Quote of the Day -- On Donald Trump and the Republican Party and How Scary and Unhinged They Are

From David Clow, from Facebook today:

"What Trump made unmistakable is that the GOP needs to live in fear of its base. Policy and numbers are unimportant, as Trump (keeps) showing them. He commands the mob. The mob runs the party. None of them cares about the budget or the details. None of the Trump voters care about intellectual consistency or actual policy measures; Trump can contradict himself in the same sentence and all they hear is tone, not substance. Trump is there to manifest malice and hostility, period. If the GOP isn't with him they're against him and he'll turn that on them....

The point is that there is no philosophical underpinning left in the GOP. Their stated "policies" are generalities about "smaller government" and "less regulation" and "freedom"--but situationally those and all the rest of the platitudes are defined any way that power wants them to be defined. So in places like Kentucky they've been smartly getting people to sacrifice their own real interests for the sake of slogans. 

Trump called their bluff. 

He dispensed entirely with the very idea of policy, and made it 100% about pure tone--all he needed (was) to be malicious, nasty, vindictive, and proudly stupid. While Bush and Romney were talking about policy, Trump was wagging his wood and laughing at them. The GOP had been hinting for decades at what Trump said openly--they hate for fun, they won't govern, and they're ready to cash out, so why not just make it clear? Now they must make the all-in final bet on these bluff and lies, shovel as much money offshore as they can carry, and then get the hell out of politics while their heads are still on."

________________

If you don't recognize all this, all the above, you are very likely a Trump supporter.

If all this doesn't frighten you, nothing can.

"Once More Unto the Breach..."

We survived Nixon. We survived Reagan. We survived George W.

Hoping we survive this.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;

Or close the wall up with our English dead.

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man

As modest stillness and humility:

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,

Then imitate the action of the tiger;

Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,

Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;

Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;

Let pry through the portage of the head

Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it

As fearfully as doth a galled rock

O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,

Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.

Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,

Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit

To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.

Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!

Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,

Have in these parts from morn till even fought

And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:

Dishonour not your mothers; now attest

That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.

Be copy now to men of grosser blood,

And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,

Whose limbs were made in England, show us here

The mettle of your pasture; let us swear

That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;

For there is none of you so mean and base,

That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,

Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:

Follow your spirit, and upon this charge

Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'

Link:

Clueless, Reckless, Graceless, Mindless and Heartless: Our President-Elect

9/11

Thank you, George W. Bush.

The Bush White House Was Deaf to 9/11 Warnings

Bush administration ignored CIA terror warnings

Bush Received More Warnings About 9/11 Than We Realized

Unheeded Warnings: George W. Bush and 9/11

On Dubya' and Obama

Bill Maher, with no expletives, on Former President George W. Bush compared to President Barack Obama.  Republican war hawk vs. Democratic negotiator.



It's difficult to believe we have to talk them out of these things and people.

Memorial Day

Bring them home.

Maybe The Donald WAS Set Up by the Democrats

I remember, months ago, seeing ideas floating around on the interwebs and Facebook, with the idea that maybe Donald Trump was a willing set up by the Democrats to take the Republicans down.

I tell you, with all The Donald says and does lately and what he's said and done in the last few months, it's getting more difficult to believe that isn't maybe true.

Following are all headlines I saw just yesterday, last evening, all from and n The Donald:

Donald Trump Hilariously Slams the ‘George W. Bush Kept Us Safe After 9/11’ Line

Default of Their Pledge’: Trump Blames RNC for Getting Booed at Debate

Trump Trashes RNC: GOP Keeps Losing Because They Are ‘Controlled by the Special Interests’

Trump Praises Obama’s Action to Protect DREAMers: ‘I Think It’s Great’

I tell you, it's getting difficult to believe The Donald wants Republicans to vote for him.

Don't Wanna' Study War No More

This is so true and America, the world's biggest arms seller, is the biggest, worst culprit.

Peace loving people, my ass.

Names I'd Like to Never Hear Again

Herewith, then, just that--a list of names of people and places I could go through the rest of a long, healthy, very happy life having never again heard.

Trump

Fiorina

Cruz

Paul (when preceded by Rand)

Rand (when preceded by Ayn)

Carson (when preceded by Ben)

Huckabee

Bush (absolutely, never again another Bush)

Christie

Walker (when preceded by Scott)

O'Reilly

Hannity

Rove

Murdoch (when preceded by Rupert)

Limbaugh (never again and it can't be soon enough)

Cheney

Ramadi

Mosul

Erbil

Falluja

Bagram

Kandahar (and let me be clear, I'm not an isolationist)

Wolfowitz

Ailes

Hutus

Tutsis

Netanyahu

Hitler (I mean, really)

Blunt (anyone from that Missouri, government-leeching family)

Reince (when used as a first name)

Preibus (when used as a surname)

McConnell (when preceded by Mitch)

I'm sure there are more but that's enough for now.

