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.  

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.  

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.

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 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/

Our Government is owned by Corporations we need Campaign Finance Reform!

Constitutional Convention 1787

One of the very few points that both conservatives and progressives can agree upon is that there is way too much corporate money in our politics and lobbyists that represent the corporate interests have bought our government. The government does not represent the American people's interest anymore instead they represent the corporations interest. I'm not just referring to just the banks, I'm referring to all corporations private health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, the private military contractors (PMCs) and I'm sure I could name more corporations who own a share of our government but I think that my readers get the point. I personally think that the only way that we can try and fix this major problem is to have a Constitutional amendment in order to ban corporate money in our politics. I know that it would next to impossible for congress to ever propose this Constitutional Amendment because they are the ones that are bought by the corporations, but we have another option which is a Constitutional Convention which is in Article V of the United States Constitution, the exact language is;

"The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate."  

(http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/constitution/article-v.html)

See, all we would need to 34 states and we can get a Constitutional Convention

To simplify it we would need two-thirds or 34 states to ask for a Constitutional Convention in order to get one and that way we can change the Constitution in order get the amendment to finally get corporate money out of our politics and get our country back from these corporations. As everyone knows the reason why we have unlimited corporate money in our politics is because of the Citizen's United ruling. To me the Citizen's United ruling is one of the worst that the Supreme Court has handed down since the Dred Scott case. If you know your history you will know what the Dred Scott case held, I'm not getting into it in this entry, just Google Dred Scott. Anyway if you don't know the Citizen's United case, this is the infamous case that held that "that corporations and unions can not constitutionally be prohibited from promoting the election of one candidate over another candidate." (http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf) In other words as Mitt Romney once infamously said "Corporations are people my friend" This Supreme Court ruling has destroyed our country and allowed corporations to completely take over our government.



See, Conservatives and Progressives can agree on something.

So what can we as progressives do? Well my answer is to go to the states where progressives and conservatives can agree and we as a country can fight for this amendment in order to finally rid ourselves of the blight of the Citizen's United ruling and make our politicians work for us the people again, like it was always meant to be. One final point that I would like to make for this post is to the conservative politicians that think that Corporations are people as Mitt Romney said, do you men really think that the founding fathers really wanted corporations to run our government? There is no way that you so called men can really believe that, you republican politicians are just corporate robots that take the corporate money and crush your political opponents, and which is regular people like myself who have ideas for our great country can't run for office because we don't have the money for a political campaign and that is the saddest part of this. 

"Stand Your Ground" Laws have basically legalized Murder

Trayvon Martin & George Zimmerman

In the last few months we've heard more and more about people just shooting other human beings in cold blood and then using the "Stand your ground" law as a defense. This is especially true in the state of Florida the most infamous case being the Trayvon Martin killing. If you are reading this entry and you've not been living under a rock over the last year then you know the details of the horrible injustice of this case. This case is relevant to this entry because the man that committed and got away with the murder George Zimmerman used the "Stand your ground" law in Florida as a defense in his trial and he was found not guilty. If I was on that jury no matter what the law is in the state of Florida, I could not bring myself knowing the facts of the case to find Zimmerman not guilty, because no matter the laws all of the proof points to Zimmerman being guilty of at least manslaughter.

The relevant statue is 776.013 (3) which says that "A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony." (http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes//index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=0700-0799/0776/Sections/0776.013.html)
 In my opinion this statue has legalized murder because that statue says that "including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony." In other words that means that if I had a gun and I shot someone, all I have to say is that I thought my life was in danger and I can get away with murder. I don't think that's right and in my opinion these stand your ground laws have just legalized murder.

Another example of this is the man by the name of William T. Woodward he's 44 years old and he's from the state of Florida of course he had shot three of his neighbors and killed two of them the details of the case are"Police had responded to the neighborhood multiple times in the past, reportedly because of an ongoing feud between the two parties. Officials say they previously offered to mediate the dispute, but when officers arrived at the scene on Tuesday they found that Gary Lee Hembree, Roger Picior, and Bruce Timothy Blake had all been shot. Hembree and Picior were mortally wounded, but Blake survived despite being shot at least 11 times. Blake later told Wesh.com that he needed to call the police dozens of times on Woodward, who is a combat veteran." (http://rt.com/usa/bush-stand-ground-florida-homicide-433/) In my opinion the Stand your ground laws encourage people to shoot and kill each other because now Woodward is using the stand your ground law and the "Bush Doctrine" for some reason which I don't understand because the "Bush Doctrine" was used in order to provide legal justification for the war in Iraq in order to defend himself from murder and attempted murder charges. The bottom line is that these laws have legalized murder and in my opinion makes people in Florida even more afraid and makes them but more and more guns which makes the gun manufacturers more and more money, maybe that was real intention of these laws...just a thought.

