When Actions Should Have Consequences- but Don't

The following piece is a tad more conservative than I am - - but the principle of it is sound.   I've spoken many times that the neo cons are "risk averse" in that they want to gerry rig the legal system so they can't lose.   Mitt Romney knew this better than any politician.   Christianity as a religion came into being as a way of covering up the betrayal of a failed Biblical prophecy- - claiming that a deliverer would come to the nation of Israel.  When he betrayed his nation, others sought to play this elaborate rationalization game of "blame the victim".

The transparency, fairness and stability offered by this [neo con] system is very compelling: the advantages of a system that transparently discovers the price of everything while offering roughly equal opportunity to all participants to seek self-fulfillment (i.e. the pursuit of happiness) via a dogged focus on self-interest are self-evident.

Looking out for Number One is thus the foundation not just of personal self-aggrandizement but of systemic stability and fairness.

But let’s move from ideological abstraction to the pragmatic–what happens in the real world? What we find in the real world is that participants seek to transfer their own risk to others while minimizing their productive work and maximizing their gain/skim.

Risk inevitably introduces the possibility of loss–both fair and unfair. Let’s say a participant in the market invests in a scheme to produce the Acme Brand widget. Unfortunately, the widget fails to find a market and the enterprise closes its doors. The investors lose their investment: this is fair becauseany enterprise in a market is at risk of losing favor from changes in fashion or the emergence of more agile competitors.

Unfair risk is loss incurred through no fault of one’s own. Let’s say an employee of Acme Widget Corporation gave his all to the company, and was laid off anyway–not through some failing in his efforts or talents but as a result of dynamics beyond his control: the marketplace found little value in the Acme Widget.

The rational, self-interested participant will naturally seek to offload risk of loss to other participants. Employees of the state (i.e. the government) transfer most of the risk of being laid off to the larger group of taxpayers: in a recession, the state can raise taxes on everyone in the system to guarantee its employees get paid. In effect, the risk of loss is distributed to everyone paying taxes in order to guarantee the employment of state employees.

Financiers have learned that making bets big enough to render their enterprise too big to fail effectively transfers the risk of loss to the taxpayers. We see the same mechanism in action: those who manage to transfer the risk of loss to others guarantee their self-interest can be pursued risk-free.

The rational, self-interested participant will also naturally seek to minimize his productive contribution while maximizing his income/gain. The state employee will (for example) game the system to retire early on a fake disability claim, or manage to evade work, accountability or responsibility with little risk of loss because the system makes firing a slacker employee almost impossible.  A financier will use free money for financiers issued by the Federal Reserve to buy assets everyone needs to live: private water systems, rental homes, parking meters, etc.–what are known as rentier assets because the financier isn’t adding or creating any value in his ownership; he is skimming a fee from those who pass through the gate he owns.

The rational, self-interested participant will minimize his own expenses and maximize his income/gain by exploiting the commons–assets shared by all participants. The rational, self-interested participant will thus let his sheep out into the common pasture to graze for free, dump his waste into the river and the smoke from his works into the air, all free of charge.  This dynamic of everyone pursuing their own self-interest destroying the commons was articulated by Garrett Hardin in his paper The Tragedy of the Commons.

There is another dynamic at work called tyranny of the majority.

People who identify real problems are Punished in our society.  Sean Hannity believes that a majority of Americans would rather throw out all pollution laws, if they think the transcending mantra is 'jobs, jobs, jobs".   A majority can be just plain ill informed about an issue because they've been lied to go FOX news.  A majority of people believe in some Diety out there for which there has never been any sort of evidence of "His' doing all the things people claim he'll do.  A majority of Americans voted conservative in the 1968 Presidential election even though intellectually they knew the war in Viet Nam was not justifiable by any rational criteria.  A majority of Americans believe Republicans are doing a better job in congress than the Democrats.   A majority of Americans think it's "just not macho" to admit there are a lot of things they just don't know, and therefore Will Not become informed, because it's too much trouble and in the short term- - their "comfort level" is served by not making the effort.  They'd much rather plan for the very short term- - then when the fruits of the basic "problem" become plainly manifest - - those who ignored the problem to begin with somehow find some innocent third party to blame for their Own mistakes.  Imagine a ship with 100 passengers and crew drifting down a river that eventually cascades over a 1,000 foot waterfall. It’s easy to plot the ship’s course and the waterfall ahead. You might think 100% of those on-board would agree that something drastic must be done to either reverse course or abandon ship, but before we jump to any conclusion we must first identify what each of the 100 people perceive as serving their self-interest.  If life on-board is good for 60 of the 100, they may well rationalize away the waterfall dead ahead. Why risk the treacherous river currents by abandoning ship? As a result, the majority vote to tweak the ship’s course slightly (I suspect in a few "show trials" like for Martha Stewart or Blegoiavitch- - and let all the really big fish go) , thus dooming the 40 others who can hear the thundering cascade ahead but who are powerless to change course in a democracy.  

