Nefarious Persuasion

Nefarious Persuasion

Wayward Gumption:

Well, since Obamacare is taking hold, Republicans have swung back to Benghazi in their endless quest for obstruction instead of legislation. It appears when one Obama or Democrat objective begins to gain merit, even after enduring a barrage of Republican criticism; the GOP then abandons the futility only to rekindle a former fire started by them in a previous vendetta. All of this incessant nonsense is created by Republicans simply to create obstruction, doubt and chaos at the true expense of diplomacy and legislation. Political stunting if you will…

Realizing that pandering to negativity through deceit and doubt baiting is not reaching their objectives in one area, Republicans merely switch back to another in hopes that rehashed falsities are old enough to seem more refreshed. It’s not that they don’t give it their very best ol’ heave-ho; after all they attempted to repeal Obamacare in parts or wholly 51 times. It’s just that when starting on false premises one will inevitably wind up finishing as a false aprioristic conclusion; as clowns so to speak.

It’s fine to regroup, but when validity channels are nonexistent preferring instead to attack once again only with rhetorical innuendos under ideologue cover to excite the base, the GOP will ultimately lose but once again. It’s as if they’re stranded in this dense fog and have lost their station by pursuing party power trumping any form of beneficial legislation for the nation. Their warped thinking is…only under complete GOP rhetorical ideologue domination will the nation ever benefit.

With stern parents such as the likes of ‘ALEC’ and ‘Groundswell,’ as good little children GOP politicians are minding them in keeping Benghazi an open issue for the 2014 election and for Hilary in 2016. These groups have actually instructed the GOP to do just that and they are behaving accordingly…as good lil’ children do.

So, judging from the chart below, GOP congressmen are abandoning their futile fight against Obamacare for the time being and are now going to refocus upon Benghazi. This in their minds is a twofold attempt to gain seats in the 2014 election and to do damage to Hilary Clinton if she so chooses to run for the presidency in 2016. The chart also highlights the fact that from January to April of this year, Republicans mentioned Obamacare 1,459 while only commenting on Benghazi 114 times. For the month of May, the mentions have turned around with Benghazi remarked 580 times and Obamacare only 23 times.

Speaker of the House, John Boehner kicks it off. On April 24, 2014 he announces the abandonment of the five year Obamacare turf war at a Rotary Club convention in his Ohio district by saying, “Repeal Obamacare isn’t the answer. The answer is repeal and replace. The challenge is that Obamacare is the law of the land. It is there and it has driven all types of changes in our health care delivery system. You can’t recreate an insurance market overnight.”

Of course this has upset his extreme right-wing portion of the party, but Boehner injected a loophole to “repeal and replace” just in case the GOP ever wants to revisit the Obamacare fight. However, as far as replacement goes, the GOP has absolutely nothing to offer and have themselves thwarted any attempts from within the party to come up with an alternate healthcare plan.

Anyway, it’s now back to Benghazi. With Boehner picking a select panel of Republican congressmen consisting of seven members and having the oft-times rude and vociferous Representative Trey Gowdy (R-SC) to lead the investigative group, Democrats were hesitant on picking their five members, due to the fact Republicans would not allow Democrats the ability to interview witnesses nor have forewarnings of subpoenas. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) finally relented choosing five with Representative Elijah Cummings (D-MD) leading the Democrats. Pelosi was tentative because she did not want to give any validity to the drummed up prosecution. Republicans are not truly trying to find out facts to fix the errors; it is a strict political move to discredit Obama’s administration.

Gowdy, a former prosecutor, gave hints to what the charade was going to be when he stated to MSNBCs Joe Scarborough, “If an administration is slow-walking document production, I can’t end a trial simply because the defense won’t cooperate.” In other words this will be a Republican show trial instead of a proper investigation. With that, Pelosi decided there should be some form of Democrat input.        

The item of the day is this…besides Gowdy’s overhanded prosecutorial trial tactics, other members picked for the GOP panel by Boehner have political vendettas as well besides actually seeking the truth. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) has called Obama “uppity” and has already formed an opinion on the outcome when he appeared on ‘Newsmax TV’ (05/01/2014) stating, “I think that we know exactly what happened. It’s getting the proof to prove what happened that has been the biggest undertaking.” See…the verdict is already in.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who sometimes speaks as if he’s from a nether world, still pushes discredited stories that there was an official internal order for the military to ‘stand down’ in rescuing Benghazi and he still wants to find out who that was. Point is, it was no one, for there never was such an order.

Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) announced in his May 02, 2014 press release on his official website, “Congress and the American people have been denied answers surrounding the terrorist attack on our Special Mission in Benghazi that resulted in the loss of four brave Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. The Administration has continually attempted to obstruct the investigations into what led to the attack on September 11, 2012 in Benghazi, prioritizing spin and political interest above the truth.”  

Heck for that matter even ol’ Rep. Darrel Issa (R-CA) is the head honcho in his party’s desire to make Benghazi an opportune political event. As head of all these three Benghazi house committee hearings and twenty-seven transcribed interviews that have all deadpanned in finding anything corrupt or covered-up, Issa has posted on his current campaign website (https://www.darrellissa.com/) a Breibart.com article titled, “They Knew and They Lied About Benghazi.”

This latest special committee investigation is only a bad blood feud in attempts to corroborate the conclusion Republicans have already made.  As judge and jury the GOP court verdict is already in before any deliberation and adjournment…but they’re drag lining this for good reason…only if…you are a Republican politician.

As they pretend to bereave the fallen four Americans at Benghazi, Republicans actually are taking advantage of their deaths in stuffing their campaign coffers with a direct marketing operation and are nurturing and milking it for all its worth.

Before Benghazi, Issa’s campaign contributions were primarily limited to retired individual donors who simply appreciated Issa’s role as Obama’s adversarial foe.  Since Benghazi, Issa’s donors have risen ten times from 2,600 to over 26,000 and it is all due to his stance on Benghazi. 

