GETTING RID OF DONALD TRUMP MUST BECOME A NATIONAL PRIORITY

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

EXCELLENCE IS THE KEY TO BLACK EQUALITY

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GETTING RID OF DONALD TRUMP MUST BECOME A NATIONAL PRIORITY

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Donald Trump Has Proven To Be Much More Incompetent Than Even His Most Severe Critics Recognized

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Donald Trump is an idiot, and getting rid of that guy must be considered a matter of national survival. At first many of us thought that he was merely clueless and he didn’t realize just how inept he really was, but it is now becoming increasingly clear that he not only knows that he’s in over his head, but due to his ego, he’s prepared to do absolutely ANYTHING to prevent his incompetence from becoming common knowledge. So with Trump it’s like having a pouting and insecure 8-year-old in the White House. While many of us knew from the very first that he was grossly incompetent, at this point he's even scaring his most severe critics, because it’s now beginning to sink in just how profoundly stupid he really is. And between his idiocy, his arrogance, and his desperation to save face, the man is a threat to the entire world.
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And what makes things even worse is, due to a combination of his huge ego and gross insecurity he can’t stand to have anyone in his circle who outshines him. That limits him to having to dig to the very bottom of the barrel to staff his administration. As a result, at a time like this when we’re in the midst of a national emergency, there’s no one around to steer the ship. We’re stuck with a bridge full of idiots. So we’re in deep, deep, trouble.
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During times like these a normal president would be leaving no stone unturned to get the very best advice and enlisting all of the talent he could muster to save the American people, but not Trump. Trump considers this a personal emergency which threatens to reveal what he’s been trying to hide his entire life – his gross ineptitude. So instead of hiring anyone who can help him save the American people, he’s firing everyone whose actions could reveal his gross incompetence during the initial weeks and months of this crisis.
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That’s Trump’s mode of operation. That’s why he’s had such a huge turnover in his administration, because Trump’s world is not about competence and saving the nation, it’s about hiding his incompetence and protecting his personal image. That's also why the more intelligent an individual is, the lesser chance they have of coexisting in Trump's orbit, and everyone who leaves is always replaced by someone of lesser quality. Trump cannot stand competence, because it's a constant reminder of his own incompetence. Trump views competence in others as a disrespectful affront to himself as a person. He's so insecure that he actually resents intelligence.
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But ignorance aside, there’s another reason that Trump is such a horrible leader - he’s both selfish and has a lack of empathy for others. He’s so consumed by the effort of protecting his own interests that he has neither the time, nor inclination, to consider anyone else. That explains why he didn’t swing into action to protect America when he first became aware of the Coronavirus in January of 2020.
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Like most things Trump has benefited from throughout his life, he’s been riding high on the crest of a thriving economy that he inherited from President Obama. He didn’t want to threaten that because he'd claimed it as his own, and that’s all he has to justify his 2020 re-election. So from his point of view, what’s the lives of a few thousand people compared to the danger of disturbing the stock market and threatening his re-election? Thus, he suggested allowing the Coronavirus to wash over the nation and depending on effect “mass immunity” to combat the disease. That explains his comment that “It’ll go away like magic.”
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Trump’s lack of concern for the people and tendency to put his interests ahead of the people is also revealed in his rush to reopen the nation. With Trumps hotels and golf resorts closed down he’s losing millions of dollars during the Coronavirus shutdown, and the shutdown is also devastating the economy that he was counting on to help him be re-elected, so Trump wants the shutdown to come to an end, and as far as he's concerned, to hell with how many American lives it places in jeopardy. Because in his own words, "We don't want the cure to be worse than the problem", and certainly losing a few thousand American lives is nowhere near as bad as the rich losing millions of dollars in the stock market - right? 
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The New York Times recently reported, “Late last month, Mr. Trump’s representatives contacted their relationship managers in Deutsche Bank’s New York private-banking division, which caters to wealthy customers. They wanted to discuss the possibility of delaying payments on some of the hundreds of millions of dollars of outstanding loans that the Trump Organization has from the bank, according to a person briefed on the talks. The discussions are continuing.” So the national shutdown is hitting Trump directly in the pocket, and he lacks both the character, and maturity, to separate his personal interests from what’s in the best interest of the American people. So again, we’re in big, big trouble.
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And we must also remember that Donald Trump is the ultimate loser – he didn’t even win the presidency, Hillary lost it. Trump just happened to be standing in the wings - it could have just as easily been Mr. Magoo.  And he’s never had a friend in his life. No one can stand to be around him and his constant need to prove himself. He was even an outcast among the movers and shakers in New York; the banks wouldn't have anything to do with him, and he’s filed bankruptcy six times, so again, America is in very shaky hands.
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Trump has always been the kid looking in through the window that nobody would let in – the ultimate outcast. The reason for that is his father gave him everything, so he never had to develop the character, social skills, or intellect to succeed among others. Everything he’s ever gotten has been given to him, or he obtained through lying and deceit. 
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Now Trump's smearing America with that very same image among world leaders – the bratty rich kid who no one either likes, or want to be around. So in just a mere three years Trump’s managed to drag America down from a position of honor and respect around the world, to being viewed as a nation of classless and unsophisticated Hillbillies. It’s a sad state of affairs, and one of the lowest periods in the history of the United States. But we can't expect anything more from Dubious Donnie - if his daddy hadn’t been rich, he’d be homeless.

