Monday, December 31, 2012

Something to Know - 1 January


1.  Here's one that is guaranteed to stir it all up.  It is an acknowledgement that the United States Constitution is flawed and out of date.   We need to do it over.   Has this got your attention?   Well, I agree that most of our problems are a result of how the document is interpreted by the Supreme Court.  If we have a Conservative group, we go backward, and fail to address the pressing issues of the present.  If we have a Liberal group, we go forward and attempt to stay with the changing times.  But, why should we have to depend or put up with the political temperature of the day?  The founding fathers had a good idea, but even then it was created in a contentious political.  Can we acknowledge that we can do better, or do we just struggle and muddle along?:

2.  Let's take a look at the agency of Alcohol. Tobacco, and Firearms - the guys who are supposed to be watching out for our gun laws and safety.   The NRA would lead you to believe that we don't need new laws, but that we need to enforce the ones that we already have.  Okay, let's take them up on that one for starters, and go from there.  Let's have a full time head of the ATF, and allow the agency to do its job.  The NRA does everything it can (buying up legislators) to effectively defeat the laws at every turn:

3.  Bill Keller puts in a hypothetical conversation regarding the NRA'a reaction to the shootings at Newtown.  From a marketing perspective the NRA can take advantage of the predicted time period in which the nation will forget the horrors, and buy into a program called "A.O.K" - Arm Our Kids.  Yep, you can read all about it here:

4.  There appears to be some deal agreement.   What will the House Republicans do with it?  Is it a good deal or not?:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/01/us/politics/tentative-deal-is-reached-to-raise-taxes-on-the-wealthy.html?hp&_r=0&pagewanted=print

--
Juan

"As a matter of principle, I never attend the first annual anything."
       -- George Carlin
"An intelligence test sometimes shows a man how smart he would have been not to have taken it."
       -- Laurence J. Peter
"An ignorant person is one who doesn't know what you have just found out."
       -- Will Rogers
"It's a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn't want to hear."
       -- Dick Cavett

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Something that Might Happen - 31 December

NYE Ball Drop © Kirk Walters,Toledo Blade,tax,hikes,middle class,ball,drop,new-year-2013


1.   Well, here we are. Nowhere fast:

2.  King Lindsey Graham rules:

3.  Robert Reich is of the opinion that the Republicans just don't care.  They realize that they have no distinct leadership figurehead, so they will just go down in a blaze of obstructionist glory:
http://www.salon.com/2012/12/28/republicans_just_dont_care_what_the_nation_thinks/

--
Juan

"I am against using death as a punishment. I am also against using it as a reward."
       -- Stanislaw J. Lec
"The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away."
       -- Ronald Reagan
"A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people."
       -- Thomas Mann
"I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy."
       -- J. D. Salinger

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Something to Know -

Rob Rogers
1.  It is a sad situation to have the House of Representatives under the majority control of the Republicans.   The Republican Party has no leader.  Romney should never have been nominated, and now he's gone and we will never see him again.  The Tea Party rabble and Grover Norquist are around just enough to splinter what is left to the point that the GOP is dysfunctional leaderless.   However, there are signs that there may be enough Senate and House Republicans gusty enough to break away, as some have already done to form an alliance with the Democrats to go around the carcass of Boehner and get something done before it is too late.  Even this is an indication that they are not all scared crazy:
http://www.nationalmemo.com/the-worst-congress-in-60-years/

2.  Stupidity and poor decisions are not the sole property of the leadership of Republican leadership.   Hobby Lobby is a privately held corporation, which is good, since no stockholders are around to accuse the CEO and bring lawsuits.  By not complying with federal law, and knowingly doing so, and being liable for a potential $1.3 million/day in fines, it's not too hard to figure out how long he's going to run the business into the ground.  A competitor, Michael's, is a publicly held company with stockholders, and is in a good position to pick up the business that is left after Hobby Lobby Hobbles its way out.  May be a good buy for those who are interested in speculation:

3.  As this column points out, Obama is setting the stage for the Republicans to be the point of focus the success or failure.  If the Republicans insist on protecting the uber-wealthy, while everyone else pays higher taxes, and all of the unemployment checks, that are keeping people from going under, cease.....each and every GOP legislator will pay the pain:

4.  In all of the talk going around on guns and violence and the connection to mental illness, it is hard to be optimistic.  If it isn't the shootings, it's people setting homeless people on fire as they sleep on benches, or others shoving subway riders onto the tracks of approaching trains.   Is it that we are a sick bunch of people, or is it that a few sick people can expend very little physical action and do great damage in a very short period of time?:

5.  The demise of the Tea Party is at hand.  It has given the Republicans the misfortune of being hijacked and ruined all in the span of about 7 years.  Although the original grass root Tea Baggers have not fully realized it, they are in desperation and as they have been dumped by their former billionaire donors, they are running out of money to sustain themselves.  The resulting current mess in the House Republicans is responsible for the dysfunctional inability to lead or legislate anything.  As soon as they are out of the way, maybe an actual governing Congress will return:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-worst-year-in-washington-the-tea-party/2012/12/28/f41da4d0-4f8b-11e2-950a-7863a013264b_print.html

