You may remember that just a very short time after the State of the Union address I commented about the actions of the Chief Justice at the address. I gave him a pass and said no big deal.
  I also, at the time, said that it was sort of stupid to have the court there in the front row but that they could not show any feelings.  They should not smile or clap or do anything.
  I it might be a good idea for them from now on just watch it on TV and not attend.  I said they should not say it was for some reason or place any blame or anything.

  Now the Chief Justice, John Roberts, labeled the political atmosphere at the State of the Union address "very troubling."  Wow that is such a break with history and tradition that I can not believe that he would say such a thing and on top of that he says it leaves him questioning whether the justices should continue to attend. 
  Justices just do not make statements like that.. They have a tradition and a history of being very careful what they say and for him to do such a break with tradition is just wrong.

  See CNN story

  Justices are turning over in their graves right now.
  I have just given up on any Republican and on the Republican party.  I can only hope and pray that some new party comes along to replace them. 

Here are the remarks I made here on January 29th about the State of the Union address.

Continue reading »

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  Well the great news was not so great.  Pakistan did not get Adam Gadahn the American al Qaeda spokesman.  See my post here about it:  Adam Gadahn

 

  Now if we would just listen to Glenn Beck he had the right idea.  He said that anytime we get our hands on someone like this that right away we should

SHOOT THEM IN THE HEAD
  He said to do it right away.. If we had followed his advice then this guy would be dead and in the ground and we would have him dead.  I am not sure what we should do when he turned up with new videos. 
  Now we got this guy who is some farmer or something and we need to listen to our ex-vice president and the Republicans.  We just water board the hell out of him.  Hell it is not our fault that he looks like Adam Gadahn.  It is his fault.  Plus he does not believe in Jesus Christ and has a towel on his head … So just water board him until he confesses and it is my understand that if you water board someone they will tell you anything and everything to get you to stop.  I know I would.. You even start to water board me and I will confess to being Adam Gadahn and sign or do anything you want. 
  So we can listen to Glenn Beck and shoot guys like this in the head RIGHT AWAY or we can listen to our ex-vice president and the Republicans and water board them and then ship there ass off to Gitmo. 
  So it is not big deal when we get the wrong guy. 

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  Left wing liberal college scientists lie again.  They lie about everything.  You can not believe any person with an education.  No this lie is not about the so called "global warming."

  This lie is in a CNN story called "Scientists reaffirm theory that giant asteroid killed dinosaurs." 

"(CNN) — A team of scientists has agreed that a giant asteroid killed off dinosaurs and a majority of other species on Earth more than 65 million years ago.

The researchers analyzed evidence and agreed it supports a single-impact theory first proposed 30 years ago on the cause of the mass extinction.

Since 1980, scientists have gathered an overwhelming amount of evidence that shows a single asteroid about 6 miles in diameter and traveling at 45,000 miles a second, slammed into the Gulf of Mexico, said Richard Norris, a paleoceanographer at the University of California San Diego.

The impact caused a crater 24 miles deep and 125 miles wide, according to Norris, who was part of the research team…"

  If you believe in Jesus Christ our lord and savior and if you believe in his holy word as written in our blessed bible and if you have been home schooled then you know that they are wrong because the earth is only 6,000 years old and so an asteroid could not have hit here 65 million years ago.
  In fact using the Scripture we know for a fact that the earth is only 6,000 years old.  God created the earth in about 4000 BC. 
  
  These lies are why the people of the book need to take over local boards of education and why they need to make the United States the Christian nation it was founded to be

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  Very interesting article at Guardian.Co.UK called "Inside the world of Obama’s secret service bodyguards." 