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Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
BLACK WRITERS, INTELLECTUALS, AND INDEPENDENT THINKERS
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Religion: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does. 

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REGARDING THE SELF-RIGHTEOUS, HYPOCRITICAL, AND IRRESPONSIBLE GOP

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

REGARDING THE SELF-RIGHTEOUS, HYPOCRITICAL, AND IRRESPONSIBLE GOP

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I have a rule of thumb that has served me well throughout my adult life, and it’s quite simple - never trust the self-righteous. Self-righteous people are invariably the most malevolent people you’ll ever meet, and that tends to hold true regardless to whether we’re talking about politics or religion, and there’s a reason for that. The self-righteous tend to project their own character flaws upon others, so if you ever want to know what conservatives are up to, you simply pay attention to the offenses that they're accusing others of committing.
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A perfect example of that is how conservatives often refer to liberals as "Commie sympathizers," yet they enthusiastically support Donald Trump who's all but a Russian ambassador. They also tend to refer to liberals as "Godless heathens," while they support the kidnapping of children from their parents and putting them in cages. So it's no surprise that a full 81% of all White Evangelical Christians voted for Trump, because they've never seen a rapist (Kavanaugh, Trump) or child molester (Roy Moore) that they didn't think needed to be elected to office. Thus, in their assessment of others they tend to say, “Aw, they’re full of crap; I know what they're up to.” The reason they feel that way is because they assume that everyone is just as devious in their motivations and as flawed as they are, and then they delude themselves into believing that they’ve managed to turn their own character flaws into what are merely useful tools to assess others. So essentially, they believe that other people are evil, but their own malevolence is a valuable source of wisdom.
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That attitude is a fundamental part of conservative thinking. That’s what contributes to the gross perversion and religious zealotry living side by side within people Roy Moore, the highly religious child molester, and the murderous bigotry and greed living under the guise of patriotism in people like Dick Cheney and Donald Trump, and there’s a constant display of that exact same kind of delusion, malevolence and hypocrisy running throughout conservative history.
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Conservatives have suffered from this collective flaw, this blind spot in their character, going all the way back to the very beginning of this republic. As I’ve mentioned in previous articles, Alexander Hamilton, one of this nation’s most conservative founding fathers, believed that the rich and "wellborn" should be given a "permanent share in government." He said:
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“All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and wellborn, the other the mass of the people…. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class [the rich]a distinct, permanent share in government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second [the people], and as they cannot receive any advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government.”
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Hamilton supported a lifetime appointment of the President, after being selected by congress, instead of the people.  Can you just imagine that, Donald Trump FOR LIFE!!!?  But America dodged that bullet during the Federalist Convention that took place between May 14 and September 17, 1787.
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Since most of the founding fathers came to America to escape the aristocratic class system in Europe, Hamilton’s desire to preserve the class system was resoundingly defeated in favor of an unfettered democracy, but that didn’t mean that people of Hamilton’s point of view would quietly go away. Instead, they lowered their profile and continued to pursue their agenda by using their wealth, power, and various strategies to divide the people to achieve their goal, and that’s what we see today.  That accounts for why conservatives tend to be specialists in obstructionism and division, and why the American people ALWAYS suffer under conservative governance.

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During the 70s Howard Hughes, founder of Hughes Aircraft, was world renown as one of the richest men in the world.  When he died in 1976 his net worth was $1.5 billion, the equivalent of $6.45 billion in today’s dollars.  But today, Jeff Bezo, the 53 year-old CEO of Amazon, is reported to have a net worth of $109.9 billion.
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According to the Economic Policy Institute, “CEO compensation increased from $1.5 million in 1978 to $16.3 million in 2014, or 997 percent, a rise almost double stock market growth. Over the same time period, a typical worker’s wages grew very little: the annual compensation, adjusted for inflation, of the average private-sector production and nonsupervisory worker (comprising 82 percent of total payroll employment) rose from $48,000 in 1978 to just $53,200 in 2014, an increase of only 10.9 percent. Due to this unequal growth, average top CEOs now make over 300 times what typical workers earn.”  So, so much for Ronald Reagan and the GOP’s “Trickle Down” theory.  Since Ronald Reagan entered office the rich have become exponentially richer, while the poor and middle class have essentially been marching in place, or in other words, losing ground. 
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The American middle class has been in freefall every since the election of Ronald Reagan.  When I was in college in the 70s my tuition was $6.50 per term, my rent for a  two bedroom apartment with two baths and a swimming pool was $165 per month,  and I received veterans assistance of over $600 per month. Then with my late wife's salary from Rockwell International of over $2000 per month, that allowed me to get an education while raising two children in complete middle-class comfort.  But after the conservative seizure of our economy during the Reagan administration, today young people have to live with their parents and mortgage their future to obtain draconian loans just to get a college degree.
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Thus, conservative Republicans are determined to create Alexander Hamilton’s two-tier society through hook or crook, and their reckless determination to install Brett Kavanaugh onto the Supreme Court is clear evidence of that. In spite of their flag pins in their lapels and claims to be super-patriots and Evangelical Christians, they’re more than willing to support an obvious criminal and possible traitor as President of the United States, and a felonious perjurer and an attempted rapist on the Supreme Court. Just a moment's thought would suggest there's something wrong with that picture. And yes, I believe Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's allegation that Kavanaugh tried to rape her. After all, if she wanted to just make up a story, why would she add a friend of the accused, a hostile witness, as being on the scene? That would be stupid. And another thing that's strangely striking is if the allegation wasn't true you'd think that Kavanaugh's friend, Mark Judge, would be anxious to come forward and say, "This woman is lying on my friend," but instead, he said he doesn't want to testify.  Could that be because he doesn't want to take the chance of going to jail for perjury?
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So again, the GOP has a history of treason and working against the interest of the American people to promote their own malevolent interests. Richard Nixon sabotaged President Johnson's peace talks with the North Vietnamese in order to help him in his campaign for president. That caused the loss of countless American lives. Ronald Reagan later made a deal with the Iranians to continue to hold Americans hostage until after his election, and they were released as he was taking the Oath of Office. In addition, he flooded the inner-cities with crack cocaine to support his illegal war in Nicaragua. And then during the George W. Bush administration, Dick Cheney leaked the identity of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame in retribution against her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, after he investigated and then revealed that the pretext of the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq was a lie. And then there was the letter signed by 47 Republican senators to Iran:
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“As first reported by Bloomberg's Josh Rogin, a group of 47 Republican senators signed a letter addressed to "the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran," warning them not to be too optimistic about ongoing negotiations with the Obama administration over Tehran's nuclear program.”

