This blog will focus on political images I have found all around the Internet, though I will intersperse some commentary and quotes that I find interesting.
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
NRA is a dangerous, subversive organization
From Daily Kos
(Click HERE to read more)
Wednesday, August 21, 2013, 5:58 pm
One of the mainstays of the argument the National Rifle Association and other gun lobby groups have made against universal background checks for gun sales is that this would create a database that would amount to a backdoor registration system which would eventually be used to confiscate some or all firearms. That was one of the key arguments that stopped the watered-down Manchin-Toomey gun safety legislation in April.
Universal background checks don't require a registry. Background checks mandated for commercial sales don't produce such a registry. Which is not to say that a registry is a bad idea.
Indeed, for the past 79 years, there has been a registry that was initiated under the National Firearms Act of 1934. It requires anyone who wants to buy a machine-gun or other fully automatic firearm, silencer or gadget-gun (like a cane gun) undergo a thorough FBI background check, pay a tax and have their name and the weapon they have purchased added to a registry, which was long ago turned into a computer database. In all those years, there has been no confiscation of the hundreds of thousands of weapons registered on that database, no harassment of their owners, no midnight knocks at the door.
But, as pointed out by TriSec, the NRA is not so skittish when it comes to the database the organization itself maintains:
But in fact, the sort of vast, secret database the NRA often warns of already exists, despite having been assembled largely without the knowledge or consent of gun owners. It is housed in the Virginia offices of the NRA itself. The country's largest privately held database of current, former, and prospective gun owners is one of the powerful lobby's secret weapons, expanding its influence well beyond its estimated 3 million members and bolstering its political supremacy.
(Click HERE to read more)
Database-hating National Rifle Association may very well have you in its database if you own a gun
Rss@dailykos.com (meteor Blades)Wednesday, August 21, 2013, 5:58 pm
One of the mainstays of the argument the National Rifle Association and other gun lobby groups have made against universal background checks for gun sales is that this would create a database that would amount to a backdoor registration system which would eventually be used to confiscate some or all firearms. That was one of the key arguments that stopped the watered-down Manchin-Toomey gun safety legislation in April.
Universal background checks don't require a registry. Background checks mandated for commercial sales don't produce such a registry. Which is not to say that a registry is a bad idea.
Indeed, for the past 79 years, there has been a registry that was initiated under the National Firearms Act of 1934. It requires anyone who wants to buy a machine-gun or other fully automatic firearm, silencer or gadget-gun (like a cane gun) undergo a thorough FBI background check, pay a tax and have their name and the weapon they have purchased added to a registry, which was long ago turned into a computer database. In all those years, there has been no confiscation of the hundreds of thousands of weapons registered on that database, no harassment of their owners, no midnight knocks at the door.
But, as pointed out by TriSec, the NRA is not so skittish when it comes to the database the organization itself maintains:
But in fact, the sort of vast, secret database the NRA often warns of already exists, despite having been assembled largely without the knowledge or consent of gun owners. It is housed in the Virginia offices of the NRA itself. The country's largest privately held database of current, former, and prospective gun owners is one of the powerful lobby's secret weapons, expanding its influence well beyond its estimated 3 million members and bolstering its political supremacy.
Things our founding fathers said
“When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obligated to call for help of the civil power, it’s a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.”
~Benjamin Franklin, letter to Richard Price, October 9, 1780
~Benjamin Franklin, letter to Richard Price, October 9, 1780
Shooting report
Too many bad guys have too many guns. We need to pass laws that will reduce the number of guns getting into the hands of people that shouldn't have them They are NOT toys - they are killing tools.
NSA - the hits just keep on coming
From Daily Kos
(Click HERE to read more)
Wednesday, August 21, 2013, 12:48 pm
Surprise! All that sucking up of domestic electronic communications by the NSA revealed by Edward Snowden that was "just" metadata? It wasn't just metadata, but also content. That's according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal, based on interviews with current and former government and intelligence officials as well as people familiar with the system through their industry connections. The new reporting also reveals that the NSA has built an intelligence collecting infrastructure much larger than previously known, with "the capacity to reach roughly 75% of all U.S. Internet traffic." The system reaches deep into the internet backbone to more than a dozen junctions, beyond the key points where data enters the country from overseas as was previously understood.
