If there is one thing that progressives and liberals have learned from Barrack Obama’s presidency that is disheartening to admit, it’s that the two party “establishment” is not going to produce a candidate for president that reflects the popular will of the country.  Whoever gets the nomination from either the Republican or Democrat party is a carefully selected, groomed, vetted, financed, corrupted, and made marketable representative of concentrated power and private wealth. We the citizens may chose, realistically for president, every four years, one of the top two corporate sponsored candidates.  There are significant differences, but this is only because we are given two bad choices, and a large number of voters feel like they are choosing between the lesser of two evils.  “Hold your nose and pull the lever” has become a common image as to how our average voter feels when going to the polls.

The underlying reason people feel this way is because people understand that despite all the rhetoric about “hope” and “change” and “freedom” that is marketed in the name brand candidates every four years, there will be little change for the good and not much hope for anything different.  It’s business as usual, once a candidate gets into office, especially true the closer the politician is to concentrated power at the top, such as the President.  The only thing that seems to change is the concentration of the nation’s wealth into the smallest, elite percentage of society. Literally,what has changed in the past three decades is the measure of just how much more rich the rich have gotten, through a massive concentration of the nation’s wealth into the hands of a tiny percentage of our populace.  With this concentration of wealth at the top, comes concentration of power.  Given that our wealth disparity in this country is the largest it’s been since before the start of the Great Depression, it’s no wonder voters feel powerless at the polls.

One of the clearest, and easiest to understand examples of how broken our democracy has become,  is the comparison of popular will with the reality of government policy.  It doesn’t matter that a majority of the general public, regardless of their level of understanding of economic policy, are against the so-called “free trade” deals, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that was passed under President Bill Clinton.  I remember seeing Bill Clinton on tv as the candidate for President saying something along the lines of how President Bush had promised to create jobs, but didn’t tell everybody that the jobs he would be creating would be overseas jobs.  He was criticizing the outsourcing of American jobs.  That was candidate Clinton.  President Clinton fought hard for and eventually won the passage of NAFTA , pushing through congress a trade deal that lead to exactly what Ross Perot had warned of at the time, a “giant sucking sound going south,” the sound of American manufacturing jobs moving to Mexico.  There were other consequences too, such as the destruction of Mexico’s small farming agriculture that was unable to compete with the newly flooded market of big U.S. industrial farms products that are subsidized by our government.

Candidate Barrack Obama was a vocal critic of NAFTA, pledging not to get us into any more trade agreement like it.  Now President Obama has tried to “fast track” a similar trade deal, the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) to expand exploitation of Asian countries with a new supply of sweat shops.  It doesn’t matter that the American public is against such trade deals.  So far Obama has been denied the “fast track” option by congress, which is a technical term for a congressional procedure of a strict up or down vote on the massive trade deal without allowing for debate or amendments.  It apparently doesn’t matter to President Obama that the public is still against the unfair “free trade” deals, as was candidate Obama.  It doesn’t matter that the U.S. steel workers unions are against the trade deals, as recent deals with China and South Korea have lead to huge job losses here.  It doesn’t matter that environmental groups and labor groups are against the trade deals.  The trans national corporations are for it, and they sponsor both the republicans and the democrats on important matters.

It doesn’t matter that economists and the large majority of the public recognize the financial industry and housing bubble to be the culprit of the Great Recession.  It doesn’t matter that candidate Obama recognized this either.  President Obama gave the heads of Wall Street and architects and cronies of the financial crisis the job of fixing the crisis.  It doesn’t even matter that President Obama pushed for more financial industry regulation, because by the time that legislation reached his desk for signing, it had largely been gutted of any teeth, thanks to the bribing of both political parties by the financial industry.

It doesn’t matter that the President, the majority in the Senate, and probably a majority in the House are in favor or raising the minimum wage.  Big business is against it, and their money speaks more loudly in congress even when it is in the minority.

Astonishingly, it doesn’t even seem to matter than a clear majority of Americans like Social Security and Medicare and would like to see them strengthened.  Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan were openly hostile to the programs, even pushing to want to convert Medicare into a voucher system for senior citizens.  Even though this is a hugely unpopular idea, this “choice” for the office of the President came extremely close in the election.