A typical donor comment now is, “I want to see him survive and get to the truth on Benghazi, and I want to see the IRS destroyed.” Issa, with his clips and posts, feeds this fictitious relationship because it is enriching his campaign funding.  Throughout the first five quarters of the 2014 election cycle, Issa’s campaign committee has raised $2,573,258 in his majority wealthy Republican district. Comparing that, his two Democrat rivals have only raised $50,000 combined.

Utilizing taxpayer dollars in sending out Benghazi memos to his constituents, mail firms have become his office’s third highest expense at $70.684.

At a recent St. Petersburg Marriot Clearwater fundraising convention this past May twelfth, Issa told a bunch of GOP donors and party activists that making money off of Benghazi is “fair game.”

The ‘National Republican Congressional Committee’ (NRCC) came up with a brilliant idea on how to capitalize on the four American deaths with the upstarted special committee hearings. The RNCC has proposed if you donate you will be selected as a bonafide “Benghazi watchdog.”

Hey all you Tea Party and Obama governmental conspiracies folk, don’t forget to visit the NRCCs online gift shop and get their official Benghazi tee-shirts. In taking advantage of the Benghazi incident for fundraising to promote their party’s power, Republicans are stooping even lower, but at what cost to the nation.     

In 2011, then Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton actually warned the Republican House their proposed budget cuts to her department would be “detrimental to America’s national security.” In meeting with Boehner she made it very clear, even used those exact words “very clear” that she had “deep concerns” the 16% budget slashing would harm national and embassy security.

Republicans did it anyway sending Boehner’s spokesperson, Michael Steele out to announce, “The American people know we’re broke – we’re borrowing 41 cents out of every dollar we spend. Right now, we need to stop the Washington spending spree so the economy can grow and the private sector can create more jobs. We have confidence that the soldiers and diplomats serving in harm’s way will have the resources they need to protect America.”   

All flutter, for there never has been as yet, a true jobs bill push by Boehner’s GOP majority House. They just simply weren’t going to oblige this Democrat administration. In speaking of that…have ya ever noticed how Republican politicians always refer to jobs creation when they’re caught meddling in power grab opportunities instead of conducting the people’s business or the nation’s legislation. They do this because poll results show this is the main public concern and somehow in mentioning it should make the public feel they are hard at work on bettering employment even though their main focus, actions and quest these past five years have been to discredit Obama’s administration.

Republicans Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor, Darrel Issa and a slew of other GOPers voted in 2009 to cut $1.2 billion from state department operations chopping 300 diplomatic security positions. Republicans cut Obama’s request for embassy security by $128 million for fiscal year 2011s budget and another $331 million in 2012, the year the Benghazi assault occurred.

Even well after Benghazi, Obama’s request for embassy security was cut $116 million for fiscal year 2013 and Ryan’s budget plan for 2014 has an additional cut of $400 million while giving tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires. Private wealth over national security…and it is Democrats on trial here?

The kicker to all this is when Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), on CNN (October 10, 2012) was asked if he voted to cut embassy funding. He didn’t skip a beat in stating, “Absolutely! Look, we have to make priorities and choices in this country. We have — think about this — 15,000 contractors in Iraq. We have more than 6,000 contractors, private army there for President Obama in Baghdad.” Then Chaffetz turns right around in bashing Obama for making poor priorities with the budget in hand. Apparently, Chaffetz conveniently forgets Iraq is Bush/Cheney’s nurtured baby that the U.S. is still paying for.

All these Benghazi deliberations have cost tens of millions of dollars and thousands of man hours for congress and the departments that have been sucked in. Over $14 million has been estimated just from the defense department alone in gathering documents demanded by Issa through congressional subpoenas and witnesses. With the ongoing trials and tribulations Benghazi may well exceed the original funding request by Hilary when she was denied it due to Republican insistence the “country is broke.”

Surely to the Republican bonehead, lack of evidence means cover-up. So, compliments of the taxpayer dollar, Issa took a Republicans only secretive side trip to Tripoli, Libya to gather anything that could even remotely hint to a White House whitewash. He and his GOP crew came up and came back empty handed.

Ostensibly, to witch-hunt and accuse the Obama administration with cover is what is behind the latest scam in this endless Republican Benghazi quest.

Republicans bombed in their vain attempts to stress the Obama administration watched the attacks unfold in real time but did nothing to intervene. Benghazi requests issued by U.S. personnel for military back-up during the attacks were denied. General Carter Ham, military head of ‘U.S. Africa command’ during the attack and Rear Admiral Charles M. Gaouette were both relieved of command for attempting to provide military assistance. Once evidence and testimony results came in, all these accusations were proven as false. Now Republicans are binging on a White House e-mail and it is this e-mail that spurred the Republican House Committee to form and start up yet another GOP monkey trial.

The latest piece Republicans are enveloping their frothing mouths over is an e-mail by deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes. The e-mail, dated 09/14/2012, with scores of other documents was obtained by the conservative group ‘Judicial Watch’ through the ‘Freedom of Information Act.’ All the other e-mails had nothing of relevance for their cause, but this one Rhodes e-mail, so claimed by Republicans is the “smoking gun.”

There is nothing new that hasn’t already been revealed through the previous investigations and this new revelation is consistent with other intelligence reports circulating around at the time. The e-mail simply stresses talking points to then, UN Ambassador Susan Rice that the attack was prompted by an anti-Mohammed video that originated from the states.

If you might recall, during this period just after the attack there was confusion. After briefings with intelligence the White House decided to go with the video scenario as to the cause of the incident. To give perspective, not just at the Egyptian U.S. embassy, but angered crowds had gathered at Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, Qatar, Sudan and Yemen U.S. embassies protesting the video. Former CIA director, Mike Morrell testified the CIA chief of station in Libya believed at the time the video motivated the crowd to attack. These CIA crafted intelligence talking points were used by Rhodes to hurriedly get a message out.

