"Signature Strikes" are a terrible idea!

I hope that everyone had a safe and happy Halloween, I personally don't celebrate Halloween but I do love candy corn. I know that it's been a while since I wrote a real long blog post it's because of college and me currently looking for employment as well which does not give me much time to write blog posts. I know that people miss reading my blog posts and I appreciate that. Now I'm going to write about the drone strikes in northern Pakistan for the last few years under President Obama. For the record I did vote for President Obama however I never agreed with the drone strike policy in Pakistan. There are plenty of reasons why I don't agree with President Obama especially when it comes to the "signature strikes" if you don't know what "signature strikes" are it's basically a drone strike that the government has no idea who it's hitting instead we are guessing that they are terrorists but they are not sure and most of the people that are killed are civilians in Pakistan. The main reason why I don't agree with the drone strikes in Pakistan or anywhere in the world is because they are counter productive to our interests in the region. Our government claims that they are fighting terrorists with these drone strikes, but instead we are creating more hatred for the United States in the middle east and those people could possibly become terrorist themselves even though that's what the drone strikes are supposed to prevent.

My question is since when the United States government became the terrorists? Our government has been terrorizing these people in Pakistan and we are not killing any terrorists anyway so what is the point of these drone strikes? What's worse is that it's President Obama that has continued President Bush's policy of "signature strikes" in order to fight terrorism and almost all of the Bush polices did not make us safer instead it created more problems for the United States in the middle east and President Obama is continuing Bush policies and to me the drone strike issue is where I'm most disappointed in President Obama. The reason why I'm disappointed is because I expected so much more leadership from President Obama and instead what we got is a man that not only continued Bush policies but expanded them as well and that must be the "change that we can believe in" that Obama was talking about just disappointed.

Now if I was in charge what would I do? Well I would not authorize any drone strikes at all. The reason why is because we are supposed to be better than that and the United States does not kill people just because they look like terrorists, we are supposed to be 100% sure and then once we are sure than we can take action like arresting them and charging them and taking them to trial. That's the American way and we can't be cowards and get away from that just because of the possibility of another terrorist attack on American soil. It's time to get back to our way of life and being fair to pontental suspects around the world no matter what. That's what made us better than everyone else and we lost that standing now because of the polices of President's Obama and Bush and that's disappointing.

Hillary Clinton would be a horrible candidate in 2016

I know that it's been a couple of weeks since I wrote my last blog post but currently I'm taking two classes this semester and I'm also looking for a job so writing blog posts is something that I've just not have time to do. The government shutdown is over and now we have moved on to other issues. However that's not the reason why I'm writing this blog post tonight. The question that I had on my mind recently is who is going to run for president on the democratic side in 2016. I know that 2016 is still three years away but it's something that progressives need to think about because honestly we can't run Hillary Clinton because in my personal opinion she would be a horrible candidate for us in 2016. The reason why I make this point is after eight years of President Obama we can't afford to have someone that would be running for President Obama's third term. For the record I have nothing against Hillary Clinton but when 2016 does roll around I don't think that she would not be a strong candidate for President because she is a establishment candidate and she would be funded by the bankers and the top one percent to do their bidding, and what we need in 2016 is a true progressive. One example I can name is Elizabeth Warren, she is a true progressive and I believe that she would regulate wall street and make sure that the top one percent pay their fair share of taxes as some examples. I understand that a lot of people are Hillary supporters, I want my readers to understand that she would not be the best candidate for president. This is just my opinion.

How Can we End GOP Manufactured Crisis

Today is the eighth day of the government shutdown caused by the tea party republicans and now even the quote moderate republicans now are siding with the tea party and they want to defund the Affordable Care Act in order to fund the government and to raise the debt ceiling. So why are the republicans doing this? The reason why is because the first time the republicans threatened to not raise the debt ceiling in 2011 President Obama gave in a negotiated with them. That was a big mistake by the president, if he did not negotiate with the republicans back in 2011 then they would not be doing this now in 2013. All of the republicans are expecting President Obama and the Democrats are going to give in and give them something in exchange for opening the government and raising the debt ceiling. If the Democrats give in now, then every time the debt ceiling needs to be raised, the republicans will want something for doing their jobs and the Democrats and the President can't allow that for the sake of the country.

Now the question must be what can President Obama do to end the republican manufactured crisis? The debt ceiling is easy, all the President has to do is invoke the 14th amendment and order to treasury department to continue to pay our debts the way that they've always have. Section four of the 14th amendment states as follows,"The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void." With the republican party's threat of not raising the debt ceiling they are questioning the debt of the United States and the President should be able order the treasury to continue to pay the debts of the United States no matter what the republican party says. The President can't allow the republican party to insert fear into not only the American people but to the rest of the world he has to have a backbone and say no to the republican party America will always pay her bills no matter what.

Now to the issue of opening the government back up, that's much tougher because according to the Constitution, Congress has the power of the purse strings which means that only congress has the power to fund the government, which is why that President Obama can't be responsible for the government shutdown because the executive branch of the government can't fund the government that's up to Congress and they've failed to do that so it's the republicans fault not President Obama. The question is what can President Obama do about the budget? Unfortunately not much the Republican party has the power of the purse, because ignorant Americans voted for the tea party republicans who had no interest in governing their interest is shutting down the government and to destroy the American government. The issue is that the founders never imagined that one day in the far future that there would be a political party that would be willing to hold the American people hostage in order to get what they want from the political party in power. To me what the republican party is doing is the most Anti-American thing that any political party has ever done in America's history.

Desperate times calls for desperate measures, and maybe it's time to arrest certain republican members of the house and charge them with treason. I know that this will lead to a shit storm but this is the only way that I can see that we can't get the government functioning again and as a nation we can't wait until 2014 in order to vote out the republican party. However this suggestion would be a last resort to me because if anybody does this then it would set a dangerous precedent and if a president does not agree with any congress they can arrest them for treason so in my opinion this would be the nuclear option, but it maybe time for the president to use it because the republicans in the house will not budge from there current position. The Republicans need to be scared straight and the only way that I can see that happening is that the President arrests some of the republican leaders of the house and maybe just maybe that scares them straight.  

Are we going to lose our representative democracy?

Today is the fifth day of the government shutdown which was caused by the far right in the republican party and the individual most responsible is Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and as we all know that Ted Cruz only did this to benefit himself for his presidential run in 2016, he does not give a damn about the tea party or the republican party all he cares about his himself. Now to the point of this post, I know that I don't usually write a blog post on Saturday's however I came across a piece in the New Yorker it was called "The Shutdown Prophet" I recommend that everyone reads this and that piece got me thinking a scary thought, what happens if or when we lose our representative democracy? The United States has always been called "The Great Experiment" and throughout history we've seen representative democracy fail time and time again and my hope that the United States representative democracy does not fail and we can continue with the "The Great Experiment" the reason why I'm concerned that we are going to lose our representative democracy is because we have a minority in the republican party holding up the government in order to get what it wants, damn the election results from last year the tea party will do whatever it takes to get what they want. If the Tea Party are still in Washington after the 2014 elections then look out because what the Tea Party is doing is unsustainable. The representative democracy will fall because they Tea Party will shutdown the government every change that they will get and they don't give a damn about the American people.

