you’re telling me you don’t?”  And a notation was made of the white guy’s IQ put down as “59”.   Just for the record the remaining lyrics are “ - - and pass the bottle when he got dry - - and brush away the blue tail fly”.   In Ireland they are known for their gay life style for a different reason now.  It seems that pro gay voting is more prevalent the higher percentage of Catholics voting”.  That kid with the toy guy who got killed now has had three years knocked off his age.  They now have him noted as a nine year old child rather than twelve.  That one makes sense.

In the morning I got up.  Oh that reminds me.  Here is a riddle.  Tell me what I’m referring to.  When you first get one it’s rock hard, but if too much time passes before you get to use it- - then it gets soft.   If you live around here you know what I’m referring to.  Anyhow the whole towel situation is solved and I now have a big, fluffy towel to dry off with.  I can’t remember smoking a single cigarette before breakfast.  “No, but Monica Luinsky handed you a whole pack and you smoked every one of them before breakfast”.   “I never had a cigarette, no not one time”.  (Not one time)  Today was the day to use my debit card.  First I got my medication from Tom.  The store wasn’t open yet so I dashed out to the back and looked for a cigarette and didn’t find one.  Now the store was opened.  Janet asked me if I were planning on buying a roll.  I told her “no”.  Actually I wouldn’t mind having a roll- - of tens.  I looked at the Spanish CD’s waiting for her to finish up at the coffee machine.  But the machine declined my debit card account.  This is what as known as Divine Grace in denying you what you ask for.  Now I owed that guy’s wife a dollar for the coffee.  But I would rather owe the store a dollar than be in hock thirty-five dollars to the bank.  I took the coffee with me into breakfast.  We had oatmeal followed in due course by scrambled eggs, toast and butter and jelly, and hashed browns.  Then I got a cigarette from Lishia to smoke.   And now for the biggest news of the day.  Rush Limbaugh supposedly has come out against the Trans Pacific Trade agreement.

I had a dream about various things last night.  I dreamed that the Bosc house was on a southeast corner - - and there was all this woodsy area to the southeast- - - kind of like Grandma and Grandpa’s old house where Paul used to hunt for lizards.  But now I was walking into that same tract- - and I was following that blondish John guy to a house and I was about to go in and it dawned on me “Oh, this is your house, not mine”.  So I went down a half a block and there was the Bosc house- - but the whole area had been remodeled.  There was a red roof and the whole roof line had been altered.  And they had removed all the trees and now there was this steep hill grassy area under a leveled out yard.  And there was a fence with barking dogs on this property.  The guy came out to say “Hello” with a couple of his dogs with him.   In another part of this dream- - I was on some college campus in some magazine reading room where there was a Christian radio playing and they were talking about how Islamic people who had invaded this country were now torturing Christians right here.  But the imigry was so graphic- - even if it had been television - - they couldn’t show it because it was so completely gory.   I remember it was the first day of school or something and I was petitioning classes and counting my money.  And ran into Augustine and some of the hired help- - and for a while we were having a conversation about Christianity- - but then I had to excuse myself because I had to be somewhere else.

