WorkingReporter - Ron Olsen on the web

Received the following from Congresswoman Jackie Speier.

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May 25, 2013

Dear Friends,

I wish you a happy and healthy start to this Memorial Day weekend. I’d like to take a moment to explain what Memorial Day means to me.

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”  - Benjamin Franklin

I want to like Barack Obama.  I really do, but his speech yesterday left me conflicted, confused and concerned.  (Apologies to Johnnie Cochran - RIP)

He talks about the need for a free and open press and the essential nature of the rule of law, and that’s fine.  I’m with him all the way and think he’s going strong, but then he turns on a dime and continues to advocate using drones to launch attacks on other people’s soil, and maybe setting up some kind of approval process permitting him to extend the use of drone warfare even further.  Isn’t sending in a drone to kill people an act of war?  Doesn’t he need congressional approval for that?   Approval, I mean, beyond the current and apparently ongoing approval the Congress set up (Authorization for The Use of Military Force Against Terrorists), which may or may not be slippery-slope material for a constitutional lawyer who still might think that only the Congress can declare war?  And that it should be, um….you know, kind of….ah…official, rather than an ongoing implication that Mr. Obama can go so far but no further?  And how far is that?  Does the U.S. Congress believe that undeclared acts of war are okay?   How about nuclear force?  Where does the Constitution say anything about that?  These things continue to bother me, but I’m no constitutional attorney, so it’s probably way over my head.

I can’t even begin to get into the rule of law and freedom of the press as it does or does not apply to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who remains under the threat of deportation (on what appear to be dubious charges) to Sweden if he leaves the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, while most of the world believes the Swedes are merely partaking in legal role-playing on behalf of the United States, which wants to prosecute Assange, irrespective of any First Amendment rights that might come into play, after he released material which embarrassed the U.S. Government.   Sorry, I said I wouldn’t get into it, and then I did.  So I lied.  So I should be a politician.  Anyway, what could any of this have to do with Memorial Day?  Hang on, I’m getting there.

If our system is, as was so elegantly described by Mr. Lincoln, as being, “…of, by, and for the people,” then shouldn’t “We the people” be able to understand it?  I can’t remember who it was that said “If you can’t write your idea on a 3 by 5 inch notecard, then you don’t have a clear idea.”  Maybe that should be a new law governing the actions of Congress?  If they can’t get a proposal on a notecard, then they can’t submit it?

Doesn’t the rule of law work, only when applied equally to all?  And isn’t there a danger in thinking that only the United States can conduct drone attacks on foreign soil?   In conducting those attacks, isn’t the U.S. opening the door for others to do the same thing to us?  Isn’t that why the more “civilized” nations have agreed to avoid chemical and biological warfare?  And doesn’t the ongoing Congressional approval for “rendition” and holding enemies on foreign soil without trial, and the ability of the U.S. military to kidnap American citizens on U.S. soil and hold them indefinitely without due process, isn’t this a problem for a President who talks about the rule of law?

In fairness, Mr. Obama, has been prevented from closing Gitmo by a cowering Congress.  He has also called for the repeal of the Authorization For the Use of Military Force, and a return to habeas corpus, which is legaleze for what once was our right to have a court hearing following an arrest or in this case, military detainment.  Wait a minute.  If the military can detain Americans on American soil then aren’t we under a state of martial law?  Who made that declaration and when was it made?

At the very least, it appears Mr. Obama, is trying.  Or is he?  To what degree is he a front man, taking orders from the power structure?

I feel like I’m starting to sound like a conspiratorial nutjob, except that nothing I’ve written here is untrue.  A lot of it should be, and would be, if my country hadn’t changed so radically over the past dozen years, setting aside civil liberties and conducting air-strikes and invasions without official declarations of war from a Congress that keeps ducking for political cover.   Who are we?  What the hell are we really all about?  I want to like Mr. Obama, I really do, but maybe it’s time to get back to some basics?

Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend.  Enjoy your barbecue.  While you do, try and remember that this is supposed to be dedicated to those who died fighting to preserve our liberties.  Most of us have lost family and friends in defense of the nation.  That’s what this is supposed to be about, not just a three-day holiday and marketing opportunity for mattress manufacturers and beer distributors.  Liberty.  It’s about those who gave  their lives to preserve liberty.