Knowing what we know, and knowing how rigged our political system is, why are we already assuming that Hillary Clinton will be the next President?  Why are much better Democrats afraid to put their name in the hat for 2016 until they find out whether or not Mrs. Clinton will run?

It appears that “change” and “hope” are now, truly cynical labels, and might as well be changed to “more of the same.”

 

 

My thoughts and feelings about Fox Propaganda News Channel are well known, from their inaccuracies, half-truths and lies to their deceptive, right wing ideology posing as “fair and balanced.”  This past week however, the Fox channel displayed a stunning disregard for the safety and welfare of federal agents, local law enforcement, and the wives and children of the 100 plus “protesters” gathering in Nevada to “defend” the “freedom” of scofflaw rancher Cliven Bundy.

Mr. Bundy is cattle rancher in Bunkerville, Nevada, who has been illegally grazing approximately 900 cattle on federal land for the past twenty years.  Ordinarily, cattle ranchers pay the owners of land to allow their livestock to graze there, whether it is to a private land owner, the state of Nevada, or the federal government.  Mr. Bundy, however, does not recognize the federal government, so therefore has decided that his cattle, that he raises for profit, can graze on federal land without paying for it.  He has been engaged in a longstanding legal battle with the Bureau of Land Mangement, and the courts have ruled repeatedly against him.  He owes the federal government in excess of one million dollars for back fees accumulating over the past 20 years, and refuses to pay, or remove his cattle.  Consequently, the BLM confiscated some 400 of his cattle on April 5, under court order.

And some how, thanks in no small part to the right wing radio talk show host and Fox pundit Sean Hannity, this rather cut and dry legal matter has been blown dangerously out of proportion, leading to a tense standoff of over 100 armed protesters, brought in from other states and localities – most if not any of them other ranchers.  Militia types, with a general hatred towards the federal government, itching for an outright gun battle with federal agents and law enforcement officials.  The situation careened towards a dangerous match point this past week, and the governor of Nevada, the Bureau of Land Management, and Nevada law enforcement decided to release the cattle in order to deescalate the situation.  Given numerous past tragedies,  including the infamous showdown of the Branch Davidian cult in Waco Texas that resulted in the violent deaths of 4 federal agents and six cult members in 1993.

My first reaction to the news as it was unfolding this past week was one of incredulity that the government would back down from a court order because a bunch of nut case militiamen were toting guns and taking the law into their own hands.  But, given that Tea Party leader Richard Mack was widely quoted as saying that “We were actually strategizing to put all the women up front,” and  “If they were going to start shooting, it’s going to be women that are going to be televised all across the world getting shot.”

So, it appears that cooler heads prevailed, reasoning, I assume, that the issue could be dealt with again at a later date when the spectacle of another Waco type of tragedy wasn’t in the works.  Reasonable enough.

What I was most shocked to learn, though, as the news about this came out, was the role and dangerous rhetoric of Sean Hannity and other conservative commentators that appeared to be literally instigating, irritating, and playing on the paranoia of the anti-government types that traveled to the ranch, guns and ammunition in hand, and women and children in tow to be used as human shields or pawns – admitted, as quoted, by Richard Mack.

Sean Hannity has interviewed Cliven Bundy numerous times this past week on Fox, propping him up as some sort of oppressed American who is standing up against a tyrannical federal government.  Mr. Hannity has aligned himself with Bundy and his armed “protesters” in the context of a potential shoot out with the government.  Mr. Hannity has gone so far to suggest to Mr. Bundy and his family that the federal government may come back to the ranch to kill Bundy and his followers.  It is stunning that a major network broadcaster would tread the thin line of inciting a riot or violence so closely, given the potential for disaster.

