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Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Oops—White House Loses $22 Billion on Student Loan Plans

Comment made on the following story:


Apparently, those who are commenting on this story know nothing about the Student Debt problem, nor have they shown an ability to read this story.

Average student debt is $29,000 according to this story. According to a previous story written a couple days ago, a student with a good degree makes about $80,000 per year. Ten percent yearly payback of $80,000 is paying off the loan at $8,000 per year. These students will pay back their loan in less than five years. They will never reach the 10 to 20 year period when their debt is nullified.

This program is not a giveaway. It simply enables students to pay off their debt in a more reasonable way. With this program, student debt has a better chance of being paid off.

There is another aspect to investing in education. A college graduate earns more money over their lifetime than a high school dropout. Increased income means more taxes paid. Most college graduates turn into income producing machines for the government when compared to uneducated tax payers.

College graduates will pay back far more in increased tax payments than their original education cost and become one of the best investments society can make.

Going by the comments in this story, the need for better-educated people is apparent.


Monday, February 9, 2015

Republicans Want to Send Message to SCOTUS on Obamacare

From a story dated 2/9/2015

I don't understand why republicans want to deny health care to millions of Americans? How does it help anyone if we go back to 50,000 dead Americans every year for lack of health care?

Millions of Americans have health care now, when they couldn't afford it in the past. Denying health care to people for pre-existing conditions and limiting payments for illnesses just to maximize profits has always been a shady way to do business. Taking away health care from millions of Americans seems like a cruel and heartless thing to do.

Insurance companies have always been liars and cheaters, so why do the victims of insurance companies want to keep sustaining those crooks despite the harm these companies have done to them in the past?

It doesn't make sense. I can understand why millions of moochers, expecting free health care when they get injured, might be upset because someone is telling them they can't be freeloaders anymore. Making a deadbeat become responsible has always been a tough proposition.

I have news for all the moochers out there. Going to an emergency room after a car accident and not having insurance is not free health care. There's no such thing as free health care. Somebody pays and if you can't, bankruptcy is your only answer. Bankruptcy will destroy you. They are working on changing the law so you can't bankrupt medical bills.

After hospitals and doctors pursue you, take your home, confiscate your car and put a lien on your wages just to pay for an accident your kid had, will make you wish for Obama Care (ACA).

I said in the beginning "I don't understand why republicans want to deny health care to millions of Americans?". I really know the answer, don't you? Ignorance and selfishness is driving opposition to the ACA and if successful, we all pay the price.


Does anyone think the Republicans can come up with something better? Republicans have had several years to come up with a plan and so far, they have fired only blanks. If you think just saying "NO" is a health care plan than maybe you’re just too stupid to have a conversation with.

Saturday, January 31, 2015

Should Veterans with PTSD Be Exempt from the Death Penalty?

The story: Should Veterans with PTSD Be Exempt from the Death Penalty?

I don't think the death penalty should ever be applied. I know there is an honest disagreement on this subject so I respect those who believe in the practice.

However, exempting veterans with PTSD from the death penalty opens Pandora's Box. Many people committing murder can argue some sort of dysfunction in their lives contributing to their behavior. A good attorney can apply an argument of amnesty in almost all cases for the general population.

I am a Veteran of the "Nam. After all these years I have noticed many of my fellow Vets increasing the flow of their self-pity tears as society makes more and more excuses for the way people behave just because they were in the service. I have seen the PTSD industry grow and the emergence of profit seekers exploiting the public’s desire to excuse these phony crybabies.

Yes, there are real cases of PTSD but the malady is far rarer than perceived by the public. My fellow Viet Nam Vets and their families using PTSD as an excuse for an individual’s failures in life have embarrassed me.

I also think it is disgraceful how profit seekers teach veterans how to file false claims of PTSD in order to take a cut of the pay if a Veteran is successful in bleeding the American tax payer dry for contrived injuries. A child growing up in Chicago may have a more pronounced case of PTSD than these Iraq and Afghan cry babies who fought pansy wars in recent years.

It was more dangerous living in America over the last ten years than it was to serve the military in Iraq. Over the ten-year history of the last two wars, the military lost around 5,000 dead. In that same period, about 1.5 million Americans lost their lives from lack of health care, gunshots and auto accidents. Americans suffered a lot more trauma on the home front than by Americans serving in the Pansy wars.


Don't let people make excuses for murder under any circumstance. Banish the death penalty for moral reasons, not for pretend reasons.