Perhaps we should also be thinking about Dr. Franklin’s assertion that it is inherently wrong-headed to think it’s okay to exchange our civil liberties and the rule of law for “a little temporary safety.”

Oh, and one last thing.  My senators are Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer.  My congressman is Brad Sherman.  Should I suddenly disappear, please ask them to send official inquiries to both the White House and the Pentagon, with regard to my possible whereabouts and legal status.

The Patriot Act came along and killed due process, giving the U.S. military the ability to legally snatch people off the streets of America and send them away to a cell somewhere in Turkey, without the right to speak to an attorney or the benefit of a hearing in court.  And we just sat there and took it.  President Obama promised to close the prison at Guantanamo, but kept it open and we looked the other way.  Mr. Obama, was handed the ability to send drones off into sovereign nations to assassinate individuals who were thought to be enemies of the United States (along with any collateral damage that might take place), and most of us said “fine.”  “Just keep us safe, do whatever you have to, but keep us safe.”  Then came word that our “withdrawal” from Afghanistan, won’t be a withdrawal at all.  No, nine military bases will stay, but there was nary a whimper from the American people because the government had kept us safe.  They had prevented another attack from taking place.

And now they are attacking our freedom of the press, the very heart of what’s left of our free society, and they are doing it under the guise of acting in our own best interest.  Don’t you believe it.

Anyone who hasn’t been seriously worried about the elimination of our civil liberties from the beginning of this “homeland security” process needs to reexamine their priorities.   Still, through it all, I remained optimistic for one reason.  We had a trump card.  We had the First Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting government from infringing on the freedom of the press.  So long as we had that, we still had a chance to preserve the ideal that has always been America.  The ideal of liberty.  One person, one vote.  Freedom of self-determination.  Freedom for all under the due process of law.  Oh, sorry.  Scratch that due process thing.  Sometimes I forget myself and slip back into the civil rights guarantees we used to have.

But I’m getting off-topic.  Let’s just say our civil rights have been all but eliminated in the insane march to do whatever might be necessary to give the American people the impression that they are now safe.   And maybe we are.  Except from ourselves.  From our very own system which now threatens to quash the American ideal by eliminating freedom of the press.

This goes beyond the unavoidable bias coming from reporters who are “embedded” with our troops.  It goes directly to preventing the press from acquiring information from traditional sources, because those sources will no longer talk to the press.  Why should they, when the Obama Justice Department goes out and secretly seizes the telephone records of reporters and editors at the Associated Press?

Who will talk to the AP now?  Who will provide information with the  guarantee that a source will not be revealed?  Nobody, that’s who, and there goes your freedom of the press, First Amendment be damned, along with our right as a free people to make informed choices about who we elect based upon the information coming to us from the legitimate news media.

The newspapers and networks have all trimmed their budgets and cut their staffs, but we did still have the Associated Press and its many sources to provide us with a sense of reality.   Professional journalists who could press their sources for inside  information, helping us to understand what was going on beyond the spin of professional politics and corporate public relations.  Where do you suppose the “news” comes from?  Who will talk to the AP or the other news organizations now?

Control the flow of information and you control what people think.  Consequently, media outlets are among the first targets an invading force seeks to control.   In the United States, they have been among the last.  Don’t be fooled.  They’re taking it away.  Without the First Amendment the truth will die and the American ideal along with it.  The one cannot survive without the other.

A new poll indicates that 40% of all Americans have no idea that “Obamacare” is the law of the land.  As an op-ed piece in the New York Times puts it, America is “clueless.”  Another recent survey points out that 64% of all Republicans believe that President Obama was born in Kenya, while 63% continue to believe that there were WMD’s in Iraq.  And then comes something we should all really be concerned with, the fact that the United States, a country with the highest healthcare costs in the world, also has the highest infant mortality rate among the world’s wealthiest nations.  We’re not second, fifth or sixth.  We’re 14th.  Unlike the disinformation about Obamacare, WMD’s in Iraq, and the President being born on foreign soil, this last factoid, the one about dead American babies, is actually true.