Hindsight later proved that Rhodes and the initial CIA conclusion were incorrect. Therefore this gives fodder to the GOP of a WH cover-up on a grand scale. There is no way that this evidence could have remained covered-up. How stupid do the stupid think the Obama administration is to have willingly attempted to cover-up an un-coverable event?      

According to ‘Judicial Watch’ president Tom Fitton, “Now we know the Obama White House’s chief concern about the Benghazi attack was making sure that President Obama looked good.”

Ya know, even if that were so, is that a crime for a current White House administration to make its president “look good” at a time his opponents were at full throttle in an election year doing everything they could to make him look bad? Is it important enough that all these Republican investigations had to be conducted just to derive at this one petty conclusion of image control? What a waste of time, effort and taxpayer dollars.

Now there are angered rumblings by conservatives that CBS News did not air anything concerning the Rhodes e-mail when NBC, ABC and but of course Fox News did. Other than complaining mainstream media is liberal, they are also pinning this on the fact that CBS News’ president, David Rhodes is the brother of Ben Rhodes. In a minute, I’ll let ya in on who David really is.

My, my, it is ironic that they’re ignoring the fact that just this past October 27, 2013 CBSs ‘60 Minutes’ aired an out and outlandish lie when Lara Logan interviewed a security contractor Dylan Davies AKA Morgan Jones who claimed he was on the Benghazi consulate grounds as the attack was occurring and complained to Mrs. Logan how ill prepared the U.S. government was.

Turns out, Davies was never near the grounds much less there during the attack. He remained at his villa the whole time. His account told to the FBI is totally the reverse in what was aired on ‘60 Minutes.’ How did the bogus story get through and aired on a once respectable program without any scrutiny?

Could it be that CBS News’ new head since February 2011 is none other than David Rhodes; yes Ben’s sibling but he is also a former Fox News executive who got his feet wet propagandizing the Bush/Cheney Iraq invasion and covered the Valerie Plame/Rove/Cheney affair in Fox News right-wing gaffs. Along with the deceptive hatchet job of ‘60 Minutes’ disability fraud coverage, Rhodes is manipulating news to conservative slants and in the process is destroying in particular ‘60 Minutes’ credibility.

The thing here is as advertised on the website, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s sole purpose is to seek and solve government waste. The website states, “We exist to secure two fundamental principles. First, Americans have a right to know that the money Washington takes from them is well spent. And second, Americans deserve an efficient, effective government that works for them.”

The irony to this, with Issa at the helm of the committee is that it is the one branch of government which has wasted tax dollars. Proclaiming first that the Obama administration is the “most corrupt administration” ever, Issa has dragged the nation into witnessing all these unnecessary investigative deliberations in his vain attempts to prove his accusation. The norm for any reasonable investigative body is first to find evidence then indict the claim. Unfortunately in his blind quest in pursuing partisan politics, Issa operates in reverse.

Issa has even gone beyond the pale in attempts to prove Obama as corrupt that only shows it is he who is truly the corrupt one. Issa, who personally has been charged with grand theft auto in his past and was the principle suspect in arson has utilized forged documents, pandered to Obama critics while shunning proponents, rehearses with handpicked witness statements and has cut short Democrat floor times while extending Republican deliberations.

He also went out of his way with Republican colleagues to fly halfway around the world to gather desert dust instead of evidence all at the expense of the American taxpayer while further milking the right-wing taxpayer in Benghazi fundraising. Making money off of four American deaths is not the American way that I’ve known and grew up with in West Texas. Republican politicians are disgusting in demeanor.

“I really think there’s nothing more despicable, for someone to insinuate that the president of the United States knew there was an attack on our country that was imminent and didn’t do anything about it.” This statement wasn’t by a Democrat, it was by Republican Trent Lott along with his colleagues concurrence defending W. Bush in why he didn’t respond to intelligence reports stating a possible Al-Qaeda commercial airline highjacking in the states instigated by Osama bin-Laden. Yet today, the GOP is pounding Obama over Benghazi who didn’t have beforehand intel knowledge.

When it came to Dick Cheney’s 2001 secret energy meetings with energy CEOs to write legislation, he had this to say about it when it came to him invoking executive privilege, “We had the right to consult with whomever we chose and no obligation to tell the press or Congress or anybody else whom we were talking to. I believed something larger was at stake: the power of the presidency and the ability of the president and vice president to carry out their constitutional duties. It was a major victory both for us and for the power of the executive branch.” Guess who was side-by-side with Cheney on this matter; it was Issa.

At the time, Issa as a member of the House Energy Committee, along with twenty-nine other Republican members blocked all Democrat attempts to seek some names of the individuals who had worked with Cheney behind closed doors writing up industrial legislation to favor their industries at the expense of the environment and the taxpayer.

Can you only imagine what would be GOP knee-jerk reactions if Hilary Clinton was given executive privilege and not testify during Issa’s hearings? As Cheney’s ally, Issa insists executive privilege is a good deal, unless the president’s seat is currently occupied by a Democrat.   

All of the investigations have found nothing for the Republicans to prosecute the Obama administration, but when it comes to Issa that is what he is investigating.

I’m tired of hearing Republicans opening up with “but four Americans died” as if I as a liberal am not remorseful enough and am not acknowledging. They stress how dire a situation for this to have happened under a president’s watch. Meanwhile, it is quite hunky dory for their political leaders to be making money off of their deaths. To me, all this is bizarre.

It is not me or any other liberal that have forgotten these four Americans. We revere these four lost lives just as well as the others Republicans have conveniently forgotten. Liberals revere the thirteen folks killed in the fifty-four terrorist embassy attacks under Bush/Cheney and we still exalt the 363 killed in the Lebanon terrorist embassy and Marine barracks attacks under the Republican’s semi-deity Reagan’s watch. Just because liberals don’t attempt to make political brownie points off of these deaths does not mean we have forgotten.