Hillary Clinton Has Got to Go

Let’s look at this whole ISIS thing again.  According to recent blogging activity, there was a deliberate shift in military troop power from Bengazi to Syria to fight in the ISIS campaign.  John Mc Cain wanted to fund “moderate rebels” but all the while we knew there were “regular rebels” who weren’t moderate, who became ISIS.  These were ignored by the administration.  There are documents involving Hillary Clinton where she knew that the Bengazi attack was a planned affair weeks in advance.  But still those who have the say in these matters put Susan Rice out there to the media to lie.  This could perhaps have been a protection device for Hillary in the event she ran for President in 2016.  As you know the Obama line in late summer of 2012 was that Al Qaeda was on the run and we were winning the victory.  We heard the same sort of talk from this administration just a few weeks ago about ISIS.  I mentioned that guy this morning in the Bush administration who wanted a “moderate Sunni government” ruling where ISIS is now ruling- - rather than either Iran or Syria.   By way of comparison we brought down Saddam Hussein’s government in three short weeks.  Yet we can’t defeat ISIS, which seemingly came out of nowhere.  As one reporter put it today “If we have to ask whether we’re winning the war or not- - we already know the answer”.  We are not winning against ISIS, and now they’ve gained control of another historic city - - in Syria - - and we know ISIS has set it as their mission to destroy all historic artifacts not Islamic.  Certain ruins have been there for thousands of years- and ISIS is going to destroy them.  I also watched a video I’d seen most of starting around three thirty.  There is a banner headline saying the economic crash is coming in 87 days.  That would be about Bill Clinton’s birthday in August, if that means anything.  They said Russia and China were accumulating gold and dumping dollars and also divesting themselves of US debt.  But now a mysterious buyer in Belgin of all places- - is buying up this debt.  I am right now predicting a shocking sharp dip in the stock markets in June.   This crash will cause a major panic but I don’t believe it will signal “the end”.   This is based somewhat on astrological considerations.   I am also predicting there will be a major bottom in the stock market in mid October of 2016 just three weeks before the election.  And my gut feeling at this minute is that a Republican will win the Presidential election, I hate to say it.  It’s a highly unusual thing for the Democratic party to hold the office of President for twelve years in a row.  The last time that happened was under FDR.   Various sources I’ve encountered seem to have hard information that President Obama is “throwing the game” when it comes to defeating ISIS.  And if I suspect it’s true- - you know the Republican candidate will hit this point heard and try to make the American people believe it - - even in the absence of any hard proof.  Just think about it.  I think we need to contain ISIS because it doesn’t look like we’ll be able to wipe it out at this point. 

Hillary Clinton cannot therefore be our democratic standard bearer next year, because she will lose.  She has told too many lies and shoved too much under the rug.  The only chance the democrats have of winning is to divorce themselves as far as possible from her record.   So the truth is that Romney was right in his allegations about Bengazi - - and Hillary Clinton got someone else to do her lying for her.   In fact the decision to take down Qadafi was itself a “highly flawed one” at best (and one the Orion Federation was against).   Absent this decision, Bengazi would not even have happened.  But contrary to the Democratic and Republican Party’s campaign to deceive the American people into believing that we’re at war against extremism in the Muslim world, our government is, in fact, united in both Parties to support the Saudi princes who virtually own Islamic extremism.  If this is an American government that supports the American people, then it does so by lying to them, and by working on the side of the enemies not only of the American people but of the publics throughout the world. Why would that be? What’s indisputable is that it is.  This is, indeed, the case. Are America’s ‘news’ media reporting this important news story? Or are they instead reporting the criticisms by the chiefs of both political parties against each others’ party? If it’s stenographic ‘news’ reporting, then it’s unchanged since 2002 and 2003, when U.S. ‘news’ media stenographically reported the Administration’s statements about “Saddam’s WMD,” etc., and most Democrats joined with virtually all Republicans in supporting a criminal invasion of Iraq.  The big news story in the United States is the utter corruption of its ‘free press.’ That’s what we’re seeing, yet again, with regard to the Republican-Democratic policy of warring against Russia, China, Syria, and Iran; and for Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bharain, and the other oil sheikhdoms. Anyone who quotes the lying rhetoric of the U.S. Government in order to deny that this is true should consult the links that have been provided here, before affirming those lies by Republicans and Democrats.  The United States is Government of the people, by and for the aristocracy. Everything (and especially Obama’s ‘trade’ deals) can be truthfully understood only on that basic understanding, in which America’s two political parties have become, since at least 1980, just two contending  branches of the aristocracy party, in this country that was founded on ending the aristocracy.    

Just Call Me "Perplexed"

