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!' 
 

Gun Violence Costs Taxpayers too much Money!

Another day, another blog post I woke up this morning and went on my laptop as I usually do and I came across a piece, which pissed me off. I know that it I get pissed off a lot but this is something that not only progressives but conservatives should be pissed off at as well. This piece came from the Huffington Post and the piece was called "Taxpayers Shoulder Bulk Of Gun Violence Health Care Costs: Study" Just reading the title should upset any taxpayer in the country no matter if you conservative or progressive. I can't say that I'm surprised because it seems like taxpayers pay for a lot of things that we should not pay for. Tax cuts for the rich and corporations that cost us billions and billions of dollars as an example. I don't understand the gun culture that this country has. We don't need guns to protect ourselves and to the people that think that you need a gun or hundred guns to protect yourself then you are a coward and you are trying to compensate for something that you don't have either a backbone or balls excuse me for being or crude but it's the truth, or at least my opinion which is good enough since this is my blog. Just kidding, this first paragraph shows how pissed off I am but this needs to be written because I'm sick of what our gun culture is doing to our country.

The Huffington Post was quoting a study which was done by the Urban Institute which was released today. By the way all of the numbers that are going to be quoted are from the year 2010. The study was 16 pages long and I read the study and I found it to be credible and very well done. According to the Huffington Post "About 80 percent of the cost of treating victims of gun violence in 2010 was borne in part by taxpayers, according to an analysis of hospital and insurance data by researchers at the nonpartisan think tank. That means taxpayers paid for victims' care either through government programs like Medicaid or through publicly-funded programs that subsidize hospital care for those who don't have insurance and can't afford to pay." According to the study the estimated total that was spent by hospital was $628,928,222 (pg.4) and according to the Huffington Post the Medicaid cost alone are $327,000,000. That's a lot of money that the tax payer has to pay just because people get shot with guns and to me that's an outrage. Embry Howell, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute said that “The victims are concentrated among young, poor males,” and “This is the population we're talking about and their costs are very high. It's one group that is heavily uninsured." Howell also said that Lawmakers could significantly shrink these costs by making firearms less widely available “This is a preventable cost. If more could be done to prevent these firearm incidents, then the cost will go down,” she said. “Society is paying for this, very few of these people have private insurance.” And that cost us the tax payers even more money and this one of the many reasons why we need some sensible gun regulation or we need to ban guns it's costing too much money and lives. In my opinion the cost is way to high in lives and money and it's time for our lawmakers to step up and do something about this serious problem. This graphic down below shows the cost in 2010 by insurance status:

However according to the Huffington Post the true economic cost of gun violence is much worse "The true economic cost of gun violence is much larger that what hospitals are spending on care. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that gun violence deaths cost the U.S. economy $37 billion and gun injuries $3.7 billion in 2005, the last year the public health agency conducted an analysis. In addition, taxpayers often end up footing the bill for social services for gun violence victims, as well as building the expensive hospital trauma units needed for their treatment." I understand that these numbers are from the year 2005 however these numbers are startling to me, because that's a lot of money that is lost and our lawmakers don't do a damn thing about it and it's sick that they would rather take money from the NRA and other lobbying groups in order to make it easier for Americans to buy guns then to stand up to the NRA and say no enough is enough.

