After Sunrise, Full Ahead, by Avria Myklegard … A guy nearing retirement has a plan to get there sooner rather than later, but it involves making a dangerous decision where he works … this is terrific writing start to finish.
The Empire Strikes Back … so last week, after Bernie Sanders crushed Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, and all that loot from the PEOPLE flooded into the Sanders campaign coffers, the DNC struck back and removed the restrictions put into place by Barack Obama against lobbyist contributions, thus providing the Clinton campaign with unlimited dirty money. If this nomination process could be any more corrupt, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz would wear a bandana to cover her face.
And here's Hillary's Foreign Policy Mentor ...
The problems with Hillary’s foreign policy mentor is he appears to have enjoyed playing God … read his top 10 quotes and decide for yourselves …
Top 10 Kissinger Quotes
1. Soviet Jews: “The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy. And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.”
2. Bombing Cambodia: “[Nixon] wants a massive bombing campaign in Cambodia. He doesn’t want to hear anything about it. It’s an order, to be done. Anything that flies or anything that moves.”
3. Bombing Vietnam: “It’s wave after wave of planes. You see, they can’t see the B-52 and they dropped a million pounds of bombs ... I bet you we will have had more planes over there in one day than Johnson had in a month ... each plane can carry about 10 times the load of World War II plane could carry.”
4. Khmer Rouge: “How many people did (Khmer Rouge Foreign Minister Ieng Sary) kill? Tens of thousands? You should tell the Cambodians (i.e., Khmer Rouge) that we will be friends with them. They are murderous thugs, but we won’t let that stand in the way. We are prepared to improve relations with them. Tell them the latter part, but don’t tell them what I said before.” (Nov. 26, 1975 meeting with Thai foreign minister)
5. Dan Ellsberg: “Because that son-of-a-bitch—First of all, I would expect—I know him well—I am sure he has some more information---I would bet that he has more information that he’s saving for the trial. Examples of American war crimes that triggered him into it…It’s the way he’d operate….Because he is a despicable bastard.” (Oval Office tape, July 27, 1971)
6. Robert McNamara: “Boohoo, boohoo … He’s still beating his breast, right? Still feeling guilty.” (Pretending to cry, rubbing his eyes.)
7. Assassination: “It is an act of insanity and national humiliation to have a law prohibiting the President from ordering assassination.” (Statement at a National Security Council meeting, 1975)
8. Chile: “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.”
9. Illegality-Unconstitutionality: “The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.” (from March 10, 1975 meeting with Turkish foreign minister Melih Esenbel in Ankara, Turkey)
10. On His Own Character: “Americans like the cowboy … who rides all alone into the town, the village, with his horse and nothing else … This amazing, romantic character suits me precisely because to be alone has always been part of my style or, if you like, my technique.” (November 1972 interview with Oriana Fallaci)
Buyer’s Remorse, by Bill Press (so far too accurate) … Bill Press puts into publication my arguments about Obama from the get-go (and why I never voted for him) … essentially, he wasted the enormous political capital that brought him to power, ignoring the power of the bully pulpit, and then ignoring his own party members in feeble attempts to let a party that stated from the get-go they wouldn’t do anything for him once he was elected (except to make sure he wouldn’t have a second term). I’m only 50 pages in, but so far so good. Press is fair in mentioning the few accomplishments of the Obama administration, but he’s quick to counter them with the same scrutiny I found (i.e., how the ACA not only didn't go nearly far enough, as opposed to single payer, it was a gift/payback to insurance companies).
Scalia … in response to a post from a friend on Facebook calling for more of the kind of civility that Ruth Ginsberg found with Antonin Scalia, I wrote this: It is nice that they could get along so well while disagreeing, but they both lived pretty high above the realities of their votes (whether those affected by their decisions were liberal or conservative). One of my very best friends is a staunch conservative and we get along great (usually trading insults and he’s a lot more clever than I am at it, so I usually lose), but his policies enacted by the politicians/justices of his choice are abhorrent to me, as are mine to him. About the ONLY thing I liked about Scalia was that he enjoyed opera. His immediate family came from Sicily. Half of mine did also, but that’s about where our similarities end. One of his votes on the court cost the constitution he was so protective of to be overrun by coin (Citizen United), and that will always remain an irony I’ll never understand. I’m not so sure either would have been as congenial to the other had they been involved in campaigns against one another, rather than appointed to office. I’m glad, for their sakes, they found friendship, but I don’t think it speaks to the same issues of civility as regards elected officials, especially when the process is so poisoned with corrupt organizations (the RNC and DNC), and the corrupt coin that freely flows into both because of Citizens United. As I noted earlier, his agreeing to allow unfettered coin into the elective process will forever baffle me – it is the exact opposite of the first seven words of the constitution he claimed to guard: “We the People of the United States …” It might as well now read, “we corporate America …”
I’d argue that much of the problem regarding the political process today, and the lack of civility (in which I engage 100x’s a day it seems of late), has to do with the corruption voters face, to include misinformation from both major parties, a media with vested interests in the outcome, and a populace lacking either the will to participate in the political process or too ignorant to care (probably born of trying to survive the disastrous legislation passed by politicians owned by corporate coin). So it goes …
—Knucks
Let’s not insult the intelligence of the American people …