This is one of the strangest foreign policy “smoking guns” ever.  It seems that newly released documents from the CIA reveal that we want the Assad government in Syria toppled just like John Mc Cain wants, but the rest of us now regard as a really bad idea in light of our Libyan experience.  But now we want a “Salifist government” to control Anwar and Mozul provinces and we want area around the Turkish border.  Seemingly our government is working with Turkey to bring about this result.  So if our troops wonder “What the hell are we fighting for” I’m sure I don’t know any more because it would seem that we want to strengthen ISIS in this area and not weaken it.  I would say- “might this be best obtained “by accident” so to speak as a result of our leaving, and no something we are actively but secretly pursuing, while we are telling the media quite another story.  Shawn Hannity believes quite another story here.   The “story” seems to be that both Saudi Arabia and ISIS are “Solifist” governments.  The “story” is that the Saudis and Israelis are standing “shoulder to shoulder” against- - somebody, perhaps Iran.  I haven’t heard any explicit criticism of ISIS by Netenyahoo.  Is this merely an oversight?  Why DID Obama wait so long before turning hostile to ISIS?  Was indeed our government secretly giving them a head start, a leg up, on the competition?  Is President Obama even human as you and I are, or is he what is referred to by Ruth Montgomery as a “Walk In” or some sort of Manchurian Candidate.   We hear about his community service when he was younger and passion to serve the poor, when he could have gotten more lucrative employment with his education.  But now what is all of his “dedicated service to Wall Street” going to buy him in terms of employment after he leaves High Office.  What will his recent activities do in terms of his very Soul???

They say that Salifism as a sect of Islam has ninety percent of the wealth and financing of the Faith and that the more moderate branches of Islam are languishing because of that.  So people like Shawn may well be right in saying that Islam has become radicalized as a faith, and Jihad killings have become the norm rather than the fringe exception.   We hear all the time from the left in this country that the Republican fringe is shrinking and dying off demographically.  But they still control about all the reins of government in the “Several States” except for a few areas such as California.  Republican candidates like Jeb Bush or Scott Walker who “sounded a little moderate on some issues” have now fully retreated from these, as all of the ten or twelve candidates in the clown car are speaking more and more with one far right Voice.  The Republicans in the clown car all have their favorite hawkish ways of dealing with ISIS, but the dirty little secret now is that the US just doesn’t care and wants ISIS to succeed.   The cover of “The Week” magazine features “Saddam’s Revenge” because a lot of the people that make up ISIS are ex Iraqi generals.     Elvis sings a hymn on those Sun session recordings where the words go “And they ain’t gona study war no more”.   This is taken directly from scripture.  What do the Israelis believe?   They obviously don’t believe in such sentaments for peace or “turning their swords into plough shears”.   They don’t believe the Torah teachings literally or they’d still have a priesthood.  Historically the Jews believed in the coming Messiah, but it seems more and more the Jews have come to believe they are the instruments of their Own Deliverance.  No more are they are looking for “A Redeemer” or someone who will bring peace and healing to the land.   They seem to have no regard for the person of Jesus, as either a man or a God.  The idea behind Christianity is to cite a tangible “source of their faith”, a real, tangible human entity who can be an “example” and the focal point of their faith.  They speak of “Jewish culture” but there is some curiously “unbiblical” about most of this “culture”.  They are defined not by the social services of their government or their rich culture- - but by whom they spend their time killing.  I have come to believe if our government wanted ISIS “Gone!” then they’d be gone.  Because ISIS didn’t even exist three years ago in 2012.  War is a racket for defence and aerospace companies in this country to all get rich off it.

The nation of Ireland has voted decisively to allow gay marriage in their constitution, even though it wasn’t till the nineties when it was still criminal to engage in any homosexual act in that country.   They’ve descended so far so quickly.  Rush Limbaugh made a very good point yesterday afternoon.  He chides the left for "Not wanting to offend any adherents of the Prophet Mohamed" and yet the left also embraces homosexuality and abortion and all of this assisted suicide stuff.  This stuff is adhorant to God, no matter what you call Him.  And yet the Left thinks nothing of this glairing inconsistency.

In terms of yesterday’s posted “Memorial Day message” I really wasn’t expecting there’d be much new news to comment about in the bloggisphere in the next few days, and that headline would be a little barbed message of mine- - that I think we have become altogether too obsessed with wars, plural, and things military.   It was the second of the last three postings where I was NOT the principle writer of my own blog.  I think it’s fitting and proper to put flowers on ancestors graves on Memorial Day, particularly is they fought in the Civil War.  But this is the first of what has become four big military holidays of the year.  The other three are the 4^th of July, the 9 – 11 anniversary, and of course Veterans Day.  Do we really need four of them?   I think any war loses both its relevance and its virtue if it becomes never ending.  I mean after all we are fighting for things like liberty, that might be in the process of vanishing, anyhow.

