Can Someone Belt The Beltway Press Corps?

Not like Sam Donaldson got belted… but the old fashioned way. The way Dad did when his little kids messed up big…

The nation was starving to hear about gun control. The President issues a brief statement then asked for questions.

The first question was NOT about gun control. It was about the fiscal cliff. Most people outside the beltway don’t care that much about the fiscal cliff. 26 people were not pushed off a cliff.

The second question was NOT about gun control. It was about the fiscal cliff. Again, can we please get back to gun control….

The third question was NOT about gun control. It was about the fiscal cliff… Excuse me MR. Reporter? Did you miss the story and impact of the shooting last Friday? Or you don’t even care?

Near the end, Jake Tapper, and ABC News reporter finally asked…. noting that the president hasn’t done much on guns in the last four years and asking, “Where have you been?”

Obama answered exactly correct… I pulled us out of the Great Depression faster than did President Roosevelt. I resurrected the American Automobile industry, which would have failed. I was fighting two wars, one I finished, and the other I will soon finish in this term. It has not been a vacation…….

He should have responded….. “The real question is where have YOU been? You are the press; you define the arguments to which I have to give answer. Right here. Right now. In a press conference to cover this tragic disaster of a mass shooting in Connecticut, one of children 6 years old… I have to first answer 3 questions about the fiscal cliff, because to you, that is more important… The real answer, is if I wasn’t having to fight so many firefights ignited by the press, usually over nothing, I could get some real work done….”

“Reality” could not have more clearly answered Jake Tapper’s question…..

Surveillance of the Masses

America gets up in arms when it’s privacy issues are at stake. How dare you know that about me! However when someone slips through our net and blows up a building or car, they exclaim, how did you not catch him in time?

Soon to be announced if not already out there, is our nation’s now no longer classified Trap Wire System. In the reports of its inception this package was held up as the ultimate surveillance tool. Cameras across the country would capture data from cities, highways, tolls, parks, public arenas, and everywhere else there is a camera, encrypt the data, then send it to a central point where it gets incorporated with all other data already compiled on every citizen. That data including public on line events such as dating services, chat rooms, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, as well as corporate files, employee rosters, and the vast cesspool of corporate data gleaned each and every time you use your credit card.

On every adult citizen, a computer can spit out a file of facts that even that citizen doesn’t know… The computing power is unparalleled. You are sitting at the stoplight, and for no reason a camera goes off, you think weird, no one tripped it. and instantly your face has been identified, your file pulled, and a program knows you buy Colgate toothpaste 39% of the time. And it knows you are on Zoloft. Your credit score is 593. And you are cheating on your spouse of 27 years with a 19 year old who gets something from Victoria Secret every month…..

A song comes on the radio and your mind jumps to it and you go on never thinking of that random event again…….

Of course there is the other side of the story. You pull up to the light right beside the dufus mentioned above. The same thing happens. You wonder too. Your picture triggers an alarm because your image was last seen in the lower Philippines having been traced there from Manila before paying for the boarding of a private boat off Gov. Lim Ave, then going dark 18 months ago. The alarm is because you were once an acquaintance on the third level of a Detroit sheik who propagated militancy. The file shows you worked with explosives on construction sites, you were terminated at one time being blamed for some missing C4. You denied you had anything to do with it. The camera notes that your car is low in back, and alerts other cameras on the route your are traveling that you will soon be entering their view. Your facebook page shows you liked Iran and support Assad of Syria. Your high school psychological profile says you were quiet and brooding. Your license plate is registered to a car reportedly at the gas station on Rt.273 undergoing lengthy repairs. You are unmarried. You don’t date, and your credit card has a large cash balance, yet you spend very little and that is only on food, gas, and a furnished apartment in Christiana Meadows. As you drive by a transponder, your new phone signal gets captured, and all your calls are now being pulled up. You spoke with a person of high interest, 2 times this morning, for a length of one minute each. Your visage is updated to all local cameras and all transportation portals, and put at the top of each face recognition program. Someone is dispatched to scout your apartment.