"The Southern Poverty Law Center began life in 1971 as a tiny law firm specialising in civil rights cases. It took on the might of the Ku Klux Klan, and was duly  rewarded by having its offices razed  and its senior lawyers targeted for  assassination. But it kept on going and grew to be one of the most respected monitoring groups of rightwing  extremism in America today.
Recently it brought out a report called Terror From the Right [http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/publications/terror-from-the-right" title="Terror From the Right], which identifies, in chronological order, the serious home-grown plots, conspiracies and racist rampages that have  been cooked up in America since the Oklahoma City bomb in 1995. The list runs to 10 pages of closely printed type and itemises 75 domestic terrorism events, from plans to bomb government buildings to attempts to kill judges and politicians.
Each of the incidents aimed to change the political face of America through violence, courtesy of groups with such titles as Aryan People’s  Republic, The New Order and The Hated. But in the summer of 2008 the chronology takes on a sharp change of tack. Entries, which had been running at one or two per year, start coming faster. And instead of a variety of  different targets, one name crops up time and time again: Barack Obama.
The first such entry is for 8 June 2008. Six people, linked to a militia group in rural Pennsylvania, are arrested with stockpiles of assault rifles and homemade bombs. One of the six allegedly tells the authorities that he intended to shoot black people from a rooftop and predicts civil war should Obama, who five days previously had cleared the Democratic nomination for president,  be elected to the White House.
Next entry: 24 August 2008. The day before the opening of the Democratic convention in Denver at which  Obama was nominated, three  white supremacists are arrested  in possession of high-powered rifles and camouflage clothing. They are talking about assassinating Obama.
24 October 2008: Less than two weeks before the election, two white supremacists are arrested in Tennessee over a bizarre plan to kill more than 100 black people, including Obama.
21 January 2009: The day after Obama’s inauguration, a white man is arrested in  Massachusetts, having allegedly killed two black immigrants and injured a third. He says he was "fighting for a dying race".
10 June 2009: James von Brunn, aged 88, walks into the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and shoots dead a security guard. Von Brunn, who died last month in jail awaiting trial, left a note that read: "Obama was created by Jews."
In the 13 months that Barack Obama has been the occupant of the Oval Office he has been the subject of an extraordinary outpouring of  emotion from the American electorate. At the start it was largely adulatory, though more recently the adoration has been drowned out by a cacophony of criticism from tea party activists, birthers, global-warming deniers and viewers of Fox News. At the same time, largely hidden from view, there has been a layer of antagonism towards Obama that lies well beyond the boundaries of reasonable political debate.
That has been a fact of life for Obama and his family since long before they took the keys to the White House. On 2 May 2007, fully 18 months before election day, he was assigned a secret service detail ? much earlier than any other presidential candidate in American history. The precise reasons for the move have never been disclosed, but there was certainly a mood in the air sufficiently palpable to disconcert Michelle Obama. A senior US official in the State Department has told the Guardian that before he decided to run for the presidency, Obama had actively to win Michelle over to the idea by  assuaging her fears about the potential of an attack on him, her and/or their two daughters.
Michelle would have been aware of the backstory here: that Colin Powell had declined to run for the 1996  Republican nomination partly because his wife Alma feared his assassination at the hands of white supremacists. Over the course of the long presidential race, Michelle spoke openly about her anxieties and how she had determined to overcome them, telling 60 Minutes that she had decided to fling herself into the race because "I am tired of  being afraid".
According to John Heilemann and Mark Halperin’s new account of the 2008 election, Game Change, she eventually felt relaxed enough to crack sardonic jokes about the subject. "I’ve already gone out and increased our life insurance on [Barack]," she quipped. "You just can’t be too careful!" But as the Southern Poverty Law Center survey shows, the issue of safety and the 44th president remains anything but a laughing matter. "Virtually every  domestic terrorist event we have identified since June 2008 ? when it became obvious that Obama was  going to win ? has been directly related to him," says the author of the report, Mark Potok…"

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  Great news, if it is true, Adam Gadahn the American spokesman for al Qaeda has been arrested in Pakistan.
  See CNN story
 
We have stupid right wing Republicans toss around the word "treason" about Democrats, liberals and anyone they do not agree with … But here with this guy we have a real true case of treason in time of war.
  I do not believe in the death penalty but in this case I think hanging is what is called for and if they need someone to pull the rope I am willing.
  In 2008, he renounced his U.S. citizenship and destroyed his passport but I still think he is an American citizen and I think treason would fit his crimes. And he should be tried in our normal justice court system.

  Now something.. I wonder about with guys like this.. How many of these guys are in fact CIA agents? 

  If he is not a agent of the United States and is in fact a low life scum that would sell out his nation.. Then I want to see him get an American day in court with all the rights .. and then when found guilty I want to see him spend the rest of his life in jail or see him hanging from a rope.
 
 

"Adam Yahiye Gadahn (Arabic: آدم يحيى غدن‎, Ādam Yaḥyā Ghadan; born Adam Pearlman, September 1, 1978) is an American-born, senior operative, cultural interpreter, spokesman [2] and media advisor[3] for the terrorist group Al-Qaeda. Since 2004, he appeared in a number of videos produced by Al-Qaeda as "Azzam the American" (‘Azzām al-Amrīki, عزام الأمريكي, sometimes transcribed as Ezzam Al-Amerikee). He is believed to have inspired bin Laden’s September 2007 video.[3]

In 2004, he was added to the FBI Seeking Information – War on Terrorism list.[4] On October 11, 2006 he was removed from that list, and placed on the Bureau of Diplomatic Security Rewards for Justice Program list of wanted criminals.[5] On the same day, Gadahn was indicted based on the testimony of the FBI case agent E.J. Hilbert II, in the Southern Division of the United States District Court for the Central District of California by a federal grand jury for the capital crime of treason for aiding an enemy of the United States (i.e. Al-Qaeda). Gadahn is the first American charged with treason since Tomoya Kawakita in 1952.[6]. On March 7, 2010, Pakistani intelligence officials announced that they had arrested a person name Adam Gadahn in the city of Karachi…"  Wikipedia

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"NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Snail mail might soon get even slower.