Amnesty reported that, contrary to US gov and media propaganda, the Saudi regime got worse under the last dictator (who recently died), and is getting even worse now under new US-backed dictator Abdulaziz, with Saudi Arabia committing dozens and dozens of beheading/crucifixions, taking the lead in confirmed state executions worldwide.  2009 US documents leaked by Wikileaks revealed Hillary Clinton stating that Saudi Arabia is the world’s biggest source of funding for Sunni terrorist groups.  Abdulaziz himself, the top of the Saudi dictatorship, is said by al Qaeda to be one of their sources of funding and support.  Unlike Iran, which has parliamentary representatives and voting, Saudi Arabia is a straight despotism which maintains itself through terror, such as by lashing innocent civilians in public.  Unlike Iran, Saudi Arabia not only does not renounce nuclear weapons (US intelligence does not even say Iran is pursuing them; in fact far from it), but Saudi officials promise never to renounce nuclear weapons, or even negotiate about nuclear weapons, which Iran has agreed to do numerous times, with the US always cancelling the negotiations, as Obama has done before, and did again this week: “US Kills Nuclear Free Mid-East Conference“.  Indeed, Saudi Arabia just announced its intentions to go nuclear, a prospect that has long been known to all.  None of this prevents the US from making its biggest ever lethal arms sale to the dictatorship, or selling them almost a billion dollars worth of banned cluster bombs in 2013, which HRW reports are now being used in the US-coordinated/assisted Saudi aggressive war against Yemen, from which the US refuses to rescue its own civilian nationals, unlike eight other countries including Russia, China, and India, which have performed rescue missions.

A Memorial Day Message

What if US Military Spending Returned to the 2001 Level?
"You may think I'm a Dreamer, but I'm Not the Only One."  This is Just Balance for all the Militarist Propaganda You'll be Hearing This Weekend

Posted on May 22, 2015 by DavidSwanson

The House of Representatives has headed out of town to memorialize wars without managing to achieve agreement with the Senate on reauthorizing some of the most abusive “temporary” measures of the PATRIOT Act. Three cheers for Congressional vacations!

What if not just our civil liberties but our budget got a little bit of 2001 back?

In 2001, U.S. military spending was $397 billion, from which it soared to a peak of $720 billion in 2010, and is now at $610 billion in 2015. These figures from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (in constant 2011 dollars) exclude debt payments, veterans costs, and civil defense, which raise the figure to over $1 trillion a year now, not counting state and local spending on the military.

Military spending is now 54% of U.S. federal discretionary spending according to the National Priorities Project. Everything else — and the entire debate in which liberals want more spending and conservatives want less! — is contained within the other 46% of the budget.

U.S. military spending, according to SIPRI, is 35% of the world total. U.S. and Europe make 56% of the world. The U.S. and its allies around the globe (it has troops in 175 countries, and most countries are armed in great part by U.S. companies) make up the bulk of world spending.

Iran spends 0.65% of world military spending (as of 2012, the last year available). China’s military spending has been rising for years and has soared since 2008 and the U.S. pivot to Asia, from $107 billion in 2008 to now $216 billion. But that’s still just 12% of world spending.

Per capita the U.S. now spends $1,891 current U.S. dollars for each person in the United States, as compared with $242 per capita worldwide, or $165 per capita in the world outside the U.S., or $155 per capita in China.

The dramatically increased U.S. military spending has not made the U.S. or the world safer. Early on in the “war on terror” the U.S. government ceased reporting on terrorism, as it increased. The Global Terrorism Index records a steady increase in terrorist attacks from 2001 to the present. A Gallup poll in 65 nations at the end of 2013 found the United States overwhelmingly viewed as the greatest threat to peace in the world. Iraq has been turned into hell, with Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia close behind. Newly embittered terrorist groups have arisen in direct response to U.S. terrorism and the devastation it’s left behind. And arms races have been sparked that benefit only the arms dealers.