Some writers have said that we in America must go to a direct democracy system. I honestly laughed when I read that, and the reason why is because most Americans are not smart enough to figure out what's in the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) how in the hell will these Americans figure out what the Codex Alimentarius is or what is a Nuclear proliferation treaty, these are a couple of examples. With all of the propaganda that Fox News foments there is no way that most Americans will figure out what's true and what's not true. To be quite frank most Americans are too dumb to allow America to become a direct democracy we need representatives that are theoretically smart enough to run our country, if Americans keep voting for the Tea Party I'm not so sure that our representative democracy will last. I hope to God that our representative democracy falls because if that horrible event does happen then I don't know what will become of America. Not just progressives but Americans in general need to vote for sensible leaders and not for people like the tea party republicans who will hold the government hostage in order to get what they want. Vote the Tea Party Out in 2014!

Austerity Measures do not work!

Today is the fourth day of the government shutdown and the republicans show no signs of passing the Continuing Resolution in order to fund the government and get everyone back to work. How long will this Republican government shutdown will last? I honestly don't know, because the republicans party is so insane that no one knows how long the republicans will try and hold out and get Democrats to compromise on the Affordable Care Act. First of all Mr. Boehner we had an election just last year where all of the Republicans campaigned on repealing the Affordable Care Act "Repeal and Replace" the Republicans kept saying through out the Presidential campaign last year and guess what Mr. Boehner President Obama won reelection which means the Affordable Care Act is here to stay. The Republicans claim that the Democrats won't negotiate on the budget or on the Affordable Care Act and if you've been paying any attention to what's been going on in Washington DC, you know that the Democrats have given in on negotiations with the republicans over and over again. To the point where the continuing resolution that the Senate passed was for a total of $988 billion dollars. Which is an amazing figure because that number is less than Paul Ryan's original budget for 2014 which was 1.086 trillion dollar budget. So once again the Senate Democrats have conceded to the republicans but it's not enough for the republicans instead they want more and more from the Democrats and to me that pathetic. The Democrats should stop giving in to the Republicans, because things will get worse and worse for America.

I'm sure that there are some people who are going to ask me at some point okay what would you do if I was in power? If I was the President of the United States I would have never given in to the Republicans on the debt ceiling the first time that they threated to default of the debt of the United States, and I would have ut political pressure on the republicans in order to get them to pass a progressive budget that I want. How would I put the political pressure on the republicans you might ask? Well I would into the districts of congressmen Boehner, Cantor, Ryan and explain to the people why my progressive budget will work not only for the people that voted for me, but for them as well. I'm not that will totally work but at least I fought for what I believe in. That's another thing that makes me mad why would the Democrats agree to regressive cuts to the government when we need to government to spend more money in order to fix our deteriorating infrastructure, spend more money on social programs like SNAP and WIC and  Social Security Medicaid, Medicare. The austerity measures that we have imposed on ourselves has been disastrous for our economy and it's not going to get any better as long as the Democrats keep giving into the Republican party.

So what do you think of my policy ideas? I think my idea would work but these are my ideas of course so I'm biased in my favor. The President needs to fight for that progressive budget that Americans truly need

Poorest American's don't get Medicaid! (Rant Post)

WTF? Wow just open the government back up GOP!

Today is day three of the government shutdown that the far right wing of the republican party has caused, we now have republicans trying to shift the blame to the democrats because they refuse to negotiate with the hostage takers or better known as the republicans. The democrats should not negotiate with hostage takers, so the republicans are 100% wrong as they usually are I will be the first one to bash the democrats when they deserve it but they are 100% right in this case. I'm really mad after I read a article in the New York Times called "Millions of Poor Are Left Uncovered by Health Law" the reason why I'm so mad is because the whole point of the Medicaid expansion in the Affordable Care Act is to try and insure the poorest of Americans who can't afford private health insurance. Instead what do we see from the conservative states? They reject Medicaid expansion and they doom the poorest people in their state to not have any health insurance. That makes me so angry, the reason why is because I live in the state of New Jersey and we are expanding Medicaid next year and I'm a college student and I can't afford private insurance so now because of the Affordable Care Act now I can get Medicaid and I have President Obama to thank for that. I'm fortunate that I live in a state that is expanding Medicaid, now I kind of feel bad because what about the people that live in states that are not expanding Medicaid? They are out of luck I guess because millions of people that live in those states are going to continue to die thanks to the republicans in these states.

Every American deserves health insurance! 

What frustrates me is that the federal government is paying for the Medicaid expansion, it's not like the Affordable Care Act is making the states pay for the Medicaid expansion, I would be against making the states pay for the expansion. The article says that "The federal government will pay for the expansion through 2016 and no less than 90 percent of costs in later years." After 2016 these states would have to pay for 10% of the cost of the expansion, why don't those conservative republicans take the money for the Medicaid expansion? I really don't understand how heartless these conservative republicans are, every person in America deserves some type of health insurance no matter if they are very wealthy or they are the poorest people in this country. Most of these states are in the deep south and except for Arkansas all of these states have rejected Medicaid expansion under ACA. The New York Times says that "Every state in the Deep South, with the exception of Arkansas, has rejected the expansion. Opponents of the expansion say they are against it on exclusively economic grounds, and that the demographics of the South — with its large share of poor blacks — make it easy to say race is an issue when it is not. In Mississippi, Republican leaders note that a large share of people in the state are on Medicaid already, and that, with an expansion, about a third of the state would have been insured through the program. Even supporters of the health law say that eventually covering 10 percent of that cost would have been onerous for a predominantly rural state with a modest tax base."

I'm not sure whether race is a factor or not in the reasoning why these southern states are rejecting the Medicaid expansion, part of me thinks so, however I will give them the benefit of the doubt. In Mississippi a large percentage of their people are already on Medicaid which is the reasoning the Republicans have in why they reject Medicare expansion and they do not want to pay for the 10% of the expansion after 2016. Really? They can't pay the 10% after 2016? Why? Because the rich in the south need more tax cuts? If that's the case that's an outrage because these people still need insurance and no matter what they deserve respect and these conservative republicans do not respect these poor people because if they did they would take the money for the expansion and they would make sure that those poor people were covered under Medicaid. “Any additional cost in Medicaid is going to be too much,” said State Senator Chris McDaniel, a Republican, who opposes expansion." I don't know this man but I bet that he's against any tax increases on the wealthy and corporations in order to pay for the expansion. If you can tell from the tone of this post I'm disgusted by these republicans that are rejecting Medicaid expansion and letting their poor people go without any health insurance, yes I'm damned disgusted.