The U.S. Postal Service plans to propose Tuesday an adjusted mail service schedule, which will likely cut Saturday delivery. The agency will also suggest closing some branches and expanding its use of self-service kiosks in grocery stores and other popular retail spots, as part of its effort to work its way out of a mountain of debt…" 

  Times change and things change.  It will have some effect.  There are people that get medications by mail.  There are people that sell stuff and ship it via the U.S. Post Office.
  It will effect me.  I just signed up for the one DVD Netflix plan again.
 
  But knowing how the government and the post office works I wonder if this will even have any effect on their $3.8 billion loss in 2009.  I think fewer people will use the USPS.  I suspect that management will do stupid things (hay they hired me to work for them part time and full time back in the 60s). 
  I only worked part time for a couple of Christmas's for them.  I only worked full time for them for a month or two and then I told them to take their job and shove it.
  But I bet their management has not improved.  We will see if the loss comes down.
  They need to get modern and cut down the number of employees.  I hate to say that because those are good paying jobs.  Most of all I hate to say it when the unemployment rate is 9.7% and the Republicans are keeping Congress from passing a bill to aid those getting unemployment pay.

 

Update:  02/02/2010 1700 Hours:  USPS to cut 30K jobs and cut overtime pay

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"Note: the initial video shows Jim Bunning on the mound when he was with the Phillies. The hit-by-pitch shots are symbolic, not literal portrayals of Bunning. And Ride of the Valkyries was Bunning’s 1998 campaign theme song."

 

"James Paul David "Jim" Bunning (born October 23, 1931) is an American politician and former pitcher in Major League Baseball.

Bunning pitched in the Major Leagues for 17 seasons, most notably with the Detroit Tigers and the Philadelphia Phillies. When he retired, he had the second-highest total of career strikeouts in Major League history; he is currently 17th. Bunning pitched a perfect game in 1964, a feat that has been accomplished only eighteen times in Major League history. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1996.

After retiring from baseball, Bunning returned to his native northern Kentucky and was subsequently elected to the city council, and then the state senate, in which he served as minority leader. In 1986, Bunning was elected to theU.S. House of Representatives from Kentucky’s 4th congressional district, and served in the House from 1987 to 1999. He was elected to the United States Senate from Kentucky in 1998 and has served there since 1999 as theRepublican junior U.S. Senator. Bunning is currently the sixth oldest U.S. Senator and the oldest Republican in the Senate. In July 2009, he announced that he would not run for re-election in 2010, citing difficulty in raising campaign funds…"

  I do not know anything about his pitching.  But it is clear he that he does not care about the people that have lost their jobs and not find one.  He is not running for re-election so I guess he can just thumb his nose at all those thousands of people.  People will be hurt by not having income.  Children will not have enough to eat.  A lot of pain from Republican Jim Bunning.  I am not sure why he is doing it.
  He has little support in his home state.  It seems to me this is his way of giving everyone the finger.

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"February 25, 2010 6:48 pm ET by Solange Uwimana

Never one to miss an opportunity to attack President Obama, the first lady, or health care reform on his radio show (not necessarily in that order), Rush Limbaugh managed to hit all three in the span of a few seconds today while mocking Obama’s health care summit. Limbaugh, referring to Obama’s anecdote about having to rush his daughters to the emergency room, stated:

LIMBAUGH: Any person in America, from the richest guy in the country to the cheapest, poorest illegal immigrant can do exactly the same thing Obama just described and that’s go to the emergency room. And Tom Coburn made that point. Everybody gets treated in this country. That’s not what we’re here talking about. We’re talking about fraud, waste — we just need to get it out of there.

Now, why, since Obama just described this wonderful system where his two daughters — two fat daughters, according to his wife — his two fat daughters came down with some sort of a disease and had to rush them to the emergency room, why design a system that destroys the very best private health care that he says he’s so thankful for?…"

  The above is from MediaMatters for America and they say that Michelle Obama never called her daughters fat.
  What I would add is how in the hell can a fat pig like Rush Limbaugh call anyone fat?