But never mind that.  Or the fact that some of our veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, must wait more than a year to receive their benefits.  Or that we still have no improvements in gun control following the slaughter of so many innocents at Sandy Hook.  Or that the “Citizens United” decision, giving corporations, both foreign and domestic, the ability to dump unlimited amounts of cash into the American political process, has all but been forgotten while the banking industry continues to dictate terms to federal banking regulators as Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders stand like two remaining points of decency and light in a nation blanketed by greed.  No,  never mind any of that.  The biggest issue for Republicans is whether Hillary Clinton was personally responsible for a terrorist attack on our diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya.  They make it sound like Hillary was hiding in the weeds blasting away with an AK-47.

Then there’s the ongoing and burning issue of whether the U.S. should plunge itself into another civil war in North Africa, even though it’s been established that it’s next to impossible to determine who it was that might have been using chemical weapons.  Some aren’t even sure that any were used at all.  Meaning, there appears to be no “WMD” excuse for further warfare involving U.S. troops or resources.   But even if somebody was using chemical weapons in Syria, who appointed the United States to be the world’s official police agency?   I don’t recall anybody taking a vote?  Apparently somebody did, as the Obama Administration has already decided to give “support” to undefined rebel forces?  I guess it’s a series of decisions by the Congress going all the way back to Korea and Vietnam, that has evolved into a legislative nightmare which can now interpreted as authorizing the President to go to war wherever and whenever he pleases, the Constitution be damned?  A wink and a nod and another drone is on its way?  That’s bad enough, but in this case, who is it that we’re supporting in Syria? Could some of the rebels be Al Qaeda, or Al Qaeda influenced?

With all this nonsense about “WMD’s” in Syria and Barack Obama’s “red line” of chemical weapons use being the deciding factor for American involvement in somebody else’s war, Mr. Obama and British Prime Minister, David Cameron, are starting to look like George W. Bush and Tony Blair.  I thought the Neocon push to democratize the Middle East and the search for WMD’s went away when Dubya went home to Crawford?

It’s all just too, too complicated for us regular folks to understand, isn’t it?  But what about the “watchdog” function of the American press, the filter of professional journalism?  Truth is, it still exists.  However, its once sharp edge, its ability to impact public opinion by disseminating the truth, has been all but eliminated by partisan spin financed by wealthy American extremists, people who have the money to buy their own tv channels and newspapers and who care more for the few (themselves) than for the many (us).   Consequently, the ignorance out there is nearly overwhelming, as honest information is obscured by an openly partisan press belching out clouds of yellow journalism.   And then there’s the Internet.  Thousands upon thousands of new “sources” for news and information, with no standards or control.

There are times when you feel like throwing your hands in the air and just walking away.  This is one of those times.

Here’s Senator Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, at a hearing of the Senate Banking Committee.  The topic is the way big banks illegally foreclosed on thousands of Americans.  Note the absence of all the other committee members except for the Chair.  Note also, how this points to how badly broken our federal government is and the crying need for more politicos with the smarts and spine that Ms. Warren has.   This took place several weeks ago but I bumped into it and decided it was worth a second look.  Maybe even a third.

Interesting and troubling interview Diane Sawyer did with Amanda Knox on ABC.  Interesting, because it was the first time Knox has said anything publicly about the murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher, in Perujia, Italy, in 2007.  Troubling, because the Italian Government has issued another decision calling her back for yet another court appearance even though she spent four years in prison while going through one trial and then waiting for her case to be heard by a higher court - which happened in October, of 2011, when an appellate court ruled that the prosecution’s case was badly flawed.  The Court of Appeals overturned her murder conviction and let her go.

It would appear there is no such thing as “double-jeopardy” in Italy?  I guess they can just change their minds and call somebody back to stand trial following an acquittal?  I guess this can go on interminably, if the prosecution decides they have been humiliated in the tabloid press?   Or perhaps under the Italian system, the prosecution is always given one last shot at convicting someone?  I’ve read that the Italian system harkens back to the Inquisition and is therefore weighted in favor of the prosecution.  I wonder if these guys have considered taking a look  at the Vatican?  I know Vatican City is a nation unto itself, but come on, this is the “Church of Rome,” and the Romans have them surrounded.  One would think that decades of child molestation would merit an inquiry with at least as much attention as they’ve given Amanda Knox?

