Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
Democrat or Republican: Just Crooks by Different names
It is true that the GOP have not dealt with or attempted to address job creation until recent months, but it is also true that it took until late in 2009 for Obama to deal with it as well when he introduced his stimulus bill. Like the GOP he did not touch the jobless issue until 18 months after his taking office.I say this because I have noticed the difficulty I have in attempting to understand the vagueness of language that the democrats and GOP use to define each other and make their positions display a penumbra of divarication. First, I cannot buy the doggerel assertion by democrats, in particular President Obama, that he has not been as effective because of an obstructionist congress. I cannot accept this since the first 24 months of his administration he had both a democratic congress and senate ye never placed any budget nor jobs program on their desk since he was occupied with health care like a young mans attracted to a naked lady on his first visit to Magic City. Likewise, I do not get why they cannot proffer a genuine argument against the GOP either inductive or deductive, regardless of conditional propositions, implication or the fallacies of visible and observed assertive consequence presented via Republican outcomes. It would be an easy task.
For example, it is often suggested by Republicans that the present democratic administration is responsible for the present economic problem and that his policies have only made it worse. It is as if the republican Governors and state legislatures around the nation have no say s in what is occurring.
The way I see there has to be some culpability on both sides but the democrats cannot understand this. I find it while the GOP point fingers at the Whitehouse and Obama, six of the ten states with the highest rates of unemployment are run by Republican Governors [Nevada – 12.6%, Mississippi – 10.4%, Florida – 9.9%, Georgia – 9.7% and South Carolina – 9.5%]. Also, six out of eight states with the highest rates of foreclosures are also under the leadership of GOP governors [Nevada , Florida ,Michigan , Ohio ,Georgia and Arizona ].If I add in the majority in terms of state legislatures, it is clear that The GOP took back both chambers in North Carolina [unemployment 9.9%], took control of the state legislatures in Michigan and Ohio by winning the House -- they already held the Senate in those states.
My question is why have the democrats not jumped on these facts and presented them to the American electorate? Well for one, they are just as dumb from top to bottom as the GOP and care more about lining their pockets than serving the interest of the folks on ground level. And sorry to state, this is also true for President Obama.
Obama is not really serious about job creation or the middle class as he speaks. Although since he has taken office, the President has been talking about the need for corporate tax reform, declaring that the system is too complicated and those companies pay too much. Likewise, that he is interested in creating jobs but his actions say otherwise.
Take the case of the CEO of GE, Jeffrey Immelt, who was appointed by Obama to serves as the chairman of Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. While running General Electric, his company filed a 57,000-page federal tax return earlier but didn't pay taxes on $14 billion in profits. It was the second year in a row that GE recorded billions in profits and paid no taxes. Then there is the observation that GE has lain off 21,000 American workers, closed around 20 factories over the past few years and has half of its workforce outside the United States. Last year, the company announced that it would be moving its 115-year-old X-ray business (part of General Electric's GE Healthcare unit) from Waukesha, Wisconsin to Beijing, China.
For many of us politics is a battle between right and wrong in appearance, but frankly it is not. This is just a game they use to lace us against them. Unfortunately, African Americans fall for the okie doke every time. Obama and the democrats can do no wrong and anyone who points this out is the enemy, even if it is true. As a result, we target anything we do not like on cosmetic more so than pragmatic merit. For example, mention Ron Paul and Black folks say he stated he would have voted against the civil rights act as if one item along makes one unworthy of voting for them.
We forget that Franklin Roosevelt, the longtime hero and standard bearer of the Democrat Party, headed up and implemented one of the most horrible racist policies of the 20th Century [the Japanese Internment Camps during World War II] and appointed two vicious segregationists to the United States Supreme Court (South Carolina segregationist Democrat Jimmy Byrnes and Democrat Senator Hugo Black of Alabama] Both once member of the Ku Klux Klan but we ignore that when speak of FDR.