Amazing grace be with us all if this is to be our government proper…  

Last Hiccup:

I suppose if there is any investigation that has any teeth to be conducted it should concern the harm done over at the ‘Veterans Administration’ (VA). The latest revelation is that VA hospitals were using secret lists to hide wait times for veteran patients. It’s been found out that management would have records showing veteran patients as treated and treated on time when in actuality waits at times took months or not conducted at all. In addition, some of the patients may have expired during the wait times, which is now under investigation.

Improper quality care is systemic at VA hospitals and has been going on for decades under all presidents whether donkey or elephant. Have we not forgotten the Walter Reed Hospital scandal? The VA is in dire need of a major overhaul. Denying veterans’ timely care shames our nation.

Eric Shinseki, head of the VA was an admirable four star general and a disabled veteran himself. He truly has veterans’ proper care to task and heart. For sure, he has not willingly ignored veteran care concerns. I respect Obama for not responding to all the screams of canning Shinseki; even Boehner agrees Shinseki should not be forced to resign…yet. Firing Shinseki will not fix a systemic bureaucracy, it doesn’t care who is in charge.

In 2008, then presidential candidate Obama, pledged to build a 21^st century VA and fix VA management.

The Obama administration has indeed lessened VA backlog and getting a roof over homeless veterans through newly inducted policies, but with the logjam in the VA bureaucracy, naivety doesn’t get the job fully done. Herein lies Obama’s blame. The president also has to lose that old Bush catchphrase, “I first learned about it in the media.” That phrase only shows ineptness.

The Wounded Veteran

With that said our current Republican congressional vanguard is not without blame and surely more so.      

Republicans say the country can ill afford a veteran’s job program, but can spend, spend, spend when it comes to conspiracy scandals as it’s a grand possibility the GOP will turn the recent VA episode into.

On a Tuesday December 4, 2012 the aged former Republican senator of Kansas, Bob Dole gave a stirring speech aimed at his fellow Republicans to vote for passage of a veterans’ disabilities bill. Just before it came time to vote, Senator Dole was pushed in his wheelchair to the center of the senate floor. Most all Republicans slouched over to hear his frail voice and state how much they admired him and his service. Then when it came time to vote on it, most all the same Republicans voted it down. It was all Democrats and nine Republicans who voted for it with four of the nine being female.

Republicans will argue that funding has gone up for the VA and is the reason for their refusal to give Obama the funding he requested for the VA to improve its programs. But what they seem to not comprehend is that even if funding is going up, it does not correspond necessarily to adequate funding. VA hospitals are under staffed.

Another thing the GOP has to understand is that wars cost money and continue to cost long after the war is officially over. Republican politicians are the first to declare war and even criticize this sitting president for having complacent foreign policy in that Obama is hesitant to announce war at a particular foreign hotspot.

Under the Bush/Cheney years and a Republican majority congressional watch, three wars were conducted in Afghanistan, Iraq and the ‘War on Terror’ in general; all of them unpaid for. Then when the casualties pour in under a Democrat president’s watch, they decide national debt is a more important matter and filibuster every veterans benefit bills that Democrats and the president put forth. According to a Brown university study, these healthcare war costs are projected to keep rising for the next 30-40 years. Just VA medical and disability spending will total $600 billion-$1 trillion.

To add to all this, conservative satirist John Semmens knowingly published a bogus article thinking it would be funny that Obama wanted to make all volunteer veterans pay for their healthcare and once announced, Obama was stunned at all the negative feedback it created. Rush Limbaugh even corroborated the made-up story on his May 22, 2014 archive transcript. Of course all ignorant right-wingers were lapping it up as gospel. When will it end? I mean, who in their ever loving minds would think it funny to fabricate a story concerning our maimed veterans?

Under all the heated pressure for Shinseki’s head to roll, he as of today (05/30/14) has resigned. Shinseki’s resignation will not fix the VA and I’m quite sure Republican tilted slants will lay all reprobation on the Obama administration. The piñata for Republicans and some Democrats to swing at is now gone but the political distractions remain in place. General Shinseki is an honorable and honest man. One only has to listen to his resignation speech to fully understand that.   

Hopefully Republicans will allow the Obama administration to finally do a full VA overhaul. Although it took a Democrat president to lay all the irresponsible blame on, at least the GOPs eyes are more wide open now to the dire conditions veterans are being treated. The public has been lax too. So next time you go through the motions of waving that flag on Memorial Day, recall exactly how your congressman has voted for veteran benefits.

Curmudgeon:

The Cliven Bundy episode is a total disgrace to any sensible person of social standing and understands that America is a nation of law. Here you have a cattle baron turned cattle moron that has broken the law for over twenty years refusing to pay for livestock land usage on federally protected public lands. Today’s grazing fees are a mere $1.35per AUM (amount of forage needed to sustain one cow), but higher than the two decades past. Still Bundy refused to pay and with late fees the amount is now over $1 million he owes the government; a freeloading moocher for sure if there ever was one...move over welfare queen, cow bum has entered.

Public land grazing rights began being monitored and regulated in 1935 to increase land productivity and combat the existing soil erosion, over grazing and wildlife threats that were occurring on public lands occupied by private livestock. It wasn’t until 1986 that a fee was incorporated into grazing rights. It wasn’t an act of congress that implemented the fee, it was a presidential executive order by none other than…President Ronald Reagan.

That still hasn’t stopped Tea Partiers and government conspirators from blaming President Obama and Harry Reid insisting they are behind the law and fee. No, it was their supreme leader Reagan. Ought-oh…that must hurt a tad.  