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So the bottom line is, while President Obama was in negotiations with Iran to prevent their further development of nuclear weapons, 47 Republicans senators signed a letter warning the Iranians not to sign it.  The reason for that is since the fall of the Soviet Union they need a "Bogey Man" to justify their huge military budget that they're using to transfer the wealth of America into the hands of the top 1% of the population.  That's not only against American interests, but flat-out treason.
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And then finally (so far), NYmag.com reported the following:
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"Shortly before Trump’s inauguration, according to Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman, Israeli intelligence officials gathered at CIA headquarters, where they were told something astonishing: Russia, the agency believed, had “leverages of pressure” over the incoming president. Therefore, the agency advised the Israelis to consider the possibility that Trump might pass their secrets on to Russia. The Israelis dismissed the warning as outlandish. Who could believe that the world’s most powerful country was about to hand its presidency to a Russian dupe? That the United States government had, essentially, fallen?
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"A few months later, Trump invited Russian diplomats into the Oval Office. He boasted to them that he had fired “nut job” James Comey. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.” At the same meeting, Trump passed on to the Russians a highly sensitive intelligence secret Israel had captured from a valuable source inside ISIS. It was the precise danger Israel had been cautioned about."
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DRAFT-DODGIN' DONNIE

So flag pins notwithstanding, when it comes to blatant hypocrisy - especially regarding their professed love for America - conservative Republicans tend to be a most rare and highly disingenuous breed. They live to wrap themselves in the flag as if it's their personal security blanket, yet, when it comes to their horrendous assault on the nation and the American people - like shutting down the government, needlessly putting our troops in harm's way, refusing to support our vets (after they've outlived their usefulness on the battlefield), continually holding the American people hostage for the benefit of their wealthy cronies, and their blatant obstruction of any and every attempt to provide economic relief for the average American - they're prepared to engage in the most ridiculously illogical contortions to try to justify their unconscionable behavior.  Even as we speak they're trying to take away the benefits of the American people, such as social Security and Medicare, to pay for their $1.5 trillion tax giveaway to the rich. They treat the American people like we're stupid.  They slap us in the face, and then lecture us for causing them to injure their hand.  

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Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

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THE REPUBLICAN RIP-OFF OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

THE REPUBLICAN RIP-OFF OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
(REPRISE)

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Here's Why Our Grandparents - Who We Referred To As "The Greatest Generation" - Wouldn't Let A Republican Anywhere Near The White House. 

But The GOP Hopes That Our Generation Has Forgotten That Lesson, So They're At It Again. 

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It's always a bad idea for a writer to overstate his or her case or deal in hyperbole. It causes readers not to take the writer seriously, so let me choose my words carefully. The Republican Party has morphed into a fascist, bigoted, un-American, and completely inept and irresponsible threat to world peace, with a pronounced tendency toward treason even as they wrap themselves in the American flag.  I could go on, but I want to be careful to remain "fair and balanced." 
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The GOP's thoughtless, greedy and uncaring policies toward the American people have been troubling since before the Great Depression. The only thing that keeps the GOP viable is once they're voted out the public tends to forget their previous atrocities during the four to eight years they're out of office. But our grandparent's generation, the generation we refer to as the "Greatest Generation" - those who suffered through the Great Depression and fought WWII - didn't forget. They wouldn't let Republicans even go NEAR the White House. There were two reasons for that. First, back then they had a functional educational system, and secondly, they suffered so horrifically at the hands of the Republicans that they couldn't forget. 