You see. That is the dilemma. We enjoy our safety, and abhor our loss of privacy.

If you haven’t noticed already, on your emails sometimes you have these buried within the routing: Abraxas and the others you see will say, Stratfor…. Bloggers are very used to seeing these on a rather regular basis. They are everywhere across the net.

One thing noticeable during the Olympics was that the Brits live this way all the time. They are used to it and prefer the cameras and intrusive software over a coordinated attack on their trains. And no one can blame them. But what the Brits have, and we don’t, is a set of rules regarding this capturing of information. If someone violates this code as did Murdoch, then the ramifications are severe; perhaps bringing down an entire corporate empire. The CEO, Vice President, and quite a few others all charged with illegal actions.

And that is the lesson we need to take. Accept the surveillance but know that if anyone, anyone breaks the code of privacy… you are going to be filthy rich for the rest of your entire life at their or their employer’s expense…. For if that is truly the case, going back to the original story up top, if you got busted for your too hot to fail 19 year old lover, and lost your spouse, for $83 million, you really wouldn’t mind too much… My bet? You would see it as a blessing in disguise. And if you still loved your spouse, don’t worry. When you are worth $83 million, she won’t go far.

This has to become the future of surveillance. Here is why.

I’ll use Facebook as an example. I can always tell when one a friend has to hand over their password to their employer. Whereas they used to be so lively, responsive, and fun, they suddenly stop posting anything showing their personality. Their presence on line becomes reduced to “look at my kid”; “here is my dog”. Whereas you used to be able to talk to them about their spouse, their parents, how they were feeling, how they liked their job, how they were doing in the lover department, how their head was, what hopes and dreams they possessed, how drunk they got, suddenly their presence is as chilled as someone passing Checkpoint Charlie in the 60′s. There is a rigidity that they must conform to. There is a corporate mentality that they must express, and most deal with it by staying silent.

That is not what America is about. America is about freedom, about life…. about liberty….. and about the pursuit of happiness…… What once was open air on the internet is now poisoned with carbon particles, so much so that it is hard to breathe.

We can’t lose our nation’s fun-loving identity. And we can’t stop protecting ourselves by our newer and newer technology. So, what we can do (and we can easily do this), is not to constrain the surveillance, but penalize any misuse of the data that gets captured.

And make the punitive damages so huge, so grand, so big, that American citizens will actually enjoy having their privacy breached when it comes time for the judge to make the monetary judgment. Which means we need to rethink all things private, and that includes the intrusiveness of the press into private lives…

I’m always saddened when someone suffers because of something got out of control on their social media, and everyone gangs up on line, saying, “well, you shouldn’t have put it on the internet.”

Really? REALLY? A person should never have a light moment with an acquaintance, one of those few joyous moments we as people treasure forever, because someone they don’t know, someone they never met, might hack into their account, and spread it across the world?

That is ridiculous. The internet IS us. If we want a fun moment, we have the right to exercise it.. Back when I was growing up, laws were passed and on the books to control the positions that went on within the bedroom. That has fortunately faded away into being ridiculous. The same needs to happen on the internet. And the easiest way, the simplest way, is to have huge, gigantic fines, ones that are so big they will bankrupt anyone, and everyone who breaches another’s privacy.

So what if some entity knows you use Colgate 39% of the time. If no one else ever knows that they know it, as far as impacting anything in the real world, their knowledge of that minutia, doesn’t matter.

We need to start the process. We first announce the problem; we offer a solution; we educate the public; we elect responsible legislators, we pressure responsible legislators, we get legislation signed, and then, we relax and really enjoy the rest of our lives.

It is past time that our personal privacy be now given a price tag that is equal to what it is worth. Something in the range of tens of millions comes to mind….. Hell, you can get $90 million for spilling hot coffee in your lap…..

Something Is Very Wrong With America

It was one line in Reuters that started me thinking……

Here it is….