My question is what kind of country do we want America to be? Do we want a country that will neglect their poor and sick because they don't want to pay 10% of the cost of an expansion of Medicaid that will cover poor Americans? Do we want to let heartless conservatives control our domestic policy making here in America? Because if that's the type of country that most Americans want then we've misunderstood the meaning of America. However I know that most Americans are not like these heartless conservatives that claim that they can't expand Medicaid because they don't want to pay 10% of the cost are the same conservatives that are in favor of fighting two wars that cost us trillions of dollars and giving subsidies to massive oil companies that cost us the tax payer billions and billions of dollars. They are in favor of that but they are not in favor of expanding Medicaid. How dare they! What nerve do they have in rejecting those funds that are supposed to help the poorest Americans get Medicaid in order to get the minimal care that they deserve. Ten fucking percent that's the reason why they rejected Medicaid expansion how dare they!

Postscript: Yes I was very made when I wrote this blog post today and I don't regret anything that I wrote here, thanks for reading and let me know what you think. Now back to the government shutdown, I saw a couple of more covers from the New York Daily News and Time Magazine which I loved and I will post here.  

Why Heath Care Must be a Right not a Privilege!

I've tired to sign up and I keep getting this screen damn it!

Today is day one of the government shutdown and who knows how long does this shutdown even last. There are over 800,000 people are going to be furloughed and the Republican party and the conservative "movement" does not give a damn. Why? Because they care more about making President Obama look bad than governing and working for the American people which is supposed to be their job. We all know the reason why the Republicans in the House of Representatives wanted to shut down the government it's over the Affordable Care Act, the Republicans are basically saying that they don't want the American people to have health insurance instead I'm going to paraphrase Representative Alan Grayson the republican party plan is for you to die quickly. That's what the Republican Party wants the Federal Government's plan for health care, and they can deny it all they want but that's the facts. So let's talk more about America's health care system. The main part of the Affordable Care Act went into effect today, The Health Care Exchanges where Americans can go on the website healthcare.gov and sign up and buy cheap health care, for example I live in the State of New Jersey and I'm going to quote healthcare.gov  "New Jersey will expand its Medicaid program in 2014 to cover households with incomes up to 133% of the federal poverty level. That works out to about $15,800 a year for 1 person or $32,500 for a family of 4." Since I'm a college student and I'm not making anywhere near $15,800 dollars a year then under these rules I qualify for Medicaid in my state. I do not think that the Affordable Care Act or "Obamacare" is a perfect law not by a long shot, however I am thankful that this law is in the books or else I would not be able to get insurance of any kind and if I would've gotten sick then I would be in a lot of trouble obviously.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

Now I was looking through the Huffington Post and I came across a blog post by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and it's called "Health Care for All" and Sen. Sanders is basically arguing for single payer health care in his blog post and I could not agree with Sen.  Sanders more. The reason why is because I believe that having health care insurance is a fundamental right of every human being whether that person is an American or not. Sen. Sanders wrote that "The only long-term solution to America's health care crisis is a single-payer national health care program. The good news is that, in fact, a large scale single-payer system already exists in the United States and its enrollees love it. It is called Medicare. Open to all Americans over 65 years of age, the program has been a resounding success since its introduction 48 years ago. Medicare should be expanded to cover all Americans." Sen. Sanders also wrote that "Congressman Jim McDermott and I have introduced the American Health Security Act. Our bill will provide every American with health care coverage and services through a state-administered, single-payer program, including dental and mental health coverage and low-cost prescription drugs. It would require the government to develop national policies and guidelines, as well as minimum national criteria, while giving each state the flexibility to adapt the program as needed. It would also completely overhaul the health coverage system, creating a single federal payer of state-administered health plans."

Corporate Media Fails Again!

I may not be a socialist however I love the idea behind that "American Health Security Act" Every American deserves health care, regardless of the Republican talking point that says that government can't do anything right, this talking point pisses me off because it's not true, Medicare, Social Security are government programs and the people love these programs and they work very well. To me government does a better job than private companies and we need government to step in here and do the right thing for Americans. I think that the easier way to introduce single payer health care or socialized medicine as conservatives would call it is to offer an amendment to the Affordable Care Act and I would call that amendment "The Single Payer Health Care Amendment" and I could be wrong about this because I don't have cable but I did not hear any coverage at all about Sen. Sanders bill "American Health Security Act" I honestly thought that every American should have Medicare for a couple of years now and I thought I was the only one that thought this, and that I was smart for coming up with this idea but Sen. Sanders had the same idea as well so I'm not that smart. The mainstream media in this country have just ignored this bill, this would help even more Americans to get health care but the media does not even cover it. I partly understand why, the republicans shut down the government and that's the top story but I still think that this bill deserves some coverage in my opinion.

On the comment section of Sen. Sanders blog post there was a comment from a conservative which I thought was interesting he wrote that "Where does our Constitution tell us we are entitled to health care insurance? It does not; so that automatically makes it a privilege, not a right. I have a right to own guns, because of the second amendment. I do not have a right to health care because it is not in the Constitution. Read the Constitution so you will know the difference between rights and privileges." This comment makes me mad, because Republicans have managed to make conservatives believe that health care is not a right but a privilege and that the second amendment gives Americans gun right. On the gun issue if you've read my past blog posts I've discussed why the second amendment does not give Americans gun rights. This conservative makes the point that health care is a privileges, I will make this point again the US Constitution was a document which was written back in the 18th century and the founders would not have any idea that the country would need health insurance for Americans. Once again I will end this post with this point, why are we looking to an 18th century document to make policy in the 21st century. Medicare for all!

PS: I know that this post for today was very long and I'm sorry for that but I'm passionate about this issue and I truly believe in everything I said here. Now back to the government Shutdown, I came across the cover page from the New York Daily News which I loved and I'm going to post the picture here because I love the NY Daily News putting the blame for the Shutdown on John Boehner and the cover page and brilliant in my opinion check it out down below.

113th Congress is the Worst in American History!

Today is Monday September 30th 2013 and we are just a few hours away from a government shutdown that the Republican party has caused because they won't stand up to their far right wing of their party better known as the Tea Party. The quote "mainstream" republicans are too afraid of these crazy tea party members. There have been many Congress' throughout history that have been called the "Do-Nothing Congress" however the 113th Congress is the embodiment of that saying. No important bills have been passed and on top of that now the government is most likely shutting down because the republicans insist on putting Obamacare provisions in their continuing resolution in order to continue to fund the government for just two more months. The Republican party has turned the congress into a waste of money for the tax payers that they claim to protect from wasteful spending. Let's look at some of the wasteful spending that the Republicans have done in this Congress. According to a CBS piece called "Obamacare Repeal Votes Costs Tens Of Millions" The cost of each vote to repeal Obamacare was 1.45 million dollars to the tax payer, so if we do the math on that the cost of 42 votes to repeal Obamacare was $60.9 million dollars to the taxpayer. (1.45 million times 42 votes to repeal Obamcare = 60.9 million dollars) $60.9 million dollars wasted because the Republicans want to fight a law that was already passed by the last Congress. Let's look at the salaries that each Congressperson makes $174,000 dollars a year and there are currently 232 Republicans in the House and since we are paying each of them and we are wasting our money let's look at how much money we are wasting in total. The total is $40,380,000 in salary that we are paying republican congresspeople ($174,000 times 232 House Republicans) That total does not include the house speaker John Boehner. That's a lot of money wasted by the tax payer in this country.

