Who Rules America?

Who rules America?

    By Allan J. Lichtman, contributor

     http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/civil-rights/214857-who-rules-america

“A shattering new study by two political science professors has found that ordinary Americans have virtually no impact whatsoever on the making of national policy in our country. The analysts found that rich individuals and business-controlled interest groups largely shape policy outcomes in the United States.”

“The new study, with the jaw-clenching title of "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens," is forthcoming in the fall 2014 edition of Perspectives on Politics.”

“Rich individuals and business interests have the capacity to hire the lobbyists that shadow legislators in Washington and to fill the campaign coffers of political candidates. Ordinary citizens are themselves partly to blame, however, because they do not choose to vote.

America's turnout rate places us near the bottom of industrialized democracies. More than 90 million eligible Americans did not vote in the presidential election of 2012 and more than 120 million did not vote in the midterm elections of 2010.”

[Bold emphasis mine]

How Much Wealth Is Enough?

American Capitalism embraces the concept of wealth.  Wealth is defined as the abundance of valuable resources or material possessions.  Having an abundance means you have more than others.

At every level of wealth in our capitalistic society, while you may be wealthier than others, there are those that are wealthier than you.  The desire for more wealth is like crack. You can never get "enough".  While some work hard to gain wealth, some have found it easier to steal to gain a higher rung on the wealth ladder.  Those in power have legalized their thievery and call it investment banking or managing hedge funds. 

It seems to me that in American Capitalism, no one is happy with their rung on the wealth ladder.

Internet Wars!

It's no secret that the internet has become a vital part of our lives.  Many people keep up to date on the latest on critical issues.  Social movements have been started and important stories have been released ahead of the corp-media. 

Some of us think keeping the internet free from control of the major corporations is essential for our very freedom and liberty, but there is a war on for control of the internet.

On one side are the Internet service providers (ISPs) — like AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon.  They see it as a means of greatly increasing their profits at the expense of free access for users, and are willing to spend large sums of money to lobby to get the needed control.

On the other side of the war is everyone else.

The ISPs want to be permitted to slow down traffic from companies that don’t pay special fees.  They could pick and choose what kind of service each user got.  They also want the freedom to favor their own offerings over those of their competitors.  Comcast could make it very difficult for Netflix to compete with the Comcast alternative.

The big question is: Whose side is Tom Wheeler, FCC Chairperson on? At this point it doesn't look good.

“The FCC's latest draft rules proposes banning ISPs from blocking users' access to websites or applications but allowing some "commercially reasonable" deals between content providers and ISPs to prioritize delivery of some web traffic.”

Over a million people have provided their reactions to the proposed rules including President Obama.  He took issue to the rules stating that he is in favor of “an open and fair Internet."

More at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/06/obama-net-neutrality_n_5655862.html

http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/the-power-of-story/can-we-keep-the-internet-free

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/18/us-usa-internet-neutrality-idUSKBN0FN23720140718

Release of Heavily Redacted CIA Torture Report Delayed

The Senate Intelligence Committee (SIC) has investigated the Bush Administration’s use of torture and is trying to get the executive summary released from the White House where it is being screened for classification purposes.  The report itself is 6,300 pages and has taken 5 years to prepare. Sen Feinstein, the chairperson of the SIC has returned the summary to the WH indicating that the heavy redaction has significantly effected the results of the document.

Making things more complicated is that a report was recently released by General David Buckley, CIA Inspector General that indicated CIA employees improperly accessed the database used by the SIC staff while they were working on the investigative report.  The Director of the CIA, Brennan denies that any snooping took place.  However, Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) on Thursday said, in a statement, "The CIA unconstitutionally spied on Congress by hacking into Senate Intelligence Committee computers. This grave misconduct not only is illegal, but it violates the U.S. Constitution’s requirement of separation of powers.”

This puts President Obama between a rock, the SIC and a hard place, the very powerful CIA/NSA organization.  Last week he had a press conference where he attempted to explain what is going on.  Some are saying that he stumbled badly as he said:

"In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we did some things that were wrong.  We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks. We did some things that were contrary to our values.”

He also said,

“And there was enormous pressure on our law enforcement and our national security teams to try to deal with this, and it’s important for us not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job that those folks had and a lot of those folks were working hard under enormous pressure and are real patriots.” 

These statements appear to be attempts to rationalize and minimize the horrible torture that occurred under the Bush Admin.  Some "folks" have held out hope for the last six years of silence from the President, that he would eventually either prosecute the offenders or at least issue a very strong statement condemning the torture. The weak wording of this speech dashed those hopes. It's very doubtful that he will strongly condemn the actions of Bush/Cheney regarding torture in the future. 

