Tag Archives: Joe Manchin

Why We Make Our Soldiers Sick And What Makes Kyrsten Sinema Tick?

During the Vietnam War it was exposure to Agent Orange and any number of other defoliants and chemicals. In Afghanistan it was open-pit burning. Now it’s bad water at Camp Lejenune. Warfare is difficult enough without our soldiers falling ill due to a lack of oversight and expertise in the command structure. Congress and the military need to come up with a permanent oversight solution to our military poisoning its own people. So the pundits are now echoing Joe Biden’s big comeback after somehow pulling a fast one and getting coal millionaire Joe Manchin to go along with a package that will benefit the country even if most of the hard-core “party before country” Republicans don’t like it. The Dem’s will need each and every vote in the Senate to make this work so the big question now is will Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema buy into the program? We know Manchin’s family made millions in the coal brokerage business in West Virginia, so his normal pro-Republican Party agenda isn’t all that tough to understand. But what makes Sinema tick?

Is it the power of the adrenaline rush she feels, knowing everybody is giving her all that attention as a “DINO” – democrat in name only? Who is Kyrsten Sinema, really? And why does she do what she does? Maybe she’s just a flake? It’s possible, you know. Sometimes things are just that simple.

And finally in this morning rant, who are the Communist Chinese to tell a United States Congresswoman, much less the Speaker of the House, that she can’t visit a free country? This shouldn’t even be a question.

Do you ever get the feeling that there’s a disconnect in the United States between those among us who understand the difference and the history that separates Communist controlled countries that subjugate their people and Democracies whose people are free? Do you ever get the feeling that a great many Americans just don’t get it and take our freedom for granted, even with galloping Trumpist Fascism knocking on the door?

Putin, wants to make Ukraine part of his dictatorship. The Commie Chinese, want to do the same with free and democratic Taiwan just as they’ve re-taken and conquered Hong Kong. This is unacceptable on both counts.

Pelosi, needs to go to Taiwan, Putin needs to get his maniacal ass out of Ukraine and the United States needs to stop acting like it’s afraid of Communist China. What needs to be done to deal with MBS and the journalist-murdering Saudis, who, it appears, helped launch the attack on 9-11, is another question. Oh, they’ve bought us all right, along with so many of our professional golfers currently teeing-off at Trump’s LIV tournament in New Jersey. Question is, are we going to let them and their co-conspirators in the oil monopoly own us?

Is America truly for sale to the highest bidder, or are we about more than that?

And finally this morning, why is the media treating the Monkeypox outbreak like it’s a new Polio epidemic? They’re in near hysteria about Monkeypox, treating it like it’s the Bubonic Plague, even though nearly all of the cases are infecting gay or bi-sexual men and it usually goes away all by itself and is almost never fatal. There is also the fact that there’s a vaccine. A more thoughtful and contextual approach to reporting out this story would probably be much appreciated by everyone.

Who’s Really In Charge?

According to David Corn in Mother Jones, Joe Manchin, is making noises about quitting the Democratic Party and declaring himself to be an Independent.

So Manchin is “thinking” about leaving the Dems and becoming an Independent, because his constituents are so badly misinformed and disinformed that they actually believe it’s in their best interest to have him support that which is in their worst interest by defeating Biden’s infrastructure plan which West Virginia badly needs – the State got a “D” on the Infrastructure Report Card – and if he tells them the truth he’ll be primaried out by the Trumpists, who care only about keeping their jobs? Isn’t that about it?

Somebody needs to convince me that this isn’t all a KGB plot to destroy the country. I’m being facetious, of course, but just a little, as the KGB no longer exists and the Russians would never come up with something this screwy, and the last thing I want is to be considered a conspiracy nut.

If that were the case, if I didn’t care about my reputation, I’d tell everybody that I’ve been watching the political stage for decades and almost without fail, gas prices at the pump shoot way up when the Dems seize control, and then drop way down again, once the Republicans get back in. They really can’t blame the Arabs anymore, since we now export more oil than we import.

It’s almost like we’re being punished for supporting the Democratic Party? Nah, that would be crazy. As crazy as Russian intel gaining control of a U.S. President and half the Congress, in an effort to destroy our democracy with a big assist from Russian and American oligarch billionaires, interested only in the accumulation of personal wealth. Absolutely crazy. Like a confluence of evil without any real conspiracy. Just greed and the need for power that goes with it.

Whatever the truth might be, you can be sure to get a diversity of opinion from the American media, with only six companies controlling as much as 90% of the information coming into your home. According to Wikipedia, its now down to just five. Business Insider reports that in 1983, there were fifty.

Be it the consolidation of companies resulting in an absence of free market competition started by the Reagan Revolution and its push for deregulation and tax cuts, or the ease with which unknown sources can now pump money into America’s political system following the Supreme Court’s unconscionable ruling in the “Citizens United” case, pretty much everything comes down to one thing. The necessity for campaign finance reform.

Until that happens, until unknown parties, be they American, Russian or from somewhere else can no longer pay off our politicians, none of it is going to work.