Now we've talked about all of the money that the tax payer has wasted on the Republican congresspeople Now let's talk about who's at fault for this do nothing congress. The conservatives will blame President Obama and that is the most asinine statement I've ever heard. President Obama has been willing to negotiate with the Republicans and at times I've been frustrated with President Obama because he negotiates too much with the Republicans. Now the President won't negotiate with the Republicans are they will have to nerve to blame him for the government shutdown. The Republicans are totally at fault for coming government shutdown, I keep getting tweets from conservatives that they can shutdown the government in order to defund Obamcare and even if they shutdown the government, Obamacare will be funded so that's a foolish idea but conservatives are foolish people. Another point that conservatives make that I hate is that most Americans are against Obamacare. The reason why that's true is because most Americans do not know what's in Obamacare and the media has failed to report the truth about Obamacare and Americans believe whatever the conservatives say about Obamacare which is why they don't like Obamacare. Which is why we must let Americans know what's actually in Obamacare once that happens more and more people will like Obamacare. The Republicans have nobody to blame but themselves when the American people turn their back on their party and vote them out of the house in 2014. Let's make that happen!

Update: The government shutdown is coming the republicans in the house just passed another bill to fund the government and once again it had the provision that delays the individual mandate for one more year. On top of that Boehner had the nerve to mock President Obama, how disrespectful whether he likes him or not he's the President. So the republicans have set themselves up for their political death in 2014 and I do not feel bad for them at all, that's what they get for aligning themselves with the tea party.

Huffington Post Piece: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/30/john-boehner-mocks-obama_n_4019867.html

Government Shutdown Coming GOP to blame!

Yes I know that today is Sunday, and I never write a blog post on Sunday, but events say that I must write this post. Unless there is a deal, Tuesday at midnight the government will shut down for the first time since I was nine or ten years old. What a coincidence that the last time the government shut down there was a Democrat in the White House and the Republicans controlled the House of Representatives, the last time there was a government shutdown in 1995/1996 it did not go well for the Republican party and the shutdown was part of the reason why Bill Clinton was reelected in 1996 and the Republican party was hurt politically by the shutdown but it did not last long because in the 2000 elections we saw George W. Bush get elected President and he somehow lasted for eight years. The 1995/1996 shutdown and the shutdown threats that the Republican party is making now, shows me that they don't give a damn about the people of this country that they claim to represent. All the republicans give a damn about is their rich donors and they are deathly afraid of the far right wing of their party.

Now the Republicans are also threating not to raise the debt ceiling, the debt ceiling has been raised over and over again by Republican and Democratic Presidents and the Republicans in Congress have never ever made a issue of the debt ceiling. So why are the Republicans now making an issue of the debt ceiling? The reason why is because they want to oppose Barack Obama no matter what he tries to do, which is why the Republican Party had the nickname "The Party of No" but it's much worse than that because I will say that this about President Obama's race if he was a white man like Bill Clinton was than the debt ceiling would not even be an issue but since the President is black the Republicans now want to make an issue of the debt ceiling. Anyway to the tea party and the far right wing of this country, the debt ceiling does not authorize more spending but by raising the debt ceiling it allows the US government to pay the bills that it currently owes. To make it more simple you are allowing the republicans to make America into a deadbeat country they don't want to pay the bills because Obama will not delay is signature health care plan that will help millions of Americans to get health care. Anyway Perry v. United States says that we have to pay our bills no matter what, look it up Supreme Court Ruling.

It's time for progressives and the Democrats and President Obama to become a team and fight these republicans that want to scare us into delaying a health care law that will help millions of Americans and we must not give in to these terrorists, yes that's what they are terrorists, I recognize that this is strong language but it's nothing but the truth, they want to scare us into doing what they want us to do even though they lost the election in 2012. That's the definition of terrorist, we also must not give in on the debt ceiling why? Because the Republican party is funded by the corporations and the big banks and they will not allow the Republican party to not increase the debt ceiling or else that will destroy the profits of the corporations and the big banks and they will come and crush the republicans if they don't raise the debt ceiling. My opinion is that we don't do anything and watch the Republican fold on the debt ceiling and they will raise it whether the tea party likes it or not.  I say to the Republicans try and shut down the government and not raise the debt ceiling and very soon I'll be going to your funeral.

Conservatives have always been against America's progress!

The weekend is coming up and I'm going to write this blog because it's the total truth and I'm sick of conservatives who think that they own the Constitution and/or the American flag. If you look through out American history you will see that progressives have had the backbone to change what needed to be changed and all through out American history you will see conservatives crying and whining like babies while that change for the better is being made. Before I continue I understand that not all progressive policies work however at least progressives or liberals whatever you want to call us, want to try and make things better in this country, meanwhile conservatives don't want to do anything and they want to keep the status quo. Conservative policies have always caused problems for this country and it seems like conservatives will never change, if we keep giving them power things will get worse and worse. Primary example of that is the state of Mississippi the poorest state in the union. The last time a Democrat was governor of Mississippi was in 2000 over ten years ago. I think that progressives should call out conservatives who use the flag and the constitution as political props they are not the only real Americans, we are all real Americans no matter what's your political affiliation. So now let's start with the era of the American Revolution, because these conservatives think that the founding fathers were conservative and they would've agree with their world view.

Let's briefly look at the era of the American Revolution the founding fathers were sick and tired of the tyranny of the British King George III and they wanted to create a new nation based on a fundamental rights and principles that every person should be created equal. The founders created a document called the Declaration of Independence, and later on the Constitution. The founding fathers created the two most progressive documents in the history of the world at the time. However there were other people that were called "loyalists" these people were still loyal to the crown and they did not want to fight for their freedom from the crown. These people were very conservative and they wanted to keep the status quo. In my opinion the founding fathers had the foresight and the guts to fight for what they believed in which is why these are the most progressive men of the 18th century. That's the total truth and I'm sick of today's conservatives and the tea party claim that these men were conservatives. That's the biggest joke of all.

