Why I can't celebrate on this Fourth of July

Wow has it been four months since I last wrote a post? It's been too long, anyway I hope that everyone has a very happy 4th of July. However I personally don't have many reasons to celebrate our country today. I know that maybe Blasphemy to the right wing in this country that celebrate the fourth of July no matter what's going on in America. Today the United States has turned into the United Corporate States of America, our government is totally owned by muliti-national corporations and we the people of this country are sitting around wondering what's going to happen next on "American Idol". Some of the serious issues facing this country is that the Supreme Court is giving away all of the people's rights in order to give them to corporations. This Supreme Court has according to AF:L-CIO the Roberts Supreme Court has ruled in favor of Chamber of Commerce 72% of the time, as you can see on the chart on the right. Why would I celebrate a holiday that honors America, when one of her institutions is actively screwing over the American people?

The American government has since the Bush years been killing millions of people overseas with their drone strikes and not telling us why they are doing this and who have they killed. Keeping secrets from the American people who employ the people in the government by the way is unacceptable and Anti American and possibly treasonous. For the record I do understand that the American government has to keep certain things secret from it's people but secrets that are embarrassing to the government can't be hidden under the guise of "national security" According to The Bureau of Investigative Journalism since January of 2014 President Obama has killed more than 2,400 people under his drone program in the middle east. As you can see on this chart on your top left. Look I'm not saying that all of the people that are killed under this drone program are innocent, however America is not supposed to kill people without giving a suspected terrorist a trial and convict him, to me most Americans have forgotten this important ideal.

There are many other reasons why I can't celebrate the fourth of July today, if I go on and on I'll be writing all night long, however I will list one more reason the anti-immigrant protests in Murrieta. They are protesting those poor kids that are coming across the border like these kids are the problem in this country. Those kids deserve a chance to stay in America. That's the whole point of this once great country. These "Americans" never read what it says on the Statue of Liberty. We are supposed to be a great country that accepts anyone and everyone to give them a second chance. Instead we got a group of people that only care about themselves and their perceived interests. So these are my thoughts on this fourth of July I do not want to be a party pooper but I just needed to get this off my chest.

Links to my sources:
http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Economy/The-Market-Isn-t-Free-if-the-Refs-Consistently-Rule-for-One-Side
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2014/01/23/more-than-2400-dead-as-obamas-drone-campaign-marks-five-years/

The Republicans want to destroy our democracy!

Wow it's been months since I posted on this blog, I was going through a lot in the last three months. Now I'm feeling much better and I can't wait to start writing about conservative nonsense and there is plenty of nonsense that conservatives are pushing lately. I'm personally quite frustrated with conservatives and their insistence on trying to destroy the government and make sure that the government does not do anything at all. I've always wondered why they insist on doing that? If you follow me on Twitter and if you've read this blog over the last few months you will know that I used to be a Republican. I was trying to be a liberal republican which now I realize was a foolish move. However I could agree with some republican ideas, like people taking responsibility for their own actions and staying out of other countries business. I've always hated the idea of using our military to replace governments that we don't like. who the hell does American think it is doing that? Anyway I figured out pretty quickly that the republicans were lying and did that believe their own rhetoric.


Anyway back to the point of this post, people that run for office need to care about the country and the people of this country. Republicans don't give a damn about this country or the people. What they care about is corporations and tax cuts and deregulation of those same corporations. The Republicans are heartless assholes and I can never be a republican or support a political party that just cares about corporations and the most wealthy people of this country and the rest of us can go to hell. That's not right, that's not justice, that's just infuriating. Why do Republicans insist on hating our government and our way of life? I'll never understand it, but I'll give my theory. Simply put the Republican party is dying a slow and horrible death, and they know it, there ideas are failing with the American people. Their ideas are the same ideas they had thirty years ago. Tax cuts and deregulation. That's all they know and they don't want to have any new ideas. I've had enough of that nonsense it's time to vote these bums out once and for all, and whatever we do we can't vote these bums back into office because the same thing will happen again. Republicans hate our way of life and our country!

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.  

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.