CHILD LABOR DURING
THE GREAT DEPRESSION

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In 1921 - eight years before the great depression -  Republicans took over the helm of this nation for 12 years. During that time there were three Republican administrations. The first of which was the administration of Warren G. Harding. History remembers Harding's administration for one thing more than anything other - scandal. It was during Harding's presidency that the Teapot Dome Scandal erupted. His administration was considered the most corrupt administration in the history of the United States - until Nixon's, then Reagan's, and finally Bush's.
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Next, in 1923, came Calvin Coolidge, the president that Ronald Reagan is said to have most admired. Coolidge's policies of large tax cuts, allowing business a free-rein, and his encouragement of stock speculation contributed greatly to the impending stock market crash and the great depression that was to come. 
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Then in 1929 Herbert Hoover came to power. During his administration the stock market crashed, starting the great depression. In spite of the fact that by 1933 the unemployment rate was at 33.3% with 16 million people out of work, Hoover and his Republicans just sat, thinking that the economy would eventually rejuvenate itself. After all, they could afford to just wait it out; they weren't suffering, they could wait it out in comfort.  But during Hoover's administration 15,000 WWI veterans marched on Washington demanding that they be paid what they were owed by the government. Hoover responded by calling in federal troops to throw these ex-servicemen off government property. 
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Finally in 1933 Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a liberal Democrat, was elected overwhelmingly. He immediately surrounded himself with a group of the finest minds in the country, including Columbia professors Adolph A. Berle, Jr., Rexford G. Tugwell, and Raymond Moley, known at the time as the "Brain Trust." After assembling these men and others he went about the business of developing a" New Deal" for the working class people of this country. 
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The New Deal had two components - one to help the economy to recover from the effects of the great depression, and a second component to give relief to the American people and to insure that they would never be placed in a position of total destitution again. To help heal the economy Roosevelt created programs that regulated business, controlled inflation, and brought about price stabilization; to bring relief to the people he signed The National Labor Relations Act which guaranteed workers the right to collective bargaining, and he created the Social Security Administration to guarantee workers some sort of income once they became too old to work. He also signed the Fair Labor Standards Act which protected workers rights and set a minimum wage for workers. But every since the New Deal was enacted, the abolishment of every one of its programs has been the Republican Party's reason for living.
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During the Great Depression there was no such thing as Social Security, so when a person became too old or weak to work they had no income so they had to depend on their children for support. That meant instead of a husband and wife only having to support themselves and their children, which was tough enough during those times, they also had to support their parents. So there was often three generations of a family in one household - and in many cases, the parents of both the husband, and wife, lived with the family.
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In addition, there was no such thing as Medicare or Medicaid, so when one of the grandparents became ill the medical costs would devastate the entire family. These conditions kept lower and middle-class families in such dire need of funds that they had to accept whatever crumbs the business community chose to throw at them - and remember, at that time there was no Fair Labor Standards Act or unions to protect a worker’s rights or a minimum wage, so businesses could treat the worker anyway they wanted, and pay them whatever they wanted.
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They could work you 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, with no overtime, no paid vacation, and no sick leave, so workers had to choose between staying in bed with the flu, or feeding their families. In addition, since there was no child labor laws, if your boss didn't think you were being productive enough, he could insist that you bring your children in (as young as 9 years old) to assist you if you wanted to keep your job. Then if you protested, he could fire you on the spot, in which case, your entire family - sick grandparents and all - would be thrown out on the street, because there was no such thing as unemployment insurance.
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As a result, in many cases the entire family, including the children, had to work long, hard hours under sweatshop-like conditions in coal mines and the like, which in many cases led to the death and/or maiming of young children. So in a very real sense, Great Depression era workers lived under a form of slavery - the one difference was, they had to go out and find their own housing.
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Think back to the "Little Rascals" we used to watch as kids, and how ragged they were, or the cartoons we use to watch, where a landlord would come to the door (always portrayed in a black suit) and would tell a begging and crying mother that she had one more day to come up with the rent or she and her family would be thrown out in the snow. That was an accurate portrayal of the way people lived in those days, and those are the conditions that the conservative Republican agenda would restore in America today. Those are the conditions that they’re FIGHTING to restore today.
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But by putting his "New Deal for the American people" in place, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, this "bleeding heart liberal," not only led this country out of the worst, Republican generated, crisis that this country has ever faced, but he went on to lead the free world in victory over Hitler in WWII. He then ushered in the most sustained prosperity that the world has ever known. 