Anyway, in comes the goon squads of wanna-be midnight commandos to rescue Bundy from big government after some of his cattle were confiscated by the ‘Bureau of Land Management’ (BLM). Fox News and a slew of Republican politicians begin speaking up on Bundy’s behalf, while painting him as the true patriotic American, until...

Yeah, Fox News had multiple daily Bundy articles framing it all as a national conservative cause until Bundy gives wind of his truer colors by a proclamation in announcement of self-imposed bigotry. In a live ‘New York Times’ interview Bundy had this to say,

“I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” he says after recalling driving by a public-housing project in North Las Vegas, “and in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids — and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch — they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do. And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do? They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”

Well it’s sort of ironical of one complaining about those sponging off the government, when indeed that is exactly what that one is doing. But after his philosophical thoughts are videoed, published and reported Fox News and conservative politicians abandon Bundy’s side in lightning fast order.  

The Bundy stand-off becomes more intense as more rock ‘n’ roll cowpunchers arrive loaded with weaponry and ammunition to the gills. His only argument…the federal government has no rights in the sovereign state of Nevada. I’ve got news for Mr. Bundy…that land was federal land long before Nevada even became a state.

With these para military and fringe militia groups pouring in to accommodate Bundy’s recklessness, the incident had escalated. As a group of the militias approached federal government and local agents and officers, the militia had snipers perched on high ground and bridges with fingers on triggers aimed at agents’ heads. They’ve even used women and children as shields. That’s not acting out Rambo; this is just plain ol’ cowardice.

Now, Bundy’s heightened antics are inciting militia groups armed with assault rifles to use ATV’s in Recapture Canyon, a Native American hallowed ground and ignore the off-road vehicle ban. They did, joy riding over the Navajo Nation’s burial grounds. Total disrespect to our Native American’s heritage and culture was conducted unabated.

So far government enforcement agencies have been complacent. In the government’s hesitancy, are they actually rewarding these terrorist style threats, desecrations and vandalism?

Indeed, we are a nation of laws and respect, although we do show restraint from infringement on other folk’s peaceful protest. However, this is not peaceful assembly. This is callous militias rallying around a lawbreaker attracted by unfounded government conspiracies and twisted interpretations of the Constitution. If they truly have read their pocketbook constitution, it specifically states, it is unlawful to interfere in federal law enactments and its agents enforcing them.

To have been propping up Cliven Bundy as a true American patriot simply because it courses with all things anti-Obama themed is an exercise in squalor that wouldn’t be displayed or tolerated even on elementary schoolyard playgrounds.

Laboring Labor:

America once was land of opportunity for the common folk…not anymore…that was dumped off at the end of the last century. Bye-bye social mobility…

Reaganomics created jobs, but low paying jobs. To counter lower consumer power due to less income, Reaganomics, in which the trickle-down effect first appeared, made it easier to purchase on credit. By the time the W. Bush years had unfolded where ever higher trickle-down economics were in effect, but not creating any percentage amount of living wage employment, the middleclass was so burdened with low wage incomes and high debt, their backs caved due to all the weight. Then the ‘Great Recession’ ushered in its long dangling sucking tentacles taking away gainful employment, life savings, pensions, mortgages and one’s esteem.

Republican led industrial and financial deregulation policies during the Bush/Cheney reign under a Wall Street dome of secrecy with mountain high piles of other people’s money, the greatest recession washed away any upward social mobility America had left for future generations.

Corporate friendly Bush in 2004 attempted fully and lobbied hard to push his anti-overtime pay for all American workers. But since it was an election year both houses of congress wouldn’t pass it unless it was modified. The Bush administration finally relented setting a cap of $455.00/week as a white collar job. Anyone making that amount or more would not be eligible for overtime pay. Still though under the table, Bush had his labor department send out memos to corporations with instructions on how to not pay anyone overtime breaking current laws. As the saying goes, ‘in one felled swoop’ the Bush Administration obliterated the core of the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act. This act was one of the most important gains in 150 years of U.S. labor struggles for the right to work a forty-hour work week and anything over considered overtime.

Bush extrapolated trickle down, basing his full economic and employment policies on it. In doing so, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,’ he wound up as the worst president in private job growth since the ‘Great Depression’ at 0.8%. In addition, corporations weren’t hiring with living wages going more and more to part time hiring. All this was at a time when corporate mother record profits were being realized. The average hours an employee worked dropped down into the low thirties where it is still today at 34.2 hours per week.

Think about that. Working 34.2 hours per week as opposed to forty, for a thousand workers, hours would decline 342 hours. Those 342 hours are equivalent to a loss of ten workers worth of labor. The employer doesn’t lose, he’s enriched and even though, let’s say 900,000 jobs were created in the U.S. market, those lost hours in the same period equate to around one million lost jobs.

Since Bush, in any given month in the U.S. there are around 1.7 million families (not individuals, but families) living on $2.00/day. That kind of deep poverty is consistent with third world countries. From an ASPE issue brief conducted by the ‘US Census Bureau’ Bush’s years in office saw a rise in poverty from 11.3% to 14.3%. In Obama’s first year in office still under the influence of the deep recession, the poverty rate rose to 15.1%, but has at least flat lined where it currently is remaining neutral at 15.0%.

A $23, 850 total annual income for a family of four is the federal poverty line. Currently, the ‘Hamilton Project’ states nearly half of U.S. families now live below 250 percent of the poverty level. Where do you think the poverty swell has come from…it has come from former middleclass folks. As the middleclass has lost nearly 50% of its population since the recession due strictly to lost jobs and income, the richest 1% of Americans saw their incomes rise about 33% in the same time period. Since the aftermath of the Great Recession, the top 1 percent has sucked up nearly all of the income gains in the first three years of the recovery — a mind-boggling 95 percent.