I have no idea what our extradition treaty with Italy looks like, or if we even have one, but enough is enough.  There is no way Knox should be forced to return to Italy.  They might not have double-jeopardy, but we do and in this instance we should tell the Italian justice system to reconsider its decision because we won’t be giving them a third shot at Amanda Knox.  Hopefully this is already being done through back channels to avoid further embarrassment for the Italians, who are already looking pretty bad regardless of one’s beliefs about Knox’s guilt or innocence.  An earlier piece by Agence France-Presse, says “the United States does  not normally extradite its citizens abroad for prosecution.”  I hope they’re right.  If ever there was a case that points out the essential need for a defendant to be represented by an attorney before being questioned by police, it’s the case of Amanda Knox.

A PEW report conducted in 2011, points to television being the principle source of news and information for 66% of the American public.  That being the case, it isn’t unreasonable to believe that if you shut down network news coverage (by the over-the-air American networks), you are also putting blinders on a big chunk of that 66%,  effectively keeping much of the country ignorant as you selectively separate tv viewers from specific issues and stories.  Like the leak of an Exxon oil pipeline near Mayflower, Arkansas, on Good Friday.

That was weeks ago, and you probably haven’t heard anything about it, have you?   Anything at all?

One source says it’s 3000 gallons.  Another claims it could be 8000.  Reuters puts it at 5000 barrels, “A river of oil that was eight feet wide, six inches deep and growing fast.”  Let’s see.  5000 fifty-five gallon drums.  That 275,000 gallons?  Kids in a local school got sick.  Residents were evacuated.  Reporters who showed up to cover the spill were turned back by police while the FAA, apparently convinced any noxious fumes resulting from the spill would go straight up and not be carried by the wind, restricted airspace.   The wire service reports that Exxon sent in as many at 600 personnel, including doctors, in an obvious attempt to contain and control public relations fallout.  According to Reuters, the oil company wrote checks for people who were evacuated and sent out a company doctor to assure parents that their kids would be all right, even though the fumes were making them vomit when they tried going to school.

Why so much corporate fuss over such a relatively small spill?

None of this would be all that troubling, were it not for the amount of attention it’s being given by the oil company, and the Orwellian negligence of the American networks, which have apparently abandoned any sense of public responsibility in spite of the fact, as has already been pointed out,  that most Americans depend upon tv news as their primary source for news and information.  The conversion of American network news operations into corporate tools, not unlike the U.S. Congress, now appears to be nearly complete.   And it’s being done without anybody saying a word. How?  Easy.  Big oil, is a big advertiser.  Riddle yourself this - is a small oil spill somewhere in Arkansas, really worth the risk of losing millions upon millions in ad revenue?  If you don’t think that’s on the minds of network executives with regard to all their major clients and not just big oil, then you need to visit your doc for a reality check cause your brain has definitely gone woo-woo.  As with any big business, network television’s principle concern is with big money.

There is also the possibility that big oil is currently hyper-sensitive, as they continue pushing the Obama Administration for approval of a pipeline to carry millions of gallons of hyper-filthy tar-sands oil product from Canada across the United States and down to the Gulf.  But it’s just a possibility…

So reporters are turned away while the airspace is closed and just for good measure, our bastions of journalistic integrity, the American networks, pretend it isn’t worth covering on any kind of an ongoing basis. Or maybe it’s all just coincidence?  Like the network’s obsessive desire to avoid any meaningful ongoing coverage or analysis of the way Europe is being hammered by the criminal failure of its banking industry in comparison to what’s happening in the U.S., and the abject failure of our government to take anything resembling effective action?  Not to mention the blind eye they’re turning to current anti-Thatcher protests in the streets of London, and any analysis of how closely Thatcher’s policies dovetail with those of Ronald Reagan, and the comparable damage both politicians did to their respective societies?

A panel of three judges just recused themselves from trying the case of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubark.  They walked out of the courtroom.  Major development, but not a word about it on American network news.  I kept flipping between the former “Big-3,” (I cannot bring myself to associate FOX with news) and found nothing about it.  But then, why bother?  It’s not like the United States should have any interest in North Africa or the Middle East.  No problems for us over there.

