The Political Slant - Page 5

Impeachment is a Process

Impeachment Process

*Our Founding Fathers lived through the wrongs of Europe and knew what they wanted for this country. No one is above the law or our Constitution. No one.

In 1999, part of the media and religious groups focused on Bill Clinton’s infidelity as justification for initiating (charging him) his impeachment. The House charged him with perjury and obstruction of justice. The Senate needed 67 votes to remove him ended up with only 50 and 45 votes to remove him from obstruction of justice and perjury respectively.

Under Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution, the House of Representatives has the sole power of initiating the process of impeachment. The House drafts the articles of impeachment of a President based on any charges of the constitutional standard of treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

The Constitution’s Section 3 grants the Senate the sole power to bring to trial all impeachments and convicts or dismisses the charges based on the articles. It takes the concurrence of two-thirds’ of senators to convict and remove an official. To date, no president has been removed from office by impeachment and conviction.

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Good Democrats – Take Your Party Back

*As a nation watched, the recent Senate Confirmation process for a United States Supreme Court nominee was reduced from “he’ll sail right through”, to a cruel and calculated political hit against one of the finest jurists this country has ever produced.  It is important to understand, here, that the drama on display was not ever about Judge Brett Kavanaugh in the first place, at all, but about just how far off the rails the Senate Democrats have gone, and on top of that, about the #metoo movement being weaponized against a conservative man in his quest to faithfully serve.

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PRO-LIFE/PRO-CHOICE DECISION

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pro life pro choice decision

*Stealth marketing and masked political statements have made Roe v. Wade/Abortion a veiled issue in most elections. The pro-life, pro-choice debate never happened because of the distraction of money. Sure, there has been talking, yapping, yelling, arguing, but no debate.

Before reading any further, from one to 10 rate these factors according to values. Keep Reading

Kavanaugh Hysteria

*On Saturday, October 6, Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed by the Senate for a seat on the Supreme Court of the United States, but not without controversy. Mr. Kavanaugh faced charges for something that he supposedly did thirty-five years ago. The “star witness” against Mr. Kavanaugh was someone who stereotypically not only sides with, but openly advocates the liberal agenda, a college professor. I’ll just rack that one up to another strange coincidence in life.

Would you like to be denied a job for which you have strived for your whole life because someone claims you did something thirty-five years ago, has virtually no evidence, no corroborating witnesses, and openly dislikes you, bringing up the issue at a last-minute?

While Supreme Court justices are held in high regard, there are other, shall we say, “judiciary figures” with personal “agendas” who are, in my estimation, some of the most despicable authorities in this nation. Keep Reading

Trump Impeachment – The Establishment’s Double Standard

Impeachment

*After bang, bang, bang, bang banging, bang banging away for two years, those who viciously hate the current Republican US President, Donald Trump, have come up with an aging porn queen, a smarmy and cowardly lawyer not savvy enough to know where his bread was ultimately buttered, a man who helped lead the Trump campaign for under a year, and whose troubles have nothing at all to do with Russia, or Trump, a guy with space aliens and six-headed monsters for “news items” who’s sought immunity from the dirty deeds of Trump haters, and a handful of indicted Russians (Mother Russia is well known and admired for its cooperativeness in extradition, after all).  And for having dug these things up by way of their two-year-long daily trolling for dirt, these people are smugly smiling into cameras using words like “scandal”, “impeachable”, “unfit” and so on, while rank and file liberals jump for joy. Thinking that this will all ruin President Trump, however, is as laughable as the notion that the National Enquirer is a journalistic enterprise, or that much of anything in print and electronic media are anymore either, for that matter.

In reality, none of what has been unearthed, and none of what may spawn out of it all in the months ahead, is likely to even come close to bringing President Trump down and will, instead, just continue to piss him the hell off, and the tens of millions of decent patriotic Americans who support him, too.

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Constitutional Confrontation – Kaepernick’s Protest

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Colin Kaepernick

*All men are created equal, and Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or the right of the people to assemble peaceably, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.  These parts of the Constitution appears to trouble many Americans.

We respond to our emotions sometimes more quickly than others. It is hard to do the right thing when you we not know what the right thing is. We do not want to impose on others what we do not wish for ourselves as universal law of the Golden Rule.