--
Juan

"Eighty percent of married men cheat in America. The rest cheat in Europe."
       -- Jackie Mason
"Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together."
       -- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
"I've always found paranoia to be a perfectly defensible position."
       -- Pat Conroy
"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."
       -- Bill Watterson

Friday, December 28, 2012

Al Qaeda Gives Up

fiscal-cliff-al-qaeda-465.jpg



Al Qaeda Disbands; Says Job of Destroying U.S. Economy Now in Congress' Hands


WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—The international terror group known as Al Qaeda announced its dissolution today, saying that "our mission of destroying the American economy is now in the capable hands of the U.S. Congress."

In an official statement published on the group's website, the current leader of Al Qaeda said that Congress's conduct during the so-called "fiscal-cliff" showdown convinced the terrorists that they had been outdone.

"We've been working overtime trying to come up with ways to terrorize the American people and wreck their economy," said the statement from Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. "But even we couldn't come up with something like this."

Mr. al-Zawhiri said that the idea of holding the entire nation hostage with a clock ticking down to the end of the year "is completely insane and worthy of a Bond villain."

"As terrorists, every now and then you have to step back and admire when someone else has beaten you at your own game," he said. "This is one of those times."

The Al Qaeda leader was fulsome in his praise for congressional leaders, saying, "We have made many scary videos in our time but none of them were as terrifying as Mitch McConnell."

As for the future of Al Qaeda, the statement said that it would no longer be a terror network but would become "more of a social network," offering reviews of new music, movies and video games.

In its first movie review, Al Qaeda gave the film "Zero Dark Thirty" two thumbs down.



--
Juan

"Life's a tough proposition, and the first hundred years are the hardest."
       -- Wilson Mizner
"What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected generally happens."
       -- Benjamin Disraeli
"An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought."
       -- Simon Cameron
"It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper."
       -- Rod Serling

Monday, December 24, 2012

Something to Know - 24 December


122312-toon-luckovich-ed

1.  The gun manufacturing community of Connecticut has learned how to shakedown the state for its support.  Is this a great country, or what?:

2.  From Congress:
December 24, 2012

A HOLIDAY LETTER FROM JOHN BOEHNER

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Today, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) released the following holiday letter to the American people:

Dear American People:

It's Speaker Boehner here, writing my first and last ever holiday letter to you. Why am I doing this after all of these years, you might ask? Well, I won't mince words. I've started drinking a little early this Christmas.

Yes, I'm sitting here in my man-cave, panelled in mahogany the color of me, doing a rack of Canadian Club shooters and smoking my way through a carton of Lucky Strikes as if they were the last Twinkies in creation. If my chief of staff knew that I was writing to you while I was this polluted, he'd shit a phone book. But guess what? I don't fucking care anymore.

You see, this will be my last Christmas as Speaker of the House, all because a cabal of Tea Party miscreants in the House of Representatives doesn't think I'm a ginormous enough asshole for their taste. Who's more to their liking? Virginia's own Eric Cantor. As a waiter might say at an all-you-can-eat shit buffet, "Excellent choice." How odious is Eric Cantor? Let me put it this way: when we have to speak to the press, I actually prefer to stand next to Mitch McConnell.

What will life be like under Speaker of the House Eric Cantor? Well, he's the guy who recommended cuts in disaster funding just hours after tornadoes hit Joplin, Missouri. Nice. And it was his "never met a dick-measuring contest I didn't like" pathology that helped create last year's debt-ceiling crisis. You can't put a price tag on a performance like that. Well, actually you can: it cost the country nineteen billion dollars. Starting to miss me already, aren't you? Fuck you.

So have a very Eric Cantor Christmas, America, and as that smug four-eyed sociopath drives the entire nation off the cliff, don't say I didn't warn you. Now leave me alone, God damn you. Damn you all to hell.

Happy Holidays,

Speaker Boehner




Speaker Boehner






--
Juan

"One of the most glorious messes in the world is the one created in the living room on Christmas day. Don't clean it up too quickly. "
       -- Andy Rooney
"I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food."
       -- W.C. Fields

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Something to Know - 22 December


NRA Act to Provide for School Security and Defense

This petition is for Congress to enact legislation to provide for armed sworn police officers from city, county, or state government to be staffed at all school activities where students are in attendance, for the purpose of school security and protection.   Funding is to be as follows:  The sale of all new or used firearms will be taxed at the rate of 50%.  The surcharge on each bullet or shell sold will be set at one dollar per unit, and may be amended as needed.  The requirement of all firearms be registered for an annual licensing fee of $500 per firearm.  To maintain solvency of this Act,  revenue shortfall will be resolved by a surcharge on sales by all companies involved in the manufacture of firearms and ammunition.   The provisions herein are intended to have this act be self-funding.