So the people of the "Greatest Generation" elected Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt into office an unprecedented four terms, from 1932 until he died in office in 1945. Thereafter, Republican nominee, Thomas E. Dewey, had to push for the Twenty-Second Amendment creating presidential term limits for a Republican to even get a whiff of the White House, and even then, a Republican wasn't elected until Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 - and he was only elected because he was the allied commander credited with winning WWII, and he was a Republican in name only.  He signed the 1957 Civil Rights Act, and sent troops into Little Rock Arkansas to integrate the schools.
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 In addition, as President Eisenhower's very last act of office he warned the American people of the military/industrial complex, or people like Dick Cheney and the kind of Republicans we have in office today. He described them as a threat to our democracy. Ike was nothing like the Republicans we see today. He would have summarily shot Dick Cheney had he been in office when Cheney allegedly outed CIA operative, Valarie Plame.
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So the "Greatest Generation" understood what we're only now finding out the hard way about the Republican Party due to the GOP's systematic dismantling of our information and educational systems - that their pronounced greed and lust for power has rendered them prone to being reckless, irresponsible, without limits, and a danger to our democracy.  We've had the opportunity to see all of these malevolent characteristics in graphic detail recently in the GOP's invitation to Benjamin Netanyahu, a foreign leader, to come thumb his nose at our President before a joint session of the United States Congress - and never once did one of them tell Netanyahu, "You lie." 
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The GOP also demonstrated reckless irresponsibility with the unprecedented act of  DIRECTLY intervening in the President's nuclear arms negotiations with Iran when 47 Republican senators signed a letter to the government of Iran essentially saying, "Don't pay this guy [THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!!!] any attention." That's the reckless, petty, and immature behavior of irate children who cannot be trusted with any sort of power.  They're either too dumb to understand, or too reckless to care that this nation has ALWAYS lived by the axiom that "Politics end at the water's edge." These 47 senators are in direct violation of the Logan Act and are guilty of treason. The Logan Act specifically state the following:
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"Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both."
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In the 1936 Supreme Court case United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp. Justice Sutherland wrote in the majority opinion that:
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"[T]he President alone has the power to speak or listen as a representative of the nation. He makes treaties with the advice and consent of the Senate; but he alone negotiates. Into the field of negotiation the Senate cannot intrude, and Congress itself is powerless to invade it."
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In a 1793 letter from Thomas Jefferson to Edmond Charles Genet, Jefferson points out the following:
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"He [the President of the United States] being the only channel of communication between this country and foreign nations, it is from him alone that foreign nations or their agents are to learn what is or has been the will of the nation; and whatever he communicates as such, they have a right, and are bound to consider as the expression of the nation, and no foreign agent can be allowed to question it, to interpose between him and any other branch of Government, under the pretext of either’s transgressing their functions, nor to make himself the umpire and final judge between them."
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So to have 46 senior Republican senators to follow the lead of a freshman senator - who's only been in the senate for a matter of weeks - in violating tradition, protocol, and Constitutional law, betrays a level of recklessness, lack of statesmanship, ignorance, and pure stupidity, that's astounding!  Yet these very same people claim that we should give them the power to run the nation!!!?  The American people would have to be complete idiots.  

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So again, because it can't be repeated often enough, the GOP has clearly demonstrated that they are much too petty and dangerously irresponsible to be trusted with power. When they're in the minority they pout, throw tantrums, and leave no stone unturned to obstruct democracy when they can't get their way, and when they're in power they act with the reckless abandon of ravenously deprived children turned loose in an all-you-can-eat chocolate factory.  But unfortunately, it's always America who ends up with the belly ache. 
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The closest the GOP has come to dismantling the New Deal started during the Reagan administration with Supply-Side Economics, or, "Reaganomics" - and the battle is currently raging in Washington D.C. as we speak.
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Supply- Side Economics was a scheme hatch by U.S.C. economist Arthur Laffer and the Reagan crowd which was supposed to cut the deficit and balance the budget. The theory behind Reaganomics was ostensibly, if you cut taxes for business and people in the upper tax brackets, and then deregulated business of such nuisances as safety regulations and environmental safeguards, the beneficiaries would invest their savings into creating new jobs. In that way the money would eventually "trickle down" to the rest of us. The resulting broadened tax base would then not only help to bring down the deficit, but also subsidize the tremendously high defense budget. It's exactly the same plan the Republicans in congress are pushing today. But when the plan was first floated, even George Bush Sr., Reagan's vice president to be, called it "voodoo economics."
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Reaganomics, for the most part, sought to undo many of the safeguards put into place during the Roosevelt era and create a business environment similar to that which was in place during the Coolidge Administration - which led directly to the Great Depression. And as we saw in 1987 under Reagan, and the 2008 Wall Street meltdown, these Republican policies led to the very same result.
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Under Reagan, instead of taking the money and investing it into creating new jobs as the American people were promised, the money was used in wild schemes and stock market speculation. One of these schemes, the leveraged buy-out, involved buying up large companies with borrowed funds secured by the company's assets, then paying off the loan by selling off the assets of the purchased company. This practice cost the citizens of this country its industrial base. In addition, the bottom fell out of the stock market. On Monday, October 19, 1987 the Dow-Jones Average fell 508.32 points. It was the greatest one-day decline since 1914 - 15 years before the Great Depression.
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 And what about Ronald Reagan's promise to balance the budget and lower the deficit? By the time he left office he was not only the most prolific spender of any president in history, but he added more to the deficit than all of the other presidents from George Washington to his own administration COMBINED. And what did the Republican Party propose to do about that? One of the Republican proposals was their "contract with America," a capitol gains tax cut - for the rich.
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Then in 1988 Silverado Savings and Loan collapsed, costing the taxpayers $1.3 billion. It was headed by Neil Bush, brother of George W. Bush.  The investigation alleged that he was guilty of "breaches of his fiduciary duties involving multiple conflicts of interest." The issue was eventually settled out of court with Bush paying a mere $50,000 settlement.
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Then there was the Lincoln Savings and loan scandal in 1987, involving John McCain. The scandal was very similar to the one that played out on Wall Street in 2008. McCain was one of a group of senators dubbed "The Keating Five" involved in a scandal by the same name.
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In 1976 Charles Keating moved to Arizona to run the American Continental Corporation. In 1984, shortly after the Reagan era push to deregulate the savings and loan community, Keating bought Lincoln Savings and Loan and began to engage in highly risky investments with the depositors' savings. In 1989 the parent company, which Keating headed, went bankrupt, and it resulted in over 21,000 investors losing their life savings. Most of the investors were elderly, and the loss amounted to about 285 million dollars.
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After having received over a million dollars from Keating in illegal campaign contributions, gifts, free trips, and other gratuities, the Keating Five - Senators John Glenn, Don Riegle, Dennis DeConini, Alan Cranston, and Sen. John McCain - attempted to intervene in the investigation into Keating's activities by the regulators. Later, they were admonished to varying degrees by the senate for attempting to influence regulators on Keating's behalf. Charles Keating ended up being convicted for fraud, racketeering and conspiracy, for which he received 10 years by the state court, and a 12 year sentence in federal court. After spending four and a half years in prison, his convictions were overturned. But prior to being retried, he pled guilty to a number of felonies in return for a sentence of time served.
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Then came the George W. Bush administration that caused close to a million people to die uselessly in an illegal war in Iraq, robbed the American people blind, whose fumbling ignited the longest war in American history in Afghanistan, and whose greed came very close to sending the nation into yet another depression.
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Now, after all of their repeated efforts to deplete the national treasury, they're unanimously voting against every piece of legislation that the Democrats propose to repair the damage they created and bring relief to the American people. Then they have the audacity to claim that they're doing it because they're concerned about deficit spending. 

