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!

Are we going to lose our representative democracy?

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

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

Austerity Measures do not work!

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

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

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

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

WTF? Wow just open the government back up GOP!

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

Every American deserves health insurance! 

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

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

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

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

Why Heath Care Must be a Right not a Privilege!

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

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

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

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

Corporate Media Fails Again!

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

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

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

113th Congress is the Worst in American History!

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

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

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

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

Government Shutdown Coming GOP to blame!

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

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

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

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

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.

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 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/

My Thoughts on Syria's President Bashar Al-Assad interview with Charlie Rose

President Assad of Syria

First of all I hope that everyone has a good week, and last night I had started to write a post for today. However I went on the Huffington Post website and I saw that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad gave a interview to Charlie Rose, I had to put my original post for today on hold and I had to give my thoughts on the clips of the interview that I saw on Huffington Post. I've been on record on this blog and on my twitter account that unless Syria is a direct threat to the United States, that the United States should not involve ourselves in the Syrian Civil War, as we all know Syria is not a threat to the United States, the obvious reason is because Assad is fighting a Civil War for the last two years. Before I give my opinion on what Assad said on this interview with Charlie Rose, I would like to say that, I know that Assad is a brutal dictator and this civil war has killed over 100,000 people so far and I know that Assad will do almost anything to maintain his power in Syria. Now I think that Assad made some decent points in the interview that I would like to discuss.

First off Assad said that "We have the precedent of Colin Powell ten years ago when he showed the evidence [that Iraq had WMDs], it was false and it was forged." and that the "United States credibility was at an all-time low." In my opinion Assad is totally right, the reason why I say that is
because the United States did lie about Weapons of Mass-Destruction (WMDs) in Iraq, even though was during the Bush years and the credibility of the US government is at an all time low, thanks to President Bush and Obama is not helping matters now. Assad also made another good point when he said "Americans don't want a war anywhere, not only against Syria." I personally think that the reason why Assad said this is because he cares what the American people think, but he's using this fact in order to try and stop the US government from attacking his country. Which I think was his main motivation for wanting to do an interview with Charlie Rose. He wanted to directly appeal to the American people in order to stop the US from attacking his country.

What I thought was the most interesting comments that Assad made during this interview was the threats that Assad made against the United States if they went through with the bombings against his country. Assad said that "You should expect everything... expect every action," and he also said "Not necessarily from the government." I'm pretty sure that the Republicans and Conservative pundits will try to use this as a excuse in order to justify a long drawn out invasion of Syria and they
will want to use the Bush Doctrine of preemptive strike. However let's say that Syria came out and said that they wanted to bomb the United States because we had used Chemical Weapons, our government for sure would consider it an act of war and we will retaliate if Syria did attack us. Then if the United States would retaliate if Syria bombed us in my hypothetical, then what do you expect Assad to do when he threatened to retaliate against the United States. Anybody in Assad's position would make the same decision. I don't want to hear from conservatives and war hawks that we have to attack Assad just because he said that.    

Update: I had just finished my blog post for today when I saw a interesting story from the Huffington Post once again, and I saw people tweeting about it as well. Now in order to avoid an attack from the United States, Russia is now pushing Syria to give up it's Chemical Weapons to international control and then those weapons will be destroyed, and that way the United States will not attack Syria. This development is a good because as I said many times I'm against any action in Syria and if there is someway that the crisis can be ended with out the US bombing Syria and I'm totally in favor of it.    
Link to Huffington Post peice: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/09/russia-syria-chemical-weapons-international-control_n_3893951.html?utm_hp_ref=world

"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.