We learn to stand for the National Anthem from custom, not law. The formal standard has been; stand, remove hats and place your right hand over your heart. As eyes or television cameras scroll the coinurts or stadiums, persons are talking, holding their drinks, and wearing hats. Such lack of attention causes heartburn to the point of almost saying, “Hey Butthole, respect the flag, respect the anthem, respect those that fought for America. Take off your hat; aren’t you American?

The question answers itself. The buttholes may be visitors, not American. Colin Kaepernick, a black football player, is now accused of being un-American. With little attention to our Constitution, what has taken issue is the interpretation of those that have fought for our flag and respect for our national anthem.

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9/11 ROSEMARY PLUS ONE

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September 11th

*The terrorist actions of 9/11/2001 are chronic and ever-present. We share a common duty to honor and remember those suffering through unimaginable death. Deeply distressing is that the hallowed annual readings throughout cities in America of victims have missing names and the count of souls has not come to an end.

This year’s Police Memorial Ceremony at the nation’s capital in May, chilled attendants from the announcement of the 2017 deceased local, state and federal officers fallen ill from toxic exposure at Ground Zero while saving lives, retrieving bodies, and securing evidence or vestiges; evidence our environment relates to our health.

Much like Hurricane Maria’s first reported 64 deaths in Puerto Rico to the number of 2,975, twenty-three New York City Police officers died at the World Trade Center on September 11, but in the last 17 years, 156 have perished from noxious illnesses. From the 343 firefighters that died on 9/11, there have been 182 more deaths reported. The FBI registers 15 additional FBI Agents that have died related to 9/11. The count at the Pentagon needs adjustment.

Pentagon September 11th memorial
Pentagon September 11th memorial

Rosa Maria (Rosemary) Chapa at age 64 had talked to her husband JJ about retirement yet like any other Tuesday, went to work at the Pentagon. Her office had recently moved to the renovated west side of the first floor, Office of the Comptroller for the Defense Intelligence Agency. Osama Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda took her highly spirited, giving and determined life with 183 other souls, 59 were aboard American Airlines flight 77.

She left behind her husband, five children and her dog Lucky.

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Cuomo & Nixon – 2 Toxic Tickets for New York

*Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York on Wednesday said, while addressing an audience on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, “We’re not going to make America great again,” adding “It was never that great.”

His challenger in the empire state’s Democratic primary, Cynthia Nixon (of Sex and the City fame) stated that the governor seems to struggle with ‘how progressives speak’.

Well, Nixon would do well to understand that most progressives do not have the clarity of mind that she does, and that this is exactly how most progressives do speak. Keep Reading

Peace

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*Peace.  We don’t hear much about it these days.  It’s almost as if we talked and fussed and signed about it so much in the 60s & 70s, that it got tired – or we did.  By the 80s a person flashing a peace sign was seen as immature or perhaps desperately clinging to their youth.  Peace became passé.  Which explains 2018.

The thing about Peace is that it can mean so many things.

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Finicum’s Fable – who shot LaVoy?

LaVoy FInicum

*Having owned a 1965 and a 1967 Ford Mustang convertible and Ford celebrating 10 million Mustangs produced, I don’t understand why Ford stock is hitting a 52-week low. I thought the cause might be a Ford truck that dodged an FBI sniper bullet in the Finicum trial, but it’s a Dodge.

Reviewing the video the shooting, the Oregon State Police (OSP) ordered LeVoy Finicum’s party out of the truck at a particular location near the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Finicum keeps shouting,

“Go ahead and shoot me.”

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The Complexity of Capitalism

Capiralism

*Capitalism is a complex, dynamic, adaptive and non-linear system because it has elements or agents in large numbers that interact with each other – forming one or more structures that originate from the interactions between such agents.

Complex systems are characterized by their dynamism, whose fundamental characteristics are their sensitive dependence on the initial conditions, whereby minimal differences at the beginning of any process can lead to completely different and/or opposite situations over time. The opinion of Ervin Laszlo, Ph.D. of the Sorbonne and president of the Budapest Club, presented in the book O Ponto do Caos (The Point of Chaos), is that a dynamic system, in society or in a computer simulation, is governed by attractors. Keep Reading

Policing for Profit – the Abuse of Civil Asset Forefiture

*The seizure of assets, or asset forfeiture, by government agencies (FBI and local police agencies, among others) without proper legal proceedings, has become intolerable. In case after case, government officials confiscate cash that citizens are carrying, and it is up to the citizens to fight to get it back. Essentially, if any police or law enforcement agency finds that you have a lot of cash, they seize the money, under the assumption that it was obtained illegally, whether or not they even charge you with a crime.

