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One of the greatest tragedies the exposure the NSA has given America abroad, is its loss in the dream… We all have a dream losses in our lives. For some it is experienced when as the fathers we idolized growing up, somehow over the course of 4 years in college or the workforce, matriculate from being the source of all wisdom and goodness, into becoming just regular people struggling along like everyone else….
The USA experienced the same disillusionment under the Snowden leaks.
Our nation always propelled high ideals, and usually we were willing to back them up… Iraq could not take over Kuwait, (though we tarnished that ten years later when we tried to “take over Iraq” but now are out.)
The Soviets always tried to paint us as a capitalist nation, an imperial power using economics as opposed to force, but the power of our good people always thwarted that message and annulled it’s impact… We couldn’t be as bad as the Soviets said, because “look at all the good America was doing, and how richly everyone lived over there… Factory workers over here could afford cabin cruisers for heaven’s sakes.
What Snowden showed was that the We, The People are no longer in control of this government’s policy OR actions… Instead we had a government saying one thing, and a shadow government doing the opposite… and all that it did, was not just for its self protection… It was for its corporate protection….
Listening in on German chancellor Merkel’s phone conversations really has no solid reason inside our relationship. We are good friends. However it does have great importance in the worlds of investing or competing with trillions of dollars of European money… What are her plans? How can our investment community turn that into cash? These are extremely useful pieces of information, and investing in the obtaining of such, would be a very wise course of action if takenwith in the limited context strictly inside that frame….
One can trace the chilling of the warmth of the US-Soviet relationship to Snowden’s defection and asylum in Russia, June of last year. These things are done on a quid pro quo basis, and everyone is well aware that Snowden is only in Russia, because it is better for the Russians to keep him safe there, than turn him over to the US authorities….
The true picture of the NSA’s release and further actions they took after that release, does indeed cast truer fears that the American nation is not being controlled by it’s people… That a cabal inside the government is operating freely on its own, using the conduits of information as its unlimited fiscal source and to create situations out of manipulating that medium… The idea that this could exist were rare and ethereal before the initial Snowden releases. But since, the possibility has become real. And the cabal would never have to become known. By creating the context of events, they could control the outcomes… By making dissent invisible, they could corral popular opinion to follow their whims…
All I can say to anyone detracting this as a complete impossibility, that propaganda is incapable of bottling up truth for any length of time, is to remind them that when Stalin died, everyone (still living) in Russia thought he was a god. A wonderful, loving, benevolent and caring man. Don’t believe me? Look it up… Controlling information can do amazing things.
But to the shock of Putin and the Chinese, the Snowden releases showed that the President, and Congress, and our bureaucracy were wimps at the hands of corporate dollars. That a illegal request to infiltrate computers of a Brazil oil company in order to find the high yield offshore oilfields prior to the official bidding, would be fast tracked. That listening on Merkel before a bond deal for Greece, would be done to satiate the whims of the big investors.
That our entire Federal governmental structure is pawned to big money is something our Supreme Court just made even more believable with its bizarre McCutcheon agreement lifting caps on unlimited campaign spending. further benefiting those responsible for all these international illegal actions, and hindering further progress by Americans set against such behavior…
It is really hard to hate the American people… Not even Muslims can do that effectively.. But it is every easy to hate American corporations that have no qualms with devastating a third world nation, then when money is gone, pulling out with no sense of responsibility for the damage done.
What Snowden did, was to expose that was really the truth behind the American dream… So much that when we say America is for democracy, … around the world, the global audience says…. yeah, right…
Taken from within this context of inside knowledge, Putin’s moves in Ukraine now make a great deal of sense as a solely defensive action… What if the entire Ukraine disturbance was indeed pushed forward (in Reichstag fashion) to create a crises punishing the Russians in the East? Put it this way,…. before Snowden, that would have been deemed preposterous…. Now it has to be interpreted within the context of: “wait a minute, these are the people who listened in on Merkel’s cellphone.”….
The real global problem in the world today, is this unlimited wealth against which no one is safe… Would anyone of us turn down a billion dollars for one or two seconds of work? Especially if done in secret and no one , no one could or ever would even know?
Believe it or not, the global solution is to raise their taxes… When any excess money earned is going to be sent to some government somewhere, the incentive to use all this unused money in illegal actions to make more, disappears… Instead of gambling big money on a price’s rise and fall,… hiding it as an expense by investing in real physical capital becomes the prime option to maximize wealth, one which will benefits us all… Raising tax rates marginally to higher heights on very, very, very big money, is a policy change that turns the wealthy from being the bad guys, into the best human beings possible…..