Now let's jump ahead to 1860 when Abraham Lincoln was elected President and as we all know Lincoln was the first Republican President and at this time no one knew how Lincoln would govern as President. eight of nine states had seceded from the union and Lincoln had publicly been against slavery since the 1850s. and he knew that slavery was morally reprehensible and as a country we could not allow this policy to be continued. The people in the south were very conservative and they are for the most part still very conservative today. Over 600,000 people died in that brutal Civil War and Lincoln wrote the The Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 which was one of the most famous executive orders ever written by a US President and this executive order ordered the army to free all of the slaves in the south during the war. President Lincoln was one of the most progressive Presidents in American history and I'm proud to be a progressive just like President Abraham Lincoln. I laugh whenever conservatives pretend that President Lincoln was a conservative and he would have agreed with them. If Abraham Lincoln knew what his Republican party has turned into today, he would be sick to his stomach and he would turn over in his grave has well.

I could go on and on but I'm going to move on to today, we see that conservative policies are destroying America and these conservatives do not care about governing and fixing the problems that they created quite frankly instead they talk about shutting down our government and they refuse to pay the bills that our government has incurred, these people are holding the debt ceiling hostage in order to defund the Affordable Care Act better known as Obamacare and if we don't raise the debt ceiling then we can't pay our bills and if we won't pay our bills then we will destroy our economy and the world's economy. These people are the most anti American group of people in the country and they will not stop until they destroy our country. We progressives need to take power back from these crazy people and we need some sensible leaders in Washington again. Because Ted Cruz and his ilk are not going to help things, they are going to make our problems worse for our country. It's time to fight these damn fools and vote them out of office.

Progressives Need to Vote in every Election!

Hello everyone I know I did not write a blog post yesterday and I'm sorry about that. I know how my readers like to read my blog and I appreciate that very much. However I had a lot on my mind lately and I felt a little down, however I'm back and ready to keep fighting for what I believe in and nobody is going to stop me. Now I need to talk about why progressives need to vote. Voting is the key to democracy, in my opinion if you did not vote in 2010 then I don't think that you have the right to complain about what's our government is doing wrong.  I don't care if you are a progressive, you should have voted in 2010 and you should vote in every election after 2010 and please vote in 2014 and 2016 and in very election after that. If not then conservatives will continue to have power in our government, and as we all know conservatives have no interest in governing but there interest is to destroy our government and cut taxes on the top 1% and corporations, that's all they care about. If you've read my blog, you know that I love philosophy and I love Plato and Socrates and I'm going to quote Plato because what he said about politics is so apt he said "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."

Plato was so right in his time and his words are so true in today's politics, because if we look at 2010 progressives did not vote, I don't really know why progressives did not vote in 2010, the only reason I can think of is because progressives were intimated by the tea party and they thought that the tea party were going to win anyway so they did not bother to come out and vote. I could be wrong but that's my personal opinion on why progressives did not come out and vote. Now let's go back to what Plato said "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." Now because progressives did not come out and vote we are now governed by the tea party and they are clearly our inferiors so progressives got what they deserved because they did not come out and vote. To be fair to progressives they did come and vote in 2012 which is Obama was reelected and house democrats got more votes then house republicans however because of the gerrymandering that republicans did so they retained control of the house, and why did that happen because progressives did not vote in 2010 and now we have to wait until 2020 until the next census before we can fix the mess that republicans made. So what's the lesson here if you don't listen to me listen to Plato when he says "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." So let's fight and make sure that our inferiors which are conservatives do not take power from us anymore.

PS I know that there are no pictures on my blog today but I think my message that I have to say is much more important than making this post look nice and pretty.

Corporate money is destroying our democracy!

Today I must write the truth about corporations and the wealthy have stolen our democracy in order to create a government which works for corporate interests and the interests of the wealthy first and they don't give a damn about the average person in the United States. If you look back at American history you will see that corporations and the very wealthy have been trying to take over our government since the 19th century. The beginning of the modern corporation can be traced to the late 19th century Supreme Court ruling "Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad" in 1886 and other cases like "Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward" in 1819 which for the first time held that the Contract Clause of the United States Constitution applied to private corporations. I can go on and on but these are some of the rulings that created today's modern corporation. Before I go on in this post I have to say that I don't think that corporations are bad for our country, they employ many Americans and they also donate money to charities and their money can be used for good. However when we allow corporations to donate to our politicians then they become a cancer to our country and as we've seen today after Citizen's United decision which I'm going to talk about later in this post. Corporations can't donate anything to Political Actions Committees (PACs) or Politicians that's the only way that we will get our democracy back.

Now let's discuss something that very few people know about or even talked about and it's been called the "Business Plot" These two videos which I'm going to post will describe what happened in  the "Business Plot"  The first video is General Smedley Butler explaining what happened when he was approached by the business leaders in the United States at the time and why he reported them to Congress. I personally think that Butler is a hero because I do believe him and Congress believed him as well at the time and even though there were no arrests made but I still believe that Butler stopped what would have been a fascist dictatorship in the United States. The second video was made by "Stuff they don't want you to know" They investigate conspiracy theories and they a entire video explaining the "Business Plot" It's very well done and I recommend you check out both videos.

Prescott Bush

The most powerful and richest corporations and people in the country were rumored to be involved in the "business plot" including Prescott Bush the father of George HW Bush and the grandfather of George W. Bush. Prescott Bush as well was involved in the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany is the 1930s and if you don't believe me check out the piece that The Guardian wrote back in 2004 called "How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power" It's a very interesting piece and the reason why Prescott Bush was one of the people that helped Hitler get into power is because it made his companies more money. In my personal opinion the reason why Congress did not prosecute anyone for their roles in the business plot is because they came to Congress in private and came to a deal with them in order to avoid any treason charges filed against them and there was really no proof besides the testimony of General Butler so Congress just agreed with them not to charge anyone. I do not have any proof for my theory but it's the only one that makes sense. Corporations have always wanted control over the government in order to make more money and to have the laws in their favor. Now they've found a new way to get the government to do whatever they want to, just corrupt the Supreme Court.

US Supreme Court 

The reason why I make this point is because in the last ten years almost every ruling that the Supreme Court has handed down has in one way or another benefited corporations and the wealthy. As we all know about the Citizens United v. FEC ruling which recognized corporate person-hood and then the case that did not get as much press attention was American Tradition Partnership v. Bullock  which reversed a decision by the Montana Supreme Court Western Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Attorney General of Montana this cased held that "the broad free speech protections given to corporations in Citizens United v. FEC do not apply to Montana's campaign finance laws." Which of course the Supreme Court reversed so corporations won again of course. So now corporations and wealthy people can donate whatever amount of money they want and they buy our politicians and those politicians do the bidding of their corporate donors, every republican works for their corporate donors and I believe most democrats work for their corporate donors as well. However there are some principled Democrats left and they do want to work for the people that they represent.