Forfeiture - Handcuffs

This behavior of confiscating assets is nothing more than theft, abuse of power, and denial of the rights of citizens. Only an out-of-control police state would do such a thing. Keep Reading

Real News, Fake President

*Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is!  It’s funny how things stay with you.  Vietnamization will end U.S. involvement in the war.  Even if you’re a kid and you don’t really understand, if you hear something often enough it becomes part of who you are.  Never has it been doubted that everything’s better with Blue Bonnet on it, or what kind of kids eat Armour hot dogs or that Jesus died for our sins or that America is the greatest nation on Earth.

Some of these are ingrained in us before we have any chance to understand what they mean, never mind question them.  Whether we hear them on TV, in church, at school or at home, if words are repeated often enough, long enough, they become part of who we are; and we believe them.  How else can you explain prejudice?  Kids get along fine until someone important in their life tells them why they shouldn’t.

BTW: Fat kids, skinny kids, kids that climb on rocks.  Tough kids, sissy kids, even kids with chicken pox love hot dogs.  That old commercial could never run in 2018 because of the words used to describe the kids.  Try calling a child fat, skinny, or a sissy and prepare to deal with an onslaught of anger from whoever happens to be standing near!  The words matter.  Now more than ever before.

Insidious: proceeding in a gradual, subtle way, but with harmful effects.  treacherous; crafty.  

The two most important words in the American lexicon are Fake News. Fake News - Real News, Fake President

The president repeats them more often than beer commercials during a football game.  Keep Reading

DeVos on American Education: Mortgage our Future

*Aaron Rodgers may be the greatest of all time, Tom Brady may be the greatest of all time.  Mohammed Ali told us that he was the greatest of all time, and who wants to argue with him – even from beyond the grave?  But to lead my team down the field with 85 yards to go and 1:40 on the clock – with all due and considerable respect to Elway, Brees, Rivers and the Mannings –  Joe Cool is my first pick every time.

Watching those 49er teams matriculate the ball down the field was like watching an infantry unit doing drills; methodical, sharp, quick and precise, yet fluid and graceful.  The dynasty of the 80s provided entertainment the likes of which we can never see again.  Once the NFL implemented a salary cap the owner kept on spending on star players, ‘mortgaging the future’ to win today by delaying, deferring and derailing payments.  When the wall tumbled, it fell into rubble as the 9ers of the new century are only now appearing to be in recovery mode.

Mortgaging America’s future is what Betsy DeVos and her geniuses at the Department of Education are doing currently.

As one of the mindless trumpions currently running the show she is once again seeking to cut several discretionary programs, including federal funding for the Special Olympics and a grant program for college students with “exceptional financial need.” Keep Reading

Carter Page: Redacted and Divided

*The redacted version of the Carter Page FISA application is out.

The kernel of the evil seed has sprouted, as we have former lawmen use the term “FISA debacle” to describe the process only active FBI agents, four Republican judges on the FISA panel, and DOJ officials know to be true. The alleged conspirators, or as the media calls them – collaborators: a news network (specific media have been able to cast doubt and attack the integrity and reputation of the FBI), the agents, the DOJ, attorneys for DOJ, the FISA judges, and the FISA judicial process.

Call our institutions, our Constitution and our legal process the swamp. Read and interpret the redacted pages of the FISA report to suit your fancy so your soapbox of judgment will determine your outcome, and if it does not go your way, there will be some left in the herd to manipulate.

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Too Old For Office – Are Age Limits Appropriate?

Age Limits

*How about some age limits?  I know, I know; you can’t do that – discrimination; ageism; our seniors are our greatest treasure. OK. And as someone that has of late been the recipient of impudent young whippersnapper’s thoughtless comments and assumptions about my age and its affect on my ability to do this or that, I can tell you that being judged based on your appearance sucks; I can only image what my darker-skinned brothers and sisters have had to deal with their entire lives while living in this racist country.

But seriously, how about some age limits?

Donald Trump
Photo Credit; Charisma News

The president is seventy-two and is apparently going to run for reelection, which would make him seventy-eight if could finish a second term without blowing up the world. He could make it, or he could drop dead any day now. More to the point, he has less of an idea about what it is like to live in this country in this century than the ETs floating around above us.