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They're against affordable health care for American families; they're against any kind of spending to put Americans back to work, and they're against extending unemployment insurance to relieve the burden of America's unemployed. What's particularly telling, however, is they're also against any kind of strong legislation to prevent the financial community (them) from being able to rob the American people in the future.
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Also interesting, considering their deep "concern" over the national debt, is the estimated $4 trillion Bush tax cut for the rich. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, "Considering  both the direct costs of the tax cuts and the associated increase in interest payments, the tax cuts would increase deficits by nearly $4 trillion between 2005 and 2014."
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1811
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So the fact is, what they really wanted prior to the 2012 election was to maintain the status quo, and make sure that the American people remained miserable, hungry, and divided until the elections so they'd have a better chance to regain power and raid the treasury again. Republican Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, was frustrated and reckless enough to say it out loud - "Our No. 1 priority is to make this president a one-term president" - not to save America, or to bring relief to the American people, but to make Barack Obama a one-term president. Flag pens in lapels and patriotic rhetoric notwithstanding, that says it all about the GOP's lack of concern for America, or the American people.
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After they lost the 2012 election, the Republican agenda shifted to making sure that President Obama was not successful, which is politispeak for making sure the American people continued to suffer.  The rationale behind their agenda is, if they allow President Obama to bring relief to the American people, and then you combine that combine that with the rapidly changing demographic, that could spell doom for the future of the GOP - and it should, because they're grossly out of touch with reality, and, America's best interest. That's why that's why the GOP is out to create a corporate feudalist society as soon as possible. They see time as running out on them, and that's what makes them so dangerous.
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The Middle Class Slide Since the Reagan Administration