The breaking news, presumably from this morning is that a second UN school was bombed by the Israelis within the past few days, and it’s the sixth UN instelation that’s been targeted and attacked in the last month.  There were multiple targeted coordenates of this school taken in the past couple of weeks, and this exact site was expressly targeted within an hour before launch.  Now apparently it doesn’t matter whether a site is actually a military launch site or not- - Israel is going to bomb it anyhow.  But on Meet the Press they had a poll that 43% of the American population is solidly behind Israel, and another 43% aren’t sure, and only fourteen percent think that Gaza is justified in their complaints.  I find these numbers disconcerting.  But overall the numbers aren’t encouraging.  By a small margin the people side with the Republicans when it comes to who they agree with in congress.  I find that amazing and perplexing, and doesn’t offer much hope for Democrats in November.  I would assume that nowadays registered Republicans outnumber registered Democrats.  It used to never be this way all the time growing up and well into adulthood.   Registered democrats decidedly outnumbered registered Republicans.   Face the Nation had no less than three specific segments on the Ebola virus.  We learn a lot.  A lot of the contamination comes from touching patients in hospitals or touching bodies in open caskets at funerals.  But this disease, thank God, is not spread by air.  Valerie Jered is like Obama’s number two “man” who happens to be a woman.  She is almost the one the President and Mrs. Obama look to to make any important decision in the White House and has been with them a long time, and we know so little about her.  Michael Bloomberg was defending Israel.   If Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emeritz and Egypt all hate Hammas, one would think they could be called upon to exert pressure on them.  But it makes little sense for Israel to now say “Well the civilians of Gaza have it coming because they voted for Hammas, as if they are going to now stop the war to hold a spontaneous election that Hammas will abide by.  It’s like us being attacked by primarily hijackers from Saudi Arabia, and close friends with the Bush family, and we turn around and start bombing Iraqi civilians.

 On the Mc Laughlin report we had Putin’s colonial designs on the new world.  How he’s reviving relations with Fidel and Raul Castro and wants to build up Cuba, and Nicaragua, and also Venesuela and Argentina.  Pat isn’t worried.  Eleanor isn’t very worried.  That British guy is more concerned about US decline and Russia’s rise.  Mort seemed unusually quiet today, almost as if someone told him to “styfle”.   There was talk about Israel and how Saudi Arabia and Egypt and the United Arab Emerits are siding with Israel in this current conflict.  But John Kerry dumped the Egyptian proposed treaty in favor of one by Turkey and Yemen.  They said that Turkey was now very anti Semitic, even though they are still a part of NATO.  I’m surprised they haven’t been kicked out.   John Mc Laughlin gave the economic good news a big build-up, which I was pleased to see.  But Mort is still Mr. Negativity on the economy.  Of course is you average four percent and negative two percent, you get an average of an annualized rate of one percent growth, and seen in those terms it doesn’t look encouraging.  But John Mc Laughlin rolled out a host of other positive economic performance indicators which were also rosey.