 
  The other thing that I want to add is that this show just how fucking stupid Rush Limbaugh is and how he lies to his listeners.
  I think he knows the truth and I think you even understand it .. But let me try and lay it out to with a made up example…
  OK you work for a company that has health insurance and you pay $150.00 a month for the health insurance and the company pays $200.00 a month for you.  OK you have a family doctor and lots of little things get seen in his office and you can call his office if you a question or need something simple.
  OK stick with me here.. You have something happen that you have to go to the emergency room at the hospital.  What do you find when you get to the ER?  It is full.  All the carts are full of patients.  You are going to have to wait hours in the waiting room to be seen (unless you have a real emergency).  The ER and the halls and the waiting rooms are filled with people that want to be seen in the ER and this is important because they do NOT have health care insurance…They are not seeing a family doctor.  They do not have a family doctor. They can not call a doctor’s office and ask a simple question.  The only way they can get health care is to go the the EMERGENCY room of a HOSPITAL. 
  OK hang in here a bit with me… Now the reason are system is fucked is because the people have no access to health care so they go to the ER.  NOW.. it cost a lot to be seen in an ER. 
  Now so they see you in the ER and treat you and tell you to follow up with your family doctor and you do.  The other people, who  do not have a family doctor, will be told the same thing but most of them will end up coming back to the ER. Some the next day and some the next week. 
  Now the hospital bills your insurance company for $900.00 because you were seen in the ER. Since you were not admitted to the hospital you have to pay $100.00 on the bill. 
  Now all those other people get billed, the ones with no insurance, and of course they can not pay.
  So who is paying for them.. YOU ARE.. YOU ARE.. That is why your bill was $900.00 and not $400.00 and that is why you are paying $100.00 of the bill and not $25.00 of the bill. 
  If we had national health care… When you went to the ER there would not be a wait to be seen for hours and hours.  I have gone to work and seen people waiting to be seen in the ER and I have worked my 8 hour shift and gone home and those people are still waiting to be seen.
  I have be on duty in the ER and seen a patient come into the ER to be seen and wait hours and hours and say "FUCK THIS PLACE" and say they were going to another hospital and leave and come back hours later and say "I am sorry. The other hospital had a wait for hours also and I want to be seen here."
  Now again.. Since we do not have national health care insurance you and your insurance company are paying for all those people being seen in the ER.  If we had national health care insurance you would not have to pay $150.00 a month for health care insurance.  The company you work for would not have to pay $200.00 a month for you. They might pay $100.00 a month for you and give you an increase in pay.
  Here is the good part buddy… If we do not get a national health care plan … It is only going to get worst.  Your wait at the ER will be longer and you will have to pay more for health care insurance and your company will have to pay more for you.  Then after that it will get worst because your company will not be willing to or able to pay those costs.  They will do away with health care insurance or make you pay so much that you can not pay your other bills or the company you work for will have to cut the number of employees because of health care costs.
  Listen to me and believe me YOU ARE PAYING RIGHT NOW for all those people that Rush says go to the ER and get "free" treatment.  It is not free.  You and I are paying for it.  We have been paying for it for a long time.
  Rush is a stupid fat mother fucker and does not know what he is talking about.
  The Republicans are fucking you and they know what they are doing.  They do not care about you.

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  You got to see this video.   Rep. Anthony Weiner making a speech in congress has his words "taken down."  That is he was disciplined for using "inappropriate words in debate."  What he said was about the Republicans and 100% true.
  I never heard of "Words Taken Down" and did not know such a thing could be done.
  There is NO way I could be a member of the House.  Everything I said about the Republicans would be "inappropriate words."
  When the Republicans call President Obama a Communist are their "Words Taken Down?"  When the Republicans say that there are going to be death panels to kill older Americans are their "Words Taken Down?"
 
What this video Please. 

  Rep. Anthony Weiner is my hero now.

"Anthony David Weiner (pronounced /ˈwiːnər/; born September 4, 1964) is a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives, representing New York’s 9th congressional districtsince 1999. The district includes parts of southern Brooklyn and south central Queens. In Queens, the 9th includes the neighborhoods of Forest Hills, Maspeth, Fresh Meadows, Glendale, Howard Beach, Kew Gardens, Kew Gardens Hills, Middle Village, Ozone Park, Rego Park, Rockaway Beach, and Woodhaven. Its Brooklyn section includes Flatlands, Gerritsen Beach, Marine Park,Midwood, Mill Basin and Sheepshead Bay.

Weiner defeated Republican Louis Telano in the 1998 U.S. House election, by a margin of 66%-23%. He was re-elected in 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2008, never receiving below 65%. In the House, he is a member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce and Committee on the Judiciary. He was an unsuccessful candidate for Mayor of New York City in the 2005 mayoral election.