But back to our little oil spill and the American networks inability (refusal?) to cover the story.  In all probability, it’s most likely nothing but a chain of coincidental events.   Anyway, why go to the trouble and cost of sending out reporters and cameras and all the rest, when it’s so much more cost-effective to run with that news release the oil company just faxed over explaining it’s really not that big or otherwise troubling.  Everything is being taken care of.  It’s nothing that merits your concern.   Besides, Lindsay Lohan’s headed for rehab.  Now there’s something that will really give you a ratings bump..

Not to worry, children.  Ignorance is bliss.  Your bellies are full and the game will be on in just a few minutes.  Big Brother, will care for all your needs.

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Note:  Obviously, I cannot watch every minute of every newscast.  There may have been coverage of the events mentioned above that I did not see.  Please understand that I am speaking in a general sense when I say the coverage being given these events and issues by the American networks has been dismal.  The biggest drawback to even attempting to monitor what they do is being forced to sit through all the palaver they are passing off as “news.” -RO

The song “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead” from the Wizard of Oz, is climbing the charts in Great Britain, where the public’s distaste for Margaret Thatcher, is all too obvious. I can’t help but draw a comparison with her political “soulmate,” Ronald Reagan, and the hesitancy (refusal) of the U.S. press to look at his administration with anything resembling objectivity as he led the charge for the destruction of unionism (remember PATCO?), business deregulation, the rise of  the American corporatocracy, and the resulting devastation of the middle class.   Following Reagan and his “revolution,” America, was left with a few brave souls trying to defend what was left of our democracy in the face of almost overwhelming power in the hands of a relative few very wealthy families, individuals and corporations.  Thanks to a mostly oblivious press and broadcast media, a great many Americans were left cheering as Reagan’s funeral motorcade passed by.  That’s not the case in England, where the populace is far better informed.  One group of protesters say they will turn their backs on Thatcher’s coffin when it passes by during the state funeral on Wednesday.  

I was more than a little surprised at my reaction to the death of Annette Funicello.  I didn’t know her personally, and had seen her in person only once at our neighborhood post office here in the San Fernando Valley.

It started with the picture I guess, an artist’s rendering of of Mickey Mouse, his head cradled in his hands, obviously in mourning as he gazed downward at a pair of Mouse Club ears bearing the name of “Annette.”   Pretty silly huh?  I never liked Mickey or his cartoons.  So why am I so bummed?  It may have something to do with the passage of time and losing something you’ll never recover.

We were in the second grade up in rural Minnesota, when the “Mickey Mouse Club” premiered in 1955.  Nothing but black and white television back in those days, no cable or satellite, and out where we were, 95 miles away from the transmitter in Minneapolis, the over-the-air signal was horrible.  The picture had “snow” in it and the vertical hold sometimes failed, causing the picture to roll from top to bottom or bottom to top.  None of that mattered though, as the Mouse Club landed with a pre-pubescent hammer-blow on millions of American kids.   Howdy Doody, Sky King and Captain Midnight, were forced to take a back seat, as Tommy Vanderpool and I, bursting with the unreasonably extreme energy of 7 year-olds, ran at top speed over to his house after school each day to watch Annette, Bobby, Tommy, Cheryl, Spin and Marty, and all the rest.  It was childish fun that hit us squarely between our chidren’s eyes.  Particularly Annette, with her “girl next door” appeal.

Annette, was too cute to fail.

It was a genius move on the part of Walt Disney, using the relatively new medium of television to build an empire by marketing to little kids.  There’s an idiom in advertising that says, “If you get um when they’re young, you’ve got um for life.”  It may be true and in this case there was really nothing wrong with it.  Not when you compare it to some of the slime being marketed to children now.  This was good clean entertainment for little kids, and Annette, was taking the lead for a growing Disney empire.

Nothing lasts forever, of course.  We all grew up and moved on, and so did Annette.  She went from the Mouse Club in the 50’s to the beach party movies with Frankie Avalon in the 60’s, some of the corniest, campiest movies ever made.   But they had an impact.  Particularly up in Minnesota, where we were dealing with several feet of snow and sub-freezing temperatures for months on end.

