The National Disgrace that is the Neglect of our Veterans.

In 2003, George W. Bush and his neocon cronies took us into a war in Iraq that is at the top of conflicts that should never have happened.

Of course years later, we know that there were no WMDs, they were no roses thrown at the feet of our soldiers and none of the other pie in the sky nonsense that we were fed back then.

What we have are 1,000s of dead Americans, 100,000s of dead Iraqis, a country in shambles and ISIS created, alive and well.

And of course we have the war criminals walking around free, earning 1000s of dollars in speaking fees.

We also have to our shame as a nation, another group who have suffered and continue to suffer, not only because of the Iraq debacle but also the Afghanistan War, our veterans.

11/11/15 was Veterans Day. It is one of those holidays when it is PC to say Happy Blank (smirk). But if you are veteran in the US, it was not a “Happy Holiday”

Back in the day, a long, long time ago, when our veterans returned from WW1, they were promised bonuses, which would be paid in 1945.  However, the depression came before that and the veterans needed the bonuses went to Washington, DC to lobby for early payment  and as a result the Bonus Army was formed.

After a confrontation with the police and then the army, MacArthur following Hoover's orders  attacked them, much to a national disgrace that lives on today. 4 years later the bonuses were paid and in 1944 the GI bill was passed. The same GI bill that paid for the education of many of the small government conservatives walking around today wanting to get rid of government programs.

Fast forward to 2015, and we have the good the bad and the ugly.

The good:

There are groups and civilians who are trying to help our Veterans. They have stepped up to try the fill the void left by our government.

One such civilian is Tim McGraw. While McGraw and other groups try to provide homes for vets, the number of homeless continues to grow.

The Senate passed a 2 billion dollar spending bill on 11/10/15. That is good. Hopefully it will help the VA provide needed services to those who are desperately in need of medical care and homes.

The bad:  A report issued by the VA and HUD said that even though veterans are only 10% of the American population, they are 16% of all homeless adults.

The Veterans Administration, the agency tasked with providing for our veterans is a mess. And the mess continues to grow.

For example, they just redefined the word bonus as it applies to the workforce by paying out $140 million to its employees.

18 months after the last scandal, the waiting lists for care remains and very little has changed. 

The ugly: There are 300 veterans on death row, many of them with PTSD. Where was the treatment these vets earned and needed? Why are they on death row? How can this be happening in America?

The neocons and the hawks such as Rubio and his ilk are all pushing for boots on the ground in Syria. It never fails to amaze and pain me to realize how willing the GOP is to send our men and women to the battlefields and how easily they ignore those men, women and their families when they return home.  Sounds familiar? They have the same attitude about children. They care when the child is in the womb and once it is born, they do not give a damn.

Let us add care of our Veterans to the growing list of failures of the Do Nothing Congress.

Kill the Gays says the Family Values Pastor

This blog post is dedicated to a friend of mine who was devastated by the hatred being spewed by a so-called Christian pastor and to the Scheer Family who were attacked by the Million Moms.

It has become popular in far Right Wing circles to see who can be the most homophobic.

Hands down, in my opinion, Kevin Swanson is the winner. He has surpassed Pat Robertson, my previous holder of the Most Homophobic Supposed Man of God title.

Swanson hosted an event this past weekend and invited 3 Republican Presidential hopefuls.  One would think that based on all of the noise made by the Right as they fanned the flames of hate discussing President Obama’s relationship with Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and knowing that turnabout is fair play that either the candidates would have turned down the invitation or Swanson would have turned down his rhetoric. Neither of those things happened.

Thanks to the Rachel Maddow Show, you do not have to listen to the madness, I think it is slightly less painful to read it.  Here is part of what the man of God had to say:

“There are families whose – we’re talking Christian families, pastors’ families, elders’ families in good godly churches – their sons are rebelling, hanging out with homosexuals and getting married. And the parents are invited.

“What would you do if that was the case? Here’s what I would do. Sack cloth and ashes at the entrance to the church. And I’d sit in cow manure and I’d spread it all over my body. That’s what I’d do.  And I’m not kidding. I’m not laughing. I’m grieving. I’m mourning. I’m pointing out the problem!

“It’s not a gay time! These are the people with the sores, the gaping sores. The sores that are pusy and gross and people are coming in and carving happy faces on pusy sores. That’s not a nice thing to do. Don’t you dare carve happy faces on open, pusy sores. Don’t you ever do that…. America needs to hear the message. We are messed up.”

He went on to say that the Bible demands the death penalty for homosexuality.

At a gathering that included 3 GOP presidential candidates, one of whom (Cruz) had been asked by CNN about hanging out with this disgusting person, he did not hold back.  There was no need to. Cruz, Jindal and Huckabee accepted. 11 others declined the invitation. Jindal and Huckabee, are not important, they can run until the end of time and neither of them will sit at the desk in the Oval office, but Cruz, the man whose facial expressions makes my skin crawl, that man could be elected President of the United States. He could be in the White House with the ability to issue executive orders. That man who was willing to share a stage with a homophobic lunatic named Kevin Swanson.