The results of the monthly poll – in which a majority of voters agreed that the economy is the most important problem facing the United States – suggest that the Obama campaign’s efforts to paint Romney as being out of touch with the concerns of middle-class Americans could be preventing the Republican from gaining momentum in the race.

Now I will put on my college professors hat here and guide you through this…..

What is the prime message of this piece?

The prime message is that this election is up to which ever party or candidate can influence the American people to vote his way……..

Is that the right way or wrong way our politics should be decided; like a sporting event where one side or the other outperforms the competition?

Wrong way.

Ok, then how should an election be decided?

By the facts. By how things will transpire if one candidate (over the other candidate) gets elected. That is how elections should be decided. Take Lincoln- McClellan … should we finish the war, or stop the war? Take Roosevelt and Wilkie…. should we finish the war, or change horses in the middle of a stream? Take Nixon- McGovern. Should we finish the war, or end it?

The election was over issues. Both candidates were considered flawed by large number of voters, but the elections decided the future course pursued by the nation.

At stake in this 2012 election, is determining who is going to pay our bills. THAT is this nations WWIII.. Our entire future is at stake, and how we decide who pays the bills will determine whether this nation continues having other nations cater to OUR needs, or whether we will have to start working around THEIRS……

So who IS going to pay this nation’s bills… The rich? or every one else?

And no one is talking about it….. Why?

It should be the lead story on all three networks M-F 6:30 and 11…. It should be on the front page of every paper in Delaware… It isn’t….

Why is it being ignored? Because the media doesn’t want to face the truth….

What is that truth?

The truth is that corporate profits alone, could reduce the entire national debt (including entitlements) to zero in two and a half years…. It’s math.

And the fact that is not even discussed, but buried on a foreign news source deep within the internet, just goes to show that something is very wrong with America.

Does anyone out there know that this past week, US employers have hired more workers than in the past 5 months, yet unemployment ticked upward from 8.2 to 8.3 percent because of the Tea Party Republicans firing of federal workers just before the election to keep their promise to slash and burn the Federal Government?

Of course you don’t! Because you are so worried over the mechanizations of political maneuvering that you can’t see facts that hit you in the eye.

Something is very wrong with America.

What The Media IS NOT Telling You About The Gingrich-Romney Fight

These charts were compiled by the St. Louis Federal Reserve. They have been the most active data collection agency to date, of economic data relative to different income levels…

These charts are most telling because they are all timelined with the Recessions and Depressions….

The Seven Charts That Show the Historical Effects of the Romney-Gingrich Policy…..

1. Unemployment is at the highest level since the Great Depression (with the exception of a brief blip in the early 1980s).

2. At the same time, corporate profits are at an all-time high, both in absolute dollars and as a share of the economy.

3. Wages as a percent of the economy are at an all-time low.

4. Income and wealth inequality in the US economy is near an all-time high: The owners of the country’s assets (capital) are winning, everyone else (labor) is losing.

5. CEO pay and corporate profits have skyrocketed in the past 20 years, “production worker” pay has risen 4%.

6, After adjusting for inflation, average earnings haven’t increased in 50 years.

I cannot do better than the Atlantic‘s summation of all these moving parts…

It’s worth noting that the US has been in a similar situation before: At the end of the “Roaring ’20s,” just before the start of the Great Depression. (See some of the charts above).

It took the country 15-20 years to pull out of that slump and fix the imbalances. But by the mid-1950s, employment, corporate profits, wages, and inequality had all returned to more normal levels. And the country enjoyed a couple of decades of relatively well-balanced prosperity. But now, everything’s out of whack again.

Importantly, the inequality that has developed in the economy over the past couple of decades is not just a moral issue. It’s a practical one. It is, as sociologists might say, “de-stabilizing.” It leads directly to the sort of social unrest that we’re seeing right now.

SO, WHY IS NO ONE TAKING REPUBLICANS TO TASK FOR THE RESULTS THEY MADE, INSTEAD, THEY GET TREATED LIKE THEIR PHILOSOPHY COULD BE A VIABLE OPTION?