Source: AFSCME

The fluidity of American society’s job opportunities used to be taken for granted, but now the U.S. lags behind Europe in measurements of mobility. We’re losing a generation and it isn’t limited to only the high school educated, higher education has been hit hard as well. 45% of recent college graduates have to move back home with his or her parents due to lack of job opportunities.

Going back to employer trends in hiring only part-time employees, if they even hire, it has almost become so the norm now that it’s been christened with the name of ‘gig economy.’ Just like a musical group performing a one night stand or ‘gig’ the American part-time, on call, free-lance, contract, consultant, temp, or contingent workforce have waived pensions, vacation times, health plans and a steady job. This new norm has become cut throat capitalism at its finest and reaches from the migrant worker to professions.

In America, the so called ‘gig’ employment broke a record in 2005 making up 30% of the workforce growing by over three million since 1999. This non-permanent employee trend may approach 50% in a few more years (Gandia, Ed; 2012). With this ‘General Accounting Office’ (GAO) data, jobs are becoming more insecure. Corporations highly approve of this because it drives lower costs and they can be more authoritative than they could be to a permanent employee. In their defense though, they claim they do it to talent search and have more flexibility in employee relations; definitely not for the bottom dollar…yeah, got that right…     

If Obama gears up to try and pass a new jobs bill backed by economists stating the bleak wage earner numbers, analysts say it could help him make his case for urgency. Most likely though from the Republican portion of congress, the GOP like always will vote nay and it’ll be used against him by right-wing opponents seeking to highlight economic shortcomings on his watch; Issa might even turn it into another House congressional investigation pitched as the latest scandal.

It’s painful, but still hilarious that Boehner goes around waving a little paper supposedly as a rather large list of House jobs bills that no one is allowed to look at and question. Any Republican politician will state in public that jobs are Americans number one concern. Even when pressed with any topic question they cop out in saying, “Get a job,” although they never direct you where to get one. But in private, as long as Obama is president they thwart any and all jobs bill creations.

Every jobs bill under consideration or brought to the House floors, Republicans have voted against or filibustered. Even bills that are for the relief of the American worker have been railed against by Republicans such as the ‘Paycheck Fairness Act,’ minimum wage hikes or overriding Obama while voting to freeze federal worker pay for the third year in a row. They even voted against a House Democrat led bill, H.R. 2352 [author Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO)] to create veteran jobs.

The Republican led wars on women, LGBT communities, immigrants and the poor are mere segments of the GOP total war on American labor. Unions have been eviscerated by continual Republican assaults since Reagan at the behest of corporate written legislation and are a mere 23% of their former effectiveness in representing the American worker. The GOP propaganda wars on unions have their ignorant base thinking unions are communistic.

Source: AFSCME

After studying the graph above, it’s apparent that unions are the best representation for American labor. This is exactly why Republicans are so dead set against unions. In bed and in deep slumber with corporate, to give employees any voice or recognition is a resounding no-no. To see the height of Republican disdain for unions…no one has to look any further than the new Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee where the workforce was going to vote on being unionized.

Republicans brought in all their heavy artillery and devious methods to stop the workers from voting for a union. Anti-union rolls were endless that were brought into the state to do battle. As if there wasn’t enough firepower within the state, first, Tennessee Republican governor Bill Haslam, the state’s senator Republican Bob Corker and in company with eighteen other Republican state official enforcements went to the ‘National Relations Labor Board’ hearing to thwart union representation and undermine any workers’ voice.

Due to voicing deceit, Haslam and Corker both were subpoenaed. First off, it is illegal for a third party to attend a unionizing meeting that isn’t associated with the company or the union. Corker blatantly lied when he told workers that Volkswagen had given him assurances they would expand operations in Chattanooga, but only if workers voted down unionizing. Volkswagen officials vehemently denied stating this. Haslam stated he would give Volkswagen $300 million in taxpayer subsidies, but only if the company doesn’t unionize. This form of bribery did not go over well with the company’s German officials and reported it.

The endless list of right-wing anti-union henchmen from out of state trying to influence outcome is almost boundless. Matt Peterson, director of ‘Center for Worker Freedom’ (CWF) a branch of Grover Norquist’s ‘American For Tax Reform’ was spreading misinformation for a year in publications and personally to workers.

The South Carolina anti-union consultant, Jim Gray arranged the production of anti-union videos to be passed out to employees. Another anti-union consultant, Peter List had engaged in unlawful activity in his efforts to approach and convince workers to vote no on unionizing.

‘Southern Momentum Inc.’ (SMI) headed by anti-union lawyer, Maury Nicely said they were there representing “ordinary worker families” when in reality are totally funded by anti-union businesses. Another anti-union outfit known as ‘Projections Inc.’ created false videos attacking unions which they showed at public worker meetings.

Corker planted his chief of staff, Todd Womack to be in constant and direct contact with Tennessean politicians while coordinating anti-UAW efforts. Robin Smith as Chairwoman of the ‘Tennessee Republican Party’ called the UAW an “infestation” and intervened in the election on behalf of corporate interests.

State Republican senator, Bo Watson threatened to block financial incentives for the company putting in place workers understanding it would threaten job security.

There were far more than in the list here, but ya get the gist in how far Republicans will take it in GOP roil for American worker representation. Let me tell ya something as shown by that graph, the fate of the unions affect all American workers union or not. But, if that isn’t enough Republicans are also attacking the average American workers’ retirements as well.

Of all politicians, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) who heads the House Budget committee, is doing his earnest best to either privatize Social Security (SS) or cut its wages at the demise of all the earned beneficiaries. What’s so insidious about this is not simply Ryan trying to cut a benefit that senior citizens have earned and put real dollars into during their life time’s working ages, Ryan was only able to pay for his schooling with Social Security survivor benefits when his father died. Apparently what’s good enough for him isn’t for the rest.

According to economist Jared Bernstein, Social Security alone has reduced the official elderly poverty rate 44%.