The last point that I want to make in this post is that why do conservatives go crazy when anybody tries to pass background checks? I don't understand why, the second amendment through out history has been understood as a collective right or only applying to militia not an individual right. According to Jeffery Toobin in his piece for the New Yorker it says that "For more than a hundred years, the answer was clear, even if the words of the amendment itself were not. The text of the amendment is divided into two clauses and is, as a whole, ungrammatical: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The courts had found that the first part, the “militia clause,” trumped the second part, the “bear arms” clause. In other words, according to the Supreme Court, and the lower courts as well, the amendment conferred on state militias a right to bear arms—but did not give individuals a right to own or carry a weapon" In other words through out American history the second amendment has only applied to the militia or as Toobin called it "the militia clause" Then in 2008 the Supreme Court ruled in the case District of Columbia v. Heller the Supreme Court embraced the individual-rights view of the Second Amendment. This is a crazy ruling in my opinion but Scalia opinion just made the whole case even dumber he wrote that “handguns are the most popular weapon chosen by Americans for self-defense in the home, and a complete prohibition of their use is invalid.” This is like saying that if one day in the future if Americans decide that the most popular weapon for self-defense was a nuclear weapon then Americans should be able to have that weapon. That is the dumbest argument I've even heard for why the second amendment should be a individual right.

PS: I know that this is a long post today and I'm sorry for that but this had to be written and I'll try to keep my blog post shorter for now on...but I can't promise anything I hope that everyone has a great weekend.

Link to Huffington Post piece: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/13/taxpayers-gun-violence_n_3915434.html#slide=2323553

Link to New Yorker piece: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2012/12/jeffrey-toobin-second-amendment.html

My opinion on President Putin's Op-Ed in NYT

Presidents Obama & Putin

Well the weekend is coming up and there's been a lot of news coming out about Syria, some of it bad and some of the news is good. However last night President Vladimir Putin of Russia wrote a opinion piece or Op-Ed in the New York Times (NYT) which was published last night on the NYT website. I heard about it on Twitter last night and I was reading some of the tweets from some of the people that I was following and I honestly did not understand the reaction towards President Putin's Op-Ed, most of the people I follow are progressives of course and like I said I don't understand the reaction, the reason why is because progressives start to attack Putin and don't get me wrong all of the attacks were valid, however I could be wrong and please let me know if I am but it seemed like to me that no one really read his piece and just started to criticize him. Like I said all of the attacks were valid but after reading Putin's Op-Ed I agree with most of what he had to say. Before I give my reasons on why I agree with President Putin, I'm going to talk about why I think President Putin motivation was when he wrote his Op-Ed. I don't think that President Putin is worried about American interests or the American people, hell I don't even think he cares about his own people. The reason why I think that President Putin wrote his Op-Ed is because he's worried about his own government's interests and he's worried about the United States possibly starting World War III over these chemical weapons. That's the Russian President main motivation.

Presidents Assad & Putin

Now the first point that Putin made which I agree with is that "The potential strike by the United States against Syria, despite strong opposition from many countries and major political and religious leaders, including the pope, will result in more innocent victims and escalation, potentially spreading the conflict far beyond Syria's borders. A strike would increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism. It could undermine multilateral efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and further destabilize the Middle East and North Africa. It could throw the entire system of international law and order out of balance."This is a good point of Putin because most counties of the world do not agree with the action to bomb Syria, and if the United States bombs Syria without UN authorization, then we would lose even more credibility with the rest of the world, and we can't afford that at this point because thanks to President Bush we lost most of our credibility with the rest of the world. Also if we do attack Syria without the support of the rest of the world, then if Syria retaliates then this could lead to World War III and nobody wants that.

Another point that Putin made was "It is alarming that military intervention in internal conflicts in foreign countries has become commonplace for the United States. Is it in America's long-term interest? I doubt it. Millions around the world increasingly see America not as a model of democracy but as relying solely on brute force, cobbling coalitions together under the slogan “you're either with us or against us.” Putin is right because as a American I'm alarmed that the United States always think that military intervention is always the answer and no that is not in our best interests right now, and that's going to cost us more and more money which we don't have by the way because we won't raise taxes on the top 1% or the corporations. I'm glad that President Obama is allowing the Russians to try and get the Chemical Weapons from the Syrians that way the government would not have bomb Syria, because if Mitt Romney would've became President then we would have boots on the ground in Syria right now which would be a awful decision.