  It was raining last night and then it began to rain, lightly at first, and then harder- sitting out on the bench.  I guess the weather gods must be smiling on us.  I got to thinking how that Baal story in the Bible about Elijah praying that it not rain for three years- - or was it longer?   If you’re in a drought - - you don’t even remember how the drought started- - and if you did you’d want to stone Elijah.  They had been saying that SC so far has adequate water supplies, but that if we go another year or so with this drought- - anything could change.  This is Monday and there was serious flash flooding in the San Barnadino mountains late on Sunday causing a lot of property damage and messed up lives.  I timed it well for breakfast with the Beatles.  I caught the three weather related opening songs (and Blue Jay Way was the first track played followed by Fixing a Hole and Rain) and then caught that disco song on the count-down, from a movie soundtrack.  Then there were nine beatle songs in a row, and in general I was lucky in evading commercials today.  I went down to smoke and when I rounded the corner to go out the door I saw JW Serell there stationed in his wheel chair.  I paused for an instant but saw he wasn’t rolling and so slipped quickly past him without touching his chair at all.  J W chose to make an incident out of it saying “Why didn’t you just back up and let me go down the hall first?”   A good answer came to me later.  If I had done as he suggested- - what’s to stop him as I’m backing out of the hall from just saying “Get out, you’re in my way?” even if I wasn’t.  Had that happen I would just as readily be saying to myself “I wish I had just slipped quietly past him when I had the chance.  I must stress that JW was not moving when I saw him - - and if he had been showing signs of- - movement- - - then of course I would have let him egress first.  But J W’s motto is “If you can’t say something nasty- - then don’t say anything at all”.   Later I went out to the courtyard for two cups of coffee.  There were no particularly remarkable Beatle songs this week.  They played “Rain Clouds” by Mc Cartney, which we are informed, is the B Side to “Ebony and Ivery”.    Then it was “Good Bye, my Love” which is a frequent closer song. 

Thinking About Things The Way They Really Are

I decided to check up on William Casey and Iran Contra.  First of all I suspect the biography of Casey had been scrubbed anticeptically clean.  There is virtually nothing about Bill Casey’s capacity as Ronald Reagan’s campaign chief in 1980.   There was absolutely nothing I could find about any deal with Iran about delaying the hostage release.  And contrary to what Thom Hartman says- - the whole motive for Iran Contra was hostages held by Hez Ballah.  They should call it the Iran-Israel scandal, because there are more persistent references to Israel being knee deep in it- - as opposed to Saudi Arabia.  And they don’t refer to it as “money laundering” but merely ‘replacement of funds”.  There was nothing at all about flooding the Los Angeles area with crack cocaine.  That was just an unhappy coincidence.  Also the release of the Iranian hostages twenty minutes before Ronald Reagan was sworn in as President, this too was just a strange coincidence.  That Bill Casey suffered a major stroke or something just a couple days before he testified- - and because Casey did NOT testify- - he’s role wasn’t even looked into by the Tower Comission.  All this too is just a strange coincidence.  Casey died in May of 1987, which is sooner than I had believed.  So he was already dead for months when Bob Woodward’s book “Veil’ came out.   There was a lot talk about this Mc Farlane guy who resigned in late 1985.  But as to the sale of the weapons themselves- - this was not just a one time thing.  These occurred in an almost regular stream from late 1985 up through October of 1986 just weeks before the scandal broke in November.   People who write about these things see nothing suspicious at all about Ronald Reagan’s continual vagueness about what he knew or his involvement in it.   They one and all are quite willing to give him a pass because he was going senile or something at the time.   It started off as an Arms for Hostage thing of seven US prisoners held by Hez Ballah.  Ronald Reagan made overatures to the “Moderte Iranians”.   So where were John Mc Cain and Lindsey Graham back then?   None of the activities back then were subjected to a fraction of the microscopic scrutiny that they would be today.  The strangest thing is of course that Israel was a supporter of Iran in those days.  So maybe Israel should just shut their pie hole now.  Just like we should shut our pie hole up about this whole ISIS thing, because the US funded these right wing Islamic groups in Afghanistan- - to combat- - at first not the Russians but rather a left leaning Afghani government that we didn’t like.  It would seem that both the US and Israel have this nasty habit of making bad foreign policy decisions and then it when it blows up in our face, we just point and accuse our political foes of disloyalty or something.  It gets really old after a while.   If Neil Savedra wants to give a morning treaties on the subject of “Integrety” he should start with United States foreign policy.  Because you know, Neil is absolutely right.  Integrety is not just some garment that you can take on and off at will, whenever it’s convienient.  If there were anything TO the claims Christianity makes about a personal transformation- - it would give you integrity ALL the time, because this indeed is kind of implied in the meaning of the word.  You wouldn’t have a car “made with integrity” and someone asks you “So, does the motor start right up and run good”, and you respond “some of the time”.