There is no good reason for the United States to intervene in Syria

Syrian President Bashar Assad

Before I start this blog entry I want to say that I know that it's been a long time since I posted on this blog, but I've been busy and looking for a new job because I can't stand my current job. Other than that everything is going well for me. Now I'm going to write about why the United States should not go into Syria. The Syrian civil war has been going on for two years now and according to the United Nations over 100,000 people died in this conflict and more and more people are going to die every day, unless something is done. However I do not think that it's the United States government's responsibility to send our military to drop bombs on Syria because on the possibility that the Assad regime used chemical weapons. The reason why I use the word possibility is because not even the White House is sure that the Assad government even used the chemical weapons. According to an ABC article which was written on August 29th 2013 and the piece was called "AP Sources: Intelligence on Weapons No 'Slam Dunk'" The piece said that "The intelligence linking Syrian President Bashar Assad or his inner circle to an alleged chemical weapons attack is no "slam dunk," with questions remaining about who actually controls some of Syria's chemical weapons stores and doubts about whether Assad himself ordered the strike, U.S. intelligence officials say." and the piece also says  "However, multiple U.S. officials used the phrase "not a slam dunk" to describe the intelligence picture — a reference to then-CIA Director George Tenet's insistence in 2002 that U.S. intelligence showing Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was a "slam dunk" — intelligence that turned out to be wrong." "A report by the Office of the Director for National Intelligence outlining that evidence against Syria includes a few key caveats — including acknowledging that the U.S. intelligence community no longer has the certainty it did six months ago of where the regime's chemical weapons are stored, nor does it have proof Assad ordered chemical weapons use, according to two intelligence officials and two more U.S. officials." (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/ap-sources-intelligence-weapons-slam-dunk-20102965)

So the question is why is the Obama administration is trying to go into Syria without having any proof? The reason seems to be obvious to me but not to most people that may read this. The reason why is because the military industrial complex runs our government and the United States government's answer to any problem internationally is military force and that's not always the best way to fix the problems that the rest of the world is facing right now. Anyway in my opinion I don't think that it's the United States job to fix the problems that the rest of the world are facing. The bottom line is that we don't have the money to start to drop bombs on Syria and what is our end game in Syria? Are we going to just drop a few bombs on them and then leave? If that's the plan then it makes no sense because if Assad did release chemical weapons on his own people (There is no real
proof that he did) then he is not going to be deterred just because we drop a few bombs or missiles on Damascus for example.  

So what else can the United States do in Syria? Honestly all we can do is to try and set up a conference between the two sides and hope that they can work something out, we can't keep send our military every time there is a problem in the world, force does not work every time in fact almost never. Look at the disaster that the Iraq invasion has become. I understand that we are not invading Syria but my fear is that if we are going to bomb Syria now, then that could lead to an full ground invasion of Syria and that would be a disaster for the country and for the Obama administration. Congress should not approve any action in Syria!

The Republican Party Needs to go!

 

Abraham Lincoln

The Republican Party is just too dangerous for our country, and we as progressives can’t keep taking this party seriously. I’m amazed how low this once great political party has fallen, for example Abraham Lincoln freeing the slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and he won the Civil War and he showed leadership when the presidents that came before Lincoln did not do anything to stop the events that lead to the Civil War. Well to be fair the only President of the 1850s that maybe would have been able to stop the events that lead to the Civil War was Zachary Taylor, but I digress.

 

Theodore Roosevelt

 Another Republican President that I liked was Theodore Roosevelt with his progressive policies during his presidency. He went after the large corporations and the large trusts. JP Morgan really did not like Roosevelt. I also really like TR's style he went out and fought for the common man and unlike Barack Obama made his case to the American people and then the American people were able to put pressure on Congress and they were forced to pass TR's agenda. 

 

These points that I made were the main reasons why I became a republican when I was younger, because of their once great history key word there history. However at the time I did not realize that the Republican Party had become a different political party that had sold out the corporations and to the lobbyists. Not just some corporations, they have sold out to every corporation, from the gun manufacturers to the private health care companies to the big oil corporations to the big banks, and I can go on and on.

 

George W. Bush (Moron)

 I realized the Republicans had sold-out around 2004 when President Bush, was running for reelection and I realized that Bush was just a moron and I could not stand him and I was a Republican at the time because he lied us into the Iraq War and he gave huge tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations and deregulated not only Wall Street but most corporations. All of this deregulation and the tax cuts lead to the crash of 2008 and if the Republicans had their way we would not have had any food stamps unemployment insurance and any of the social safety net that was put in by Democratic Administrations. The Republican Party has been working for the last forty or fifty years in order to remove all of the reforms that Theodore Roosevelt put in place in order to help the common man and the country as a whole and makes sure that the wealthy and the corporations get all of the benefits. I voted for John Kerry and around 2006 I left the Republican Party and became a progressive and I never looked back.

 

We as progressives can’t allow this party to live on past 2014 and 2016 because if they are allowed to stay in some sort of power in Washington then this country will go further downhill. Just as a disclaimer I’m not talking about getting our guns and killing all of the republicans, like the right wing always want to do. I’m talking about us progressives going out and voting and organizing and getting people to vote for real progressives in order to get the change that we can really believe in. The Republican Party needs to go, there time is up and we as progressives can't allow these lack for a better word nut jobs to continue to have any power in Washington DC. Enough is enough we need real change!