The document in question was an 86-page opinion the FISA court had issued on October 3, 2011.
In it the FISA court states that the action requested by the NSA was unconstitutional. The FISA court was of the opinion this information needed to be disseminated to the public.
The Justice Department was due to file a court motion in June in its effort to keep secret an 86-page court opinion that determined that the government had violated the spirit of federal surveillance laws and engaged in unconstitutional spying.
So in a nutshell, we have the NSA committing an unconstitutional action. We have the secret Federal court which incidentally only hears the NSA’s side of the argument, decide such action was NOT under the scope of the law, and was actually unconstitutional. The court felt the public should know about this Constitutional violation, apparently because even they were shocked at its danger for democracy.
The Justice Department then filed suit to block the dissemination of knowledge to the American people, that the secret FISA court had determined that the NSA was going over and beyond its powers invested by the Fourth Amendment, and that it is therefore acting unconstitutionally.
So when our government does something unconstitutional and covers it up… what do we do?
Ironically, in East Germany, we have more privacy rights today than in the United States of America.
Where did we go wrong? It’s all Patrick Leahy’s fault. He got soft after standing up to the Joker in The Dark Knight and so now he isn’t standing up for Americans. Guess he figured he’s done his share.
Astra Zenica is closing out 1200 jobs. Just think if the Port of Wilmington was going to be losing jobs as well?
Corporate entities are one thing. but good old fashioned labor unions are what provide stability to an entire city.
I’m trying to get the gist of the problem.. I comprehend the emotion, but the reason for it, seems at best to be a mis-perception on the part of Catholics over what this bill will do.
It appears that “someone” started the ball rolling, with the catch phrase: “our religion is under attack.”
It is actually a good thing, I think, that in America at least, this does get people excited as opposed to say,…. a European’s big yawn… After all, that constant friction between one’s Belief and one’s necessity of surviving daily life, is one of the true aspects of Americanism that makes this nation rather different from most others.
I’m not sure as of yet, exactly “why” Catholic institutions, such as hospitals and universities and schools, were included in the birth control mandate. My guess it is budgetary, that in doing so, it would cheapen the insurance cost for everyone as opposing to raising the rates on everyone else, to allow such an exemption….
That is the only thing that makes sense… Unfortunately at this point I don’t have any financial statistics to see if this is really true…
If so, then the option exists that the exemption will be honored to Catholic institutions just as it is to churches, IF, and only IF, they agree to pay a little more for the privilege of opting out.
There is precedent for this.
Corporate America, has charged the Amish more for their buggy insurance than if they drove a car… Reason is although property damage would be far less (a couple of pieces of plywood), in an accident between the technology of two different centuries, without the safety equipment currently surrounding the occupants of today’s motor vehicles, there is a far higher probability of death in a rear ended buggy and a exponentially higher payout, from the insurer.
The Amish may have complained at one point, but the economic reality shut them up.
So if that is the case with the anticipated mandate for birth control, that it will cost others more by NOT providing Catholic Institutions a religious exception, then… that word needs to get out there,…..
They have a right to their beliefs…. but only if it doesn’t come out of MY pocket….
With that said, ….. so far all the talk as been false outrage based on no evidence…. Let the evidence come forward first, and then, let us discuss all options….
Having recently seen the Harry Potter movie, it is scary. Ever since watching…. I now see giants everywhere. Before when I looked, I never knew they were there…
Two giants will be doing battle here in Delaware… (The recession is finally paying off for our little state.)
Papers were filed with the ITC (International Trade Commission) by the South Korean giant Samsung LED against a division of another giant this time from Germany, Siemens….. over 8 patient infringements.
Samsung LED also said it filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Delaware to seek damages and a permanent injunction to bar Siemen’s subsidary, Osram’s alleged patent infringement from entering this country.
At stake is the financial future of these two companies. One will win, and the other for lack of a better word, will be vanquished.
Since Siemens actually has a plant in Delaware, next to the Glasgow Park off Route 40 and 896, I’m putting my bets on that giant…. if they get hurt, it will cost jobs.
Hotels, restaurants, transportation companies all stand to be a little busier as this gigantic fight, gets under way…. It would be helpful to practice on the Korean and German dialects now, before the event gets under way…
Sprechen sie deutsch?