You know - - I was just wondering this morning - - with some whispers from Stewart Sutcliffe from the other side- - just who we are kidding.  We seem great at pronouncing problems as “solved” just like the song , “Only Yesterday” by the Carpenters.   Did you know for instance that Israel now has “solved” the problem of enemy nation aggression because they’ve cleaned out all those tunnels in Gaza and bombed may inhabitents thereof to Kingdom Come.   I’m wondering whatever happened to Iran and those Nukes- - and the one plus Billion believers in Allah out there in the world.  If Iran or Hez Ballah is funneling those weapons to Gaza to you think they’re now just going to say “OK Israel, you won the battle fair and square”.   It’s like on Days of our Lives, you’d think Stephano Di Mira’s vast world wide empire has crumbled overnight, and now little kids are getting their sticky singers all over E J’s vintage race cars, as vast segments of the Empire are being sold off.  All of Stephano's network of contacts, spies and moles- - are gone.  Stephano has gone from being a new supernatural genius to a bumbling fool - overnight.   It's like Gaza, you're suddenly completely wiped out- - totally vanquished.  And somehow you’d not going to hear a peep about it.  No repercussions - no nothing.  Or maybe Satan is really defeated just as Christianity states- - and that all the sin we see in the world is some vast illusion or probably “a lapse in Faith” or something.  Or if we can just squeeze that last bunch or coal or natural gas from the earth, all of our economic and energy problems would be solved, and never fear about ground pollution or climate change or acid oceans or any of that other hysterical leftist alarmist stuff.   And of course the demographic “Timebomb” we have discussed for the Republicans- - that’s just a lot of alarmist pessimism.  Right?

This whole thing with “giving continual wars of aggression” a pass, which Christians do, gets really old after a while.  Someone pointed out “There are no empires in the world today- except of course for America” where PAX Romana reigns supreme, except , of course, that there is no “Peace”.   And so many wars are fought over Theology.  Indeed it can be argued- - and Neil of KFI has almost stated this- - that you are not justified before God by your works, neither are you by your Faith- - but rather you are justified by your Theology.   So all of the wars are fought over having a different “brand’ of theology like Protestent and Catholic.   They even did a thing on the Simpsons mocking this about “Worship of the Bart Man”.   It just seems to me that if I were God I’d be getting pretty sick of all of this over the past thousand years.  And I imagine I’d be a little hurt and offended.   After all it’s always said that “When Jesus walked this earth it was the Total and Complete Regelation of God’s Nature.  And in fact it is to utterly Complete and Sufficient for the needs of mankind for (an eternity?) that no future revelations will EVER be needed.   And what the Jewish Priests did with making it hard to offer sacrifices to God at the temple without a Kosher tag on your gift you pay dearly to obtain, so that we have as it were “licensed” or if you will “copy protected God”.  But as Leo points out “When you copy protect something the only people you end up hurting are the honest people because the true pirates know how to easily get around it”.   So you can not approach God “any old time you want” or dare to envoke his name or claim to have gotten a message from him.  No, no.   If you are coming off of alcohol you can’t just say you believe in “God, as you understand him to be”.   Neil Savedra won’t let you and he’s Jesus and scripture says nobody comes to the father except by Jesus, and Neil Savedra is Jesus now.  Of course - - it’s been such a long time since I’ve had a real debate with any hard core Born Again Christian, maybe some might say “You conplain an awful lot about religion, but maybe your information and input on the subject is alarmingly out of date”.  This very thought has passed through my mind once or twice.  But then I get these reminders and little indicators of just how “in bed” Christianity and the tea party are with each other.  How I’d dearly love to roll the clock back to the day before Sarah Palin was picked to be Mc Cain’s vice presidential nominee.  That’s when so many of my troubles all started.  (Selah)

