Category: Politics

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Scandal in Washington OMG!!!

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I’ve been watching with considerable amusement Twitter feeds about the spate of scandals rocking Washington.

The folks on Twitter are coming up was some witty comments and in an epic demonstration of freedom of speech many of these comments are directed squarely at the White House, and various representatives.

I’ve added my 2 cents from time to time but for the most part I’ve just been reading the comments.

On the one hand nothing happening in Washington is anything new. Abuse of power comes with the territory. Kennedy, Nixon, Clinton, Roosevelt, Bush, all of them abused power to greater or lesser degrees. I suspect that part of the sitting Presidents problem is that regardless of political affiliation. 

We All HOPED it would be different.

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In that regard, even those who have axes to grind with President Obama were hoping they were wrong. For them now I’d bet that they feel doubly betrayed even though they’ve been proven correct.

That dichotomy really pisses some people off.

The IRS has in my opinion been an abusive, hostile organization from it’s inception.

“PAY UP! You don’t have money? We’ll put a lean on your home, YOUR WHOLE FAMILY WILL SUFFER!”

“Your wife works? We’ll garnish Her paycheck too. Your kids are going hungry? Not our problem, pay your taxes!”

“Oh your company made a mistake in your W2 reporting. We owe you money? Yeah… Uh we’ll get around to that refund in 6 -9 months.”

“Interest? HAHAHAHA NO Dumbass! YOU pay US Interest… We don’t pay you interest!”

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That people are just NOW realizing the IRS is a corrupt entity who uses strong arm Mafia collection tactics is astounding to me.

Wiretaps on AP phones?

That surprises anyone?

Did you bother to even skim The Patriot Act? You know… The act that should have expired but that President Obama signed the extension on? 

When you have laws on the books that allow wiretaps without warrant if any remote case can be made that national security is threatened, are you really surprised that power was abused?

Really folks? 

If the President calls you a terrorist YOU’RE a TERRORIST! If you spoke with or worked with someone from the MiddleEast you meet the national security requirement to have your phone records monitored. 

Monitoring isn’t necessarily listening to your conversations… it appears this is more like being able to see the numbers you’ve dialed and received calls from on your phone bill. It’s still a violation of privacy. My concern isn’t that the government can do this. 

My concern is that the bar that allows this kind of monitoring is set way too low. 

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Of greater concern is that it’s just now an issue to our lawmakers.

Benghazi?

Uh Hello?

All you had to do was listen to the news coverage during the event. The story changed before our eyes. It was obvious some kind of spin was being applied. The question is WHY?

Why was it somehow inappropriate to say terrorists attacked the embassy? Who cares if those terrorists were motivated by a dumb, poorly acted, less than complimentary film about Muhammed, or as Hillary said “They just wanted to kill Americans?” Terrorists they were, are and will remain.

So why not use the word? It’s descriptive and accurate.

More importantly are little issues;

An attack on an embassy and the murder of an Ambassador has traditionally been an act of war.

We should have treated this attack as such. Yes we’re spread thin, but move special forces in immediately if they’re available. Start hunting the perpetrators down and leave them dead in the streets as an example to others. The Libyan government was doing all in it’s power to assist us until we publicly humiliated that government with our UN ambassador telling the world a fiction about a movie.

It made the Libyan government appear to have no control over their population and further, bringing worldwide attention to the movie sparked riots all over the place.

The truth was a better more stabilizing and compelling story. Ambassador Rice could have said something like;

“This was a terrorist attack, the Libyan government has provided us with excellent intelligence and while the information is still coming in, we are impressed with and appreciate the assistance the Libyan government has give to us in this matter.”

That simple acknowledgement would have opened many doors and allowed everyone to do their jobs.

That the State Department didn’t get it worries me more than the apparent obfuscation. 

I find myself wondering what else the State Department has overlooked or misinterpreted. 

Fast & Furious?

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Why the hell does Holder still have his job?

Really? In what universe does it make any sense to sell guns to known criminals to find out where those guns go?

How about a simpler method? collect all the serial numbers of guns stolen from law aiding citizens and then compare how many of those stolen weapons end up being used in crimes… The percentage that end up in Mexican Drug Cartel hands will tell you how much of a problem gun trafficking is.

You’re still having to track the serial number of the gun(s)… RIGHT?

The Obama administration is a world wide joke.

It’s time for the President to get his ducks in a row, put and end to rogue elements in his administration and get to the business of being The President.

The first step is prosecuting every single person that’s been involved in wrong doing. 

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I was thinking about the slippery slope

I’m beginning to think that this concept isn’t taught anymore by parents or by our educational system. While it may be a somewhat fallacious argument, as a thought experiment The Slippery Slope can be a cautionary lesson too.

After all it does not necessarily follow that equal rights for everyone, will result in bestiality, paedophilia, and the end of civilization. Althought there are those who would construct that argument.

I personally believe that in the realm of ethics an exploration of the slippery slope is a worthwhile exercise.

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I guess it’s a tough concept to explain with a society that’s as fractured by special interests and the perception of special rights as ours is today.

Back at the dawn of time, I was taught about the slippery slope by my parents. My education on the subject was via philosophical discussions that my parents had or that happened during holiday get togethers.

Even in middle and high school we had discussions about slippery slopes using some of the morally ambiguous characters from literature.

My Granddad and Dad would sometime get into these discussions and it was only after many years and some information from my brother that I realized these discussions were perhaps more pragmatic than philosophical.