니미럴 개자식 ….
It should be an interesting fight.
It’s clear as day.
When you have no engine in your car, you have to put one in… When banks aren’t lending, when the private sector is incapable of spending, the government has to..
It is called deficit spending. It’s been done before. Whereas we suffered a horrible Great Depression, Sweden emerged from theirs in 1934 by using just such a Keynesian approach towards deficit spending. While America suffered through dust bowls, “Grapes of Wrath”, Hoovervilles, soup kitchens, and one out of every four workers unemployed, Sweden was thriving and its citizens were living quite comfortably.
America finally… five years later, had no choice but to follow suit after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. We too spent money we didn’t have and guess what? From 1939 to 1941, U.S. manufacturing shot up a phenomenal 50 percent!
So what happens to those people who have no choice but to work, when the government gives them a job? They spend…. soon,… more people have to work… who spend… so even more people have to work,… who spend … so even more people than the more people spending money previously, have to work. … and they spend.
Republicans clamor we need more jobs… Mike Castle even hands out a giant check he voted against! LOL.. But they are all lined up against the very engine that brought us out of The Great Depression… How silly is that?
They say… we’ll owe sooooooooooooooo much money… Hello…Excuse me? Uhhh, have you ever bought a … house? Don’t you personally owe soooooooooooooooo much money? A $200,000 dollar house cost over $455,000 by the time the last payment is made. But…… how long would it take you, forced to spend more than you currently make just to live, to save $200,000 cash just to buy that house outright?
Right…. you couldn’t…
The same principal applies to economics. If you need to spend money for jobs right now…. and don’t have it… when and where will those jobs come from?
They won’t. Duh.
Therefore when Bonini says “Delaware spends more per person than any other state, excluding Alaska and Hawaii…” and that “the No. 1 employer in Delaware is the state itself, and the number of people employed by the state has doubled in the past 12 years” … right now we should be grateful… not troubled. Because we too are making some of that money those people are spending.
When he says…. “Tough economic times have prompted people to get involved in the political process,” it’s hilarious…. Especially when you look at this… on the Republican side… THEY ARE ALMOST ALL MILLIONAIRES…. (C’mon… It’s Delaware… Even if you’re Republican you gotta laugh)…
But, when he says … “The fact that people are making tough economic decisions in their personal family lives is bringing attention to the fact that the government is not,” it shows he doesn’t understand government’s role in the economy. It unfortunately shows us all that he doesn’t either read, or understand, American history.
And… that is what makes him a dangerous person to put in as our State Treasurer. He’s a great guy, and I certainly wish him well, but now is just not right time for someone who does not understand deficit spending to be running our state’s Treasury. Thirty years from now… based on my best estimates…that will be his time.
I am taking a break from discussing wind power and just how much it will save for each of us, in order to talk about another topic which has hit the news recently. Of course, based on my pocketbook, dropping every Delawarean’s electrical rates is very important. But it pales far less than whether or not we have a country left, or more appropriately, whether like Humpty Dumpty, the pieces are splintered too tiny to even bother picking them up and patching them back together.
As you know, Dennis Kucinich proffered the Articles of Impeachment on the floor of the House and they are now in the Congressional Record for every historian to read….. There is some question where Mike Castle stands on the issue, which of course is what brought that topic into the arena of the local blogosphere.
In essence the articles were shelved into committee, and done with little national coverage….. But there was much rejoicing among real Americans, ie those not controlled by corporations. Actually a more apt description would be this: those often screwed by corporations……
Republicans, at least those who still carry cards touting their Republicanism, are dumbfounded…. How can this be? They wonder. How can a large segment of the population wish for and support the impeachment of the one to whom they’ve sworn a secret loyalty pledge, like little fifth graders playing in the bushes…..? They wonder.
Today, a spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) dismissed the call for impeachment as the efforts of “left-wing bloggers“:
This is just another example of the Democratic leadership in the House indulging trivial and silly conspiracy theories from left-wing bloggers, rather than working with Republicans to deal with the real issues facing the American people.
I feel kind of honored. Although he would be shocked to find out who I am. But we are getting through, and they are scared… We know this from that fact that we were not dismissed. As anyone knows who has run a third party candidacy, the first line of defense against a new force is not to acknowledge it… “What, bloggers? What are they?” Obviously normal American citizens simply tired of the way this country has spiraled downhill over the last 8 years, are a force to be reckoned with, and now need to be castigated with derogatory terms… We have been bumped up to the second level.