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"In 1982, Forbes magazine began its now much-read annual list of America’s richest men and women. At the time of the first list, there were 12 billionaires in the country and fewer than 200,000 millionaires. By the year 2000, there were nearly 300 billionaires and about 5 million millionaires. Smith’s account of the rise of the rich and super-rich tells the story of five types of individuals: entrepreneurs, dealmakers, investors, tycoons (corporate executives, who are distinguished from
entrepreneurs), and entertainers."
http://www.beardbooks.com/beardbooks/the_rise_of_todays_rich_and_super_rich.html
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"No matter how you slice it, when it comes to income and wealth in America the rich get most of the pie and the rest get the leftovers. The numbers are shocking. Today the top 1 percent of Americans control 43 percent of the financial wealth (see the pie chart below) while the bottom 80 percent control only 7 percent of the wealth. Incredibly, the wealthiest 400 Americans have the same combined wealth as the poorest half of Americans — over 150 million people.".
A recent Princeton study Shows that America is no longer a democracy. We are now an Oligarchy, controlled by the rich. So it is essential that we wake up. Racism is no longer the war; racism is now merely a TOOL of war. We are now knee-deep in a CLASS WAR, and the American people are losing badly - ALL of the American people.
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Here’s the game that we're allowing the corporatists to run on us. They’ve convinced America that if we give the rich enough money, they’ll use that money to create jobs for the poor and middle class. Now, I don’t claim to be an intellectual giant, but it doesn’t take a great mind to understand that demand fuels supply, not the reverse. 
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If I made my living selling Gucci Bags, for example, I don’t care how much money you give me, I’m not going to hire anyone to produce any more Gucci Bags than I have in stock if I'm being forced to sell those bags in a homeless shelter. It wouldn’t make sense, because in a homeless shelter no one would have the money to purchase my product. The only way that you’re going to get me to hire people to produce Gucci Bags is if you gave that money to the people in the shelter so they’d have the money to buy my merchandise.
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That's exactly what's happening in America today. Corporate profits are at record highs, and the information and charts above clearly show that corporations and corporate executives are currently making more money than they've ever dreamed of in the past. So there's no reason for high unemployment. The rich are not putting that money into creating jobs; that money is going into offshore accounts, and we never see it again. That's why the rich are getting so much richer, and the middle class so much poorer.
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On the other hand, if the Republican congress would allow President Obama to create jobs to repair American's infrastructure - repair bridges, dams, and interstate highways and the like - that money would create jobs, just like it did when it brought us out of the Great Depression. Then, Americans would have money to spend on goods and services. They would go on vacations, so hotels and restaurants would have to hire people to accommodate them, and the food industry would have to hire people to process and serve their food. They would also buy bicycles and toys for their children, and that would create jobs, and they would buy more clothing, gas, and make needed repairs to their homes, and that would create jobs. And as a result of all those jobs being created, more revenue would come into the government in taxes, which would allow us to pay down the national debt.
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Again, think about it - the business community is making more profits than they've ever made in their history, so there's no logical reason for unemployment in America to be so high. The reason that unemployment is so high is because it's being kept high on purpose.
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Consider this. In the sixties, Howard Hughes was famous for being one of the richest men in the world.  He was considered so incredibly rich that they made movies about him. But compared to today's billionaires, he'd qualify for food stamps. Howard Hughes only had $4 billion, but today, Bill Gates has $79.1 billion, David Koch, of the infamous Koch brothers has $41.3 Billion, and even the young man, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, has $29.9 billion.  So there is absolutely no reason for the American people to be suffering so severely, and for unemployment to be so high - yet, they have us hating and pointing the finger at one another as the cause of our misery, when as pointed out above, the wealthiest 400 Americans have as much combined wealth as the 150 million poorest half of Americans.
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So it doesn't take a brain surgeon to see where the wealth of middle-class America has gone. It hasn't gone to "illegal aliens," or people requiring food stamps. Corporate welfare is nearly double the cost of all social programs. About $59 billion is spent on traditional social welfare programs. $92 billion is spent on corporate subsidies. So, the government spent nearly 50% more on corporate welfare than it did on food stamps and housing assistance in 2006.  http://thinkbynumbers.org/government-spending/corporate-welfare/corporate-welfare-statistics-vs-social-welfare-statistics/
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The GOP's supposed concern for the national debt is only a pretext to block spending and keep unemployment high. They are purposely trying to turn America into a homeless shelter, because the GOP and its corporate cronies have a vested interest in keeping us angry, miserable, and divided.
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The GOP's motive is political - by keeping unemployment high and the American people miserable, it makes Obama and the Democrats look bad, and they're hoping that the resulting anger and division in the country will help them to get elected in a demographic that's shrinking to the GOP's disadvantage. And the corporatist are trying to squeeze the middle class. They’re trying to lower the American middle class standard of living to a level that conforms to the other countries in the global economy, where in many countries people make less per week than some middle-class Americans spend on lunch per day. So they're trying to squeeze the middle class to the point that it lowers our expectations, and we'll feel grateful for less.
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Their ultimate agenda is to turn America into a corporate feudalist state, where the American people are totally dependent on corporations for their survival. That will greatly enhance corporate profits, and essentially, allow them to control this nation. That's why the GOP is attacking unions, our educational system, and all social programs that prevent us from being totally reliant on the business community. They want to have complete control over our lives.
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GOP politicians just tend to lack common sense. Republican President Richard M. Nixon lacked the common sense to recognize that the President of the United States should not become an accessory to a common, street-level burglary, or place American citizens on an "Enemies List." Republican President Ronald Reagan lacked the common sense to realize that it was inappropriate to commit the treasonous act of going behind President Jimmy Carter's back and making a deal with a foreign enemy that was holding American citizens hostage to continue to hold those citizens hostage for political gain. Reagan also lacked the common sense to realize that it was inappropriate to flood America's inner cities with crack cocaine in order to finance his illegal war in Nicarauga. It was ruthless, immoral, and unconscionable, in spite of Nancy Reagan's warning to Black children to "Just say no." Republican President George W. Bush lacked the common sense to recognize that it was inappropriate to lie the nation into a multi-trillion dollar war with Iraq, killing over a million Iraqi citizens, and killing or wounding thousands of American troops for political gain and the enrichment of Dick Cheney's Halliburton Corp.  And Dick Cheney lacked the common sense to recognize that it was an act of treason to reveal the identity of an American CIA agent for spite, and that Americans don't engage in torture.  Thus, the Republican Party is turning America into an ugly place.  They're making America itself, un-American.
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Republican politicians and their cronies have a long history of pettiness, greed,  poor judgment, and a tendency to continually drag America down a rat hole to satisfy their selfish lust for wealth and power.  Thus, America needs to wake up and see these people for who they are, because 2016 is going to be a pivotal election. If the Republicans win they know that the demographics are against them, so they'll never relinquish power again - regardless to WHAT they have to do.  Think about the ramifications of that.
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And if you're a White social conservative who takes comfort in those ramifications, don't, because the rich, fiscal conservatives, don't care any more about poor and middle class White people than they do Muslims, minorities, or gays. You're only being used to keep the working class divided, because the GOP's agenda is so toxic to the American people that their very viability is completely dependent upon maintaining hatred, animosity, and strife among the poor and middle class. So if they win, looking into your dumb faces is going to be the only thing gratifying about it.
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Eric L. Wattree 
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

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Conservatives Claim The GOP 47 Aren't Traitors Because They Didn't Send The Treason Letter By Mail

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

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Conservatives Claim The GOP 47 Aren't Traitors Because They Didn't Send The Treason Letter By Mail

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PROTECT OUR TROOPS FROM THE NEOCONS

