Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio Declare Their Candidacy for President

Today the President announced unilaterally that he was restoring diplomatic relations with Cuba.  I didn’t know one man had that kind of power, but Sean Hannity acts as though it’s a done deal.  The move seems particularly stupid because Marco Rubio just announced for President with his sizable Cuban constituency.  The big thaw was triggered by an exchange of political prisoners between Cuba and the United States.  Cuba got three prisoners we were holding and we got 53 prisoners freed.  Coincidentally, Sean Hannity left out that little detail in his rant today.  We did hear that Ted Cruise is NOT elligable to run for President because unlike John Mc Cain, Cruise was not born in US territory, and having your mother as a citizen doesn’t count.  I continued to be puzzled why Hannity keeps trotting out radicals such as Bill Ayres and Jeremiah Wright.  But the president should not have opened the door.  Of course keep in mind that Obama was eleven when Nixon was being renominated by the Republican party in one of the best produced “Made for television” conventions of all time.  Red China had been recognized by one and all, and the SALT talks had been held with Breshnev.  And it was about August of 1972 that the Sixties could officially be pronounced dead - - when all the polls showed Nixon winning by a landslide.  But I’m wondering about this Cuban refugee guy that Sean Hannity talked to.  Let’s say that Sean was a fourteen year old teenager at the time - - this would still be 1975 when “Communism” was no longer considered that big of a threat. I have to wonder what spending your formative years in Alabama has to do with it.  Jeb Bush formed a campaign committee to run for President and he has to fight Rubio for the same Latino constituants.  And they are both from Florida.  They’ll knock each other off and Christie could come out the winner.  There are so many candidates, including perhaps Alan Keys, for President- - even the biggest drawing candidate doesn’t exceed fifteen percent.  Now we have negotiations for “the past year and a half” of diplomatic relations with Cuba.  I don’t know what to think of it.  It seems that Pope Francis welcomes the thaw in relations with said Cuba.  Hannity and Rubio call themselves good Catholics, so their beef is not with me but with the Pope.  And Pope Francis is a popular, charismatic Pope to try and go up against.  Don’t you think?
Ever since the torture report was released last week, U.S. television outlets have endlessly featured American torturers and torture proponents. But there was one group that was almost never heard from: the victims of their torture, not even the ones recognized by the U.S. Government itself as innocent, not even the family members of the ones they tortured to death. Whether by design (most likely) or effect, this inexcusable omission radically distorts coverage. Whenever America is forced to confront its heinous acts, the central strategy is to disappear the victims, render them invisible. That’s what robs them of their humanity: it’s the process of dehumanization. That, in turns, is what enables American elites first to support atrocities, and then, when forced to reckon with them, tell themselves that – despite some isolated and well-intentioned bad acts – they are still really good, elevated, noble, admirable people. It’s hardly surprising, then, that a Washington Post/ABC News poll released this morning found that a large majority of Americans believe torture is justified even when you call it “torture.” Not having to think about actual human victims makes it easy to justify any sort of crime.

Will the gulf between left and right ever be bridged?  Mike Papentonio said that these whole situations with grand juries failing to indict Police Officers for anything- - is based largely on the fact that they don’t question the officer’s testimony to them.  They can say “I felt like a five year old in the hands of the Hulk” or they can talk about a “demonic look in the eyes” or the classic “He was going for his gun belt” or almost anything.  What I want to know is “Where are those ten or twelve Black people who supported Darren Wilson’s story.  Why aren’t all of THEM all over FOX news now giving their testimony.  I have not heard word One out of any of them, and severely doubt that any of them actually exist.  And yet from the other side of the fence we hear that liberals are hyper sensitive and hyper offended by civil rights and race issues.  Now we hear that Michelle Obama was “offended” because some woman in a Target store asked her to get something off a high shelf for her, as though she were a floor worker.  And the President is quoted as saying “I’ve been mistaken for a bellhop”.  There was much talk about the “pace and rhythm of the President’s words” giving this speech, which was needless to say was before he was elected President.  Whatever President Obama used to be- - - if he ever was a liberal to begin with- - - he most certainly chucked that all aside the minute he made the decision to become a serious candidate for President and do whatever he had to do to win.   But by opening up this Cuba sore point with the Right “all that stuff” about Obama’s supposed radicalism comes right back to the forefront.  And visions of “2016” come to the fore again with talk about how “The President will never face another election and is free to advance his radical, leftist agenda without fear”.   All of this anti Obama talk could end up hurting Hillary.