The NSA is focused on collecting foreign intelligence, but the streams of data it monitors include both foreign and domestic communications. Inevitably, officials say, some U.S. Internet communications are scanned and intercepted, including both "metadata" about communications, such as the "to" and "from" lines in an email, and the contents of the communications themselves. [...]
(Click HERE to read more)
More NSA program revelations: Program much deeper, more intrusive than previously known
Rss@dailykos.com (joan Mccarter)Wednesday, August 21, 2013, 12:48 pm
Surprise! All that sucking up of domestic electronic communications by the NSA revealed by Edward Snowden that was "just" metadata? It wasn't just metadata, but also content. That's according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal, based on interviews with current and former government and intelligence officials as well as people familiar with the system through their industry connections. The new reporting also reveals that the NSA has built an intelligence collecting infrastructure much larger than previously known, with "the capacity to reach roughly 75% of all U.S. Internet traffic." The system reaches deep into the internet backbone to more than a dozen junctions, beyond the key points where data enters the country from overseas as was previously understood.
The NSA is focused on collecting foreign intelligence, but the streams of data it monitors include both foreign and domestic communications. Inevitably, officials say, some U.S. Internet communications are scanned and intercepted, including both "metadata" about communications, such as the "to" and "from" lines in an email, and the contents of the communications themselves. [...]
Our Supreme Court - a march back in time
From Think Progress
(Click HERE to read the entire article)
In an interview with the New York Times' Adam Liptak, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg offered a grim assessment of the Court where she so often finds herself leading a four justice dissent - the Roberts Court is "one of the most activist courts in history."
As an historic matter, this is a pretty staggering claim. The Supreme Court in 1905 handed down a decision called Lochner v. New York that is now widely taught in American law schools as an example of how judges should never, ever behave. Lochner treated any law improving workplace conditions or helping workers to obtain an adequate wage as constitutionally suspect. And Lochner was hardly an anomalous moment in the Court's history.
Thirteen years after Lochner the Supreme Court struck down federal child labor laws in a decision that is also widely taught as an example of inexcusable judicial activism. In 1895, the Supreme Court rendered the country virtually powerless against monopolies and other powerful combinations of corporate power, and then it held an income tax on the wealthiest Americans unconstitutional just a few months later. The Supreme Court has, with rare exception, been a largely malign force in American history.
There is, however, one important way in which the Roberts Court is distinguishable from the Courts that decided cases such as Lochner. Laws such as the Sherman Antitrust Act and the first federal ban on child labor arose as lawmakers with struggling with many of the negative side effects of the Industrial Revolution. The birth of the railroad and the dawn of mass production massively improved the American standard of living, but they also enabled monopolists to thrive and they resulted in mass exploitation of the working class. The Supreme Court in this era did not so much tear down established rights as it stood for a status quo that favored capital over labor and the rich over the rest of the nation.
The Roberts Court, by contrast, has actively rolled back existing laws protecting workers, women and people of color. The Nineteenth Century Supreme Court blocked America's first meaningful efforts at racial equality, but the Roberts Court stole from minority voters rights that they had enjoyed for decades. The Lochner Court strangled basic protections for workers in their crib, but the Roberts Court takes fully matured protections for workers and carves them up a piece at a time. And, while Lochner Era courts acted out in the open, undermining human rights in published opinions. the Roberts Court pushes an alternative, corporate-run arbitration system that operates largely in secret.
None of this is to say that the world we live in now is worse than the world our great-grandparents lived in under the Lochner Court - if the Roberts Court's goal is to bring us back to this era, they are currently shy at least one vote. Nevertheless, the Roberts Court is unusually willing to take from ordinary Americans rights they have enjoyed for a very long time. The Supreme Court has a long history of standing athwart history yelling stop. This Supreme Court, however, wants to shift history into reverse.