Isn’t “someone” bending over backwards, NOT to report “All The News That’s Fit To Print?”

Shout Out To UD For Great Research….

Topic: Does News Coverage Affect our Perceptions of a Candidate?

Or, better put, does what we are exposed to, affect us?

Duh……

Does your mother have any influence over the way you feel?
Is your religion affected by the beliefs of your church?
Are you motivated in a certain academic sort of way, because of a person you had as a teacher?

Maybe this is new to young people… But some of us can remember the horror as Khrushchev began denouncing Joesph Stalin, and the atrocities began emerging from someone most saw as a saint….. The same can be said with the wailing and gnashing of teeth, over the loss of North Korea’s “beloved” leader…

Some can remember recent stories of a certain young man, who went to Africa and came back as a sort of Marxist….

Some of us can remember Alex Keaton, a character on the show Family Ties during the 80′s, who in his youth, inspired a long line of future Republicans and business leaders….

So, unless we have been debriefed before, being exposed to something, obviously will affect our viewpoint…. Duh… Which is why, Democrats perfer multiple viewpoints so truth gets out, and Republicans who fear the truth, prefer only a single viewpoint ….

Duh, again…

Needless to say, the research herein, it exciting to political junkies, because it is something we all live… Their use of the Daily Show as one of the control groups, is a stroke of genius….

Since I was fascinated, i thought you might be as well…….

The Effect of Pee (Urine) on Dead Human Cells

It makes people angry….

Which is why, we have to be very careful whether this video, which purports to show U.S. Marines urinating on dead Taliban fighters, is doctored of not….

If you’ve been in war, and most of the third world has, this action is believable.. After all, these dead characters had just tried to take the live ones life in a game of brinkmanship, and the Marines prevailed… There is sort of a giddiness that up-wells during moments like that. Sort of the real world’s equivalence of a touch-down dance… one that could easily happen during such a moment of euphoria… One person comes up with the idea, probably as a joke, and in their limited world of the moment, there appears to be no harm done, and it happens… Anyone who has ever been in war, knows a lot worse things could have happened. …

But there are a couple of problems with this easy answer. One, this is the Second Battalion of the Third Marine Corp.. It is one of the finest in the world. Very hard to believe that four guys who one day one day are building a hospital in a village to show we are the good guys, (who are positively trained and aware of how their personal behavior ripples out to determine the fate of the war), are peeing on cadavers of slain enemy warriors on the next. Yes, it can happen, of course. But I would believe David Anderson turned Muslim, before I’d believe THIS group would violate everything they’d been trained to do… (It would take hell freezing over for me to believe David Anderson had become a Muslim.)

Of course, I can be accused of turning a blind eye because ” I CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH”… lol.. I’d say, no… I’d think the video was faked because that, considering all the players, all the activity, a fake video would actually make more sense, than having four random Marines desecrating several enemy bodies…

How? You Ask?

Ok, you twisted my arm so tight it hurts…if you promise to let go, I’ll tell you……

The United States is pulling out of Afghanistan. That means there will be no market for munitions. Currently the United States and Afghanistan have a very fragile relationship. There is little trust. We do not trust Karzai and his way of governing through corruption. We know he is in cahoots with the Taliban. Not publicly, but privately. We don’t tell him much, because it will cost American lives. He, upon realizing we are acting unilaterally, doesn’t trust us at all, because we will one, not confide in him, and two, not listen to him because the intelligence he could be giving us, could be leading us into a trap… One that will cost American lives.

Anything that pours gasoline onto this fire, will reap great amounts of money for people who sell weapons for a living… The absolutely very last thing those people want, is a cessation of hostilities. They will do anything possible to prevent that from happening… Not publicly of course, but surreptitiously .