What is ridiculous, aside from the potential loss of human life, is the argument that Hannity and his cronies have been making, that his is about “freedom.” from an “out of control federal government.”  This is factually about a cowboy hat wearing freeloader who has used the convenient excuse of himself not recognizing the federal government as justification for not paying for the land his cattle graze on, like all other cattle ranchers and law abiding citizens do.  It is not about a “tyrannical” big bad government coming onto Mr. Bundy’s land to oppress him.  Mr. Hannity cannot be that stupid.  He knows what this is about in simple terms, yet he has chosen to exploit this situation to inflame the extreme anti-government militia types into a spectacle that can then be morphed to fit the conservative narrative that the Government is the Big Bad, Freedom Taking Wolf, going after the little guy.

What is ironic and transparently hypocritical, is how conservatives, who often characterize poor people on food stamps, medicaid, medicare, or unemployment as “takers” and deadbeats, are characterizing this owner of a ranch and 900 cattle who refuses to pay the government for 20 years of freeloading on federal land, as some sort of victim, and defender of freedom.  Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who often makes a very articulate and legitimate argument on various issues, only to be followed by a complete jack-ass of a statement or statements, managed to join the fray of those in the clear wrong on this one.  Mr. Paul told Fox “This is a real, I think, intellectual and constitutional and legal debate, “but it shouldn’t be about violence of arms, and I hope that the government will not be there in full arms and provoke a showdown and something terrible will happen. I hope that doesn’t happen.”

So a hundred nut jobs descend on Nevada to the rallying call of Sean Hannity and others, arms in hand, with one of their leaders openly saying that they were putting the women and children up front in case of a shoot out, and Rand Paul somehow interprets this as him worrying that  the federal government would show up armed and “provoking” – the government who ultimately decided to postpone enforcement of the court order against Mr. Bundy in order to spare the innocent wives and children of the idiots who were there hoping for an apocalyptic showdown, as well as the lives of those federal and Nevada employees who were doing their job.  The ABC news website quotes a Utah resident named Yonna Winget as saying “It’s not about cows, it’s about freedom.”

Well, you can quote me as saying “it’s not about freedom, it’s about bullshit.”

The other irony and hypocrisy is the complete contradiction of interpretations that Fox and conservatives display as they characterize this situation as the Big Government hassling a poor rancher, a Big Government with unchecked power that is oppressing freedom and acting “tyrannical.” while at the same time supporting whole heatedly what will amount to the federal government claiming “eminent domain” on behalf of the Canadian trans-national corporation that wants to build the Keystone Pipeline to transport their dirty tar sands oil from Canada across private lands and our nation’s largest qualifier.   You see, when conservatives and bullshit artists like Sean Hannity refer to the tyranny of Big Government, they aren’t talking about the government serving the needs of the super rich corporations and private wealth and putting those needs above the citizenry.  If the federal government is needed to override the citizens and state government’s will where the TransCanada Corporation wants to build a for-profit pipeline transporting the dirtiest and most dangerous form of crude oil to the international markets, even though it will mean seizing private land under the dubious legal authority of “imminent domain” . . . well, they fully support that.  As John Boehner has said of that, “it’s not complicated.”

Yet they pretend this relatively simple case of a scofflaw, refusing to pay his bills for 20 years cattle rancher, is a bigger fight over “freedom.”  Mr. Hannity had told the gun toters that he would be out there to join them.  I sure hope so, because if anyone deserves to take responsibility if shooting breaks out, it’s the loudmouth instigator and liar from Fox Propaganda News.  Maybe with a little luck he’ll take Bill O’Reilly with him.  But I wouldn’t bet on it.  After all, it’s not about cows, it’s about bullshit.

 

 

 

 

This fall we face a greatly anticipated mid-term election cycle in which control for the Senate and House are both possibly in play, with potentially dire consequences.  We’ve already seen how broken our democracy is with President Obama being obstructed by congress more than any president in modern times, and we’ve seen repeatedly how having a majority of votes in the Senate and a majority of votes in the House don’t mean the majority or will of the people will prevail.  Thanks to the un-democratic fillibuster abuse in the Senate, abused by republicans an unprecedented number of times has led to grid lock, and essential rule by minority.  And we’ve seen how a small faction of radical right wing zealots in the republican house majority has pressured the desperate Speaker of the House, John Boehner, into not bringing to the floor for a vote, legislation passed in the Senate and with enough bi-partisan support in the House to pass – more rule by minority, in practice. All of this un-democratic practice undermines peoples’ faith in the very principles of what most understand to at least be a core principal in a democracy – rule by a majority.  That’s why we have contests known as elections, in theory a process that selects a lawmaker or president to represent the majority of voters, and to serve the needs of all of society.