Why average constituents believe in that time dishonored lousy excuse of Republican leaders in justifying the reason for voting against minimum wage raises is because it will hurt businesses and they will quit hiring is beyond the grimace. There is not one instance in job creation being negatively impacted after a minimum pay raise…not one. In fact the opposite seems to have ensued.

Washington State has the highest minimum pay rate of any state currently at $9.32. Along with the highest state minimum wage, Washington also leads states in the number of business growth and tops the list for the biggest increase in small business employment. The Paychex/HIS graph below shows states with the highest increase in employment. It just so happens that also the city, San Francisco with the highest minimum wage at $10.74, has the highest increase in small business employment for all cities.

The map below put out by the ‘International Trade Union Association’ (ITUA), ranks how well nations treat labor with a score of 1 having best benefits and protections to 5+ where countries like Syria and Sudan have active worker conflicts, sometimes having them murdered in attempts to crush collective workers’ voices. The U.S. is ranked low at 4 meaning systemic violations exist.

Through corporate/wealth friendly legislation, globalizing the job market, weakening unions, high unemployment and hiring contingently strengthens corporations and their CEOs wealth while acerbating labor conditions.

If you don’t think wealth/high profits, not people, have become the driving economic force here in America, then you’re dreaming of fairy tales. The Republican Party is leading this charge while most of the Democratic Party silently tags along. The new centerpiece of American culture is not that hard work rewards monetarily for most, it’s hanging onto greater wealth for the few.

With our politicians and political system slanted to protect the wealthiest few of the nation’s populace, the video below details resultant.

Stupid Dumb Idiots:

Going back to the veterans topic discussed earlier, Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) seems to have gotten his nose stuck in a pickle jar with a tiff he started off with some veteran groups. Burr was beside himself, actually livid wondering out loud why some veteran organizations would not agree with him that Shinseki must go. He accused some of them, like the ‘Paralyzed Veterans of America’ (PVA) care more about insider politics more so than veterans.

Actually it really is the other way around with him using the VA scandal as a political podium and Burr got hammered for it. The PVA fired back stating, Burr “clearly represents the worst of politics in this country.” The Veterans of Foreign Wars announced Burr’s juvenile approach “is clearly one of the most dishonorable and grossly inappropriate acts that we’ve witnessed.” They were rallying behind Shinseki who is not only honorable, but one of them.

Burr’s head though is so knotted that he countered back in saying, “In fact, the reaction from some of the Veterans Service Organizations —VFW, DAV, and PVA — seems to prove my point: their national leadership are far more outraged by my words than they have been about the VA scandal or Secretary [Eric] Shinseki’s mismanagement of the agency.”

Every House of Representative veteran bills brought forward to the House floor was voted down by the Republican majority. They are:

H.R. 466 – Wounded Veteran Job Security Act became H.R. 2875. 

H.R. 1168 – Veterans Retraining Act

H.R. 1171 – Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program Reauthorization

H.R. 1172 – Requiring List on VA Website of Organizations Providing Scholarships for Veterans

H.R. 1293 – Disabled Veterans Home Improvement and Structural Alteration Grant Increase Act of 2009

H.R. 1803 – Veterans Business Center Act

H.R. 2352 – Job Creation through Entrepreneurship Act

The Koch Brothers, Rush Limbaugh, all these right-wing prodigies have a lot of lip service to dish out, but not one of them will publicly debate the issues or what they’re whining about. Their excuse, in particular the brothers, is that they don’t want to engage in political affairs, but their extensive involvement in political funding certainly puts them square in the middle of doing just that. A lame excuse for sure in covering the real reason in that they know they’d get their fanny perpendiculars wiped in a debate if they relied on their rhetoric to be thrust up against substantive facts.

This even filters to the street right-winger. I just started commenting on a Tea Party site…boy-howdy have I been crucified in vulgar language, but not one kernel of truth is ushered by any of them…just vile contempt and nasty name calling. A sour unhappy bunch if there ever was.

Anyway, when I attempt to get them to debate, I never get a challenge only muddier raking. They will not debate because either they don’t know how or know that their logic is based on myth and it will not hold up in a true discourse. So I either get a naughty copout comeback or nothing at all.

Here are a couple of examples…

Texancoach (that’s me):

What are ya talking about...are ya that blind to your own funk...ya just called me “another illiterate moron” and “left-wing lunatic.”

You started it and now I’m accepting your juvenile challenge. Your pathetic, ya have nothing to say but resorting to little juvenile spewage. What you’re lacking in substance in any of your conversations ya make up for it in trash talk. Ya know nothing of the truth so rely on conspiracies and mythical bunk to feed your hatred. You’re one unhappy piece of nonsense...whatever made you so angry ya seek out others who disagree with your ineptness in reasoning to dump your hostility.

In effect...you’ve made yourself worthless as a commentator as ya only seek those like-minded and in your same circumstance for that putrid pat on the back to make you feel better when you think you just performed a good job of bashing someone.

If you’re so wise and I’m full of lunacy...debate me...pick a political topic, anything ya want and I’ll debate.

But ya won’t...you’ll come back with some cover out, such as I’m not going to waste my time...but the real reason is that ya can’t and your impishly a whining fearful little bird trapped in a cat’s mouth of deceit and lies...

Original Rebel: 

My response remains the same. You either won’t or can’t read. I think you’ve got that “everything is bigger in Texas” myth syndrome - well I guess that goes for @$$-holes too, huh?

Debate you? I’d have to take a shower afterwards. Your post doesn’t indicate enough intelligence to debate a mushroom.

Mable Murphy:

This is not about you are them, it is about getting obama out of office.

Texancoach:

Mable, in all your wisdom, besides clinging to your simple disdain for Obama, why is it there is a factual need to impeach Obama and whom do you recommend to replace him with and why would he/she be better for the country...