(typed earlier today) Let’s start with Chris Matthew’s this morning.  I guess I caught most of Friday’s show and some of Thursday’s, though the segments appeared to be a bit out of order.  There was a segment on Lies of George Bush that got us into the Iraq War.  And there was also a John Dean segment, now looking quite bald, where a new book has a few facts we didn’t know about Nixon and Watergate.   Chris Matthews’ opening remarks Thursday were more compelling than Friday’s show, but both talk about the blatant disfunctionality and moral hypocracy of Boehner and the Republicans.   All I can say is that the democratic candidates for congress have just been handed a lot of tailor made issues on a silver plate to campaign on this fall.   We are told there are people who are "waiting around for the stock market to crash".  That seems like a pretty depressing pasttime if they could have been making money all this time- and weren't.  Of course money managers make THEIR money by CHARGING you- - regardless of their own qualifications.  Once they've got your money, THEY'VE already won.  What should they care whether you win or lose?  If the market, as I say it will, enters another upturn in the weeks before the election it will be harder and harder for the republicans to sell their "doom and gloom" scenario.   This guy on KNX said this morning "Yes I know you voters are unhappy- - but on election day you have an opportunity to do something about that by holding President Obama accountable".  They're still going with that tired play-book but this year it won't work.  They are hoping that we're all trained to respond like Pavlovian dogs- - and they have this arsenol of a dozen or so catch phrases guarenteed to "trigger the right response in the subject".   Suddenly if we see an R by any name, we'll select that candidate.   Everything is a crusade.  Everything is a Holy War to them.  They say "Values" and we think searching over the memory banks of our brains "What did FOX news tell me about this?"   They've gotten away with it for four years.  But eventually the gravity of reality is going to get to them and fortunes that soared in 2009 will no longer 'soar" when you gave the same stimulus. 

A Democratic Takeover of Congress is Very Doable

The Taft Hartley anti union law became Law over the veto of Harry Truman in June of 1947.  And yet in the 1948 elections we democrats today could learn a lot from the campaign of that year.  As you probably know Harry Truman compained on a "do nothing congress" and in other words "gave 'em hell".   The Democrats won 75 seats in congress and I looked at the state by state map of congressional gains that year and there were massive victories and smaller victories, and some states remained unchanged in party affiliation.  But in no state, not one, did the Republicans have a net gain in that state's representation in the next Congress.  And just to compare this with the present - the Democrats this year only need eighteen seats in the house to take over leadership of the House of Representatives.  That means there's no more John Boehner and we can introduce and push whatever bills we want.  As you also know the Democrats would have to lose six senate seats and pick up NO seats of their own, in order to lose the US Senate.  This would mean if they pick up two seats they'd have to lose at least eight others.  Let's look at the demographics of the 2012 presidential election.  The Blacks voted for Obama 94 to 6 percent.  The republicans won't do that well with the Blacks next time out because either Mc Cain or Romney is "too liberal for them" and they want to take Rush Limbaugh's advice and go hard core conservative, and Rush believes that is the secret to winning.  Of course Rush also approves of voting down this meager border security appropriations bill that John Boehner held congress over to vote on it.  The vote failed.  Congress went on vacation for over five weeks - - having done nothing on immigration reform, or minimum wages, or firearms regulations or unemployment.  These are all good campaign issues for democrats to run on.  In terms of age- - - forty appears to be the demarcation line as to whether a group voted for Obama.  In terms of income- this is the most obvious distinction and the line seems to be around fifty thousand per household.   Only 27 percent of Latinos voted for Romney- - as well as "other minority races".  In terms of Religion - - Catholics went for the President by a margin of two percent and most other religions such as Jewish, Muslem or "other religions" or no religion- - voted for the President.  Of Evangelical Christians - which according to this source comprise 26 percent of the population - - only 21% voted for the President- - and the rest went for Romney.  Clearly we can write off this 26% as pretty much unreachable.  The tea party may not like it but the vast majority of Jews voted for the President over Romney.  The biggest surprise came with educational level.  It isn't the "bub-bah" vote we need to be afraid of.  Contrary to Rick Santorum's remarks about "College graduate snobs" four year graduates were the ONLY educational bracket that went for Romney- - over other categories such as "some college" High School graduate- - or even college postgraduates.  In terms of age the over 65 age group voted for Romney the most strongly.  Cities of over 500,000 people voted overwhelmingly for the President.  It doesn't take a brain surgeon to deduce that in all the categories the democrats are gaining in- - - these are growing- - and the demographics that support the Republicans- - these are all shrinking, "withering on the vine" to quote Newt Gingrich".    But a lot of these people "know better".   They went through college.  But take kind of a Samantha Brady stance tword "knowledge" to quote from the AC DC song.  "What I need I stash, what I don't I trash".   This is the MO of FOX News for sure.  It's almost like they view their time in college the way they view that gay sexual encounter they had when they were younger.  They file it under "Things that will not be spoken of".   It's so nonsensical what they say it's hard to keep track of.  Sarah Palin regards this law suit as a "Weak, half way measure against Obama- - and they are too weak to go for Impeachment".  But now they accuse the democrats of bringing up impeachment (again - try to follow this logic) the Democrats, they say, are "ginning up talk of Impeachment to try and get their base to turn out and vote for democrats on election day".   What strikes me funny about this remark is that the Republicans obviously have their mind on impeachment themselves- - or they wouldn't care whether the Senate went Republican or not.  After all it will make no difference in terms of legislation.  The ONLY gain the Republicans would derive from a Republican Senate- - would be in the case of convicting the President in an impeachment trial.  John Boehner says on one hand that the President has exceeded his Constitutional authority.  But will he get a vote passed that streamlines all this "processing' of the refugees on the border?  No he will not.  And now John Boehner says by way of response "The President is just going to manage this on his own using his executive authority".   You can't follow these people.  They say they don't like "corporate welfare" and yet isn't making fast food workers and Wall Mart employees go on food stamps in essence "government subsedy for low employee wages?"  Now they are saying they want the import-export Bank to not be renewed because "It's the ultimate Corporate welfare".   So how did President go from being a Bill Ayres worshipping communist - to somebody in favor of corporate welfare?  I can't follow them.  And I'm pretty smart and try to fend my way through all their codes and half baked sentense fragments like Rush Limbaugh uses.  Rush reminds me of some frustrated teenage boy talking to a high school counselor how come he has so much problem talking to girls- - and after listening to him you know why?  This is how it is with Rush.  The tea party say they believe in Free Markets- - but yet as Norman Goldman points out today Clear Channel is subsedizing these far right radio programs such as Limbaugh, Beck and Hannity because in a free market they could not survive financially on their own.  I think each and every one of these hypocracies need to be pointed out by Democratic candidates to the prospective voters.  Of course the biggest make or break issue is of course voter turn out- - and the Republicans will move heaven and earth to keep those numbers as small as possible.  If they get what would ammount to a normal four-year turnout, they know they're sunk.