Monday, January 19, 2015

Denying Civil Liberties An Affront To God

Denying Civil Liberties to a minority, normally granted to the majority, is counter to all that is American. Single out any group of Americans and deny their Civil Rights, is discrimination when those same Civil Rights are enjoyed by others. That is the soul of discrimination.
According to our laws, homosexual activity does not violate our Constitution. Sexual orientation is not an issue our Founding Fathers addressed. Our founders did not inject religion into the secular document governing our nation. Religious laws do not govern us. That distinction belongs to countries whose views are more primitive than ours are.
Tax-paying individuals, denied Civil Rights, other taxpayers enjoy, are only partial citizens in America. You cannot demand all Americans pay taxes then choose who have Civil Liberties and who do not. Those denied Civil Liberties should be exempt from paying taxes.
This principle applies to any segment of society whose rights granted in the natural order, are violated. Sexual orientation is a function of the natural order of existence and in most cases, it is something endowed upon the individual from birth. One cannot violate individual Civil Liberties based solely on the characteristics a person is born with.
Those who decide upon themselves to discriminate against others, not born like them, are themselves a threat to society. No one is superior to God’s creation and no one is entitled to question God’s creation. Doing so, betrays the notion that God is superior. Men exercising superior opinion over God’s creation, is an affront to God.
People claiming to know better than the creator are not true followers of that creator. Not being Godly and discriminating against people created in nature, is the real danger to the American dream. Discriminatory behavior is a danger to humanity.

Millions of people practicing religious superiority over others is the greatest danger facing our nation today. The problem of course, is their absolute belief in their own superiority. Notions of superiority have always led mankind down the wrong path. Notions of religious superiority have kept mankind relatively primitive.

Friday, January 16, 2015

GOP bill would end birthright citizenship


 Comment I made in response to the following article.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gop-bill-would-end-birthright-citizenship/ar-AA8fytf


    The 14th Amendment is just that. It is an Amendment to the Constitution and as such, can't be nullified with a simple vote by a Congress subject to knee jerk opinions throughout different times in our history. You can't pass a simple law to replace portions of our Constitution. Let's pass a law to limit free speech. Now there's an idea, don't you think?

    Getting rid of the Anchor Baby provision may be a good idea but it requires another Amendment to repeal an existing Amendment. A Congressman can't wave a wand and nullify portions of our Constitution. It takes more work than that. You need a dictator to do what Republicans want. You need people, in love with dictators, to support a dictator.

    Going by opinion expressed in this forum, it sounds like many people are in favor of dictatorship. Either that or they are just uninformed Republicans blowing off their mouths again.