But the spending has had other consequences. The U.S. has risen into the top five nations in the world for disparity of wealth. The 10th wealthiest country on earth per capita doesn’t look wealthy when you drive through it. And you do have to drive, with 0 miles of high-speed rail built; but local U.S. police have weapons of war now. And you have to be careful when you drive. The American Society of Civil Engineers gives U.S. infrastructure a D+. Areas of cities like Detroit have become wasteland. Residential areas lack water or are poisoned by environmental pollution — most often from military operations. The U.S. now ranks 35th in freedom to choose what to do with your life, 36th in life expectancy, 47th in preventing infant mortality, 57th in employment, and trails in education by various measures.

If U.S. military spending were merely returned to 2001 levels, the savings of $213 billion per year could meet the following needs:

End hunger and starvation worldwide — $30 billion per year.
Provide clean drinking water worldwide — $11 billion per year.
Provide free college in the United States — $70 billion per year (according to Senate legislation).
Double U.S. foreign aid — $23 billion per year.
Build and maintain a high-speed rail system in the U.S. — $30 billion per year.
Invest in solar and renewable energy as never before — $20 billion per year.
Fund peace initiatives as never before — $10 billion per year.

That would leave $19 billion left over per year with which to pay down debt.

You may say I’m a dreamer, but this is life and death. War kills more by how the money isn’t spent than by how it is spent.

The Day We Lost Our Constitutional Liberty

Today a most momentus vote took place in the US Senate that all but insures the passage of the Trans Pacific trade agreement.  Remember this date of Thursday May 21st because this will do down in history as the day we as Americans lost our Constitutional liberties.  This is because today’s filibuster vote had to be sixty percent to pass while the house vote only has to be a simple majority.  Think of all the times good bills weren’t able to meet the sixty percent bar in the US Senate even before the 2010 elections and failed.  Today the Republicans made a remarkable statement of solidarity with President Obama.  The vote on fast-tracking the Trans Pacific Trade agreement wasn’t even noted on the Hannity show though it was the most significant loss of constitutional liberty in our lifetimes.  The vote was taken with only one day set aside for debate, which is absurd.  There were two hundred pending amendments to the bill offered by 45 Senators.  There were six amendments up for immediate vote that were postponed, so that this fast track vote this morning could take place.  More than three Republican senators voted against fast track, not that it mattered.  Since this was a filibuster vote it took over sixty for the thing to pass and they got 62 to 38 against, which was just over what was needed.  Jeff Sessions spoke of how it shouldn’t be called “free trade” but “unilateral trade disarmlement” because we give access to our markets to foreign nations, yet they erect barriers to keep us out.  The trade deficit with South Korea got worse after we signed an agreement with them.  Maybe Bill Clinton could be forgiven for NAFTA and CAFTA (Central America) because these trade deals were a bit of an unknown back them.  But we are well aware of their results now.   Mike Lee and Rand Paul also voted against this agreement.  Lindsey Graham had threatened to but voted for it as did Marco Rubio.   Sixty percent of our global trading economy would be impacted by this treaty.  It’s forty percent by the Pacific rim nations, and another twenty percent by the T-TIP or whatever Trans Atlantic treaty that impacts our European trade.  I wish I had more influence than I do as a blogger because no matter how passionately I write about it - - I’m only one small person.

PNAC stands for “Project for a new century” and it was organized by Jeb Bush, “the smart one” as kind of a pro Iraqi War organization as far as I can figure.  It was Jeb Bush even more than his brother George, who was pushing for a war with Iraq and Jeb was the one who sent that memo in the nineties about “having a new Pearl Harbor event people could rally around”.   So it’s no wonder that Jeb stumbled all over himself trying to answer questions about the origins of the Iraq War.  We know that Jeb Bush is deemed “acceptable” to Sean Hannity, who give Bush a big build up on stage, and we also know that Bush is perfectly acceptable to the Wall Street Moneyed crowd.   Regardless of what the media says - - I’m convinced that Jeb Bush’s numbers will explode upward the day he announces for President because many on the far right, regardless of what they’ve said before, now regard the Bush era as “the good old days”.   The next President will appoint up to four new Supreme Court Justices, and the likelihood is that it will indeed be four as we see a wave of mass resignations.  This is the blackmail “stick” that Hillary Clinton holds over wayward progressives who even THINK about not voting for her.  And as we said before “Hillary is a woman who already assumes she’s been elected president and there has to answer no questions.  Capish?  She’s a creature of Wall Street and she wants that fact mentioned as little as possible.   If Jeb won’t answer questions about the Iraq War- - then Hillary Clinton will answer no questions about the Trans Pacific Agreement.  Whatever her true feelings are on the subject you know she’ll lie about it.  And by the way Hillary is not pro feminist or pro women when it counted.  She was the one who launched personal attacks against the many women her husband Bill had sex with.  You would do well not to forget that little detail.   Apparently Eric Holder has gone back to working for his Wall Street associates, happy to have escaped prosecution, when a different But now Marco Rubio has been found guilty of stealing or at least “borrowing” from the Republican Party for a lot of lavish personal expenditures while they’re telling us all to “cut back”.  In other news Don Siegalman was turned down in an appeal to have his charges overturned.  He was unjustly imprisoned for something that two Republicans did right before him.   Judges are so much more political than I ever dared to believe twenty years ago.   This whole imprisonment in Alabama is completely political.