A graduate of SUNY Plattsburgh, Weiner was an aide to then-U.S. Representative Charles Schumer(1985-91) before serving as a member of the New York City Council from 1992 to 1998…"  Wikipedia

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"Washington (CNN) — Former Vice President Dick Cheney suffered a mild heart attack Monday when he complained of chest pains and was hospitalized, his office said Tuesday.

"Lab testing revealed evidence of a mild heart attack," the statement said. "He underwent a stress test and a heart catheterization. He is feeling good and is expected to be discharged in the next day or two."

During the catheterization, which took place at George Washington University Hospital, doctors examined blood flow to the heart and tested how well the heart was pumping.

In the procedure, a doctor inserts a catheter, a thin plastic tube, into an artery or vein in the arm or leg and threads it into the chambers of the heart or into the coronary arteries. The test can measure blood pressure within the heart and how much oxygen the blood contains.

Two sources said Tuesday that Cheney, 69, was in his hospital room, where he had lunch with family members. He also was working with them editing a chapter of a book he is writing.

He was described as being in good spirits…"

  As you know I am NO fan of Dick Cheney.  But thank God I am a better person than many right wing Republicans.  Many right wing Republicans have been praying for Democrats in congress to die.  Even some have been praying for the President of the United States to die.
  I wish no harm to fall on Dick Cheney and I have not been praying for him to die.
  Now I have not been praying for his good health but that is because I do not pray for things like that anymore.  The last time I can remember praying for something like that was when I was in a Catholic high school and prayed all day at school and on the bus heading home.  I was praying that my dog, Lady, would be OK.  She had been sick and my dad refused to spend money to have a vet check her.
  I found her dead in front of the ice box when I got home.  I think I decided then that praying for the heath of a dog was not a good idea.

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"Washington (CNN) — Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has notified Congress of plans to allow women to serve aboard submarines, a Defense Department official said Tuesday.

Letters of intent were sent Monday to Congress, which has requested briefings on the matter, said the official, who asked not to be identified. There will be no vote on the matter in Congress.

The change was recommended by the chief of naval operations and the secretary of the Navy in addition to Gates, the official said, adding that there was no opposition to the move among Navy leaders.

A phased approach is being considered under which officers — who already have separate living quarters — would be the first to go co-ed, followed by crews, with the women bunking together, the official said. Crew space would have to be modified prior to that happening, the official added.

The submarines expected to carry women initially would be the larger ones — nuclear-power, missile-carrying submarines known as SSBN and SSGN, the official said…" 

   If you know me then you know I am a big bleeding heart left wing liberal.  If it is a left wing cause then I am for it right?  I do not know about putting women in sub crews.  I was never in the navy or even the military but I have seen a couple of TV shows on CSpan and other stations about subs.  There is not much living space. 
  I guess I got to go with what the military experts say about the issue but I worry about it. 
  I also have seen reports on the news about the problems woman are having in the military and that is not even on a small ship out at sea for a long time.  I think this will be an issue that some on the right wing get upset over because many of them do not even think a woman should be working…They think she should be at home following the orders of her husband and home schooling the kids so that government does not turn them into Communist. 

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"Washington (CNN) — The Department of Homeland Security has more contractors working for it than full-time employees, a situation two members of Congress said Tuesday was "unacceptable, untenable and unsustainable."

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and ranking Republican Susan Collins said they were "astounded" to learn there are more than 200,000 contractor employees at the department.

The civilian work force of Homeland Security numbers 188,000, according to an estimate provided to the senators by Homeland Security.

In a letter sent Tuesday to the agency’s Secretary Janet Napolitano, Lieberman and Collins said the figure "raises the question of whether DHS itself is in charge of its programs and policies, or whether it inappropriately has ceded core decisions to contractors."

Although Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, and Collins of Maine noted that contractors can offer a variety of needed assets and skills to federal agencies, they called the current balance between federal employees and contractors at Homeland Security "unacceptable, untenable and unsustainable," according to the letter…" 