(Click HERE to read the entire article)
Justice Ginsburg's Terrifying Assessment Of Her Own Court
BY IAN MILLHISER ON AUGUST 26, 2013 AT 9:00 AMIn an interview with the New York Times' Adam Liptak, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg offered a grim assessment of the Court where she so often finds herself leading a four justice dissent - the Roberts Court is "one of the most activist courts in history."
As an historic matter, this is a pretty staggering claim. The Supreme Court in 1905 handed down a decision called Lochner v. New York that is now widely taught in American law schools as an example of how judges should never, ever behave. Lochner treated any law improving workplace conditions or helping workers to obtain an adequate wage as constitutionally suspect. And Lochner was hardly an anomalous moment in the Court's history.
Thirteen years after Lochner the Supreme Court struck down federal child labor laws in a decision that is also widely taught as an example of inexcusable judicial activism. In 1895, the Supreme Court rendered the country virtually powerless against monopolies and other powerful combinations of corporate power, and then it held an income tax on the wealthiest Americans unconstitutional just a few months later. The Supreme Court has, with rare exception, been a largely malign force in American history.
There is, however, one important way in which the Roberts Court is distinguishable from the Courts that decided cases such as Lochner. Laws such as the Sherman Antitrust Act and the first federal ban on child labor arose as lawmakers with struggling with many of the negative side effects of the Industrial Revolution. The birth of the railroad and the dawn of mass production massively improved the American standard of living, but they also enabled monopolists to thrive and they resulted in mass exploitation of the working class. The Supreme Court in this era did not so much tear down established rights as it stood for a status quo that favored capital over labor and the rich over the rest of the nation.
The Roberts Court, by contrast, has actively rolled back existing laws protecting workers, women and people of color. The Nineteenth Century Supreme Court blocked America's first meaningful efforts at racial equality, but the Roberts Court stole from minority voters rights that they had enjoyed for decades. The Lochner Court strangled basic protections for workers in their crib, but the Roberts Court takes fully matured protections for workers and carves them up a piece at a time. And, while Lochner Era courts acted out in the open, undermining human rights in published opinions. the Roberts Court pushes an alternative, corporate-run arbitration system that operates largely in secret.
None of this is to say that the world we live in now is worse than the world our great-grandparents lived in under the Lochner Court - if the Roberts Court's goal is to bring us back to this era, they are currently shy at least one vote. Nevertheless, the Roberts Court is unusually willing to take from ordinary Americans rights they have enjoyed for a very long time. The Supreme Court has a long history of standing athwart history yelling stop. This Supreme Court, however, wants to shift history into reverse.
So, we're going to attack Syria.
Sure looks like we're going to bomb Syria. I saw Secretary of State John Kerry on the teevee this morning telling us about the intelligence showing that Assad gassed some of his enemies, but I can't help but wonder how accurate that is. It reminded me an awful lot of Colin Powell going on TV and lying his ass off about Saddam Hussein using WMOD.
From what I've heard about the war there are a lot of factions fighting the Assad regime - and they are fighting each other - including some al Qaeda groups. How much advantage would it give to one of those groups if they gassed their own people to draw the U.S. into the war? Sure will make it easier to win the battle against Assad.
And billions of more dollars down the tubes - billions spent on munitions (our military industrial complex loves it), fuel for our jets and war ships - and more Muslims than ever wanting revenge on us.
And how much is this going to damage our relationship with Russia even further?
There is simply no way of winning this one, folks - we're fucked every which way.
From what I've heard about the war there are a lot of factions fighting the Assad regime - and they are fighting each other - including some al Qaeda groups. How much advantage would it give to one of those groups if they gassed their own people to draw the U.S. into the war? Sure will make it easier to win the battle against Assad.
And billions of more dollars down the tubes - billions spent on munitions (our military industrial complex loves it), fuel for our jets and war ships - and more Muslims than ever wanting revenge on us.
And how much is this going to damage our relationship with Russia even further?
There is simply no way of winning this one, folks - we're fucked every which way.
Monday, August 26, 2013
So stupid, they can't see themselves in the mirror.