Or that Democrat-controlled state legislatures in the South that placed the Confederate battle flag on their state capitol flags and that no democrat voted for the 14th amendment and that then Senator John F. Kennedy – with an eye on the Democrat presidential nomination for 1960 – voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Yet we still venerate John Kennedy.
We as a nation are lost in space and a nightmare is descending upon us all and continues to get even worse yet all we do is point fingers at each other and circle the wagons for our beliefs without objective examination. All we have to do is speak up as a nation and keep ourselves and one another informed. We must avoid the partisanship around if we can and try to be objective like our parents; for the simple reality is that “no nation can be freer than its most oppressed, richer than its poorest, wiser than its most ignorant…” Henry George.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Obama Administration Desire for Iranian conflict not well thought out
Unlike some folks, I remember the day the people of Iran overthrew the Shah of Iran in 1979. Looking at our current contrived grievance with Iran, I wonder if our current administration does. Over the past year, due to the omnipotent pressure and power of the US Zionist lobby, we have seen multiple military attacks on Iran nuclear facilities and even the kidnapping and assassination of leading Iranian academics and scientist. We have even seen pressure placed on democrats by this lobby in particular, the loss of the New York 9th district congressional seat vacated by Anthon Weiner, to such an extent that the present administration sent bunker buster bombs to Israel to appease their supporter. In fact just this New Year, Obama signed into law sanctions against Iran oil exports. I guess it was designed to show America’s Jewish lobby and Israel that we are hard on Iran.I have been taking my time writing on this because I want to see how all the chips fall. Just last week Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner attempted to get Chinese policy makers to join an American-led campaign to reduce oil exports from Iran because of its nuclear program. However like Russia, they have rejected to participate in the US/European sanctions or the oil embargo directed toward the Persian nation. This will be problematic since it will be the Treasury Department responsibility to enforce sanction laws, especially given that the new legislation, which would prevent access by nations who do not support sanctions on Iran to the American financial system. Although loop holes in the law allow for selected exemptions, in all honestly, I do not think that the President, just as presidents past, is ready for this may proffer in an election year or to our economy. Currently, China's trade surplus with the United States widened 24.2 percent to $17.4 billion in December.
China exports $1.5 trillion of its production and ships 20% of its exports to the U.S., which created a $252 billion trade deficit in 2010.Not to mention that as of last year China owned $1.16 trillion in U.S. debt in the form of Treasury bills, notes and bonds - 26% of the total of $4.5 trillion held by the public. Consequently, this makes China is America's largest banker, giving it leverage over the US as evident when China threatens to sell part of its holdings whenever the U.S. pressures it to raise the value of the yuan. It is no wonder that the U.S. trade deficit with China in 2010 was 27 times larger than it was back in 1990.
Another concern is that some fear Russia fears Israel is pushing America to war on Iran “which could retaliate by blocking” Persian Gulf oil shipments. It is clear that Russia will do what it perceives as necessary to protect its strategically important Tartus, Syria base, its only Mediterranean one (there is as we speak a Russian aircraft carrier battle group is positioned nearby). Then we have 15,000 combat troops in Kuwait, inclusive of two Army infantry brigades and a helicopter unit along with two aircraft carrier battle groups remains in the region.
It is clear that the Obama policy is another political divertissement of imperious old men who have never been to war and like to say they have a right to prevent other nations from self determination, especially when it comes to developing nuclear power. Even it is in the form of weapons, history shows that the only folk who have used nuclear weapons have been the United States. So important is this that we will assist in the assignation of scientist – an act that if implemented by the Taliban or Iranians we would call terroristic. Now we have even indicated to them that any effort to control their own geopolitical borders via the Strait of Hormuz would evoke a swift response from the US military. France’s Le Figaro said “the US and Israel have carried out multiple acts of sabotage against sensitive nuclear installations, while ordering targeted killings of Iranian nuclear experts.” Meaning that both Israeli and US recruit Iranian assets to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program, “which includes targeted assassinations of Iranian nuclear experts….”Again strange since we say one reason we are hard on Iran is because they are a vehicle for state sponsored terrorism.