Never got a reply back from Miss Mable.

Cognitive reasoning is beyond reproach when it comes to Tea Party folks; at least from my own experience and from what I’ve read such as there is a Georgian that goes by the name of Donald Rizer and he is currently fuming mad because he can’t get any medical assistance for a badly needed shoulder surgery.

Now in Georgia, the Republican governor, Nathan Deal refused to admit and administer Obamacare into his state. The Republican led state legislature also refused to expand Medicaid. Mr. Rizer, a devout Republican himself has a low pay part time job. Certainly he has no income leverage to buy an individual policy and surely his part time job offers no benefits of any kind. But his part time pay is just enough to disqualify him for traditional Medicaid and there is no alternative Obamacare plan offered in his state that would almost pay for all his coverage payments. Of course because the state is ran by Republicans.

Now with all this down, guess who Mr. Rizer is blaming and horn-mad at. Naturally, it is all Obama’s fault in his brainwashed make believe world. Never mind that the fault lies with his Republican state politicians in keeping with a wealthy man’s insurance system and that Obama has been fighting tooth ‘n’ nails to get folks exactly like him covered with affordable healthcare. It’s just got to be that far lefty side causing all my undue pain in his thinking, can’t be his boys packing the same nametag as he wears on his lapel…REPUBLICAN.

Deranged as it is, deranged as it sounds...non compos mentis at best... 

Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell declared Obamacare should still be repealed, but that its surrogate program in Kentucky, Kynect remain. He says this because he knows the popularity of Kynect to 421, 000 signed up Kentuckians. He also knows that Kynect is simply an Obamacare exchange and would go down with Obamacare’s repeal. Perhaps he now would like to say that maybe Obamacare indeed has some merit, but knows federally that would be suicide due to his and his party’s long standing stance against it.

McConnell’s got himself in such a state of position that he’s like a stick with one end stuck in the river bank’s mud while the other end, the head end, is under water. One of the largest Kentucky newspapers, the ‘Lexington Herald Leader’ has called him out on his speaking out of both sides of his mouth at separate times.

The paper’s editorial read, “Repeal the federal law, which McConnell calls ‘Obamacare’ and the state exchange would collapse. Kynect could not survive without the ACA’s insurance reforms, including no longer allowing insurance companies to cancel policies when people get sick or deny them coverage because of pre-existing conditions, as well as the provision ending lifetime limits on benefit payments. (Kentucky tried to enact such reforms in the 1990s and found out we were too small a market to do it alone.)”

It further continued, “Kynect is the Affordable Care Act is Obamacare — even if Kentuckians are confused about which is which. Kentuckians are waiting to learn if their five-term senator understands —or cares— how much is at stake.” The paper also wasn’t happy with McConnell’s campaign talking points when asked for a response about McConnell’s comments. The editorial finally lamented that McConnell on Obamacare and Kynect are “unconnected to reality.”

Rep. Kerry Bentivolio (R-MI) appeared with Jim Garrow at the right-wing conference, ‘The Freedom Summit: Prepare to Govern’ set up by the ‘Michigan Conservative PAC’ held this past May 16-18, 2014.

Garrow is an extreme conspiracy theorist and claims without any proof of documentation he was once a U.S. intelligence agent. Garrow has stated he wants to see Obama killed while continually spreading his absurd claim, again without proof that Obama plotted to kill 300 million people through a nuclear EMP attack on America all at the blessings of George Soros.

The guy is a fruitcake. Garrow also stated in an interview on Erik Rush’s radio show that Obama is like a “rabid dog” who requires to be “put down for the protection of the innocent and to prevent the spread of disease.” He also expressed in the interview that he wondered why “White House officials are not going to be stoned to death or hung from gallows.”

Of course since Obama has been blamed for everything else from being in cahoots with the IRS to causing all the decades of woes at the VA, Garrow claims Obama blew up the Malaysian airliner. I oft times wondered when the right-wing would blame this incident on Obama and lo and behold, there it unfolds.   

Also in attendance was former general, Paul Vallely who planned a revolution to overthrow Obama, anti-Obama conspirator, Trevor Loudon and among others, Michele Bachmann’s mentor, John Eidsmoe.

Now that’s some company a responsible politician with any reasoning capacity would want to be bumping shoulders with. Well, at least Bentivolio made the Tea Party people happy as he mixed and concurred with this kooky group.

Senator Teddy Rafael Cruz is currently out there preaching to the Tea Party choir that Democrats are positioning themselves to repeal the ‘First amendment.’ This past Friday May 23^rd, speaking at the ‘Watchmen on the Wall’ pastor gathering hosted by the far right religious group ‘Family Research Council,’ Cruz had this to say, “When you think it can’t get any worse, it does. This year, I’m sorry to tell you, the United States Senate is going to be voting on a constitutional amendment to repeal the First Amendment. I am telling you, I’m not making this up. Senator Chuck Schumer has announced the Senate Democrats are scheduling a vote on a constitutional amendment to give Congress the authority to regulate political speech, because elected officials have decided they don’t like it when the citizenry has the temerity to criticize what they’ve done.”

Now isn’t that sweet…he had the crowd actually audibly gasping in disbelief. But what he’s literally referring to is Senator Tom Udall’s (D-NM) bill to block and overturn SCOTUS’ Citizens United decision. Ya know getting rid of the numbskull idea that corporations are people and vast amounts of money is free speech that has created an influx flow of money into our campaigns in buying off our politicians. Both parties would have to get their hands out of the cookie jar and Cruz doesn’t think that’s fair since he’s in the pockets of the Koch Brothers and the oil industry in general.

To blatantly misinform a group of gullible folks like that is totally uncalled for…if no one is going to announce an impeachment committee to proceed ahead on getting rid of this punchinello, then perhaps I’ll start up a petition to do exactly that.

In Written Statement,

BJA

06/01/2014