This is a badge of honor in a way. This means two things. One is that it means that we are scaring them. There are grounds for impeachment and they know it. It means that only a hair is left standing to protect their president from the most shameful thing to ever happen within their party. And that thing is that: their official party structure openly and entirely supported the Executive’s office disrespectful dismissal and violation of the Constitution. From the email soldiers of 2004 up to the highest office itself, except for the brave few (Chick Hagel) who tried to publicly call them out on the error of their ways, the Republican Party goosestepped their way across the pages of our nations most revered document.
Our ancestors fought for that document. Our police officers swore to uphold that document, and ironically so did each of those legislators withing the Republican party who looked the other way when this happened….
Now I understand that my title may be shocking for some. And since I am more of a rational than emotional type of person, the casual reader should probably know that this title came to mind only because just an hour before typing this screed, I was in a park serendipitously describing to eleven year olds, the rise of Hitler in Nazi Germany…..
[1933 Nazi Election Poster – This poster is from the March 1933 Reichstag election, the last one in which Germans had a choice. The poster shows President Hindenburg and Chancellor Hitler. The caption: “The Reich will never be destroyed if you are united and loyal.” Courtesy of Dr. Robert D. Brooks.] Courtesy of Calvin.edu
Most often we blame Hitler for the horrible things that occurred during that time of history…. What I told those children in their yellow day-camp shirts, was that we often look and blame a villain without looking at the fact that we ourselves put them in power and then did nothing out of timidity, to stop them….. Those few actually speaking out were killed off first, then those likely to speak out were killed off second, and those who knew those who had been likely to speak out were killed off third,…etc, etc and soon there was no one to say “hell no… it ain’t so.” (Little kids love cool sounding phrases).
There were 35 million voting Germans, and only one Hitler. If they truly wanted they could have gathered on his front lawn, stormed his house at midnight, grabbed him and pulled him apart, literally, in 35 million directions…. It didn’t happen.
The Republican Party, except for a few heroes, (Chuck Hagel) are as guilty as was the German population during Hitler’s ascendancy during the 30’s. ( The Germans had their hero Speer).
The second important fact that Boehner makes when he paints “left wing bloggers” as an evil empire living on a nearby death star, with a secret weapon almost in completion, instead of who they really are, regular people who work for a living and are tired of the way things have been run under Republican leadership, so tired in fact that they use their free time to research the Republican government and expose their inadequacies to a public that is not allowed to read those type of things in corporate sanctioned media outlets…..
And that is…
That they are afraid of the defection by party faithful…. Normally one tries to act like a good guy. a jovial person, a likable bloke for the simple reason that as one deals with other people in the give and take of the real world, that if people like you , you tend to get more of what you want…. Therefore this controversial tone being used by Boehner is not dispensed to make things easier for Republicans to exercise their power. It is designed to scare their core group away from defection, and into staying within the Republican fold…. Just as did the Nazi party, just as did Khrushchev after Stalin’s death, just as did the Communists is Southwest Asia, and most recently just as did a handful of extremists in some summer camp in the Afghan Himalayas, anytime one wants to browbeat a group that would rather be somewhere else, one rants and raves at a common enemy while blocking all information that proves the contrary is true….
Brainwashing.
That is just what Boehner did….. or attempted to do,…..of failed miserably at doing…….
Because this is not yet a country of broken spirited people as was Nazi Germany during the 1920’s and 1930’s.
This is America… and damn it, we understand the Constitution and we understand exactly what Republicans are doing to destroy it!
And unlike those feeding on the udders of the Republican Party, we, the normal people of America, tend to see those actions as being synonymous with the terms of ” High Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
If any Republican wishes to be reelected, perhaps they should consider this too. For if they are willing to cite poll data, and trust it implicitly when it states the number of Americans who want offshore drilling (today’s news)……. be advised that the same type of poll data doesn’t paint you well at all.
Now that we know the truth, that your administration did got to war and lied about its reasons, that number is much higher than 42%…..
Shall we guess 71%? (based on April’s data).. At 300 million Americans that amounts to 213 million Americans desperately craving some form of accountability by Congress for Republican’s total disregard for the Constitution…….
That’s quite a few “left wing bloggers” Boehner,…..wouldn’t you say?
Photo courtesy of Utah Senate Site
For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.
Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.
And for us at home — fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas, whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them — help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice. FDR Prayer On D Day, June 6th, 1944
kavips 