Rights, such as the right to Privacy cannot be negotiated away.  It doesn't matter whether you say it's a right you "don't need" or aren't using- - the government can't by vote of a comittee or fiat of one, decree to eliminate the rights of even the apathetic.   Some Churches such as Scientology insist that you surrender your basic "right to privacy".  Doing so gives others power over you they wouldn't have otherwise.   You may not even REALIZE the full consequences of surrendering the right to privacy because "You have nothing to hide" or for that matter of free speech because "I don't have oppinions on anything".  Someone spoke of "being able to deduct the cost of various fines they incur".  This should not be legal.  Likewise- - any retribution paid to you for any injury is NOT "income" but your Right to collect as a judgement.

 The big news in soap land is that somehow Page found out that JJ and her mother were having an affair because when people thought she was sleeping, she heard the whole argument between Jack Junior and Eve.  And she kind of played dumb about it for a while.  She kind of sprung the knowledge of the affair on her mother.  This means that another party will end up in utter disaster.  Daniel Jonas feared something like this might happen.  In "The Last Judgement" there are two schools of thought.  One says your sins will be forgotten so not even God can remember what they were, and nobody else will either.  The other view is when Jesus says that "Every secret and dark intent will be revealed".  So - which is it?  I guess it could depend on whether you are "under the blood" or not, so if you're not saved - "have never given your heart to Jesus" then you leave yourself open.

Bill is back.  While I was smoking at two a car drove up and Bill got out of the car and he had a big thing which turned out to be a big red Valentine’s Day bear saying “I heart You”.  He was supposed to meet with Mary Jane before going to his room.  He looked vaguely healthier and hair appeared sun bleached.  Bill had the stomach surgery at West Anaheim and his convalescence at Harbor Villa.   He didn’t get to smoke and he didn’t get to watch TV but he could spend time outside.  I was unable to grant his request for a cigarette.  I went down to talk to Federico at the office about a loan and after an extended delay, Federico agreed to give me three dollars.  I ran into Dr Messina and “almost” shook his hand.   I went right out to the liquor store and bought a pack.  I have a dollar in reserve I can buy coffee with tomorrow morning.  I paid Paul Evans back five and Larry Barton back one, so far.  I haven’t paid Luan back yet.  He says there is no rush.  I had the Merideth Vierra show on and after that was Millionaire and Jeopardy, however I was spending a lot of time out of the room.

The Winston Churchill You Don't Know

Right wingers such as Shawn Hannity put Winston Churchill on a pedistal as if we need a hundred Churchills in the world today.  So the question is- - if these people idolize Churchill so much and think what he has has been - - lacking- - in society today, then it profits us to ask "Just WHAT IS IT that Churchill HAD that made him such a magnetic personality?  I would assume if these remarks are NOT true, then the Estate would long ago have filed lawsuits against each and every one of these sources.