Rounds of golf and hookers costing thousands of dollars each are not within the realm of the average American, yet he takes these things for granted. His antiquated ignorant perspective on people less white than he and the resulting utter lack of connection with people of color is typified in the mess he has created by sticking his nose in the NFL’s anthem controversy – a place his nose has no business being.

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Hogg Wild – The Arrogance of Youth

David Hogg - Hogg Wild
A government that exists of, by, for and through its people, and at the same time stands as a land of law, not of men, is as difficult a thing to manage as it gets, and no where is this more onerous than on the issue of guns in America.  Common sense solutions to gun violence are at hand, but stomping out into the public arena with such blinding chicanery and political opportunism as seen with anti-gun Democrats, on a continuum, gets directly in the way of those common sense solutions we all should seek in compromise and unity.

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For David Hogg to be held up as a poster child of choice for gun control, at the hands of puppet masters with axes to grind, is a terrible mistake, and a readily identifiable one.

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By directly attacking an American President and Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces on such a preeminent and potentially dangerous issue as Iran, by way of propping up and trotting out someone so far out of his league it hurts to watch, done with such vitriol, disdain and mockery of the office of the presidency, ought to sound a death knell for such activism, activism that uses death tolls strictly for political benefit.
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House Staffer Suppresses Information from Congress

Veterans

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DISSENT MUTED AS VETERANS BILL ADVANCES TO HOUSE FLOOR

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Students around the country who study political science in high school or college are taught the fundamentals of how Congress works. This includes how Congress considers policy, passes laws, works in committees, and the rules for how issues are debated, and much much more. Each congressional session in our nation’s Capitol, students who study political science (and the nation at large), have the opportunity to watch their representatives in action at the U.S. Capitol building, legislative office hearing rooms, or of course— Live on CSPAN from the comforts of their own home. However, one of the most influential players in law making process is often hard for the citizen to see.

These unknown and underestimated influencers are not the lawmaker, not a reporter, not a lobbyist, not a celebrity, not the business executive, and sadly not the citizen. One of the most powerful and unknown voices in our modern lawmaking process is the “professional committee staffer” in Congress.

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In more than 10 years working in politics, I have never felt the need to unmask a staff member publicly, before now.

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NATO – Frienemies at 2%

NATO - Frienemies at 2%

*The Rubicon was crossed on July 11 in Brussels when President Donald Trump laid bare the façade of the ambitions of the United States.

We have officially become an imperial power, exacting tribute from those whom we enfold within the protection of our magnificent arms. Acting unilaterally, against the advice and wisdom proffered by those in his administration who possess a brain, he demanded that NATO members not only meet the level of a 2% of GDP defense spending level, but feels it should be doubled to 4%. One can only assume there will be a Paypal account set up to forward delinquent accounts to US coffers.

President Trump Speaks at NATO Summit in Brussels - NATO- Frenemies at 2%
President Trump Speaks at the NATO Summit in Brussels

I can understand “shaking things up” as being a necessary step in order to bring about a change in behavior. We may agree that some sort of action was needed in order to prod reluctant allies to meet their commitment to fund the common defense. But the behavior of bullying that was on exhibit in Brussels goes far beyond what a prudent person would do in order to maintain workable relations with our allies.
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The Failure of Neoliberalism in the World

Neoliberalism

*Keynesianism is dead. 

The economic failure of liberal capitalism from the American Revolution (1776) and the French Revolution (1789) to the Great Depression with the crack on the New York Stock Exchange (1929) led to the adoption of Keynesianism based on the ideas of the English economist, John Maynard Keynes, who unlike classical economic liberals, defended state action in the economy with the objective of achieving full employment. 

Keynesian philosophy ceased to be effective by the 1970s, due to the decline in world economic growth after the so-called “glorious years” of the 1950’s and 60’s. There were two oil crises along with the debt crisis experienced by most  countries of the world that drove insolvency at international banks. 

This situation made the conservative forces of the United Kingdom and the United States, under the leadership respectively of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, carry forward neoliberalism whose economic doctrine advocated the return of liberalism now on the world stage – which meant absolute market freedom and a restriction on state intervention on the economy. Neoliberalism was adopted after the end of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European socialist system in 1989, respectively.

With neoliberalism, social inequality has reached alarming levels throughout the world.”
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