FREE BONUS ALBUM (with purchase of the other Two-CD set)
GET PUNKED  (Going after the counter-culture vote)

Blind Melon Chitlin  (Chich and Chong)
The Rye or the Keiser  (Al Yankivic)
I Want To be Sedated   (Ramones)
I'm OK They'll Never Take Me Away  (1966 follow-up)
Let's Lynch the Landlord  (Dead Kennedies)
Hat Lava  (B '52's)
Teenage Enema Nurse (Killer Pussy)
Ain't We Crazy  (another moldy oldie)
Mongoloid  (Devo)
Beat On the Brat  (Ramones)
Anarchy in the UK  (Sex Pistols)
Drug Me  (Dead Kennedies)
Pico and Sulpivida  (classic demento)
Wiggly World  (Devo)
When You're A Blonde  (Julie Brown)
My Girl's Pussy
Friendly Neighborhood Narco Agent
Coming Into Los Angeles  (Arlo Guthrie)
Don't Step On the Grass, Sam  (Steppinwolf)
The Great Smoke-off (Shell Silversteen)

Good Economic News Puts Republicans Out of Sorts

There has been good economic news in the past day.  Besides the annualized four percent growth last quarter, we have this morning announced 200,000 new jobs last month, if we can trust those figures.  Unemployment rose to 6.2% which is still low by standards of the past six years.  I mentioned in my postings – Twice – recently, prior to yesterday’s 317 point down day on Wall Street - - that caution was in order.  But don’t panic if you didn’t sell either time I mentioned it before.  It’s less clear whether you want to sell now - - than it was earlier in the week, but if you’re worried then sell, but if you don’t  - - I’m still predicting the markets will clearly go into another uptrend and we’ll get way into new highs before election time.   I wonder if people like Mort Zuckerman are heavy into short positions- - and need a major townturn in the market so they can make their money back.  I don’t know.   I said this farther back in this file but it merits repeating.  Exports are on the rise - - and businesses are returning back to this country even in the absence of reforming our absurd tax laws.  People who own real estate should be resting a whole lot easier today.  In terms of this allegation that “at no time has the Affordable Care Act ever has the support of the majority of Americans” I would say that the Next Poll taken on this subject will reveal that a majority of Americans DO support the ACA, and once again show Hannity to be a liar.   Thom Hartman rattled off about fifteen prominent Republicans who have came out for Impeaching the President.  In light of Wednesday’s “house resolution” alleging that the President has acted unconstitutionally- - it’s reasonable to me that the Democrats would seek some sort of firm assurance that the Republicans don’t have Impeachment on their minds.  Let’s return to that four percent economic growth figure.  I wondered how the right would explain that one away.  Thom Hartman was faced with this “tag team” of two on one in Wednesday’s “Big Picture” segment.  When would a conservative host EVER allow himself to be in the position of going two on one with liberals?  I rest my case.  Of course the FOX news people craftily pick a woman and a black to face Hartman.  I’ve spoken of how gays are a bigger minority in this country than we think.  And yet there are “conservatively” Ten Times as many gay people in this country as there are conservative Blacks, and all of those seem to end up on Fox news.  Perhaps three percent of Black people support right wing causes, and yet FOX news and others would have you to believe that conservativism is a rising tide among Blacks.   Thom Hartman pointed out that this bunch is almost bragging about the “poor growth numbers” assuming four percent is “poor”.  Actually, it’s pretty good.   Hartman then reminded these two that fourteen Republicans met to agree to thwart and agree to nothing the President would EVER propose- at the outset of his administration.  This was almost like an oath in blood they took.  So how to they justify this behavior.  Will they stand behind it and say such complete obstructionism is a good thing for the country?  Or will they repuliate it and say it was wrong and a bad thing to do?  What they did- - try and follow their logic- - was to go back to the Supreme Court declaring George Bush as President- - and some looking at this and say “What the High Court did was not legitimate or constitutional”.    So they will take that word “legitimate” and say “All right them- - because a few democrats used that word back them- - George W Bush had “negative equity” in Real Estate terms- - he had less than a razor thin mandate- - he had a negative margin of victory- - they will take this observation and say “OK that’s why we are opposing Obama now”.