The Executive Director of the National Rifle Association announced a plan to strongly suggest to Congress about their meaningful contribution to resolve gun violence in the schools.  To that end, I have created a petition to formally carry forth that intention, but his suggestion included staffing (retired firefighters, volunteers, and others) of less-than professional standards), but did not indicate how his suggestion was to be paid for.  This petition requires the staffing by highly trained police.  More importantly the petition identifies the source of funding in order to make the Act independent of taxpayer general funds and makes the act self-funding.   Please read it and sign if you agree.
--
Juan Matute
Claremont, CA



Friday, December 21, 2012

Something to Know - 21 December

122112-toon-luckovich-ed


1.   Organizations and lobbying interests have a point of view to sell to gain favor with the public and legislators.  We understand that.  In the case of the N.R.A., however, it appears to have gone beyond the pale.   Just like Grover Norquist, there is a methodology   similar to a shakedown by gangsters.   If you do not behave their way, they crush you politically:

2.  As you can tell, I am taking on the NRA.  It has a history of systematically blocking research into gun violence.  Here is something to read on that subject:

3.  The C.D.C. has, as its charge, the obligation to investigate and study all things that are harmful to the health and welfare of the citizens of the USA.   Part of that includes gun violence that kills so many people each year.  Guess what?  The NRA works to ensure that no studies or funding is allowed or approved by specifically shaking down their bought-and-paid-for legislators to make sure it does not happen.  So why do you think the NRA does not want people to know about the deaths of people as a result of guns?   Read here:

4.  With regard to the 2nd Amendment, there are apparently similar concerns from others.  I'm not the only one who is looking at it from it original intended perspective, or intent:
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/13449-the-wait-just-a-goddam-second-amendment

--
Juan

"Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body."
       -- Sir Richard Steele
"Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh."
       -- W. H. Auden
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it."
       -- George Bernard Shaw
"I had a monumental idea this morning, but I didn't like it."
       -- Samuel Goldwyn


Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Something to Know - 20 December

I NEED YOUR HELP - ALL OF YOU

I have actually created a petition for the Obama Administration to consider.  I did it through their "create a petition" on Whitehouse.gov.   It asks to reword the 2nd Amendment to clearly empower the government to regulate firearms.  It is not a ban, or specific action, just a rewording of the Amendment.  You may have seen what I have written already, concerning the revision.  The link to the petition is below.  If you agree with it, please sign.  This petition is active through the 18th of January of 2013.  If it does not obtain the necessary 25,000 figures by then, it stops right there.  I may just wasting time and making futile moves, but I am moved to try, and ask for your signature.  If the spirit moves you, please forward this on to others for additional signatures.  Thank you.


This is the wording of the petition:  (as noted, I already signed it).   Go to the above noted link to sign.


Revise the wording of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution to clearly regulate the ownership of guns.

The 2nd Amendment is in need of revision to better regulate the violence of gun culture that is a result of flawed composition at its inception, which has allowed interpretations harmful to the safety and well being of our nation. The petition is to address what was written, and to suggest the rearrangement of the wording to allow for the regulation of arms:

AS WRITTEN

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.

AS REVISED

The right of the people to keep and bear arms with a well regulated militia for the security of a free state shall not be infringed.

Created: Dec 19, 2012

SIGNATURES NEEDED BY JANUARY 18, 2013 TO REACH GOAL OF 25,000

24,999

TOTAL SIGNATURES ON THIS PETITION

1

You've already signed this petition

Thank you for participating. Find other petitions you're interested in or start your own.

Thank you,

Juan Matute
Claremont, California

Something to Know - 19 December

121912-toon-luckovich-ed

1.   What is it about the following, and its inclusion in our Constitution, that has created so much heartbreak and tragedy in our lives?:

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 preamble to our Constitution includes the phrase  ".... in Order to form a more perfect Union".   The killing (accidental and deliberate) ranges from 75,000 to 100,000 each year.  This is hardly a definition of a "perfect Union.  What is it about the 2nd Amendment, either in its concept or its sentence structure, that is responsible for our national tragedy.   We can develop legislation, and argue legalities, but I think we need to closely analyze the intent of "our Founding Fathers" of those 27 words, or come to an understanding of the flaws.  We really cannot continue as we have.  What is it going to take to form a "more perfect Union?"

2.  In is inevitable that on the first sweep of meaningful legislation to come out of Congress (yes, I am very optimistic) the low-hanging fruit will deliver a ban on assault rifles.  At the same time, or maybe shortly behind, will be legislation to do background checks on gun sales and ammunition.  The argument has been that we need to make sure that the mentally unstable, felons, and people with suspicious histories should not be on the receiving end of guns and ammunition.  So, this is the best time to make that happen:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/19/opinion/the-yawning-loophole-in-the-gun-laws.html?ref=opinion&_r=0&pagewanted=print

--
Juan

""Life's a tough proposition, and the first hundred years are the hardest."
       -- Wilson Mizner
"What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected generally happens."
       -- Benjamin Disraeli
"An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought."
       -- Simon Cameron
"It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper."
       -- Rod Serling