“The Aryan stock is bound to triumph.” – Winston Churchill

(Sarasota Herald Tribune)

Thus, while asserting that “The Aryan stock is bound to triumph”, he concluded that “One might as well legalise sodomy as recognise the Bolsheviks.”   The Bolshevik revolution had to be, as Churchill put it, “strangle[d] at its birth”.  Apparently intending those words fairly literally, he attacked the “Jew” and “Jewess”-led revolutionaries with poison gas, defiantly committing what was then considered the worst possible atrocity.  Of the overall operation, Churchill subsequently stated that his axis shot Bolsheviks on sight, blockaded their ports, sank their ships, and armed their enemies.  Undoubtedly, the attack helped foster an environment of fear in which security-obsessed hard-liners like Stalin were then able to thrive and seize power.  Indeed, Western Europe (now the Nazi regime) would invade Russia again two decades later, this time exterminating up to forty million Russians, approaching a third of the Russian population.  Virtually everyone in Russia today has a family member who was murdered in that campaign.

…“One might as well legalise sodomy as recognise the Bolsheviks.” – Winston Churchill

(Churchill: A Life)

…“There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism … by … Jews, [it] it is certainly a very great one; it probably outweighs all others.

…the Dictator of the Red Citadel (Petrograd) or of Krassin or Radek [etc.] — all Jews.

In the Soviet institutions the predominance of Jews is even more astonishing.

…the prominent, if not indeed the principal, part in the system of terrorism … has been taken by Jews, and in some notable cases by Jewesses.

The same evil prominence was obtained by Jews … in Hungary.

The same phenomenon has been presented in Germany … this madness has been allowed to prey upon the … German people.

Although in all these countries there are many non-Jews every whit as bad as the worst of the Jewish revolutionaries, the part played by the latter in proportion to their numbers in the population is astonishing.” – Winston Churchill

(Illustrated Sunday Herald)

…[Historical persecution of Jews has brought about] …the schemes of the International Jews … [a] sinister confederacy … divorced from … all spiritual hopes of the next world.

This movement among the Jews is not new.

… this world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation … has been steadily growing.

It played … a definitely recognisable part in the tragedy of the French Revolution.

It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the Nineteenth Century…

…now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld … have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters…” – Winston Churchill

(Illustrated Daily Herald)

…Churchill hoped “the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years”, calling to mind the like ambition of a neighboring Empire (Reich in German).

…“‘I propose that 100,000 degenerate Britons should be forcibly sterilized and others put in labour camps to halt the decline of the British race.” – Winston Churchill

(As Home Secretary in a 1910 Departmental Paper)

…“The unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the feeble-minded and insane classes, coupled as it is with steady restriction among all the thrifty, energetic and superior stocks constitutes a national and race danger which is impossible to exaggerate. I feel that the source from which the stream of madness is fed should be cut off and sealed before another year has passed.” – Winston Churchill

(As Home Secretary)

…“On his attitude to other races, Churchill's doctor, Lord Moran, said: ‘Winston thinks only of the colour of their skin.'”

…On why the US, instead of indigenous Cubans, should rule Cuba after Spain:

“A grave danger represents itself. Two-fifths of the insurgents [Cubans fighting Spanish rule] in the field are negroes. These men . . . would, in the event of success, demand a predominant share in the government of the country . . . the result being, after years of fighting, another black republic.” – Winston Churchill

“The reference to “another” black republic meant Haiti, whose revolution against France in 1803 had led to the first nation run by blacks in the New World.” (Ch. 12) (Churchill's mother was US American, his father British.)

…“On the subject of India,” said the British Secretary of State to India: “Winston is not quite sane… I didn't see much difference between his outlook and Hitler's.”

“When Mahatma Gandhi launched his campaign of peaceful resistance against British rule in India, Churchill raged that Gandhi”:

“ought to be lain bound hand and foot at the gates of Delhi, and then trampled on by an enormous elephant with the new Viceroy seated on its back. Gandhi-ism and everything it stands for will have to be grappled with and crushed.” – Winston Churchill

As some 3 million people starved to death due to policy of the British Empire, when asked why he would not allow food to be sent, Churchill asked:

“…why isn't Gandhi dead yet?” – Winston Churchill

…“I hate Indians. They are a beastly people…”(*) – Winston Churchill

(Leo Amery: Diaries)

…” I love this war. I know it's smashing and shattering the lives of thousands every moment — and yet — I can't help it — I enjoy every second of it.” – Winston Churchill

(Letter to a friend, 1916)

…Churchill was born into British wealth and prestige. With innumerable avenues open to him, he chose to treat the world as children sometimes treat insects, so he put ruthless effort into the maintenance of Britain's international dictatorship, on which “the sun never set”.