US forces in Iraq

Putin also talked about American intervention in recent history "But force has proved ineffective and pointless. Afghanistan is reeling, and no one can say what will happen after international forces withdraw. Libya is divided into tribes and clans. In Iraq the civil war continues, with dozens killed each day. In the United States, many draw an analogy between Iraq and Syria, and ask why their government would want to repeat recent mistakes. I do agree that force is ineffective and pointless we started two wars and Afghanistan and in Iraq and more than a decade later neither of those counties are not stable and Iraq has slipped into civil war, so the United States policy of democracy by force did not work and it's a failure, and in my opinion we can't force feed democracy to the rest of the world, to me democracy has to manifest organically and not by force by another government, like in Egypt for example when they removed Mubarak from power a few years ago. It was organic that's my point but I digress.

Russian President Vladimir Putin

Putin also said that "We must stop using the language of force and return to the path of civilized diplomatic and political settlement." He's 100% right about that and I would hope that the Syrian's would hand over their Chemical Weapons to the Russians because I've always been anti-war and I don't want to keep using the military in order to fix the internal problems of other countries, the United States should stay out of Syria and other countries internal problems. The last point that I would like to make is that I understand the frustration of progressives with President Putin, Putin has used the politics of fear in order to gain a firm hold on his power in Russia, he's blamed gay people for all of Russia's problems and it's worked unfortunately. Reminds me of what Hitler did with the Jewish people which lead to World War II but I digress, the final point that I'm trying to make is that Putin is not the ideal leader for Russia we can all agree to that, but we should not close our minds to what he has to say just because he's Vladimir Putin President of Russia, we as progressive should not be closed minded no matter who's making good points we need to listen and learn.

President Putin's Op-Ed in the NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/opinion/putin-plea-for-caution-from-russia-on-syria.html

Update: I just came across a story from Al-Jazeera America that says that "Assad told Russia's state Rossiya 24 news channel in an interview that is set to be broadcast fully later Thursday that "Syria is transferring chemical weapons under international control because of Russia." He added that "the U.S. threats hadn't influenced" his government's decision." This is a good development because like I said many times I'm against any bombing action in Syria and I don't care what reasons the Syrians have for handing over their chemical weapons, as long as they do it that is what matters to me.

Al-Jazeera America link: http://live.america.aljazeera.com/Event/Syrias_War/88723083

 

My thoughts on the 12th Anniversary of 9/11

This will be my second blog post of the day and this would have been the only post of the day, if it was not for what happened with the recall election in Colorado last night. It's been 12 years since the September 11th terrorist attacks and I remember that day just like it was yesterday. I was fifteen years old and I was in math class when the first plane hit the first tower. Everyone myself included thought it was an accident, however when the second plane hit the tower than I and everyone else knew that it was not an accident but it was a terrorist attack and by 10:00 11:00 am we were sent back home from the school and I remember for the rest of the day the family were watching the news, and every channel had nothing but 9/11 coverage and it was like that for the next week as I remember correctly. I had mixed emotions all through out the next couple of months, I was sad, mad depressed, sacred and everything in between. It's been twelve years since 9/11/2001 and every year that passes by it does that change the fact that this happened and over 3,000 people are dead and two wars that cost us thousands of American lives and trillions of dollars. The legacy of September 11th is all around us and it's mostly bad and affect our country in the worst way possible. Sometimes I just wish that we can rewind back to 2001 and somehow stop these attacks from ever happening.   

I just wish 9/11 never happened It should have been stopped!

The Voters In Colorado were screwed by the NRA

Sen. Angela Giron & John Morse

Before I start to write this post, I want to say today is the 12th anniversary of the September 11th 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, The Pentagon, and the plane that crashed in Shanksville PA. I will take the time and write two post to my blog today and I will be talking about 9/11 and my thoughts in my details in my next post coming later today. Now moving on to why I'm writing this post. Yesterday was the recall elections in the state of Colorado of two Democratic State Senators named John Morse and Angela Giron and I was on Twitter last night and I was shocked when I found out that these two brave Senators lost the election. At first I was mad because I thought that these voters just were against these gun restriction laws and just voted these Senators out of office, I even thought that these people are morons. Then I wake up this morning and I was reading the Huffington Post and read that piece and it changed my mind on what happened in the recall election in Colorado. I will be providing a link to the piece at the end of this post.