So what do we as progressives do about this? Since the Supreme Court has handed down their decision in Citizens United the only way to overturn a Supreme Court decision is by a constitutional amendment. We need a constitutional amendment that bans corporate money from our politics. Simply put the first amendment does not guarantee corporations free speech because corporations are not people, corporations do not vote in elections so they can't be a person. We need this  constitutional amendment in order to get back our democracy. If we keep letting corporations and rich people control our government then we will have the fascist government that the corporations and the rich tried to fund back in the 1930s, in fact in my opinion we have a fascist government today right now in 2013 because all of the laws that are passed seem to benefit corporations and the wealthy. We as progressives need to fight this because if we don't we will lose our democracy, and don't listen to conservatives that say that we are not a democracy but we are a republic, we are a democracy we have freedoms and rights as Americans and we have to fight to keep our rights.

Republicans don't give a damn about Latinos!

Hello to all of my readers I hope that everyone has a great weekend. I had a great weekend hanging out with my nephew. However my nephew went back to his mother my sister, and now it's back to writing my blog posts. Today I have to write about the Republican party and how they don't care about Latinos. The reason why I have to write about this is because I'm a proud Latino (Both of my parents were born and raised in Puerto Rico and I'm in the first generation in my father's side of the family to be born in the Untied States) and I can't ever vote or support a political party (Republicans) that will vote against the interests of my people and uses my people in order to foment hate and to get people to vote in their favor because of that hatred. I can't believe that any Hispanic can vote or support the Republican party when they hate immigrants and purposely put in policy that discriminates against Hispanics. I will list examples later in this post. For now I want to talk about the asinine attempts that the Republican party has made to try and "connect" with the Latino Community. I'm pretty sure that everyone has seen or at least have heard of this video.

 

This is the video that the republicans released earlier in the month talking about how awesome we Latinos are. However in this video that the Republicans put out there are no mentions of any policy changes that they are going to make in order to protect the interests of Latinos or talked about any meaningful immigration reform,. Instead all we got was some nice words and a couple of Latinos that are Republicans and uncle toms talking about how awesome the Republican party is to Latinos. Which most Latinos know which is a bunch of BS. The Republican party is nothing but a bunch of old white men that hate any change what so ever to the status quo. What do I mean by the status quo? Meaning that the Republicans want to keep things they way that they always were. The white man has all of the power while the minorities have none of the power and no say in the direction of the government and the country. Which is why the Republicans would discriminate against Latinos to make sure that we have no power or say in the voice of the government. Everything I said in this paragraph is not only apply to Latinos but also to black people and in my opinion the republican party's hatred for black people is worse than it is for Latinos, which is why black people must stand up to these racist assholes and not let them get their way. Now let's talk about the discrimination that Latinos suffer from the Republican party.

I could cite many examples of discrimination that Latinos suffer from the Republican party or conservatives. How about the anti-immigration law that Arizona passed called SB-1070 in 2010. One of the provisions of SB-1070 called for local law enforcement to check the papers of every person that looked like that they could be an illegal immigrant. Now any commons sense person can tell what's the problem with this? The problem is that most of the people that look like they can be illegal immigrants are Latinos, and that's the whole point of this law is to discriminate against Latinos. To me any type of discrimination is horrible and should not be done no matter the race of the person, I as a Latino felt discrimination and I hated it and I know how it feels and I want to make sure that no one ever feels what I felt. Maybe some people may think that I care too much, but I still care about my fellow American, we are a team and it's time we come together and fight against discrimination in America. We are supposed to be the melting pot meaning that no matter what race we are we are supposed to come together and make America work for the better. I still believe in that which is why I love this country. The Republican party does not believe in the essence of America, instead they want to discriminate against Latinos and Blacks and suppress our voice and our right to vote and these are the reason why I can't support or vote for the Republicans, and latinos that support or are republicans politicans are uncle toms and they should be ashamed of themsevles. The Republican party represents the rich and powerful and they do not give a damn about the interests of latinos or black people.

Private Prisons Profit Even When Crime Rates Drop

Today is Friday and I came across a piece by Mother Jones about how private prisons make money even though crime rates are dropping. Mother Jones quoted a group called In the Public Interest, they are a anti-privatization group and I read their entire seventeen page report and I thought the report was very well done and I learned a lot about the way that the contracts that private prison companies sign with states. There's a clause that private prisons love to put into a contracts which are called occupancy guarantees or quota no matter how high the crime rate is. Before I even read the report I have to say that this clause is going to destroy state budgets because no matter what these corporations will get paid if these prisons are full or not, and these corporations even admit that is there business model and they make hundreds of millions of dollars, and as long as states allow these corporations to get away with this, then they will continue to do it, because a corporations primary responsibility is to make as much money as possible, I know that because I go to college and I major in business administration. Now here the main findings of the report in this picture:

These are the main findings of the report and you can read the entire report at the link that I'm going to provide at the end of this post I recommend that you read the entire report if you have the time. Now I'm going to talk about my opinion, simply put the private prison corporations should not even exist because states and federal government should be running these prisons. In my opinion prisons should not have a profit motive because if prisons are profit driven then they will be problem as the report showed. The report talked about what happened in the state of Colorado "In 2012 the state began a utilization study to analyze which facilities made the most sense to close, but did not want to shut down any facilities until the formal analysis was complete. In response to these preliminary discussions, CCA (Corrections Corporation of America) threatened to close one of its private facilities. Behind closed doors and without any public hearings, CCA and the governor's office and the Joint Budget Committee negotiated a deal. In exchange for keeping the facility open, the state agreed to a bed guarantee, which required Colorado to keep at least 3,300 prisoners in the three CCA facilities, at an annual rate of $20,000 per inmate for the 2013 fiscal year." (pg.7) My question is why would the state want to negotiate with CCA? Let them close their prison the crime rate in Colorado is dropping so why would they care if CCA closed one of their facilities. This is another example of the government working for private corporations and protecting their profits over the interests of the taxpayers of the state of Colorado. There are many more examples in the report which you can read for yourselves.

The report also quotes a CCA annual report from 2010 and it says that "Historically, we have been successful in substantially filling our inventory of available beds and the beds that we have constructed. Filling these available beds would provide substantial growth in revenues, cash flow, and earnings per share." (pg. 4) First of all I don't like how CCA dehumanizes the inmates calling them "inventory" and CCA admits that in order to make more money they will strong arm states to agreeing to these occupancy guarantees between 80% and 100%  occupancy rates and the states will pay a penalty for the beds that are not filled. This is more proof that privatizing the prisons will not save the states money but will cost the states or taxpayers more money in the long term.

There is more and more people going to prison every single year in this country and there is a number of reasons why in my opinion one the private prisons have been lobbying state and federal governments in order to put more and more people in prisons. Fox example CCA themselves spent $1,070,000 in 2011 and $980,000 in 2012 to lobby congress in order to get tougher immigration laws in order to make more money for themselves obviously.(http://grassrootsleadership.org/blog/2013/02/meet-private-prison-industry-s-lobbyists-who-could-shape-immigration-reform) 

The prison-industrial complex it's been called and it started with Richard Nixon's "War on Drugs" and it's been getting worse and worse in the United States, there are around 2.5 million people currently locked up in the United States and our policies are not getting better they are getting worse. 