A typical example of the Churchill method was the use of terror, mutilation (ripping off mens' testicles), and rape as a weapon to suppress a Kenyan uprising against British tyranny in the 1950s.

Decades later, in 2012, The Independent reports, the UK finally “admitt[ed] Kenyans were tortured and sexually abused by colonial forces”.

Kenyans were “beaten, castrated and sexually assaulted”.

Churchill's Empire, making Darth Vader's look like a hippie drum circle, ran “concentration camps” where suspects were tortured and sterilized, such as by being “publicly castrated with a pair of pliers normally used on cattle” – a fitting tactic given Churchill considered his human prey to be “beastly” “savages”.

The Independent**:

Churchill believed that Kenya's fertile highlands should be the preserve of the white settlers, and approved the clearing out of the local “blackamoors”. He saw the local Kikuyu as “brutish children”.

Hundreds of thousands were driven into the camps, which were studied by Pulitzer-prize winning historian, Professor Caroline Elkins in her book, Britain's Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya, which examines the :

…tactics adopted under Churchill to crush the local drive for independence. “Electric shock was widely used, as well as cigarettes and fire,” she writes. “The screening teams whipped, shot, burned, and mutilated … suspects.” Hussein Onyango Obama [Barack Obama's paternal grandfather] never truly recovered from the torture [and indefinite detention, later to be implemented by his grandson] he endured.

Many of the wounds Churchill inflicted have still not healed…

The Independent also notes:

[Churchill] fought for a raw white supremacism and a concentration camp network…

[The British Empire] washed distant nations [in] blood…

[Churchill believed] the superior white man was conquering the primitive, dark-skinned natives…

…Churchill charged through imperial atrocities, defending each in turn.

…as an MP he demanded a rolling programme of more conquests, based on his belief that “the Aryan stock is bound to triumph”.

Churchill demanded they [defiant natives] be crushed with extreme force. As Colonial Secretary in the 1920s, he unleashed the notorious Black and Tan thugs on Ireland's Catholic civilians, and when the Kurds rebelled against British rule, he said: “I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes…[It] would spread a lively terror.”

Didn't everybody think that way then? One of the most striking findings of [historian] Toye's research is that they really didn't: even at the time, Churchill was seen as … brutal and brutish…

[In India,] Skeletal, half-dead people were streaming into the cities and dying on the streets, but Churchill … had only jeers for them.

Decades after Churchill's “dictatorship … on the darker-skinned peoples of the world” (Independent) had been handed off to the US (which vastly expanded the empire and often uses an even heavier whipping hand to suppress uprisings against Western colonialism, as in Vietnam), Daily Mail reports (2013) that even though the British European-Aryan-Empire with thousand year ambitions admits it perpetrated “castration, rape and beatings”, Keynans will receive some monetary compensation but “no apology”, making the scene from The Godfather when the gangster, Sonny, smashes a photographer's camera then tosses some money at his feet look positively civilized.

Robert Barsocchini is an internationally published researcher and writer who focuses on global force dynamics and writes professionally for the film industry. He is a regular contributor to Washington's Blog. Follow Robert and his UK-based colleague, Dean Robinson, on Twitter.

US Americans, likewise, turn reality on its head and largely regard themselves as threatened victims of Arabs (which is largely confabulation for military expansion and resource-looting), and kill large numbers of them.  The US has been involved, directly and indirectly, in killing millions of Arabs, Muslims, and other Middle Eastern people-groups for decades, particularly beginning in 1953 with the US/British overthrow of Iranian democracy, and leading up to US invasions of Iraq in the early ’90s, and US-led sanctions deemed “genocidal” by UN overseers, who resigned in protest.  All of this was done long before the 9/11/01 attacks (the US has continued to mass murder millions of Middle Easterners since 9/11), and nothing remotely approaching a reversal of it – Arab armies invading the US and destroying the society, killing millions of people through various means, etc. – has ever happened or could happen, at least in the real world.