Now in my personal opinion I think that the NRA and the Koch Brothers stole this election and then they had the nerve to say that freedom won. I will provide quotes from the piece to show why I formed this opinion. Some background information first "Morse and Giron both voted in favor of the legislation, signed into law by Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) in March, which requires background checks for all firearm purchases and bans ammunition magazines over 15 rounds." I'm honestly not surprised when I read that all of the outrage is because of background checks. All this law says if you buy guns you need a background check that's it, I personally would have gone much further then that, what are these gun lover so afraid of? I don't get it, what are they so scared of? Are all gun owners criminals? That's what is seems like to me, because they are afraid of some background checks.By the way I don't think all gun owners are criminals I was just trying to make a point. The problem is that most sensible gun owners are not against background checks most of the polls show that. However the problem is that NRA and the Koch Brothers are against anything that may hurt the profits of the gun manufacturers. This is another reason why we need to regulate how Political Action Committee or PAC's spend their money because the piece also said that "The NRA spent heavily on the recall effort, reporting at least $360,000 and funneling unspecified dollars through its nonprofit arm. The billionaire conservative Koch brothers also entered the fray, using their advocacy group Americans For Prosperity to target Morse and Giron. Due to the organization's nonprofit status, AFP also did not have to report its spending to the Federal Elections Commission." Our Politics is run by money and in my opinion that's the reason why we are losing our democracy to these billionaires and corporations and my fear is that politicians will learn the wrong lessons from this elections and not fight for sensible gun regulations because they are afraid of the NRA. Most politicans are all cowards so they will not fight for sensible guns regulations.

The piece lists another example that the NRA and the Koch's stole this election from the people "A get-out-the-vote canvasser for Giron, who requested anonymity out of safety concerns, said gun rights activists also engaged in "extreme voter intimidation" at polling centers in Pueblo on Tuesday."We had to call the police on a van of four huge guys staking out our staging location, the canvasser told HuffPost. "Volunteers are being followed, threatened, having their pictures taken and yelled at. We're now being told that it's bad enough to call 911 immediately." This is according to someone that was there at the time and I'm not saying that the NRA or the Koch Bothers sent these nut jobs out there in order to intimidate potential voters, these people could have done this on there own but these people that did this are anti American and they missed the whole point of our great nation. "A Quinnipiac poll released last month found that 82 percent of Colorado voters supported expanded background checks for gun sales. But respondents were split down the middle on the 15-round magazine limit." Most people in a favor of background checks and gun manufacturers oops I meant the NRA don't give a damn what the people say about that.

What made me mad was the NRA then released a condescending statement about their "victory" and it said that "The people of Colorado Springs sent a clear message to the Senate leader that his primary job was to defend their rights and freedoms and that he is ultimately accountable to them -- his constituents, and not to the dollars or social engineering agendas of anti-gun billionaires" the anti-gun billionaires is in reference to Michael Bloomberg the mayor of NYC and I don't agree with Bloomberg on everything but I do agree with him on this issue. So what do we progressives do about this issue? Do we give up? Or do we keep on fight the NRA and the Koch bothers? If you've been reading my blog for a while then you already know the answer to these questions. We need to keep fighting in NRA if we don't then the whole country loses because we will be flooded with more and more guns and more and more Americans will die because of gun violence. Come on progressives keep up the good fight, we need to win this fight!

Link to the piece: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/10/colorado-recall-results_n_3903209.html?utm_hp_ref=politics 

The Right Wing/Republicans are trying to start another War in Syria because of religious prophecy

This is why President Bush went into Iraq for Moron!