John Boehner has served as a Congressman from Ohio since 1991 - that's 22 years. How can he lay the blame off on an anonymous Congress when HE is the fucking Congress? Stupid asshat.
Detroit is a sell-out
When I first started reading about the problems with Detroit's economy, it became pretty clear that the governor was manipulating the situation in order to reward his rich friends. I suspect that the sell-off of a lot of Detroit's assets is intentional - get more publicly owned goods (museum pieces, property, etc.) into the hands of investors hoping to make a killing - take it out of the hands of the public. The greed is destroying our nation.
From Carolina Naturally
(Click HERE to read more)
In the software world, the concept behind beta-testing is an external pilot-test of a product before commercial quantity production for public consumption. During the beta test stage, a product has already passed an internal pilot-test where glaring defects have been removed, but since the product may still have some minor problems that require user participation, it is released to selected customers to test under normal, everyday conditions to spot and correct remaining flaws. The repugicans have long sought to privatize government, and they have given indications that their penchant for restricting revenue sources and creating phony debt crises is part of their anti-government agenda to manufacture a scenario where the government is bankrupt to give corporations the opportunity to buy-out government assets and programs for a profit.
On Thursday, the first beta-test of selling off a city to corporations began in earnest when an emergency manager in Detroit filed for bankruptcy, and it is a harbinger of the repugicans' plan for the federal government. The repugicans have long sought to sell off government assets they claim are prohibitively expensive to private, for-profit enterprises they claim are better equipped to administer them because they will base operations on sound corporate business models. What Detroit is experiencing is the Bain Capital vulture capitalist tactic of taking over a company, leveraging it with debt, declaring bankruptcy, and selling off assets and firing union employees all while turning a profit. Michigan governor Rick Snyder followed Bain's tactics in appointing his cohort to lead the city, disband the government, and create conditions allowing the emergency manager to declare the city bankrupt to sell off assets allegedly to satisfy creditors.
From Carolina Naturally
(Click HERE to read more)
Detroit Is Beta-Test of the repugican cabal's Plan To Sell The Federal Government to Corporations
In the software world, the concept behind beta-testing is an external pilot-test of a product before commercial quantity production for public consumption. During the beta test stage, a product has already passed an internal pilot-test where glaring defects have been removed, but since the product may still have some minor problems that require user participation, it is released to selected customers to test under normal, everyday conditions to spot and correct remaining flaws. The repugicans have long sought to privatize government, and they have given indications that their penchant for restricting revenue sources and creating phony debt crises is part of their anti-government agenda to manufacture a scenario where the government is bankrupt to give corporations the opportunity to buy-out government assets and programs for a profit.
On Thursday, the first beta-test of selling off a city to corporations began in earnest when an emergency manager in Detroit filed for bankruptcy, and it is a harbinger of the repugicans' plan for the federal government. The repugicans have long sought to sell off government assets they claim are prohibitively expensive to private, for-profit enterprises they claim are better equipped to administer them because they will base operations on sound corporate business models. What Detroit is experiencing is the Bain Capital vulture capitalist tactic of taking over a company, leveraging it with debt, declaring bankruptcy, and selling off assets and firing union employees all while turning a profit. Michigan governor Rick Snyder followed Bain's tactics in appointing his cohort to lead the city, disband the government, and create conditions allowing the emergency manager to declare the city bankrupt to sell off assets allegedly to satisfy creditors.
Shooting report
Still too many people getting injured or killed by guns and still no attempt, in many parts of the country, to control it. Even if we just treated gun ownership like driving and owning a car - permit to train; written and usage exams; license; registration; liability insurance; renewable registrations. It would help a whole lot and maybe we'd be a less violent, hateful nation.
Study: The richer they get, the nastier they get.
From The Raw Story
(Click HERE to view the original article)
By Eric W. Dolan
Sunday, August 25, 2013 12:14 EDT
Climbing the economic ladder can influence basic psychological processes within an individual.
According to a new study published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin this month, wealth tends to increase a person's sense of entitlement, which in turn can lead to narcissistic behaviors.