When it comes to blatant hypocrisy - especially regarding their professed love for America - conservative Republicans tend to be a most rare and highly disingenuous breed. They live to wrap themselves in the flag as if it's their personal security blanket, yet, when it comes to their horrendous assault on the nation and the American people - like shutting down the government, refusing to support our vets (other than in the most weak and disingenuous Aphorisms), continually holding the American people hostage for the benefit of their wealthy cronies, and their blatant obstruction of any and every attempt to provide economic relief for the people - they're prepared to engage in the most ridiculously illogical contortions to try to justify their unconscionable behavior.  They treat the American people like we're stupid.  They'll slap us in the face, and then lecture us for causing them to injure their hand.
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Their latest affront to our common sense is in an article written by Deroy Murdock for the National Review. Mr. Murdock say's the following:
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"Cotton got 46 other senators to sign this letter in ink. “Because it was an open letter, it was not sent to Tehran but rather posted on Senator Cotton’s website and social-media accounts,” Caroline Rabbitt, Senator Cotton’s communications director, explained to me last week. Cotton & Co. never even dropped an envelope in the mail . . . Agree or disagree with that point, here is the inescapable truth: Tom Cotton and his Senate colleagues never contacted anyone in Iran. That fact alone should turn the Left’s fluttering “GOP = Treason” banner into a wet rag.(http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/415456/cotton-letter-was-not-sent-anywhere-especially-not-iran-deroy-murdock)
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Could this gentleman possibly be serious!!!?  Does he REALLY think that the American people are so stupid that we'd buy into as weak an attempt of trying to justify a treasonous act as that - that even though, in this age of mass communication, the Republican 47 posted their treasonous attempt to sabotage an ongoing United States negotiation on an official United States Senate.Gov website that these 47 traitors should be vindicated because they didn't buy a stamp!!!? This simply a variation on one of the weak defenses that's already bombed: "Oh, the letter was only addressed improperly. No big deal. My bad."  And there's one other thing. The defense is so disingenuously asinine that implicit within it is the admission that if the letter WOULD have been sent by mail, it indeed WOULD have been treason.
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If there hadn't been such an explosive outrage over their treasonous stupidity these 47 senators would be struttin' around like peacocks. For the GOP, life is not about what's proper, it's about what you can get away with - and we DEFINITELY shouldn't let them get away with this, because the next time they'll do something worse. These people are without limits, so they're constantly testing ours.
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So if Mr. Murdock truly believes that his latest concoction of a defense is gonna fly, we need to send the DEA over there to the National Review because they've GOT to be on drugs. perhaps someone over there has gotten into Rush Limbaugh's Oxycontin stash.
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The Republican 47 didn't avoid sending their treason letter directly to Tehran because they were trying to observe any sort of protocol, or trying to avoid violating the law - they posted it on an official United States Senate.Gov website, and on official United States Senate stationary. In addition, the title makes it abundantly clear who it was addressed to:  "AN OPEN LETTER TO THE LEADERS OF THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN."  These 47 Republican senators posted their treasonous and ill-conceived letter online for two reasons - first, they wanted to embarrass President Obama; and secondly, in their stupidity, and bad judgment, they thought they were going to get a slap on the back and that the American people were going to give them brownie points for it.
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The action of these 47 Republican senators was not only stupid and ill-conceived, but also treasonous and threatens world security. It's a perfect example of why for the past one hundred years, EVERY time the Republican Party is trusted with any kind of power, they drag America down a rat hole.  The only exception to that was President Eisenhower's administration, who was a Republican in name only (a Rino), and as his very last act of office, warned America about the Military/Complex, and neocons just like these.
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Tom Cotton, the freshman senator who was the initiatior of this letter is the protege of Bill Kristol, one of the primary neocons who led us into the Iraq disaster. So either the 46 senior senators who allowed themselves to follow in lockstep behind this wet-behind-the-ears kid - who's only been in the senate a matter of DAYS - have incredibly bad judgment, or there has to be a malevolent agenda afoot. So there needs to be a thorough congressional investigation into this matter. We owe it to America, we owe to our troops, and we owe it to the world.

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ODE TO A CHICKEN HAWK 

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Oh,   

sweet patriot, square of jaw,  and demeanor of firm command,

how fearlessly you stand in defense of America,

and the savior of all God’s chosen men.

Anointed by God as his personal envoy

to all men, corrupt and blind,

and charged with the

swift and brutal destruction

of all "heathens" of other kind.

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You stand vigilant against all our enemies,

both foreign and imagined within;

You vigorously guard against all that is evil,

and all that you see as sin.

You define God’s needs and precious values,

in the most unambiguous tones,

and never once have you erred on behalf of truth,

to reveal "God’s values" as indeed your own.

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You lead our troops in fearless glory,

challenging Death to "Bring it on!"

Never once thrusting your sword 

on the field of battle,

you fearlessly lead the charge by phone.

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Oh,

sweet patriot, square of jaw,

and demeanor of firm command,

how selfless your will to guard America,

while hating the pillars upon which it stands.

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WANT TO CUT GOVERNMENT WASTE?  FIND THE $8.5 TRILLION THE PENTAGON CAN'T ACCOUNT FOR
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/want-cut-government-waste-8-5-trillion-pentagon-142321339.html

Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

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