I know that some progressives in this country are religious, so before I start to write today's blog post, I want to say that my intent is not to offend anyone, I just want to write my honest opinion. I want to preface this post by saying that I was raised a Christian and I still believe in Jesus' teachings and he had the ideal way to live life. The reason why I don't consider myself to be a Christian today is because there are certain Christians that will use the religion in order to do outrageous things like hating homosexuals, starting wars in the middle east just because they think that the end times prophecies will come true, example is when President Bush invaded Iraq. In 2003 Bush told the French President at the time Jacques Chirac that "“Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.” (http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=haught_29_5) Whatever we do as a country can't allow these fundamentalist Christians to take the power in order to invade another country that did nothing to us in this case Syria.

Now after one long paragraph, what was my motivation for writing this post today is I saw a article on the web site therawstory.com "Fox anchor asks viewers to consider if bombing Syria is a harbinger of the Second Coming of Christ" Honestly I assumed that the "Fox anchor" would be Sean Hannity, because for one Glenn Beck is not at Fox anymore and Hannity is so into the Christianity I thought that it made sense to assume that it was Hannity. I read a little bit of the piece and I found out that the anchor was Neil Cavuto, I'm not saying that I'm surprised because all of Fox News is a propaganda outlet for the Republican party and for the Christian/Catholic Church. In my opinion Fox News is dangerous for the country because a portion of the American population takes them seriously and those people think that they are real news. They disguise their propaganda under the guise of real news and that's what makes them really dangerous. The story that I started to talk about in the beginning of this paragraph is another example of how dangerous Fox News is for the country.

Now after two paragraphs I'm finally going to talk about the article I started to talk about in the second paragraph. The article is accompanied by a video, which I will post at the end of this post, so you can check it out for yourselves. Cavuto said that "This Syria stuff is way old, I mean Old Testament old. That’s how old I’m talking about. Don’t laugh. Some biblical scholars say it’s all there in black and white." To be fair to Cavuto the Bible does talk about prophecy regarding Damascus, “This message came to me concerning Damascus: ‘Look, Damascus will disappear! It will become a heap of ruins. The cities of Aroer will be deserted. Sheep will graze in the streets and lie down unafraid. There will be no one to chase them away. The fortified cities of Israel will also be destroyed, and the power of Damascus will end. The few left in Aram will share the fate of Israel’s departed glory,’ says the Lord Almighty.” Isaiah 17:1-3 as an example, my problem with this is that these prophecies are not real, they are just stories that were told thousands of years ago just to entertain people. Then Joel Rosenberg said that "“These are prophecies more than 2,700 years old, some of them, but they have not actually been fulfilled,” Rosenberg said. “But this prophecy, as you just pointed out, talks about the complete and utter destruction of Damascus. That’s an End Times or eschatological prophecy. It’s a very sobering thought to think that a judgment of a city or a country could happen in which an entire city could be wiped out, but that is, in fact, what the Bible is predicting,” he added. “I think it’s wrong for people who teach Bible prophecies to guess — I mean, in a sense try to say for certain it’s going to happen now.”

This Joel Rosenberg guy is a fraud, because not many people would take these prophecies seriously because they were spoken 2000 years ago and it was for entertainment purposes only, and to people that take these prophecies seriously my question is why do you take these prophecies seriously? I don't get it, like I said at the beginning of this post, I was raised a Christian but I never took any of those prophecies seriously. However that's just my opinion, but I'm serious but Fox News being dangerous for this country as long as they are treated like serious news, if one day most people realize that Fox News is right wing propaganda, then I will have no problem with them because in America there are free speech rights and they have to right to say whatever they want and I as an American will defend their rights. However I'm glad that President Obama is in office now and not President Bush or else we would be going to war with Syria and we as a country can't afford that.

Link to the article: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/09/10/fox-anchor-asks-viewers-to-consider-if-bombing-syria-is-a-harbinger-of-the-second-coming-of-christ/