The beach party movies were preceded by “Gidget,” a picture about a teenager growing up among some of the early surfers in Malibu.  There we all were, entering our teens freezing through Minnesota winters while dreaming of the California sun.  Gidget had filled our heads with visions of the sun-sparkled Malibu surf.   And what came next?  No fewer than seven beach party movies starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello.  The girl next door was back, and she was older and better looking than ever.   She was the girl we all wanted to date, living in a place we all wanted to be.  On the beach in California.

Annette, was someone we got to know at a very early age.  Someone who carried us through grade school and into high school with a motion picture beach party culture taking place miles away.  Someone we all knew and cared for, even if we never even said hello.  And now  it’s time to say goodbye.  Time to say thanks for all that goofy, wonderful, campy fun.  Too bad we had to finally grow up and lose our innocence.   May you finally find some peace.

Interesting that North Korea’s new little fat boy man child dictator, Kim Jong the Unready, is threatening to launch strikes against major U.S. cities.  Never mind that our experts say he probably doesn’t have the weaponry to make it happen.  The threat is enough to cause a big stir among the poor populace of North Korea, providing a distraction from thoughts of what they as a people do not have as their feeble leaders continue to require being subsidized by China, a partially capitalist nation.

That, apparently, is what it’s all about.  Getting the North Korean masses whipped up into  a frenzy over the terrible, albeit imagined, U.S. threat, and the fat boy dictator’s plans to block it.  “Roly Poly Porkymon will save us with his super majestic magic exploding dough balls of fire!”   Get the common folk frightened enough, and they’ll let you do almost anything.

Remember Bush, Cheney and Condi Rice with their smallpox, anthrax, nerve gas and mushroom clouds over American cities?  Remember being told we’d have to buy enough plastic sheeting and gaffer’s tape to seal off our windows to keep the radiation out?  It was right out of North Korea’s playbook.

None of it happened, did it?  Just like nothing Kim Jong the overstuffed man child is threatening is likely to happen either.  If it did, we could launch on the fat boy and turn North Korea to glass.  However, that’s not likely, as there would be too much collateral damage in neighboring countries like South Korea, China and Japan.  The fat boy and his generals know this, which is why they feel free to generate tons of publicity by continually poking the nose of the great  American dragon.

If they’re going to continue generating mounds of publicity with the world’s press, then the fat boy man child needs to join a gym and get a personal trainer to help whip his flabby ass into some kind of shape.  Image, matters.   At the same time, his military leaders need to bring in a fashion consultant to do something about those idiotic caps they wear.  You could hide a pup tent in one of those bulbous things.  Or maybe they have giant heads?  If so, my  apologies for being so insensitive about their physical abnormalities.  I bet they bump into things with their big heads and maybe fall down a lot?

Goofy hats aside, the tragedy is that their inability to lead has caused so much suffering and consternation while their wack-job unpredictability forces us to continue keeping an eye on their posturing.  That, in and of itself, may be a good argument for developing more limited nuclear weapons.  Something we could use to take out the fat boy and his bulbous-headed generals without sending massive clouds of radiation over China and South Korea.   It was one of a very few good ideas George W. and his crazed Neocon buddies came up with.  The fact that fat boy can’t nuke us now, doesn’t mean he won’t be able to three or four years down the road.  Is that a threat we can live with?

This pudgy man child and his generals are making the Iranians look downright reasonable, and there are any number of American “hawks” who would welcome the chance to start something with Iran.  It’s something Kim Jong-un should consider if he intends to keep making threats.  If it’s his decision to make.  There are indications of an ongoing power struggle behind the Kim family throne.  At least one of Kim’s key military supporters has already been kicked to the curb.

There may be those among you who see my words as being more than a little hypocritical in that the United States, is also a debtor nation to China.  But, unlike North Korea, our leaders here in the U.S., have never declared war, or worse yet, taken us to war, simply for reasons of political expediency.  They have never whipped up fear among the masses just so they could achieve their political ends.  Er……I mean, take the administration of George W. Bush for example, and the WMD’s in Iraq. Or, maybe not.   Mushroom clouds?  I’m suddenly feeling a little conflicted.  I’ll have to get back to you.