Saturday, January 10, 2015

Keystone Pipeline Displays Corporate Fascism At Its Finest

The damage to the climate resulting from extracting oil from tar sands is huge. Enormous amounts of methane leak into the atmosphere in the process. Methane is extremely destructive to the atmosphere. More dangerous than car emissions. In order to accomplish this dangerous endeavor, Fascist politics must come into play.
The extraction of oil from tar sand involves enormous amounts of water and chemicals to release the oil. All those chemicals damage the land and underground water sources. In other words, there is probable poisoning of the land and water in Canada for centuries. All that chemical laced water has to go somewhere. In America, some people are lighting on fire the water coming out of their faucets in their homes.
The final product (oil, chemicals, sand) is the most toxic oil on earth. 800,000 barrels of poison delivered daily to refineries on our Gulf Coast through a pipeline means that about 400,000 barrels a day of toxic waste has to be deposited somewhere on American soil after our refineries extract usable oil.
These waste products are deposited on American soil and in just a few years, there will be an environmental catastrophe waiting to happen on our Gulf Coast. Many Americans on the Gulf Coast don't want that waste accumulating in their back yards. It is very toxic. It could potentially kill Americans.
In recent years there has been many oil spills around the country from leaking pipelines. All those leaks have been a disaster wherever leaks have occurred. None of those leaks involved kind of toxic oil that will flow in the Keystone project. Leaks from the Keystone Pipeline would be far more damaging than anything we have seen so far.
The danger to the aquifer running across the American breadbasket is immense. One good spill by accident, act of God or terrorism could damage the ability of our breadbasket to feed this country for many years into the future. That area of the country has many tornados. One tornado could make a real mess of things. You can count on at least one tornado a year causing a leak on the Keystone Pipeline.
Everything I have read about job creation is not good news. Apparently, about 5,000 temporary jobs will be necessary in the construction of the pipeline. Those jobs will last about one to two years then evaporate when the pipeline is finished. Temporary jobs, mean temporary employees and temporary employees are illegal aliens working for minimum wage so construction companies can maximize profits.
Instead of creating a few part time jobs for illegal aliens, Republicans should have spent less time obstructing job creation bills proposed by President Obama and Democrats. Republicans could have contributed much more to the American people by not obstructing job creation bills.
Upon completion of the pipeline, there will be about 50 permanent jobs. Everyone else that had worked on the pipeline will be collecting unemployment. On top of all the other problems, 90% of Keystone oil will be exported for overseas consumption. America will obtain little oil to feed our need for fossil fuel. Gasoline prices will not go down in this country. One study suggests gas prices will rise if the Keystone Pipeline becomes reality.
The cost of refining Canadian Tar Sand oil is too high for American consumption. Canada’s Keystone Pipeline will retrieve $8 to $10 per gasoline overseas. Shipping finished Keystone product to other countries provides profit for Trans-Canada unobtainable in the American market. Selling Keystone refined gasoline in America for $4.00 (or less) per gallon is a losing proposition for Trans-Canada. Trans-Canada does not intend to lose money and that is why very little Canadian oil will reach American consumers.
What we have here is a foreign oil company destroying their own land as they pollute the Earth with green house producing methane. Canadian land and water will be worthless for centuries by the time Trans-Canada is finished exploiting American ignorance.
Ill-informed Americans, manipulated by politicians taking bribes from a foreign entity, demonstrate the insidious nature of corporatism creeping into the American landscape. We are watching our nation become a Fascist state. The common person in American is allowing corporate greed and corrupt politicians to destroy our land, our water and our air so a foreign company can make greater profit. Profits not enjoyed by Americans.
The Canadian government and its people do not want toxic waste, produced by tar sand oil, deposited on their land and they do not want that toxic poison transported across their country putting at risk their natural habitat. Trans-Canada has found willing people in America who choose to believe false assumptions about the benefits of the Keystone Pipeline to the American consumer.
With the construction of the Keystone Pipeline, America will take all the risks, obtain none of the benefits and will not see enough jobs created to justify the risk to our land, our people and our environment. American politicians need to start thinking about what's good for our country and stop helping a foreign corporation make tons of profit while American lives are at risk.
If America gets the finished product and we see gasoline prices go down in our country, Keystone may be worth consideration if the dangers to our nation are resolved. This scenario will not happen of course and millions of Americans will do everything in their power to help a foreign country maximize profit, all to the detriment of our people.
Supporting the Keystone Pipeline is the perfect example of people shooting themselves in the foot. Politicians believing false claims and risking American lives for corporate profit is the very nature of Fascism.

If American politicians are aware of the dangers and choose to support corporatism despite the danger to our people, then a certain criminal personality is on display for all to see. There has never been a benefit, extended to the people through the exercise of Fascism. Not ever. 

Sunday, December 14, 2014

Destruction of Public Education by Republicans

In Mississippi, lawmakers gave large tax breaks to businesses and wealthy individuals perpetuating the false belief that Supply Side Economics works. Simultaneously, they have failed to fund Public Education. As long as Mississippi remains in the control of Republicans, the state will remain last in the nation for publicly funded education.

Welcome to a preview of things to come as the Republicans take more and more control of government. It's a mystery why average people vote for Republicans when Republicans harm them the most. Tax breaks for the privileged few and businesses in Mississippi didn't create any jobs. Poverty and unemployment in Mississippi is still the highest in the nation.
_____________________________________________________________________
Tax breaks for wealthy individuals and businesses
in Mississippi damaged education in the state
and provided more wealth for selfish elite white people.
_____________________________________________________________________

Keep in mind, in Mississippi, the affluent white population send their kids to tax supported Christian Schools so their racist children won’t have to associate with brown and black kids. Republican tendencies, around the country, to siphon money from public education in the form of individual tax credits for private church schools is the funding problem, for public schools, in many states. Mississippi has been particularly hard hit.


You can thank the Republican Party for this horrendous situation in Mississippi and get ready for more shenanigans on a national level now that these Republicans have taken over the entire Congress. Throw in a Republican President and you won't recognize America anymore. Republicans have not always been this way, but in their current form, they are an enemy of the American dream. 

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Don't blame Obama

A response I published in response to a story at this link

Blaming Obama for this mess in Iraq and Syria is way off base. It makes one wonder if there is any sanity left in the Right Wing (Republicans) or have they completely gone insane. Comments blaming someone who had nothing to do with the formation of ISIS is just a cheap shot.

America was ready to leave that area of the world a long time ago and far too many lives were lost in a useless cause. The insistence by Republicans to keep wasting American military lives, borders on criminal behavior.

ISIS would not exist if it were not for the wrong-headed decisions by Neocons in the first place. People like Bryan Mullins were wrong from day one and has no validity in future conversations. From day one, the Democrats were right about the war on terror and after our failure in that area of the world the American people have finally figured it out as well.