It is easy to let such a dysfunctional system discourage us from voting, and to wonder why it even matters who’s in control of the Senate or House, if the majority seldom get their way.  To this all I can say is that this is all the more reason that we should exercise our right to vote.  We do know change is possible, as past historical victories have proven, from laws that banned the horrible practice of child labor, to women’s rights, Civil Rights, Social Security, Medicare, the minimum wage, protection for unions, the end of wars. .  .   the list is extensive.  But in reality, it seems to me that political struggle and change only occur at a point when it is impossible for those in power to oppress popular opinion and demands.  And when the change comes, those in power only yield enough to keep the riots or revolution at bay.  So it often amounts to almost enough, always too late.

And we’ve gotten in a point in this country where the gains of this past century are under constant attack from the tiniest percent of the 1 percenters.  It is painfully obvious now that the Wall Street and financial services bankers that periodically wreck the economy, do so with near immunity.  It is laughable to ask why not one of them is in prison for nearly bringing down the world economy, and ruining millions of American families lives through job losses and foreclosures, because we already know the answer: they’re not going to jail, they’re getting appointed to key positions in the White House (regardless of who is President) and getting bonuses.  Everyone knows that the old cliche of “the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer” is currently our official economic policy on steroids.

But what is shocking is that those in power have become so brazen, perhaps emboldened by our general complacency, that they can now profess and advocate positions that are a blatant, full on assault against the working class, the poor, the elderly, the young, and the sick and vulnerable.  Our past President George W. Bush was openly calling for Social Security to be privatized so that it one of our country’s most successful social program of all could be handed over to his criminal buddies in the financial industry to gamble with the future retirement security of most of the country.  That would have worked out great, huh?  And in the last presidential election, Paul Ryan, the Vice President running mate of Mitt Romney, was openly advocated for the dismantling of Medicare, to hand over health of our seniors to the private insurance companies who at the time were making huge profits by denying healthcare.  And remarkably, despite ObamaCare and the future of Medicare being made an explicit campaign issue which President Obama won his re-election on, Mr. Ryan offers yet another budget (which the House passed this week) with the same terrible ideas and priorities in place.  Despite millions of more Americans now gaining healthcare coverage, many for the first time, and despite all of us with private health insurance now enjoying more legal protections than ever before, the republicans are still chanting “repeal ObamaCare.”

We now have an oligarchy of rich elite  that through their careful structuring and legal shenanigans that have now elevated their corporations to being people too, and their money to bribe politicians now being recognized by a divided Supreme Court as “free speech” – and this oligarchy hedges their bets with both political parties,  Neither of the two major political parties is without widespread corruption.  BUT, and this is a big but, the current republican party, through some fiat of hate mongering, racism, class warfare against the poor, and gigantic propaganda machine, have embraced the needs of the super rich and the corporations to absurd new levels.  Their positions are not popular, yet their party remains only a few seats away from all out power, not just the de-facto party of being a ruler by minority through obstruction that they are at the moment.

Are all republican politicians bad people?  No.  Some have redeemable qualities, interesting perspectives, decent ideas.  But many are just flat out wrong on policies and values, and cold hearted, greedy liars and deceivers.  They serve their true God of the love of money, and do whatever it takes to make sure that the wealth that is created in our society flows straight up to the top 1 percent, while the rest of us suffer decades of stagnant or declining wages and the loss of benefits, while facing more job insecurity than ever before.  These truly bad people know they can’t win on their policies, so they have begun a massive, nation wide voter suppression effort that is absolutely cynical and shameless.  Any excuse to make it harder for the average person to vote, the working class, the poor, the minorities, or the elderly, is being exploited to change the voting laws, state by state, to suppress anyone who might vote for a democrat or any other candidate that comes along as a champion for the majority and not just the 1 percent.