It was rather douchy for Hammas to break a 72 hour cease fire almost before the ink was dry on the document.  But what alarms me is a saying on “Burn Notice” where Michael says “A good strategy against the adversary is to let him think he’s winning, has the upper hand, all the while laying an elaborate trap for him when you move in for the kill.   Israel may have our weapons and Nukes and good speech makers and make a pretty good case for what they are doing and why they feel it’s necessary.  However there are only 17 million people of the Jewish faith world wide, and it just isn’t Dr Levy that’s produced this low number.  So how many Muslems are there in the world- - a Billion, maybe more?  The Bible teaches “There is wisdom in numbers”.   Of course when you hear stories like this woman in Afghanistan who had her nose and ears cut off by the Talliban- - and her own brother held her down while they did it- - this is enough to make me say “You know- - our troops really do need to wipe out every trace of the talliban”.  My hope and prayer is that Afghan women really are better off now than they were and have basic human rights and a chance at getting an education.  However this morning- I got a message relayed by Sirius A that they were contacted by the Ionians,  sometimes called the Iconians even by the “other side” because they too watch Star Trek.   The Federation has been afraid of the Ionians for four thousand years.  The Ionians did us a major favor over four thousand years ago but it’s kind of one of those things like ‘Yeah we saved your bacon this time but from now on if we pass each other on the street, just pretend we don’t know each other”.  Of course the Federation lost a whole planet - - and the one most favorable to life.  And as such the plot of Star Trek II, kind of reshuffles the facts in this - - and there are these sand reptile things or whatever that attack people.   So this Ionian representatative making any statement or appearance to Sirius A is highly unusual- and it was kind of an overature- - (to Romulans on the planet).  “You know if you want, we can take care of the Perseus group problem for you”.   The Romulans are highly suspicious of this offer- - and as you know balked at an alliance with the Ionians a number of years ago because of basic mistrust the Romulans would give up their state secrets as to military mapping and cloaking  technology.   But this Ionian rep said that the Greeks are the ones who gave women rights they’d never had before and the Christians think they invented equality for women and basic rights for women in marital situations.  But it’s not the fact that they’re Christian, but they owe that to the Greek culture and the proponents of Christianity knew they would never get away with imposing the legal shackles on women with no rights, that they had in Jewish culture.  He went on to attack Justin (Martyr) as someone who’s full of it because- - they would lead you to believe that the ancient Babylonians and those in Palestine- - knew all about the Constelations of the sky, even though it’s strange that Jews or Babylonians would use Greek terms for constellations.  In fact quite the contrary to what Justin writes- - the Jews were cultural paracites piggybacking on Greek wisdom and know-how and culture.  Also when it speaks in Daniel of the antichrist worshipping “the god of Forces”  (nothing to do with Star Wars) that this was just a take-off on Euclid and other mathematicians who understood structural engineering and basic geometry.   Justin also has a major problem in minimizing the antiquity of the Greek culture- - while ignoring when their OWN scriptures as we know them today were in fact actually written.   We’ll “wait for future contacts”.