  I never was happy with President Bush’s idea of the DHS.  I also did not like the man he picked to run it.  I had no idea that the DHS had so few employees.  I should have known that they would want to contract out jobs to non-government out side contractors.
Remember the big fight over airport screeners.  The Republicans did not want them to be federal employees.  President Bush did not want more FAA ATC employees and put us all in danger by trying not to hire more of them. He did get their pay cut.  They did out source of the ATC jobs to a private company.
So the above finding will not set well with Republicans.  They say they are interested in protecting the United States but the truth is they are only interested in protecting their seats in congress.
  So I expect a fight over this issue…Glenn Beck, Faux News and the rest of them will say this is a Communist plot to set up a take over of the United States.  
  Contracting out jobs sounds like a good idea but I am not sure it ever turns out good.  You lose good paying government jobs for American citizens.  When you contract out the company bids the job and you take, most of the time, the company that bids the least.  The company then hires in people and pays them as little as they can and then look for every way they can to pay them less and operate with fewer employees.  Remember in this case we are talking about HOME LAND SECURITY.  Let us say the contract is for two years.  Well in two years you have other corporations, often non-US, that look at the people that got the last contract and they bid less to get the contract and it just keeps going down hill after that happens.  If a new company gets the contract it is often out with the people that just learned out to do that job and in with new employees.
  If you want to see how it works…Just take a look at the contract employees that did security at airports before 9/11.  Take a look at the contract employees that guard federal employees.  Many years ago their were bombings, remember the 60s, at federal buildings. So the federal government set up the Federal Protection Service.  They were federal police officers to guard federal buildings.  Well the Republicans had a fit over it.  The bombing and problems at the federal buildings came to an end and Republicans demanded an end to the FPS.  (There are still a few federal protection officers left over.) So they did away with the idea of federal officers protecting federal buildings and they have gone back to contract guards.
  So I think we are going to see the same thing from the Republicans and the right wing this time. Except now the Republicans are going to say that President Obama, because he is a Communist, is going to want to hire young black thugs and put them into a federal army so he can complete his Communist take over of the United States.

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  This video is about Texas and the people that live in Texas and about school text books.

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  CNN has a report from an Alabama shooting survivor.  It is an interesting story.  See CNN story.  It answers a number of questions that I had about the meeting.  It does appear that there was little that could be done to prevent the shooting at that time and place.
 
  The survivor does say something that does drive me crazy, keep in mind that I worked Safety and Security for 40 years, about security.

  “…And she worried that any attempt to tighten security could have negative consequences. "There is evil in the world; it is unfortunate that good people are hurt by that. But a university is a place of free thought and freedom to explore ideas and to search out new knowledge and you don't want to put anything in place that dampens that."…”
 

 OK this is something I have heard before and it is just stupid.  I do not care that this woman has a PDH and works on subjects that I can not and never could even understand.  This woman is stupid.  I have seen it before and do not understand it.
  I could give you lots of examples.  Let me give you one.  I worked at a hospital,  Trinity Lutheran Hospital, and we did police background checks on all employees before they were hired.  When I say “we” I mean the Safety and Security Department would get the information the HR department and we would drive the information downtown to the Kansas City Police Department.  We would give it to them and then the next day we would drive down and pick it up. We would love it over and then give the information to the HR department.  I was a police back ground check. Most of the time it was traffic tickets, dog barking or stuff like that if the person had a police record.
  OK I started to see from time to time a new employee. He worked in Surgery.  I could just tell by looking at the guy he was bad news.  He looked at me like he wanted to kill me.  He looked like he was filled with rage and hate. I kept asking the other officers what is the deal with this guy?  Have we ticketed his car or something?  They all said no.
  Well right about that time Kansas City had a guy that was doing armed robbery.  He would rob a place and then he killed everyone that was there.  He did not leave anyone alive.  This was big news in Kansas City but was before satellite cable TV and I am not sure if the rest of the US knew much about it.  But it was so bad in KC that many business locked their doors and you could only get in to the business by knocking on the door.
  Yes,  it turned out that the guy I was talking about was the robber and murder.  The police arrested him one day as he left the hospital. 
  It turned out that he had a LONG and very bad police record.  We are talking big time crimes and jail time for all his life.  We found out later that someone in administration of the hospital for some reason wanted to help out a person that needed help.  My guess is it came from the wife of one of the top administration people that belonged to some do good organization.  So they did not have the HR department or Security do a background check on the guy because they did want Security to “harass” the guy. 
  This lady in this Alabama shooting is just dead wrong on this subject.  I would bet money that the school and the people that worked with the shooter had all types of warning signs. I bet they hid the information.  I bet their feeling was.. well we are “professional” educated people and we do not want to share these problems with the HR department of the campus police and security.  I have seen this sort of stuff all the time.  
  The same hospital that I was talking about had a problem that they kept hidden for a long time.  The doctors in the department would leave out drugs.  They would use some of the drug on a patient and then leave the schedule III controlled substance just laying around on a table or bed or someplace and walk away.  I had an RN report it to me and I wrote it up and the problem was corrected.  But the RN did not want to report it because it was a department issue thing and they were all professional people and they did not want to let the “guard” know about it.
  These “professional” people need to get over this …I am not sure what you call it… It is like they are above us and better than us and they think they do not have to have rules.

Popularity: 2% [?]

  Here is a great post from Americablog.  It is by Steve Kyle.  He teaches economics at Cornell University.
This post says what I have been trying to say for years about Social Security.  Mr. Kyle does it in a clear way and I am posting his entire post on the subject.