So there is this tremendous pressure building, much of it emanating from the America Right and remnants of what once was called the Military Industrial Complex, that does not want this conflict to end…. And that pressure, is what makes this video popping up right now, kinda suspicious…

I’m no expert, but even as I looked at the difference of shadows between the bodies and the soldiers, I noticed the sun was at different angles.. (you can tell by tracing the shadow to the object and the angles should be identical). So I asked a 14 year old knowledgeable about video editing if such a thing was possible.. He responded by running the video through gaming software, and replaying the video with miniature anime characters holding umbrellas dancing on the dead bodies as the urine cascaded down… It was that easy…

So, looking with a clear eye, we have the motive. We have the means. And we have the evidence.

Of course, I could be over-speculating; it could be a real event, but I will hold my breath until the military investigation is complete. We have the Marines, we know by now who they are, we know if they are guilty or innocent. If guilty, we will condemn them and punish them just like we do a touchdown dance that goes too far… If it turns out they are innocent, and this is a circumstance of trying to poison the well, we can recognize the real enemy: those who sell weapons to both sides, and negate their influence on the diplomacy of that region…

It would be no different than two people at work, who upon finding they’ve been manipulated into hating each other, join forces and together, expel the perpetrator of all problems…

(I Owe Ya) ……… or I-O-WA

I attack the bastion that Iowa should be the first primary… For one, it is not a primary. For two, it is not indicative of the whole United States, and three, it has been hyperbolated far beyond it’s own net worth.. In essence, both Iowa and New Hampshire, are harmful to the American voting process…. very harmful.

Essentially we allow less than 100,000 campaign volunteers, to determine the front runner. Not even close to the population of one entire state… The Iowa Caucus is not a contest that determines who is the best candidate for our nation. It is a contest of whom can organize the most of their supporters… buy them outright, if need be…..Hitler would win Iowa. Obviously the candidate who states, I will protect the wealthy’s money, has quite an edge….

How many is 100,000……?

And how does that compare to the entire USA?

(right click on picture to display full image)

The stats are as follows…

100,000 / 307,000,000 = 0.00033 or 0.033%….

African Americans make up just 2.8% of Iowa’s population. Worse, when Reagan won, in 1980 they were below 1.4%…

Iowa was ranked number two, behind Wisconsin as the worst place for blacks to live…

Latinos make up 5% of the Iowa’s population.

On a better note, 11.4% of Iowa’s are represented by unions… compared to the national average of 11.4%…

Iowa was estimated to be 56% metropolitan in 2007. Meaning 44% of it’s population is non metropolitan… The national rural/urban split is 21/79%.

In 2008, estimated $51,593,849 was spent by candidates on the 2008 Iowa Caucus. The 16 candidates for the 2008 presidential election raised and spent a grand total of $457,802,866 by the end of 2007, with the winners continuing on to spend in future races.

If there ever was an situation set up perfectly where an election could be bought, Iowa would become the perfect model.

Which could explain the extreme and excessive variables that Iowa has shown this cycle… First it was Michelle Bachmann who was hot… Then she disappeared as Rick Perry waltzed across the stage… Even his jobs record became outshown by the devil’s plan turned upside down, .. 999.… Until a too cocky Cain, resigned.. Gingrich lurched into favoritism… until he too discorporated … Suddenly a surge swept up number 2, Ron Paul.. but now, with the endorsement of a two single preachers, Rick Santorium, who I believe was originally under the 1% threshold at the beginning, is now rumored by ABC News to be able to win it all!!..

This is madness. This is Iowa. This is why we do not get qualified people into office… (from either party.) Are Iowa people dumb? Can Iowa people not make up their mind? Are Iowa people that uninformed? Are Iowa people that crazy? ….

Or,

…. are Iowa people being played by the press, and hoopla, and rest of the nations is stuck with their decisions…..