The Slippery Slope is at it’s core a description of how behavior becomes accepted and in the worst case even respectable due to repeated justification, excuses, and rhetoric.

Our politicians are pretty good examples. Influence peddling, favors for political contributions and the like. All of which are technically illegal, but which are often ignored because someone somewhere else is doing something 100 times worse.

You find yourself on “The Slope” when you justify an action you know to be wrong, using any variety of excuses.

“Well, just this once.”, “It’s not going to hurt anybody“, “That sign only means if you’ve got bad tires.”, “They can afford it, they’re wealthy, or better off than me, or insured.“

This is how you end up with a dozen people falling into a partially frozen lake.

This is how you have people believing that any imposition of law or order must obviously be racism.

This is how you end up with people more and more easily justifying that some criminal behavior is ok. 

‘My kids needed Christmas I only stole that Xbox for them”. ‘I wanted to watch the football game so I took the TV from that rich white fucks house, what does it matter? He’s insured.”

This is the slippery slope that so many of our leaders used to talk about.

Before you say “Yeah, well you’ve never had it rough”, trust me, I have.

I’ll tell you a story sometime if you’d like. 

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My point is that we’re on a very slippery slope in our country right now.

We’ve seen the abuses from organizations like the IRS,TSA, DHS, State Department, & FBI.

We’ve seen what happens when government agencies believe they’re immune to prosecution and above the law. “Operation Fast & Furious”, Brutal & cruel screening procedures at airports, the release of Illegal immigrants from DHS holding as an attempt to scare Congress into avoiding the sequester.

Even the assault on the 2nd amendment has elements of the slippery slope. “We’re going to just take this one kind of gun.“, “We’re only going to require this, or that, or this other thing, for you to exercise your 2nd amendment right. “

But the scope of the requirements and restrictions keeps evolving and growing.

NYC “We’re going to limit your drink sizes because you people can’t control yourselves and are too fat. You’ve become a health burden.”

Now we’re seeing the Mayor initiating legislation to hide cigarettes. Again this is billed as “For the good of the children, and the general health & wellbeing of the people“

NYC is, no matter how you cut it, abridging the rights of the people to engage in their personal pursuit of happiness.

These slides lead us toward a destination that is radically different from the Democracy that our forefathers envisioned.

Unfortunately, like the icy hill, once you’re over the edge you can’t stop until you hit bottom.

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We as Americans, need to think about how much we have to lose, and how far we have to fall. 

Call on your representatives to stop the abuses. Let Congress & The White House know that you The Citizens… (We The People) have had enough, and that Washington has your full and undivided attention.

Demand investigations, and that lawbreakers within our government be brought to justice No Matter Who the are.

If we don’t put a stop to it now, there may be no stopping it till we hit bottom.

Just a thought…

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I broke my rule – I watched the Benghazi hearing

UnknownAll I can say is wow!

I don’t suppose it really qualifies as watching the news, I was watching the hearing on C-SPAN, online.

I did get some other work done while it was playing, thanks to my big computer monitor, not nearly as much as I should have gotten done.

The hearing was engrossing and I’d find myself stopping everything else just to listen and watch.

imagesElijah Cummings was an ass in his opening statements.

The Hicks testimony was unbelievably moving. Hearing him take note that Libyans died that night trying to help. I think he said “The Libyans shed blood for us that night“, was something I’ll remember for a long time.

When Mr Hicks described the heroism and the professionalism of the staff I thought he was amazing.

To have a Lt Col. Say “For the first time in my career a Diplomat has more balls than the Military” is telling. It describes just how frustrated the Lt. Col was, and notes the respect Mr Hicks earned by his decisions & actions.

I was really disturbed by how many Democrats were bailing out of the chambers during the hearing.

It was also shameful how many “News” agencies said absolutely nothing about any aspect of the hearing. I thought these people were supposed to keep us informed.

I don’t know if there’s a scandal here, or if the Administration lied, or if there’s anything that was unknown, per se.

I do think that enough questions were raised that further testimony is not unreasonable.

Questions like Who issued the order to the military not to go to Benghazi as re-enforcements?

Why was the compound not up to specification?

Why was the person in charge of security essentially made to feel like he had to stop complaining when he was doing his job in pointing out that security was in fact not what the State Department Rules called for?

Who above Nordstrom signed off on the security as it stood?

Why was the terrorist angle downplayed in favor of saying a dumb-ass video caused the attack. When the Libyan Government was telling our people that this was terrorists and named them?

More important than anything else, why is this political at all?

Truth is never political, it simply is.

I saw some younger Democrats asking reasonable questions, and I saw older Democrats glaring at them. Why?

The people asking well reasoned questions were doing their jobs. The jobs that their constituents sent them to Washington to do.

Unknown-1The Democrat from NY Maloney… Wow!

Ma’am you were so far out of line I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

Mr Thompson was not compelled to speak with you. That he chose not to speak with the Democratic Minority was well within his rights. It wasn’t at all partisan.

That you attempted to get away with such a blatant spin on the truth, trying to paint the Republicans as obstructionistic was embarrassing.

Ms Maloney, you’ve embarrassed yourself, your state, and your country.  I sincerely hope that your constituents vote you out of office in the next election cycle.

I’m hoping that the truth of all of this comes out, not because I want to see the administration blamed. But because I want to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again.

The only way to do that, is to fully understand what happened in the first place.

We do that by dropping the partisan bullshit and asking well reasoned questions.