 GOP talking about cutting Social Security again, when the real budge problem is health care

by Steve Kyle (NY) on 2/07/2010 07:01:00 PM

Two Republicans, Alan Greenspan and Hank Paulson, sat on Meet the Press this morning and told us that there is no way out of our fiscal mess that doesn’t involve cutting entitlements. And first on their list is Social Security.
First, why should anyone believe what these two guys have to say? They presided over the monetary policy and the fiscal policy that got us into our current economic mess.
Second, why on earth does the supposedly he-said/she-said addicted mainstream press have only discredited Republicans to talk about economics? Aren’t there no Democrats available?
Third, and most important, can we PLEASE kill the zombie-like reawakening of the we-must-cut-Social-Security-benefits meme once and for all? We last killed this lie a few years ago when Bush Jr. had a run at it, but in fact it has been around since 1933. Republicans HATE Social Security for two reasons, one stupid and one understandable (but also stupid if you actually care about retirees):

- The stupid reason: Social Security is "socialist." Well, sure it is and what of it? If people actually like it (and there is no question they do) are we really going to cut it just because it is something socialists happen to like also?
- The understandable reason: If I were a Republican, I too would hate the program that is so popular, it got Democrats elected and reelected for half a century. (Incidentally, this is also why they hate single payer health care. If we ever actually put it in place it would be so popular that the party who got credit for it would be cemented in power for the rest of our lives (which would be much markedly longer, incidentally). Only people who never travel to other countries (like most Republicans) could imagine that single payer wouldn’t be popular. If you doubt what I say, just look at Medicare, our current seniors-only single payer government health care system. Even the tea-baggers like it.

Here are some facts. Social Security, if it has a long run problem at all, won’t run in to any problems for at least three more decades by even the most conservative estimates from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. Even then, the "crisis" is that the SS trust fund will run out and SS will have to rely on current SS taxes like it did for most of its history. In other words, the "crisis" is that instead of having a steadily rising value, social security payments will be stuck at current levels, meaning us worker bees today will retire "only" at the level current retirees are getting rather than the steady increases we are promised. Of course, it is entirely possible and even probable that this "crisis" will never materialize at all, so it is silly to worry about it now when there are far bigger problems out there.
What are those far bigger problems? Medicare and Medicaid! They really ARE going to eat the entire federal budget in a decade or two if we don’t pass some health care reforms.
To make it crystal clear, let me reiterate. Health care costs are going to bankrupt us if we don’t pass some real reforms. Social Security won’t bankrupt us. Lumping them together is just a way for the Republicans to attack Social Security – something they have hated for almost 80 years, and something which still works pretty well. And it will continue to work pretty well if we just leave it alone. Health care won’t.

Popularity: 2% [?]

  President Obama said today that cutting the deficit is as important as job growth.  I think he is wrong.  I think he is just reading the polls and seeing the tone of the nation.  
  We, the people, do not like a deficit.  The Republicans can use that issue to pound the Democrats and the American people will go along with them.  Of course we have the problems that we have because of the Republicans and we have the deficit because of the Republicans.
  One thing .. and I said this back before for the start of the war in Iraq and that is that we need to pay for wars.  I did not agree with the war in Iraq but I said if we went to war we needed to send 400K troops and we needed to tax all Americans to pay for the war.  The Republicans did not send 400K troops and not only did they not tax the Americans they gave a big tax break to rich Americans.  Plus remember how  President Bush and other Republicans and Fox “news” told us that the oil money from Iraq would pay for the war and we would be rolling in money.  We are rolling in debt.

  I think trying to cut the deficit is not as important right now.  We need to get people working.  We need to create jobs.  When people are working and earning money we will have tax money coming in and they can pay their bills and buy things and THEN we can start to work on the deficit.
  But it is not going to be that way because of the Republicans.
  
  My advice is always listen to what the Republicans demand and then go 180 degrees in the other direction.

Popularity: 1% [?]

“Washington (CNN) — The political furor escalated over President Obama’s high-profile rebuke of a recent Supreme Court ruling on campaign advertising Thursday, as Democrats pounded the high court decision.

Democrats rallied around Obama the day after the president committed a rare breach of political etiquette, criticizing the controversial ruling in his State of the Union address as members of the high court sat only a few feet away.

That triggered something equally unusual. Justice Samuel Alito, a conservative backer of the ruling, frowned and appeared to mouth the words "not true." Alito’s apparent reply was a rare flash of emotion among Supreme Court justices who typically sit stony faced and refrain from even clapping during State of the Union speeches.