It is time another state issues a challenge to the prognosis that New Hampshire and Iowa need to be first.

ideally it would be state that was the first to ratify the Constitution. Ideally it would be a state that mirrors the national statistics a little better than some of the others. ideally it would be a state that has no television station. Ideally it would be a state where no one listens to the radio. Ideally it would be a state where one-on-one contact was possible with a large proportion of that state’s population. Ideally it would be a state with 11.9% of its workers represented by unions, equivalent to the national average of 11.9% of its workers represented by unions. Ideally its rural/urban split at 22/78% would mirror the nations rural/urban split at 21/79%… Ideally its African American mix (21.4%) would mirror that of America, 12.4%… Ideally its Hispanic population would do the same…. (8.2%/16.3%) and most particularly, in order to be representative of America as a whole, the non Hispancic white race should mirror that of the nation as a whole… 65.3% to 63.5%

There is a state that is far more similar to any pre campaign state out there.. it is the first state to ratify the Constitution….

It is time for courage to take over the wheel.. Those timid party reps who cow at the the National Political Machines, when it is nothing more than a self bloated paper tiger, need replaced by human beings who deeply care about the country.

Delaware losing representation at a convention, will make little difference in that convention’s outcome.. But sticking to our small state’s guns, and making Delaware the first state to hold a primary, would put a voice of reason, a system of control, and even sanity, back into our electoral process. It would also inspired a national media Maddow conversion, named after her experience in the Deer Park Tavern last cycle, where she was blown away that there existed a state, who’s citizens actually were well informed by sources other than commercials and the main stream media, and actually knew what was happening…. For it was a revelation: like “duh, common people aren’t stupid after all.” Perhaps the sanity that is Delaware, needs to become more mainstream… after all…

Looking at Iowa this year, it sure as hell couldn’t hurt….

Why Nothing Ever Gets Done In Congress….

It is a simple vote…

Should we or should we not put this man in an administrative function.

Please vote yes…. or no…..

(It should be open cut because a majority have already said they would support Cordray as head of the Consumer Financial Agency.) Just get it done…

But, it never goes to vote. In a motion to stop debate requiring 60 votes, 53 are found….

There is nothing more to debate. Vote yes or no… The argument has been on the table for months… But no… it cannot go forward because the Republican Party (all of it) had 45 members who voted against it…

The agency still has no one at the top to get it rolling. There is no one regulating Wall Street as we speak, simply because the entire block of Republicans, who voters put into minority receivership based on their previous track record, voted NOT to stop debate.

There will be no government until there are no Republicans.
There will be no Congress, until there are no Republicans.
There will be no Democracy. until there are no Republicans.
There will be no United States of America, until there are no Republicans.

(Sad thing this is not hyperbole. This is not campaign rhetoric. This is not hateful bantering. This is what is really happening. Makes a veteran want to cry)

Gingrich’s Irony…..

Why you have to do a reality check everytime Gingrich speaks……

Gingrich quotes describing President Obama as the:

“finest food stamp president in American history” because more people will end up getting government aid than new jobs.

Fact: George W Bush followed Newt Gingritch’s plan while in the White House.

Fact: The best remedy for less public assistance, is more jobs.

Fact: During the 8 years of George W. Bush, there was 0 net job growth…. Zero.

Fact: Under Obama’s tenure, 2.9 million new jobs have been created, (get this) in the private sector.

Truth. Gingrich’s taunt works better against his own policies. They certainly don’t apply to those of President Obama.

Bottom line; If you want more welfare and public assistance, vote Republican.. If you want jobs, vote Democratic.

History is all the proof you need.

What I Want….

The recession has popped a lot of dreams… It has forced a re-evaluation of priorities. It has put reality in the forefront.

So wiping off the table of everything, everything, and sitting down to a blank space, and asking myself, … what do I want, by the time I die.

It is:

A country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home and secure their retirement,”

After watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” you can be sure it can’t happen on a Republican’s watch….. For that dream to happen, we need protection from corporations and Big Money; not giving them more and more of what we make.

We need more money funneled away from big business, to be reinvested into the Middle Class… Since they haven’t done it voluntarily, we’ll have to force it.

Republicans can’t force anyone to do anything. They are putz’s. It will take a government of all Democrats to make Americans who die, at least die happy that they were able to secure:

“A country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home and secure their retirement”.