And what are the democrats doing at the moment to combat this?  Well, the so-called moderate democrats, usually from southern states, almost always from red states, are running with their tails between their legs, trying to sound as republican like as possible.  This is a proven losing strategy in the past, and will prove so again if they don’t wake up and grow a spine.  These wet mops are not embracing and spreading the truth about the new Affordable Care Act.  They are saying things like “we’ve got to fix ObamaCare.”  Granted, ObamaCare could be al ot better, there could be a public option or a single payer system, but that didn’t happen to begin with because of such cowardly democrats and corruption.  These democrats should be embracing the successes that they have gotten under President Obama, such as the heath care law, not half-ass saying, yeah I voted for it, but it sucks, I’ll try to be more like my republican opponent.  They should also be shouting about what the country has been denied because of the republican obstructionists, which brought us the government shutdown, among other things.

If a democrat in a red or southern state can’t articulate how it’s better for everyone now that health insurance companies can no longer deny anyone coverage because of a pre-existing condition, they should stay out of politics and public service.  They should not call themselves a democrat, let alone a public servant.  Any democrat, or any republican for that matter, should be able to profess with confidence, support for any number of popular measures, such as healthcare for all, raising the minimum wage above a poverty line, feeding the poor, reinstating federal emergency unemployment benefits, defending Social Security and Medicare.  These are no brainers and supported by an easy majority of voters, no matter what state.  But instead, what is sometimes called “blue dog democrats” or “Reagan democrats” or “moderate democrats,.” is now becoming synonymous with “yellow belly coward.”  It is time for these worthless, spineless, caring only for their job politicians to get out of the way for real progressives with solid values to take their place.

We are long overdue a new political party that will stand up for the majority of us instead of the vested interests of the super minority.  It is time the democrats quit calling themselves democrats if they won’t do that.  It is time for all of us to go to the polls and remember what is at stake this time.  We’ve had 6 years of near stalled government because of the obstructionism of the republican party and the weakness of the democratic party.  But just imagine how bad things would be if the party of George W. Bush and Paul Ryan could get their hands on the Social Security and Medicare.  Just imagine telling millions of newly covered Americans that their access to healthcare has been repealed.  Just imagine not ever raising the minimum wage to above the poverty level.

This is our future and right now I’m very discouraged at the lack of courage being displayed by these timid democrats.  The truth is on your side, popular opinion is on your side, and if you aren’t on our side and willing to stand up, be counted, and grow a spine, you deserve losing your job forever.  Unfortunately for the rest of us, we will end up suffering because of it.

 

A

Conservatives joined the left wing this week and demanded Obamacare be replaced by a single payer system, shutting down the unneeded and vulture system of paying for healthcare known as private insurance.  Jesus Christ sent a video down from Heaven endorsing Hobby Lobby as the official spokesperson for Christianity, and called on the Supreme Court to agree that Hobby Lobby could deny it’s employees healthcare coverage because the coverage covered abortion pills.  The Supreme Court re-instated all of the former campaign finance laws, banning big money donations to candidates, and called on congress to create a system of publicly financed campaigns.  And Secretary of State John Kerry told Israel that the occupation, torture, and brutalization of Palestine must stop now if Israel is to get one more dime of America foreign aid.

Nah, April Fools!

With the open enrollment period for people to enroll in private health insurance through the federal and state insurance marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act ending earlier this week, the writhing, anger, and denial from conservative opponents filled the airways.  Fox Propaganda, Rush Limbaugh, and the usual suspects pulled out all the stops.  Of particular focus from many of their programs and pundits, was the denial of the number of people the government says enrolled in ObamaCare, 7.1 million people.  This Peanut Gallery was of course all too happy to accept the government figures when the federal healthcare exchange first opened last year to disastrous technical problems, and citing the number of signups at only slightly over 100 thousand.  House of Clowns Speaker John Boehner lamented that the new healthcare law was just too complicated to fix, that the website was a lost cause and that we should just forget it.  Most all conservatives cheered with glee at the problems of the roll out, predicting the complete failure of the new law.  Now, with a rebound of people enrolling to reach government projections during the first round hitting 7.1 million, opponents are going so far as to call the figure a lie.  Fox Propaganda pundits and republican politicians of course are sharing the same bullet points for their propaganda, trying to discredit this number.  And why is that?