With the three or four Trillion dollars the Federal Reserve has given the banks to further bolster their profits in capital gains in stock investments- - the government could have given each and every American - - ten thousand dollars.  Ten thousand dollars would be about two thirds higher than a lot of individuals on fixed social security incomes get each year.  There is no doubt at all that such a move would stimulate the economy.  If the federal government had cracked down on employers who hire illegal aliens, this would raise the wage base for all Americans.  But they won’t do that, either.  If they had passed a democratically sponsored tax bill, they could have prevented jobs from being shipped off to foreign countries starting last year.  But John Boehner and the House refused to do that.  I don’t like to see powerless people being taken advantage of.  Perhaps this is what separates liberals from conservatives.  The latter doesn’t care.  Conservatives don’t care if various type of minorities- including the mentally ill- - get beaten up or killed by the cops, if it doesn’t happen to them.  Mike Papentonio was talking today about various forms of wage theft on those already down to minimum wage.  They are now saying that “setting up” in the morning and “cleaning up” at closing time- - doesn’t count for the salary a fry cook makes, for example.  Illegal aliens dare not protest their living circumstances.  Since Ronald Reagan and George Bush 41 were the ones who “set up” the whole “dreamer” problem we have now with children of illegal aliens- - I guess I see it as the government’s responsibility to some how ‘make it right’ for these people.   This Rock Star guy on Monday’s “Law and Order” episode was a crusader for the rights of the mentally ill and I admire him for that.  He had a hellish life in a mental institution including getting electro shock.  And yet one person had the audacity to say to him “Well you’re not insane now and you were then - - so you OWE those people your sanity, do you not?”  That line is right on a par with people claiming that African slaves “got a free boat ride” to this country, and were Christianized in the bargain.  And then others say that “Those slaves were Godly people”.   It’s one thing to say you share the concerns of the down and out- - disempowered.  It’s quite another thing to be ONE of them.  But the establishment is good at vilifying the disempowered and putting THEM on trial.  They did this in the second century with the Jews after the Second Jewish war.  They invented a whole religion who’s goal seems to have been “Making Romans and other gentiles feel GOOD about pointing the finger at these disempowered Jews.  There are no “checks and balances” of police power.  Norman Goldman put it strangely but probably correctly when he said “There are no Definite requirements in our legal system.  It’s all what some grand jury of DA decrees at the moment, and it’s an amazingly subjective thing”.  I find this Truth highly disturbing.  And if the poor and down and out ever DO get any firm “legal rights” you know people like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are the first ones to complain.  Like that song “Now’s the Time” says,  these people want “liberty and freedom” but they only want that so that they can take YOUR rights away.  They think abusing YOU is one of their God-given “rights” that is now being threatened by “liberalism”.   Someone said the age of the average FOX news viewer was over sixty five.  If this is so one will hope their ranks will not be replemished as the older ones die.   There is some sinister force out there literally “Feeding the hate” with some sort of “underground pipeline”.  We as liberals need to find a way of somehow, some way, shutting that whole thing down.

Soap opera character Eric Brady now finds himself paralyzed by doubt- - and resentment.  But strangely people like Neil of KFI  (Jesus Christ show) rather than try and help him are inwardly saying “Good.  I hope he STAYS that way)   To quote a favorite Dylan song “They say “How are you, good luck, but they don’t mean it.  Because you know as well as me that you’d rather see me paralyzed”.   It’s like a girl looking for a new romance after the break up of an old one- - people like Dr Laura or Neil would say “Finding a new romance is the WORST thing you could possibly do”.   It’s kind of in the same vein as people plagued by theological doubts.  They say “The WORST thing you could do is actually answer their questions, even if you have them.  By the way if you DO have them, DON’T tell the person asking them, who wants to clear up his doubts that are troubling him so, and frankly you should SAY you DO have them even if you don’t because you must stress that that ethereal thing called PATIENCE takes TIME (I would adlib here “A whole lot of precious time you ain’t got”.   If you keep such a seeker of truth in a NEEDY position, then YOU have the power.  YOU have the control over him.  (Selah)  And when it comes to resolving questions of God- - just as that Rock Star decided he didn’t need pills to keep him Sane,  others decide the only way to keep from GOING INSANE is to abandon their self defeating belief in God.  But then Neil of KFI will come along and say “This is just a sign that a person has mental (sanity) issues, because no Sane person would ever come to the conclusion that God doesn’t exist.  So how different is Neil’s view than the old Russian gulags or mental institutions they kept dissidents in?   But you know people like Neil of KFI are completely nuts by their next statement.  Some lady caller says “Well I need to pray for a healing of this mentally ill guy I’d like to share Christ with”.    You’d think Neil would be all FOR that.  But he isn’t.  To summarize Neil Savedra’s view on mankind there is a name for what people like him do with callers.  It’s called Crazy Making.  People like Neil Savedra are “toxic people” who I’d advise a lot of people to just steer clear of, the way Brady Black tells Melanie to steer clear of Teresa.  Because no good can come from having their paths cross.  (Selah)