The American people don't want to bury more US soldiers for a lost cause. We don't want to spend our wealth trying to transform those barbarians while our infrastructure falls down around our ears. Everything American blood thirsty Fundamentalist Christians said about that area was incorrect. Continuing the same mistakes is not a solution.

Elections certainly do matter. The problem goes back to the day America allowed cheap shot killers to take over our government with their lies and cheating and the real elected President (Al Gore) was overthrown in a coup. Our nation has paid the price ever since. This situation would not exist today if Al Gore had been President. He was smarter and a better man than that fake Christian George W. Bush.


Today we have a more thoughtful and intelligent person in the White House. Obama is head and shoulder above war mongering, wrongheaded Neo-Cons who think running around the world killing everyone is the right thing to do. Several trillion dollars and more than 5,000 lives chasing bad decisions made by Republicans has ended. Right wing braggarts who have been wrong from day one need to shut up.

Friday, October 24, 2014

Court Fight Over Releasing New Torture Photos

We broke International Law. We violated treaties, which were the law of our land. We kidnapped people and tortured them to death. We invaded a country for false reasons and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people. We willingly killed over 5,000 American troops for nothing. Many Republicans cheered.

Yet we have millions of people in or country making justifications and saying war crimes committed by us is excusable. In fact, crimes against humanity is now acceptable by many Republicans in America. Break more laws and murder more people for nothing. This seems to be the popular argument by many (mainly Republicans) now.

In truth, the real crime is not the photographs themselves but the act of perpetrating torture. Individuals performing torture on any singular human, for any reason, is a criminal act under our law and International law. In modern times, torture is a crime, no matter the reason. There are no excuses.

Releasing new photographs of people tortured by other Americans may identify those sick perpetrators of a despicable act and warrant criminal prosecution. Hiding the disclosure of a criminal act is more than likely an attempt to defend criminals within our government. Releasing photographs only sheds light on the truth. Not releasing these photographs only makes the crimes they represent more egregious.

People who tie up other people and torture them are cowards at the very least. It does not take a brave person to torture a helpless and defenseless individual. Torture requires a mentality contrary to human nature and those capable of torturing others should be isolated from the rest of society. Preferably, thrown in jail.

The same principal applies to those who order torture. Ordering others to torment humans while not having the guts to perform the act themselves is a special version of cowardice and a more demonic crime. Those ordering torture, should suffer more punishment than those following orders and carrying out the suffering of helpless human beings. People in power should know better.

Millions of Americans supporting cruelty share the guilt and should pay a price. Republicans should shut up and sit down. Until they get over their sick mentality, they should never enjoy the reins of power again. People believing in torture are incapable of making good decisions. People with this level of sickness are not to be trusted.

Our war crimes are not the real story. The real story, is the support millions of Americans provided in the past and continue to support today, for more war crimes in the future. The American government is a reflection of its people and the people are sick. Thus, we have a sick government.

Enjoy your sick government. Many Republicans made it that way. The mentality of millions of American Republicans with twisted views is a clear and present danger to humankind. This threat is especially true given the probability that a criminal and sick element within American Society is poised to take over the world’s largest nuclear arsenal.


People who have accepted torture as a normal occurrence are capable of anything. The world is in danger. It shall remain in danger as long as millions fail to admit their sickness.

Thursday, October 23, 2014

When will people stop being primitive?

Comments made in a response to an article about US Warplanes killing lots of people and the postings by the majority of people commenting on this story.
Here’s the link to the story


Limited engagement, kill 'em all, bring in the Apaches, name calling, belligerence, boasting. It's a good thing the people commenting today aren't running our foreign policy. Rick Smith pretty much has it right. He's the only person I have read who shows any empathy whatsoever. You know. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you".

It's as though everyone is a mentally retarded child unable to learn from experience. Has anyone concluded you can't solve the problems of a primitive people with bombs? Our bridges are falling apart and nitwits want to spend billions killing people and making more enemies for our children to deal with in the future.  

If we spent our time and fortune isolating that area and not allow a single weapon to enter the theater we would all be better off. After they run out of bullets, send them a large shipment of swords and let them go after each other. Maybe, in time, those people will come out of the dark ages. It would hurt our military industrial complex but maybe it's time we stopped being the world’s largest exporter of weapons.

What are we doing, bombing people half way around the world? Haven't we learned yet, that bombing cures nothing? How much longer do we have to satisfy the lust for blood and gore by certain elements in our society? Yes, there are primitive Americans as well. We just have to stop listening to them.