Paul Piff of the University of California at Berkeley told PsyPost "there is something about wealth that gives rise to a sense of entitlement, a sense that one deserves more good things in life than others, which in turn gives rise to an increased or inflated sense of self-importance, vanity, grandiosity, and omnipotence (narcissism)."
(Click HERE to view the original article)
Study finds wealth gives rise to a sense of entitlement and narcissistic behaviors
By Eric W. Dolan
Sunday, August 25, 2013 12:14 EDT
Climbing the economic ladder can influence basic psychological processes within an individual.
According to a new study published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin this month, wealth tends to increase a person's sense of entitlement, which in turn can lead to narcissistic behaviors.
Paul Piff of the University of California at Berkeley told PsyPost "there is something about wealth that gives rise to a sense of entitlement, a sense that one deserves more good things in life than others, which in turn gives rise to an increased or inflated sense of self-importance, vanity, grandiosity, and omnipotence (narcissism)."
Things our founding fathers said
“It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising the sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and an usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin. Let us, then, look to the great cause, and endeavor to preserve it in full force. Let us by all wise and constitutional measures promote intelligence among the people as the best means of preserving our liberties.”
~James Monroe, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1817
~James Monroe, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1817
Citizens United poorly thought out.
As is pretty obvious, the conservatives in the U.S. are not capable of deep thinking.Most of their thought processes are based on raw elements like fear and hate, and the inability to comprehend ideas that go more than one step deep. Even learned men like the conservatives on our supreme court are afflicted with the same lack of depth perception. It's a shame for all of us.
Sunday, August 25, 2013
The right wing has usurped the true meaning of Jesus
From The Raw Story
(Click HERE to read more)
By David Edwards
Wednesday, August 21, 2013 10:37 EDT
After 60 years of attending a Tennessee church, a family in Collegedale has been exiled because they supported their daughter while she fought for same sex benefits from the town where she worked as a police detective.
Earlier this month, Collegedale became the first city in Tennessee to offer same sex benefits after Detective Kat Cooper was initially denied health benefits for her wife, Krista. The couple was married in Maryland earlier this year.
But that victory turned out to be bittersweet because leaders at Ridgedale Church of Christ gave Kat Cooper's mother, aunt and uncle an ultimatum during a private meeting after worship services on Sunday.
"They could repent for their sins and ask forgiveness in front of the congregation. Or leave the church," The Chattanooga Times Free Press reported on Wednesday.
"My mother was up here and she sat beside me. That's it," Kat Cooper explained to reporter Kevin Hardy. "Literally, they're exiling members for unconditionally loving their children - and even extended family members."
Ridgedale Church of Christ Pastor Ken Willis said that something had to be done because the family was publicly endorsing homosexuality by supporting their daughter.
"The sin would be endorsing that lifestyle," Willis insisted. "The Bible speaks very plainly about that."
"But you certainly can't condone that lifestyle, whether it's any kind of sin - whether they're shacked up with someone or living in a state of fornication or they're guilty of crimes," he added. "You don't condone it. You still love them as a parent."
Kat Cooper's father, Hunt, said that he was devastated at having to leave the church that his family nearly founded, but the decision was simple for his wife, her brother and her sister.
"There's no sin to repent for," he pointed out to the Times Free Press. "And she's not going to turn her back on her daughter."
(Click HERE to read more)
Tennessee church bans family after daughter wins same sex benefits from town
By David Edwards
Wednesday, August 21, 2013 10:37 EDT
After 60 years of attending a Tennessee church, a family in Collegedale has been exiled because they supported their daughter while she fought for same sex benefits from the town where she worked as a police detective.
Earlier this month, Collegedale became the first city in Tennessee to offer same sex benefits after Detective Kat Cooper was initially denied health benefits for her wife, Krista. The couple was married in Maryland earlier this year.
But that victory turned out to be bittersweet because leaders at Ridgedale Church of Christ gave Kat Cooper's mother, aunt and uncle an ultimatum during a private meeting after worship services on Sunday.
"They could repent for their sins and ask forgiveness in front of the congregation. Or leave the church," The Chattanooga Times Free Press reported on Wednesday.