After seeing this photo posted on Facebook, Matthew 6-28 keeps popping into my head:

“Therefore I say to you, Take no thought for your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor yet for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?  Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much better than they?  Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature?  And why take you thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:  And yet I say to you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.  Why, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?  Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?  (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things.  But seek you first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you.  Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof.”

So Harry Reid has thrown out Dianne Feinstein’s assault weapons ban?  How could he?  Why would he?  Doesn’t he remember Sandy Hook?  Aurora?  All the rest?  Of course he does.  He was also re-elected with the assistance of the NRA in his pro-gun home district back in Nevada, where a gun-toting Reid obtained $61 million in federal funding to build a shooting park for his constituents.  With all the fiscal problems we’ve got Reid decided to pour millions into a place for Nevada folk to go out and shoot their guns at the expense of federal taxpayers?  Yes he did, because he will need those same pro-gun constituents again if he hopes to be reelected.  So will a number of his Demo colleagues from southern states, who will be running against NRA-backed Republicans.

Reid, and some of the other Dems, might see their rejection of Feinstien’s assault weapons ban as a means of holding their thin majority in the United States Senate.  What would you prefer, an assault weapons ban which is guaranteed to fail in the House, possibly fueling a Republican majority in the Senate, or more moderate gun-control legislation coming out of the Senate,  giving Demo lawmakers a better shot at keeping their seats?

At times you’ve gotta wonder about the American perspective.   A piece just published tells us that things are “bad” for Microsoft, because sales for their “surface tablet” computers weren’t up to expectations in 2012.   The story from tech writer “The Droid Guy,” quotes securities analyst Alex Gauna, as saying, “It’s pretty clear that things were bad entering the year, and at least for the moment they’re getting worse,” Gauna said. “The path to a successful Surface, in the same way that they were successful with Xbox, is not very clear to me right now.”

Sorry to hear Microsoft, is struggling with their relatively new product.  However, it’s also being reported that the software giant had revenues of $16.01 billion in the first quarter of 2013, even though earnings had missed “expectations.”

I have always wondered about a system that condemns companies that don’t show continued significant growth, even while they continue making a profit.  What’s wrong with hitting a certain level of profitability and staying there, at least for a while?  And why are analysts on Wall Street being allowed to game the system to their companies own best advantage?

It’s estimated that as many as 50-million Americans, including 17 million children, go to bed hungry every night.  Which isn’t Microsoft’s fault.  It just is what it is.  As our system, is, what it is.  Wall Street’s view of sales and earnings expectations not being met is one thing,  17 million American children going to bed hungry is another.  It’s sad that in a country that has so much, so many continue to have so little.

We hit the remote in search of a little news and  are given white smoke from the Sistine Chapel.   Thank God and the Holy Roman Church for that.  As we continue watching, we’re confronted by the usual two or three (or more) reports on nearly meaningless local crime dovetailing into Lindsay Lohan’s latest.  Not a word about the inequality of wealth in the United States.  The worst gap between the rich and the poor in many years.  Thank you  NAFTA.  Thank you WTO.  Thanks so much Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Wall Street and our esteemed ladies and gentlemen in Congress.

To find a bigger gap, requires a move to Mexico or Chile.  Get it?  We have the worst inequality of wealth in the world except for Mexico and Chile.  Difficult to believe, isn’t it?  What have these bastards done to our country?   That should be the topic each and every night.

It’s a question few have the courage to ask.

It’s difficult to  understand the degree of denial.  Perhaps it’s due to negligence on the part of “news” organizations driven by the ever-increasing need for greater profitability rather than responsibility?  Commercial broadcasting is commercial after all, working hand-in-glove with the marketplace that feeds the broadcasting kitty, which in turn, helps to keep the masses as ignorant as possible.  It could be a real problem for the new American ruling class if the common folk start thinking about just how bad things have really become.

One last time for those who missed it:   When it comes to the gap between the rich and the poor, only Mexico and Chile, beat out the United States.  Get over your denial.  It is what it is.  Things are really just that bad.  They really are.  Maybe the white smoke will save us?