The next time someone says to you, I am not voting, my vote makes no difference, tell him or her about Kevin Swanson and the Governor, ex-Governor and Senator who all were with him at the “National Religious Liberties Conference in November 2015 in Des Moines, Iowa, listening to the swill that the leader of the conference was spouting in the name of God.

One Million Moms—I heard that name and thought of MADD.  Not. The Million Moms is a cover for a group of Right Wing Republicans haters.

It has about 81,000 likes on Facebook and decided to attack the magazine American Girl for publishing a story about a gay couple who have not only adopted 4 children, but have started a charity which provides foster children with a suitcase filled with necessities and some niceties, so they are not going from home to home with their belongings in a black plastic bag.

This is on their Facebook page:

“One Million Moms is extremely disappointed that American Girl, owned by Mattel, is promoting sin in the November/December 2015 issue of its magazine. On pages 28-31 of the magazine is an article titled “Forever Family” about adoption from foster care, which would have been wonderful if they had not decided to include a large picture of a girl with her two dads, Daddy and Dada, and three other adopted children. 1MM supports adoption and taking care of orphans as we are biblically instructed to do in Psalm 82:3, but American Girl could have focused the article on the child and not about the parents since it is a magazine for children. American Girl is attempting to desensitize our youth by featuring a family with two dads. If your child has not seen this yet, then be careful she is not exposed and can avoid a premature conversation she is far too young to understand. Scripture says multiple times that homosexuality is wrong, and God will not tolerate this sinful nature. American Girl doesn’t highlight other sins in their magazine. Tell them as long as American Girl is pushing the homosexual agenda to children, your family will no longer be able to support the company, its magazine, or purchase its products. Click on link to Take Action!”

The Scheer family were guests on WTTG. Listen to the video and see 4 beautiful healthy children living in a love filled home.

The Scheers unlike those spewing hate at everyone who is not a 2^nd or 3^rd generation Caucasian are practicing Family Values and I wish them and their family the very best that life has to offer.

Money talks

There were protests, there was a graduate student named Jonathan Butler staging a hunger strike, all ignored by the President, Chancellor and apparently the Board of the University of Missouri.

And then, MONEY, the possible loss of $1,000,000 this weekend, entered the equation and everyone stood up and paid attention.

The football team announced that they would not play until the demands of the students were met, which included the resignation of Tim Wolfe.

On Monday morning Wolfe announced his resignation and later in the day so did the Chancellor.  Those resignations marked the end of a period of the ugliness that has existed on the campus for a very long time and hopefully the beginning of a new period where rampant racism will no longer be tolerated. Where the concerns of the students will be addressed, not ignored as they were under Wolfe.  

This is a timeline of the incidents that occurred from September 12 to the resignations on 11/9.

·

I have read an article, which referred to Wolfe as being too tone deaf to deal with a campus in turmoil. Tone deaf is an understatement. Wolfe was following the same playbook that is responsible for so many of the ills that have affected our society for years.  He probably felt that if he ignored the students eventually the protests would end and life would go on as before.  Just as we vote against our own best interests, we believe the lies told to us re: trickle down economics and climate change, etc., and so nothing changes for the 99%.

Wolfe like so many, believed that this was a disgruntled group of Black students who did not appreciate the crumbs that they had been given. When asked about systematic oppression he responded, “Systematic oppression is because you don’t believe that you have the equal opportunity for success.”

That response said that he was not suited to head that school.

And so the almighty dollar came to the rescue of those students who will now be listened to, and changes made, all because black and white football players and their coach stepped up and said, ‘we will not play football again for this school until Butler ends his hunger strike’. MU was not going to take the hit of paying a million dollar fine for every game forfeited and did not want the name of the university system to be drawn further through the mud.

And so, Wolfe is gone and a new day has dawned at the University of Missouri.

Money also ended another situation yesterday. Simon Property Group that operates 120 malls in the US decided to try something new.

That something ‘new’ was to replace the traditional fireplace-Christmas tree setting for photos of children (and adults?) sitting on Santa’s lap with an “enchanted glacier with an artificial snow bank” Sounds interesting? Different? Maybe, but where is the Christmas tree? Oh no tree.

This experiment was tried in 6 of its malls. 3 were in New York and New Jersey.

A mother in NY took to social media and her online petition started to gather steam with parents threatening to shop at non-Simon malls.

Shop elsewhere? That threat is all it took. Cha-ching, away went the “modern interactive experience for the family” and back came the tree in its familiar setting.

The profits from the Christmas season where just about every ethnic and religious group goes shopping crazy, allows the malls to weather the lean times. Like the University, loss of dollars was not an option.  