 It’s a new month for everybody who observes any kind of lunar calendar.   I think my next few blogs will just be immediate and new stories and not some of these “paste” frenzy jobs of spontaneous disorganization.  There should be more good news on the economy guaranteed to ruin Mort Zuckerman’s day.  Don’t count the bull market out despite the 296 point drop that happened today.  The economy grew at an annualized rate of four percent last quarter, which is rarely done these days.  If more jobs are created than lost and the unemployment dips into the five’s it’ll be enough to get the Wall Street bears heavily invested in short positions - - jumping out of windows.

And then it was Days of our Lives for Samantha’s hysterics.  I’ll just say this one additional thing and then I’d like to drop the topic because it’s so disconcerting.  Sammy almost seemed to be gloating to Abigail that she was not upset about the affair but the whole thing was as I said it was “all too convienient” and the affair itself was just another manipulation as an excuse to procede with the retribution against Elvis she already had in mind.  She almost gloated how “I had seen to it that Elvis was sex starved and knowing him I knew he would turn to another.  And then he practically did me a favor because- - he managed to distract Abigail from asking questions about Nick Fallon.  Samantha has faked so many emotions- - by now she’s probably frigid or something almost convulsed in anger and bitterness.  She can’t see anything else.  She appears to be living for nothing else.   Meanwhile Will recorded Kate’s little mia copa on his cell phone- - which might provide material to take to the police.  I've thought about it a day and I believe that Sammy probably climaxes every time she has sex with E J.  Just as a rapist climaxes when he has sex with a woman he's torturing- - so too Sammy seems to get off on torture- - even if it's self torture.   If promises whispered in her ear to have Nick murdered are the sort of thoughts that "get her off' I think she actually is able to climax by feeling Hate.  No one has ever questioned Samantha's sexual appetite, it's just regular give and take relations with men- - that have all men fleeing from her.   And the thing is- - after her current behavior- - she won't have a friend left- - except perhaps her fellow corporate stooges.  Indeed as one person observed, "She had paid the Di Mira family the ultimate compliment by learning how to act just like them".

I'd like to talk for a moment on the topic of prejudice and reconciliation.  And I want to lead with an example we all know.  Remember in the movie "It's a wonderful life" where George Bailey goes into Martini's bar - - and is sitting there at the bar drinking and chatting with friends.   And the husband of Zu Zu's school teacher comes in.   At that moment when he first saw George, was that guy "prejudiced against George' or have any grudge against him?  No.  It's only when he first heard the name "Bailey" and asks "George Bailey" that his anger grows and he belts George Bailey in the mouth for "Making my wife cry all night long because of that horrible phone call".   And then we know that Martini kicked the guy who'd thrown the punch out of nowhere- - out of the bar.   Suppose you haven't had a "wonderful life" but have felt jinxed for most of your life like you got a raw deal somehow- - compared to your piers.   You know it's a crappy deal but you write it off as circumstance and certainly nothing that anything can be done about.   But then you meet this guy called God.  And he says 'I'm the guy who's responsible for everything that happens in the world, and nothing either happens or fails to happen unless the authorization has gone past my desk".    And we know from that letter of Mark Bove in early August 1994, the 20th anniversary of very soon, that indeed "You can't claim that God willed ANYTHING - - if it didn't happen because if it didn't happen you know God didn't will it.  Out of the mouth of Babes.  He's making my argument for me.  If you KNEW this to, as John Mc Laughlin says "to a metaphysical certainty" as it is written that "We will Know even as we are Known" then would you not Indeed have a Cause or grudge againse whoever caused your crappy life, even if it turns out to be God?  It's not a case as Neil of KFI claims of "Well I just have it in for God and I'm never going to church".   But right now we don't know THAT God even exists.  That's just something THEY on the other side have TOLD us to believe.  How strange it is that those on the other side (the Christians) would build up this "Entity" and then claim that - - "Well you know if things aren't going well in your life it's just God trying to get your attention" as though God were some little kid three or four- - who seems to prefer to express his wants in non verbal terms such as throwing a tantrum rather than rational thought.  (Selah)