Because the politicians that oppose ObamaCare desperately want it to fail now, because they favor the old system that maximized profit for the health insurance companies that we still allow to act as the payment system for our county’s healthcare.  They do not care that it is the most expensive healthcare system in the world, with the U.S. spending more than 2 and a half times more than other developed nations, for a total of 17.6 percent of GDP as of 2012. ( http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/health-costs-how-the-us-compares-with-other-countries/ ) They do not care that the results of the U.S. healthcare system  lags behind all of the other developed nations in a number of measurable areas, from infant mortality rate to life expectancy.  The politicians themselves have the best government insurance (what they call socialism for the rest of us) that tax payer money can provide.  The biggest threat that conservatives averted during the whole healthcare debate was the creation of a single payer system, or Medicare for all, that would have done away with the vulture system of private health insurance.  The Obama Administration and other week kneed democrats – not all, there were noble fighters for the cause for single payer – in the end compromised with a system that is based on an original conservatives’ model that keeps the private insurance companies in the business of distributing payments to doctors and hospitals and pharmaceuticals, a model first tested in Massachusetts that is known as RomneyCare.

So we still have a watered down system, archaic compared to other wealthy nations that use the reasonable approach of taxes paying for the healthcare services of all it’s citizens.  We still allow our pharmaceutical companies to rape our public with state protected monopoly pricing, and still do not allow the federal government to negotiate pricing on drugs for senior citizens on Medicare –  Americans still pay more for American produced drugs than other countries, such as Canada, who’s governments do negotiate cheaper prices with the American pharmaceutical companies.  We kept all that in place, thanks to heavy lobbying in the form of legalized bribery known as “campaign contributions” from the insurance and pharmaceutical companies.  But we changed the law to make it more fair and more affordable, and with the goal of universal coverage.  It isn’t perfect by far, there is lots of room for improvement, but let’s highlight some of the basics benefits.

You can no longer be turned down by an insurance company for pre-existing conditions.  Before ObamaCare, the misfortune of having a child with diabetes meant a lifetime of insecurity because of an inability to secure health insurance.  There are now no lifetime caps on spending by your insurance company, should you come down with a devastating illness such as cancer.  Young adults can now stay on their parents plan to age 26.  Women’s services are expanded.  Preventative care with no out-of-pocket expenses.  Emergency care, hospitalization, medications, new born care, etc., are now covered.  The list of new benefits and protections guaranteed for everyone is extensive (  http://www.aarp.org/health/health-insurance/info-08-2013/affordable-care-act-health-benefits.html ) .

In addition, government subsidies for purchasing health insurance is provided for those who cannot afford it, based on their income.  One thing that is great about the federal heath exchange and under reported is that the government makes that subsidy payment directly to the insurance provider for you if you qualify – you pay your share each month and the government pays the rest. The formula for  Medicaid qualification was expanded to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, with the federal government picking up 100 percent of the state’s cost of the expansion for the first three years.  Sadly, only about half of the states chose Medicaid expansion, even though the Congressional Budget Office’s estimates the cost of expansion to be 2.8 percent through 2022, a number which itself may be too high of an estimate, as it does not take into account the presumed savings through having less uninsured people showing up at emergency rooms, etc. ( http://www.aafp.org/dam/AAFP/documents/advocacy/coverage/aca/ES-MedicaidExpansion.pdf )  Presidential hopeful, Governor Bobby Jindal, of the very poor and red state of Louisiana, was one of many republican governors to reject expansion of Medicaid for the poor citizens of his state.  Because of republican ideology and illogical opposition to the new healthcare law, millions of poor, uninsured Americans, living in the poorest states, will still be denied access to affordable healthcare in the near future.

All of this begs the question to those still cheering for ObamaCare’s failure, to those expressing anger and outrage at the prospects of insuring millions of more Americans than before:  What in God’s name is wrong with you people?