As it stands, Obama will likely find some excuse to save face, and maybe even attack Iran. As we speak, he is trying to gain support from Middle East allies in preparation for an impending US-Iranian confrontation. This is hard to understand for two reasons. First, we just got out of Iraq and are trying to get out of Afghanistan, why do we want another war so soon with a country of 75 million in which historically, sanctions have never worked. Moreover we as a nation cannot distance our self from targeted assassinations and other subversion in Iran.
He may as well give up on any support from China and when they and Russia do not go along, he will have do-do on his face because he will be powerless to do anything against them: Russia could damage our economy by artificially raising the price of crude oil and China by stop purchasing our debt and/or selling US papers in bulk causing more devaluation of the dollar. I hope the Obama administration thinks this out, for every indication suggest that Washington, Israel and NATO allies cannot wait to bump heads with Iran and Syria. This even when the fact remains that no evidence whatever suggests an Iranian nuclear weapons program, according to the latest March 2011 US intelligence assessment.
Strange, since while the White House is plotting against Tehran, the living standards of the American working class continue to fall. According to Reuters, 23.7 million American workers are either unemployed or underemployed right now. I can figure out why spending billions on another military effort (war) is more important than spending that money here at home where it is needed.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
Friday, January 13, 2012
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Monday, January 09, 2012
President Barack Obama Signs Police State legislation Into Law
With all political attention focused on the Republican Presidential race or the recent holiday season, President Barack Obama under the cloak of little attention signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law on New Year’s Eve.
This is not your basic run of the mill law and was passed in the same manner of another law over the holidays on December 23, 1913 - the Federal Reserve Act, also known as the Glass-Owen Bill. Many see the NDAA as against all that is written in the constitution of the United states. The NDAA effectively revokes the democratic right, habeas corpus, which prevents arbitrary imprisonment of individuals by the government by requiring that the government present evidence to a judge or court to justify taking a person into custody. Yes, one of the provisions included in the 2012 NDAA allows for American citizens suspected of terrorism to be indefinitely detained in military custody without charge or trial.
The Bill goes far beyond terrorists linked to the 9/11 attacks, to include anyone defined by the president as “engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.” Under the new law, the president of the United States can designate any American citizen if desired, to be arrested and detained for life by the US military. This means that it could include domestic opponents of US military action and/or the Us government, including opponents of any war or even the Occupy Wall Street protesters.
The bill provides $662 billion for the US military and even authorizes the US military to seize individuals anywhere in the world and hold them in a military detention facility indefinitely, without a trial or any other legal recourse. In the signing statement, Obama stated he had “serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists.”
Section 1021 affirms the executive branch’s authority to detain persons covered by the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) (Public Law 107-40; 50 U.S.C. 1541 note) and Section 1022 seeks to require military custody for a narrow category of non-citizen detainees who are “captured in the course of hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force.”
He signed the bill into law although he had reservations and previously indicated that he would not sign the bill. In addition, it is another demonstration of the President breaking another campaign promise, specifically not to use signing statements and executive orders to circumnavigate legislation signed into law.
By making this the law of the land, Obama has provide himself and any other Presidents to follow, the right to indefinitely detain any American citizen in the future just by the arbitrary position of the executive branch. He has just implemented a de facto police state similar to those observed historically in fascist and totalitarian regimes globally.
Forethought pertaining to this legislation suggests that certain liberties and freedoms must be sacrificed in the name of protecting the country from further terrorist attacks. Obama did not have to sign the bill and could have done what President Truman did when he vetoed an indefinite detention bill. Guess Obama doesn’t see that The NDAA is more of a threat to our freedom and our rights than any terrorist ever can or will be.
Thursday, January 05, 2012
Wednesday, January 04, 2012
Tuesday, January 03, 2012
Monday, January 02, 2012
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