So what do we progressives do about this problem? My opinion we need to end the "War on Drugs" we need to legalize marijuana, we need to eliminate minimum sentencing and let judges decide sentencing on a case by case basis. I think that we need to eliminate or heavily reduce the private prisons in the United States, the government should the ones who are running the prisons not private corporations who are trying to make a profit. After we put in these reforms things should get better...I hope 

Link to report: http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/sites/default/files/Criminal-Lockup%20Quota-Report.pdf

Link to Mother Jones Piece: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/09/private-prisons-occupancy-quota-cca-crime#13796889600211&action=collapse_widget&id=4393633

Conservatives are not Dumb they're just Ignorant!

Plato and Socrates

It's almost the weekend and if you follow me on twitter (@TheMadMan31686) then you know that last night I went on a epic rant against Republicans and conservatives calling them every name in the book. I will not back down from anything that I said, what I tweeted last night was my honest opinion. The reason why I realized that Conservatives or Tea Partiers however you want to refer to them are not dumb they are just ignorant is because I just got through reading Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" and I this story reminded me of my political life. The first election that I voted in was the 2004 Presidential election between John Kerry currently the Secretary of State vs. George W. Bush who was running for a second term as President of the United States. I was 18 years old and I just registered to vote in June of that year, at the time and I considered myself a Republican, yes I know that's shocking but the reason why I was a Republican is because I believed in their lie that they were the fiscal conservatives and they had the balanced budgets. Yeah I was young and I was foolish for believe in them. However I did not vote for George W. Bush I voted for John Kerry and the reason why I did that is because I thought that Bush was a moron and he had no business as President of the United States. I was a ignorant 18 year old kid and I did not know a damn thing about politics or how things worked in Washington DC.

Now if you've read the "Allegory of the Cave" you know what it's about and if you've had not read it I suggest that you read it because I don't want to go through the whole thing here but I'll go through the more relevant parts. I won't directly quote it but I'll paraphrase at the beginning of the story there is all of these prisoners and the cave is their whole lives and they see these shadows that preform for the prisoners, the prisoners are ignorant they think that the cave is the whole world and they do not know any better. Now I was one of these prisoners I believed in the conservative talking points and I believed in Fox News performances. I was a very ignorant person and it took a lot for me to believe in the truth.

Then one day I came across a clip of Keith Olbermann at the time I came across the clip he was on MSNBC on the Internet and I was released from my shackles of ignorance and I left the cave, at first I did not believe in what the truth really was but after a while I realized that this was the truth and now I love the fact that I was released from my ignorance and I saw the light and I feel so welcomed by the other progressives and now I feel like I have to go back to the cave of ignorance where I came from and try to help these other conservatives to be released from their ignorance and even though I get nothing but hate from these conservatives part of me does not want to give up on them because I see hope in them, so to my conservative friends please come with me and let me lead you to the light.

PS: I know that I sound like a philosopher in this blog post but I thought that I would try my hand at being a philosopher so what do you think?

Fox News blames Video Games once again!

As we all know on Monday there was another mass shooting, this time it was  at a Naval Yard  in Washington D.C. and the shooter was Aaron Alexis, he was 34 years old and according to reports he some psychological issue because he claimed that he heard voices in his head and he two incidents with guns in the past. What amazes me is how easy it was for Aaron Alexis to get the shotgun in order for him to do the shooting. To me this is another example of why we need some comprehensive gun reform in the United States. However of course here comes Fox News to the rescue of gun manufacturers and their profits. Yesterday on Fox News, the newest host of Fox and Friends Elisabeth Hasselbeck claimed that “the left” was trying to make Monday’s mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard about “gun control,” when what the country really needed was a registry to track video game purchases." Hasselbeck is a perfect fit at Fox News she is a right winger. Either she is really an idiot or she is propaganda pusher that wants to push Republicans talking points. Now she also said that “You know, certainly, this topic has already taken a turn again, the left’s already making this about gun control,” Yes it's about gun control, we need gun control in this country not let every person in the country buy and own guns what's the matter with these Fox News fools? Brian Kilmeade the moron also said that “But you talk about this guy's background, as we look into it, “He's got a friend, who said, yeah, he had an obsession with video games, shooting video games. In fact, he would come over and he would be playing so long — these video games, these shooting games — we'd have to give him dinner, we'd have to feed him while he continued to stay on them." Alexis was obviously obsessed with video games and he played a lot, however that does not mean that video games lead him to buy a shotgun go to the Navy Yard and shoot 13 people to death. That does not make any sense and I don't know how the Fox News audience can believe that. Even with our research, common sense would tell you that this does not make any sense.



Now Hasselbeck claims that “Are more people susceptible to playing video games? Is there a link between a certain age group or [demographic] in 20- to 34-year-old men, perhaps, that are playing these video games and their violent actions?” I saw the segment that Fox & Friends did on this and they did not present any facts to back up their claims that video games cause men in the age group of 20 -34 to go out and commit mass shootings. (I'll be posting the video of this segment at the end of this blog post.) Unlike Fox & Friends morons I do have research that shows that video games are not tied to violence in high-risk youth. The article is called "In New Study, Video Games Not Tied to Violence in High-Risk Youth" This piece was published on August 27, 2013 just a few weeks ago. The first part of the piece says that "In a debate that has been raging for nearly two decades, the latest research suggests the impact of violent video games has been overstated." The piece also said that "In the new study, Drs. Christopher Ferguson and Cheryl Olson discovered violent video games such as ‘Mortal Kombat,’ ‘Halo’ and ‘Grand Theft Auto’ did not cause high-risk teens (those with symptoms of depression or attention deficit disorder) to become aggressive bullies or delinquents. In fact, in the study published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, researchers found that the playing the video games actually had a very slight calming effect on youths with attention deficit symptoms — and helped to reduce aggressive and bullying behavior." So according to research just published a few weeks ago video games have the opposite effect that Fox News claimed video games had. I know that this is just one study, but Fox News did not provide any research to back up their claims, they just had a bunch of questions and they did not provide any answers.

In this last paragraph of this post I would like to talk about myself and my own experiences with video games. I'm in the age group that Hasselbeck claimed that there was a link between video games and violent actions, (I'm 27 years old) and I've been playing video games since I was five years old and I've been play violent video games since I was eight years old, I've played all of those violent video games like "Mortal Kombat," "Halo" and "Grand Theft Auto" and I've never had to urge to go out and buy a gun and go to a public place and shoot a bunch of people. The argument that Fox News makes is ludicrous because video games do not make you do anything that you don't want to do. If a person goes out and shoot other people in a public place, just because they play video games like Alexis did that does not mean that video games made him shoot those poor people at the Navy Yard. Video games at worst can be a factor if the person is mentally ill like Alexis was, however that does not mean that video games is the only reason why Alexis shot those people. There are other factors like how easy it was for Alexis to buy guns, and his mental illness. There are too many factors here to blame just video games like Fox likes to do every time there is a mass shooting in this country. Hasselbeck also said that we need a video game registry in order to track how money video games each person buys. How come we can't have a gun registry? That way we know who owns what guns and how they are using them. I think that's fair, let's fight for that.  