The actions of both men may be unprecedented, according to one longtime court observer…” 

 

  OK so conservative Justice Samuel Alito had to be an ass at the State of the Union address.  He did not yell out or stand up and toss a shoe or anything… He did know what he was doing and he should not have done it …But it should not have been a big deal.  The media should have commented on it and then that should have been it.
  Now should President Obama have said what what he said about the court ruling?  OH YES.. He needed to mention it there and then.  Again he needed to bring it up in the State of the Union address and ask Congress to pass new laws that will live with the “political” decision made by this current conservative court.
  President Obama had to bring it up because it is going to have a major impact on elections and on all of us.  It was a major step back and it was a major gain for special interests and something that is going to help (surprise surprise) Republicans.
  So did President Obama do anything wrong?  NO NO NO.  If he had failed to mention it he would have done something wrong.

  OK OK.. I understand history… I love history… I love our system of government and I understand what the State of the Union is and the history and the need for it. 
  But now that we have cameras in there and they are zooming in on people and they reading lips … We may just need to see a change in history and the way we do things…  I have felt for a long time that it is just stupid for the high court to be sitting in the front row and they all look like they are dead.  No matter what is said in the speech they are not to re-act to it. They do not stand, do not clap… They just sit there.  It looks stupid.  I understand the reasons behind it. 
  I think it is time for the members of the court to not attend the speech.  They are part of the government.  In fact they are one of three parts of our system of government.  But I think the SOTU bit needs change. 
  Maybe it could be that the court meets in private at the Supreme Court and they then watch the State of the Union address on TV in private.  Then they can put their feet up and smile, laugh, cuss, fart and yell at the TV if they want to do it. 
  The current SOTU system for the high court sucks.  Plus it scares me.. I see them and I get the feeling it is like Night of the Living Dead or something.  I keep waiting for them to jump up and start attacking members of Congress and eating their brains.  I know I know.. it would not be very filling eating the brains of Congressmen.. That is what scares me they might have to start attacking  me.

  In case you wonder why I am an expert on all this (SMILE) I took one year of Constitutional law in college. 

Popularity: 1% [?]

 

 

Media Matters of America

“Media Matters for America (or MMfA) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded in 2004 by journalist and author David Brock. Media Matters for America describes itself as "a web-based, not-for-profit, progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media." Media Matters for America defines "conservative misinformation" as "news or commentary presented in the media that is not accurate, reliable, or credible and that forwards the conservative agenda."[1] Eric Burns is the president of the organization.[2]..”

Popularity: 1% [?]

 

 

  When I heard about the crime that James O’Keefe and the other three guys committed…I said here that I bet Fox News was worrying that one of their  staff might have said something to O’Keefe that would come back and bite them in the ass over this deal.  I said I did not think they were that stupid at Fox however.
  I have never heard of Andrew Breitbard or his blogs until now…  I will go and look at his blog later today but from watching this video my gut feeling is that he looks like he is guilty of something. 
  Andrew Breitbard admits to paying “James” money.  I would be worrying if I were him. If I were Andrew Breitbard I would also be wondering just what tapes does James O’Keefe have of them talking in private.

Popularity: 1% [?]

  The idea of following the state of the union address of the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES with a reply from the other side is a super stupid idea. 
  Both sides do it.  I am not sure how it stated.  It may have been the idea of the TV networks to show how fair they were. 
  But someone unknown person speaking for the other side following an important address of the President of the United States is just not going to fly.  I feel sorry for anyone that has to do it.
  Now having said that Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell gave a pretty good little speech.  Him doing it in front of a room full of loving fans of his was a good idea.  It made me sort of sick but it was a good PR idea. 
  Do not get me wrong… Everything that Gov. Bob McDonnell was a bunch of GOP crap but he did a good job of speaking.

  Plus if you watched his speech and listened to his speech he gave you the honest Republican point of view.  His speech tells you that government is bad.  He tells you that there should not be any controls on banks, business, Wall Street and he makes it clear that the Republican party is the party of big business.
  
  After the state of the union address I do not think anyone wants to hear another speech.  Plus we do not want to hear a speech from someone that is being tested by his party.
  Gov. McDonnell did well. 
  Again my problem was the fact that he hand picked a room full of loving family and supporters that looked at him like they were lusting after his body or something.
  But even that was better than the past shows … The ones were you have some guy replying and he looks like he is a closet or a room all alone and you feel so sorry for the guy.  
  Now with the age of information here.. After the state of the union speech we do not need to hear from the other party in that way.  It is dumb.
  We can stay tuned on some network and have their “experts” tell us what they think about the speech and they will have people from both sides or you can watch Faux News and they can give you the Republican talking points.
  We can also read the news and political blogs, this is not one of them, and they will give you their points of view.

Popularity: 1% [?]

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