And speaking of God, the company Hobby Lobby, recently made news by taking to the Supreme Court it’s argument that it should be exempted from having to provide healthcare coverage to it’s employees because it is a “Christian company” that objects morally to what it calls abortion medication being covered, mainly contraception for women.  More recently than their appeal to the Supreme Court under the guise of its “Christian values” is the news report fist published by Mother Jones magazine that revealed that Hobby Lobby, a for-profit corporation seeking religious exemption from the law, has it’s 401(k) plans invested in mutual funds that include producers of contraceptive medication, contraceptive devices, and even in the company Teva Pharmaceuticals that makes the Plan B pill – the so-called, morning after abortion pill.  Hypocrisy, as pointed out many times before on my blogs, is a specialty of the Christian right in this country, and the republican party in general.

Speaking of the Supreme Court, we don t yet know how they will rule on Hobby Lobby, but they did hand us another split decision of 5 to 4, with the conservative wing ruling yet again against campaign finance laws.  The Court had already opened the flood gates to the most expensive election cycles in the world, with it’s split ruling in 2010 of the case Citizens United that said corporations could not be barred from political contributions to candidates because these contributions constituted political “free speech.”  Technically, Citizens United still doesn’t allow direct donations, but virtual donations in the form of the so-called new Super PACs.  This Wednesday the Supreme Court continued it’s eroding of campaign finance laws, this time striking down a law that had been on the books since 1976, the cap on donation amounts that individuals can contribute to federal candidates in any given two year election cycle.  Again, “fee speech” is cited as the reasoning.  Apparently, only the uber wealthy, such as the billionaire Koch Brothers, will be able to afford the “free speech” that politicians listen too.  How donating millions of dollars to a candidate for public office for political, self serving favor, is not bribery, but free speech instead, is beyond comprehension and common sense.  The only silver lining I see in this ruling is that it may re-funnel some of the Super PAC money more directly to the candidates, instead of their proxies, but the result remains the same.  The politicians ultimately get elected by raising money from big money corporations, such as health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, Wall Street banks, oil companies, military industrial production companies, and trans-national importers and exporters.  And then they vote against the most basic agreed upon wishes of the American public, in favor of their corporate sponsors.  This is the essence of corruption, and the means in which the majority of us are subjugated to the rules of the tiny, super wealthy minorities.

And last but not least, the predictable and consistent outcome of the ongoing, farcical pretending of negotiations for peace between Israel and Palestine.  Secretary of State John Kerry was supposedly dedicated to a comprehensive peace deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians, chalking up numerous visits to the troubled region his first few months in his new position.  Now, with the April 29th deadline for this latest round of “negotiations” coming to a head with talks breaking down as usual, Mr. Kerry was quoted in the New York Times as saying ““There are limits to the amount of time and effort that the United States can spend if the parties themselves are unwilling to take constructive steps in order to be able to move forward.”  The latest breakdown in the talks is being blamed on Israel’s refusal of releasing another round of Palestinian prisoners that they had promised to release, and on the Palestinian’s voting to join 15 various international treaties which would involve the Palestinians being recognized as a legitimate state.  But the bottom line in this is clear to anyone with knowledge of the basic history of Israel and it’s United States sponsor with regards to the brutal and immoral occupation of Palestine.  As long as the United States continues to sponsor Israel with it’s 4 billion dollars a year in direct aid, much of it military hardware, and to protect it from the reach of international law and norms by being the usual sole supporter of Israel’s crimes, recognized by the United Nations and most nations on earth to be crimes, there will be no peace deal with the Palestinians.  Israel continues building it’s illegal settlements on Palestinian territory; continues to tear apart what’s left of Palestinian cohesion through the building of it’s “security” walls; continues its embargo of food and humanitarian aid; continues it’s theft of water; continues to kidnap young Palestinian men, throwing them in secret Israeli prisons where they are tortured and held for years sometimes without any charges or notifications of their whereabouts to family members; Israel does all of this with the support of it’s sponsor, the United States.  And as long as this continues, it’s a farce for Mr. Kerry to pretend to place the blame evenly on the Palestinians and the Israelis. There was never any serious consideration of a final peace deal between the two sides, just a phony exercise of good intentions while the destruction of Palestine marches forward, backed up with U.S. tanks, war planes and bombs.