"My mother was up here and she sat beside me. That's it," Kat Cooper explained to reporter Kevin Hardy. "Literally, they're exiling members for unconditionally loving their children - and even extended family members."
Ridgedale Church of Christ Pastor Ken Willis said that something had to be done because the family was publicly endorsing homosexuality by supporting their daughter.
"The sin would be endorsing that lifestyle," Willis insisted. "The Bible speaks very plainly about that."
"But you certainly can't condone that lifestyle, whether it's any kind of sin - whether they're shacked up with someone or living in a state of fornication or they're guilty of crimes," he added. "You don't condone it. You still love them as a parent."
Kat Cooper's father, Hunt, said that he was devastated at having to leave the church that his family nearly founded, but the decision was simple for his wife, her brother and her sister.
"There's no sin to repent for," he pointed out to the Times Free Press. "And she's not going to turn her back on her daughter."
Shooting report
When you carry a gun it makes it all seem just too easy to use it. We really need to control who has guns and where they have guns. My right to live should supersede your right to carry around a deadly weapon.
Things our founding fahters said.
“Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion and Government in the Constitution of the United States, the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history.”
~James Madison; Monopolies, Perpetuities, Corporations, Ecclesiastical Endowments
~James Madison; Monopolies, Perpetuities, Corporations, Ecclesiastical Endowments
On American jurisprudence.
Irony - as I live and breathe. Just two days ago I got a "Juror Questionnaire" from the state, then this morning I ran across the article I've quoted from below.
I've been called up for jury duty about 6 times in my life, twice I called in and never had to report, once I had to report for a town trial, but it was dismissed before the jury was drawn, and 3 times I have actually served on a jury. I served on a 6-person jury over a civil litigation, I served on a state court grand jury and I served on a 12-person criminal trial jury. Ironically, on all three occasions I served I was also selected jury foreman.
My daughter has never been called for jury duty - my wife only once. Go figure - why do I get called so often? I never win any other lotteries.
From AmmoLand
To read more of the article below, click HERE.
New York -- With Jury Rights Day just around the corner on September 5, it is a good time to reflect upon a Jury's Duty.
Our Founding Fathers, in all their wisdom, gave us a Constitution with layers of safeguards, so that if we erred, we could correct the error, peaceably - without a shot being fired.
One of these very important layers is Jury Nullification. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were very strong advocates of Jury Nullification.
They stated:
I've been called up for jury duty about 6 times in my life, twice I called in and never had to report, once I had to report for a town trial, but it was dismissed before the jury was drawn, and 3 times I have actually served on a jury. I served on a 6-person jury over a civil litigation, I served on a state court grand jury and I served on a 12-person criminal trial jury. Ironically, on all three occasions I served I was also selected jury foreman.
My daughter has never been called for jury duty - my wife only once. Go figure - why do I get called so often? I never win any other lotteries.
From AmmoLand
To read more of the article below, click HERE.
A Jury's Secret Power - Nullification
New York -- With Jury Rights Day just around the corner on September 5, it is a good time to reflect upon a Jury's Duty.
Our Founding Fathers, in all their wisdom, gave us a Constitution with layers of safeguards, so that if we erred, we could correct the error, peaceably - without a shot being fired.
One of these very important layers is Jury Nullification. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were very strong advocates of Jury Nullification.
They stated:
- "It is not only [the juror's] right, but his duty…to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court." (John Adams, America's second President; 1771)
- "It would be an absurdity for jurors to be required to accept the judge's view of the law, against their own opinion, judgment, and conscience." (John Adams)
- "I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet devised by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution." (Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Thomas Paine; 1789)
- "The juries [are] our judges of all fact, and of law when they choose it." (Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval; 1816. ME 15:35)
- Even the First Chief Justice of the U.S. John Jay, in 1789, chimed in on this issue with, "The jury has the right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy."
- Lastly, and most succinctly, Alexander Hamilton, in 1804, said that, "Jurors should acquit, even against the judge's instruction… if exercising their judgment with discretion and honesty, they have a clear conviction the charge of the court is wrong."
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