How about you? Any people or places you'd prefer to never hear about or from again?

The John Ellis Bush Presidential Candidate Theme Song

"...when everything is handed to you

It's only worth as much as the time put in

It all just seems so good the way we had it

Back before everything became automatic

Automatic"

Yeah.

That pretty much says it all right there.

It's Not Too Late!

An hour to go, I'm going to sneak this in yet. It's too important to not.

Happy International Day of Peace!

The International Day of Peace, sometimes unofficially known as World Peace Day, is observed annually on 21 September. It is dedicated to world peace, and specifically the absence of war and violence, such as might be occasioned by a temporary ceasefire in a combat zone for humanitarian aid access. The day was first celebrated in 1982, and is kept by many nations, political groups, military groups, and peoples. In 2013, for the first time, the Day was dedicated by the Secretary-General of the United Nations to peace education, the key preventive means to reduce war sustainably.

To inaugurate the day, the United Nations Peace Bell is rung at UN Headquarters (in New York City). The bell is cast from coins donated by children from all continents except Africa, and was a gift from the United Nations Association of Japan, as "a reminder of the human cost of war"; the inscription on its side reads, "Long live absolute world peace".

Imagine.

Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion too

Imagine all the people

Living life in peace...

In Memoriam, 9/11

To the estimated 4,347 American soldiers who died in the war we were all lied into (see Casualties in Iraq),

Links:  The Bush White House Was Deaf to 9/11 Warnings

Bush Received More Warnings About 9/11 Than We Realized

Bush Warned of Hijackings Before 9-11

On This, the Anniversary of 9/11

Lest we forget.

George W. Bush was president, Dick Cheney, Vice President.

Then-President George W. Bush had ignored daily presidential briefs, warning him of a possible attack by air and by terrorists in general and Osama bin Laden specifically.

One Kansas City area resident, Tomas Young, was inspired to join the military after the attack and did so:

Two days after the September 11 attacks, Young was inspired by President George W. Bush to enlist in the United States Army. There he hoped to earn money for college through the G.I. Bill and, in his words, "exact some form of retribution" on those who caused 9/11.

On April 4, 2004, five days after being sent to Iraq, Young was shot while riding in an open, unarmored truck during an ambush staged by rebels in Sadr City. One of the bullets pierced his spine and left him paralyzed from the chest down.

He returned home to Kansas City, Missouri and joined the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW). He later became a public critic of the Iraq War.

The movie, Body of War, was based on his life and eventual opposition to the Iraq war.

Before his death in November, 2014, he penned the following letter to that President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

I post it here, on this anniversary, in hopes of teaching some and so that more not forget what occurred.

To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.

—Tomas Young

A Message From the Republican Party

Never Forget

No, never, ever forget.

Dubya' vs. the Kenyan

Very relevant, right down to today, and on many levels.

America's Priorities

I saw this on Facebook yesterday and had to post.

You wouldn't think this is an actual, accurate description of the state of our spending and our priorities in America today but it is.

This is what spending more--far more--on "defense" in this nation gets you.

Forget that we Americans paid into Social Security with our own money, from our paychecks. All that was spent and is still being spent on other things, instead of back to us on Social Security, for which it was created.

Instead, we keep making and buying bombs and guns and bullets and tanks and weapons of war.

Our priorities, America's priorities, are seriously screwed up, without question.

So what are we going to do about it?

No Difference Between the Two Political Parties?

Really?

More "Big Government" from the "Small Government" Republicans

Republicans and so many in the Right Wing swear they're for "small government", almost at any cost yet here is an example from only this week from a declared and very "Red state", full of Republicans, right next door:

Law Proposed To Force Employees To Friend Their Boss On Facebook

You'd think it was coming from some satirical website online like "The Onion" or something but no, it's real:

An Arkansas Senate committee met this week to consider a bill that said employees should be essentially forced to “friend” their bosses on Facebook or other social media websites.

The bill targeted online privacy protections for workers that passed as part of a social media rights law two years ago.

The bill passed in a 91-1 Arkansas House vote in February. It holds that employers could require workers to “friend” them on social media, and that firing for a refusal to add them would be seen as just grounds for termination.

Some employers could be granted even more access to their employees’ accounts, by requiring them to turn over their passwords so that employers could read their private emails.

What's amazing about this is that it's being considered formally and that it's, again, coming from the political party that insists it's all about "small", unobtrusive government.

Keep in mind, however, that it was these same "small government" Republicans who brought us the huge cash boondoggle that is the Homeland Security Department and the Patriot Acts, I and II.

They are also the people that say it's the other political party that is the "big government" group.

Keep This Image In Mind Next From Now to November 2016, America

One of the Best Things Democrats Have Going for Them Between Now and November 2016

And all they have to do is let it sit there.