And so again money talks and bull$hit walks.

The Clowns visited the Sunday Shows

The Donald was on ABC.

His answer to defeating ISIS is to “take the oil”.  He believes that if we remove their source of income, we will defeat them. The Russians had lots of oil and therefore the resources to fight the Afghans. They lost that battle. ISIS will find a way to fund their war. Zealots almost always do.

On Ben Carson, he informed us that Carson would have hosted SNL if, he was asked, and he was not.

He also questioned excerpts from Doc Carson’s book, including hitting his mother in her head with a hammer and attempting to stab someone.

One statement made by Trump reflects what I believe most of us think—"I don’t know what he’s doing. I mean, I don’t know—“

And then there was Gentle Doc Carson:

I know and I am often critical of our present day press, who are not in my opinion reporting the news. There are 2 reasons that make them an unreliable source. 1. They are almost all owned by Big Business and doing the bidding of their Masters and rushing to fill the 24-hour news cycle.

Having said that, Carson’s claim that the questions which have surfaced about him, are media driven is baloney.

He wants to be President of the United States. He is a world-renowned neurosurgeon, but his utterances in the political arena, for example his story about the Pyramids, and most damning, the disputed claim in his book that he was offered a full scholarship to West Point and other portions of his bio are responsible for the media scrutiny.

Finally, for him to say that he is receiving more scrutiny than President Obama’s birth certificate is a bad joke. Where was he when the leading Birther aka The Donald claimed that the private investigator that he had sent to Hawaii had found the truth and he would be proving that the President was not eligible to hold the Office?  Someone needs to tell Gentle Ben that the Birther movement is still alive and well.

Ah Carly:

She does not have policy proposals, but that is okay because:

“How often do politicians put out detailed plans? How often do they get enacted? Never,” Fiorina said on “Meet the Press”

I guess we just have to trust her, not to outsource the rest of our jobs, make decisions that devalue our economy or take us into another war.

Rand Paul informed us that Rubio and Hillary are the same person.

“I see her and Rubio as being the same person,” Paul said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “They both want a no-fly zone. They both have supported activity in Libya, the war in Libya that toppled [Libyan prime minister] Gaddafi, an intervention that made us less safe.”

“They both have supported the Iraq War, so, I mean, what’s the difference?” he asked.

One week less than one year before the elections, and I am hoping that the number of Republicans who have no shot and are saying nothing worthwhile decide to go away soon.  This sideshow has to end; it is long past time for the Republicans to stop making a laughing stock of this country. It is also time for the current incarnation of the GOP to go away.

Our governmental system is based on a thriving healthy 2 party system, which thanks to the Rep leaders who allowed the Tea Party to hijack the GOP in the lead up to the 2008 election, no longer exists.  That is to the detriment of all of us, including the far Right Wing.

New Orbits

Maddow and the Dems

I was looking forward to the Democratic Forum on msnbc last night, hosted by Rachel Maddow.

About 5 minutes into listening to O'Malley, I was sure that I would not make it 2 hours. But, surprisingly I did.

Governor O’Malley is a very accomplished and polished speaker. He says all of the right things, hits the right notes.

He is a handsome white man and in another time, it is possible that he would be the frontrunner.  But in this time, he is up against 2 formidable opponents and, unless something goes terribly wrong, does not stand a chance.

Senator Sanders. Last night is the first time I have listened to him speak for more than a minute or 2.  Listening and watching him for about 30 minutes, I understand why so many liberals are feeling the Bern. 

Secretary Clinton was her usual engaging and self assured self.  She does not promise the stars and the moon, because she knows, just as the rest of us should, that with a house divided, it will be difficult to accomplish the platform presented by her Democratic or Republican opponents.

The House will be in Republican control until 2020, and if Democrats behave as they have in the past, (not voting in off year elections) it will remain so for many years. And the gridlock will continue.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the 3 of them respond to excellent questions posed by Maddow.

I asked friends for their opinions and am including a couple in this post. Neither of them planned on watching the entire show, but did.

LW said: “I thought it was a good format to hear the candidates thoughts without being interrupted or attacking the others. It was a civil discussion and a chance to get to know these people.”

ST wrote: “It was wonderful, I enjoyed every moment of it. At first, I thought well I will watch for a while and see what they had to say totally not expecting to watch the whole thing. However, my eyes and ears were glued... I loved it! There was a very warm, friendly feeling about the whole thing, it's like they were in my living room chatting with me! It was not ALL political, it was very charming..if you can use that word for a Political forum.

‪Of course, the serious questions were asked and answered...they did not say anything that I did not expect, they were just reiterating their plans and policies....and BTW Bernie nailed it! He gave the other party what they deserve!! but there was also a FUN side to the whole thing that I really did not expect. Of course, Rachel Maddow was excellent as usual.”