Link to research piece: http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/08/27/in-new-study-video-games-not-tied-to-violence-in-high-risk-youth/58934.html

The 2nd Amendment is a Relic of the 18th Century!

Yesterday was the Navy Years Shooting in Washington DC and it's another outrageous crime that should have never happened but it did, and why is that? The reason why this happened is the lack of sensible gun regulation and I place the blame on the Republican Party, Conservatives and the NRA and the gun manufacturers. Democrats share part of the blame as well because they don't fight hard enough when it comes to sensible gun regulation. I know that's a lot of people at fault however it's the truth. Many Americans have the misguided idea that the founding fathers were always right and they were infallible and that the United States Constitution is a document inspired by Jesus (Yes the Jesus from the bible) As you can see on the right a painting of Jesus Christ bring the Constitution to the founders. For the record the founding fathers were not infallible in fact they were human that make mistakes just like the rest of us. As a example look at the Three-Fifths Compromise in the Constitution. In Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3 "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons." This compromise counted black people that were slaves at the time as three-fifths of a person and they were not legally a citizen of the United States. Everyone admits that this was a big mistake and the founders clearly made this mistake. Now getting to the point of this blog post is the real history of the 2nd amendment of the US Constitution. The 2nd amendment has been perverted and used by conservatives and NRA in order to put more guns on the streets in order to make more money for the gun  manufacturers. Conservatives always say that the 2nd amendment has always been considered a individual right that's wrong let's look at the real history.

In 1876 the Supreme Court ruled in a case United States v. Cruikshank and the case held that "The right to bear arms is not granted by the Constitution; neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence" and limited the applicability of the Second Amendment to the federal government." This case proves that that the 2nd amendment has not always been considered a individual right and in my opinion the individual right theory of the 2nd amendment is a fallacy, and I know about the District of Colombia vs. Heller case in 2008 now states that the 2nd amendment is a individual right, but the reasons why were some of the dumbest I've ever heard. I talked about the DC v. Heller case in a previous blog post last week and the details are on there check it out if you have not already. So to me the individual right that is in the 2nd amendment is just a theory with no basis in fact. If you've followed me on Twitter (@TheMadMan31686) you've seen this tweet:

The 2nd amendment is a relic of the 18th century we should not be making policy in 21st century America (cont) http://t.co/dqbEyCwoMy
— Angel Rivera (@TheMadMan31686) September 17, 2013

This has been my opinion for most of my political life and let's look at some of the reasons why the 2nd amendment is a relic of the 18th century. In the 18th century these are some of the reasons why Americans thought the right to keep and bear arms were for enabling the people to organize a militia system. participating in law enforcement deterring tyrannical government repelling invasion suppressing insurrection, allegedly including slave revolts facilitating a natural right of self-defense. All of these are not problems in the 21st century America and this point is for the conservatives that use the famous Thomas Jefferson quote "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." I've heard conservatives use this quote over and over again, and I don't think that these people understand the era that Thomas Jefferson came from. We have got to remember that in Jefferson's time America was a colony of Kingdom of England and there was a tyrannical king named King George III. Even after America gained her independence from England there was plenty of concern that America could fall into a tyrannical government once again, which is why when Jefferson's said that it made perfect sense. For conservatives to use this quote today makes no damn sense because we don't have a tyrannical government and there are no tyrants threating the United States anymore.

I don't understand the gun culture in the United States today, people want to buy more and more guns and there are more and more mass shootings where more and more innocent people die and every American should reject that. Part of the reason why Americans want more and more guns is because of all of the mass shootings Americans are afraid so in order to feel protected they buy more and more guns and that's another way that gun makers profit off all of the death that has been happening in the last six months. Another factor is the people that are called "preprers" these are the people that are preparing for the apocalypse whether it's zombies or something else these people buy millions of dollars worth of guns and ammo and store them. To me these people are nut jobs and they need lots of help. Gun makers take advantage of these poor people and make millions and millions of dollars of these people.  Simply put the gun makers are manipulated this whole debate thanks to help from the NRA to profit off of people's deaths or profit off of people's fears and to me that's not right and the NRA, the gun makers, and the conservatives have blood on their hands.

Racism in America is not dead!

Miss America 2014 Nina Davuluri

I hope that everyone had a good weekend, I had a good weekend and I unplugged from politics and I needed to break. Now I'm plugged myself back in and I see a story that pissed me off. This post has nothing to do with politics but with the Miss America Pageant. On Sunday night Nina Davuluri, Miss New York, was crowned the winner the 2014 Miss America Pageant. She is the first contestant of Indian descent to be crowned Miss America. I before I continue to write about this I want to say that I hate Beauty Pageants, I personally think that Beauty Pageants promotes the worst stereotypes in our society, for example the only way that women can be beautiful if they are skinny and full of makeup and with fake hair and eyelashes. That's just my opinion on Beauty Pageants. However the winner of the pageant Nina Davuluri did not deserve the racism that she has been getting since she won the pageant, and I'm ashamed that I'm apart of a country that still treats people in this fashion. Which is why I'm writing this post today, just to let people know that not all Americans are this ignorant and racist. Now I saw some tweets from people that are clearly ignorant and racist even though some of them claim that they are not racist but they will still send out a racist tweet. Here are some as a example:   

So miss america is a terrorist
— Nick Pizzo (@pizzo_nick) September 16, 2013

#MissAmerica ummm wtf?! Have we forgotten 9/11?
— anthony ridgeway (@anthonytkr) September 16, 2013

There are many more that I saw but these are a couple of examples of racist tweets and/or ignorant tweets that I saw. Another reason why I'm writing about this today is because regardless what conservatives say racism is not dead in the country. In fact racism is alive and well. Just because we elected a black President does not mean that racism is dead and we are all loving of each other. So the question is what can we do about this? Is there anything we can do about that? In my opinion we can do something about this we can condemn these people and show them how wrong they are. Will that change anything? Probably not, however these people should be embarrassed of what they tweeted out and these are the type of people that we don't need in our country. We don't need this type of hatred and ignorance in our country. America is the country of immigration and as it says on the Statue of Liberty the last lines of a poem by Emma Lazarus It says: 'Give me your tired, your poor/ Your huddled masses yearning to breath free/ The wretched refuse of your teeming shore/ Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me/ I lift my lamp beside the golden door!'