It should be noted that two very powerful people, General Clapper, Director of National Intelligence lies to Congress and John Brennan spies on Congress don't get fired.  Either President Obama doesn't want to fire them or he hasn't enough power to fire them.  Either way is not good for our country.

Sources for the above and good further reading:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/31/cia-john-brennan-mark-udall_n_5638585.html

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/local-news/20140801-obama-concedes-cia-torture-stands-by-embattled-director.ece

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/06/opinion/stop-the-cia-spin-on-the-senate-torture-report.html

The Robot/Computer Singularity is Predicted for 2040 – 2045, But Will The Human Race Kill Itself Off Before Then?

Most humans that don’t have their heads in the sand or other places where the sun doesn’t shine, understand that the robot singularity is when robots/computers become smart enough that they will no longer have to rely on humans.  Humans will most likely be expendable.  

The prediction for when this will happen, at the current rate of development, is 2040 – 2045.*  

But I see a problem with that figure.  With climate change coming at a significantly faster pace than a glacier, will the human species even exist in 2040?   

Wouldn’t it be ironic if humans kill themselves off a few years before the robots can take over?  

Who would be getting the last laugh?

* http://www.businessinsider.com/louis-del-monte-interview-on-the-singularity-2014-7

See the movie “Her” if you haven’t already.  

The Republican Conspiracy to Bring American Government To It’s Knees

On inauguration day in 2009, while America was rejoicing with the election of Barrack Obama, top Republicans were conspiring to bring the government to a standstill. 

Robert Draper discusses the meeting held by top Republicans in his book, “Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the US House of Representatives.”   The plan was to make the government so ineffective that the American people would return the presidency to the Republicans in 2012.  Although Barrack Obama was reelected in 2012 the damage done by the Republican Party seriously hurt America. 

While eliminating free school lunches for children and cutting off unemployment benefits because of budget concerns, the Republicans were spending tens of millions of dollars on more than 50 attempts to derail the ACA (Obamacare).  They also used the threat of government shutdown to cripple the government and unnecessary and expensive investigations like the failed attempt to use the Benghazi tragedy to bring disgrace to the President. The list is long and obvious unless you were asleep for the last six years. 

Now the hapless Republicans are trying to make the President’s use of executive orders an issue.  They want us to ignore the fact that President Obama has averaged 37 executive orders per year while the average for the last 20 presidents is 44. 

The current Republican dominated House of Representatives has passed only 58 bills in their first year as compared to the previous “worst Congress ever” of 1948 which passed 395. 

The Republicans in the Senate have done their part to severely damage American government.  By abusing the filibuster, they have hamstrung the various departments of government by not allowing the President to make appointments to fill vacancies.  This same tactic has been used to keep the President from appointing judges and passing vital legislation. 

Possibly the worse part of all this is the American media’s complicity in not reporting about the damage being done to the American government and people.

Read more from Ewen MacAskill in the Guardian UK   http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/apr/26/democrats-gop-plot-obstruct-obama and recently covered in Vanity Fair:  "The Conspiracy to Commit Legislative Constipation" by James Wolcott  http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott/2012/03/The-Conspiracy-to-Commit-Legislative-Constipation

The Bowe Bergdahl Timeline

The following dates are from the Rachel Maddow Show on 6/5/14. (See it on the YouTubes)

Between Dec. 2011 and Feb. 2012 information was leaked and covered by CNN and the Washington Post that the US government was negotiating a prisoner exchange for five specific Taliban prisoners being held in Guantanamo prison in Cuba. Those in Congress that are now claiming that they were unaware of this exchange apparently don’t follow the news.

May 2012 – The Bergdahl family, apparently disappointed with the lack of progress went public and identified their son, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl as the American included in the prisoner exchange discussions for the five Taliban prisoners. The New York Times corroborated this information stating they were aware Sgt. Bergdahl was part of the exchange deal but didn’t disclose it until the information was released by the Bergdahl family.

As of May 2012, everyone in the world had access to the knowledge of who was included in this prisoner exchange being discussed. In fact, many on the Right were posting and tweeting that Pres Obama should carry thru with the exchange and disparaging him for not.

Feb. 2014 – Senator John McCain, in an aired interview, stated that he approved of the prisoner exchange. Later he will claim he wasn’t aware of who the Taliban prisoners were that were part of the exchange when he made that statement although it was public knowledge and he, thru his committees, had access to that knowledge.

June 2014 – The White House successfully carries out the prisoner exchange and brings home the last POW of the Afghanistan War. The initial outcry from the Right, including a number of Congress-people was of happiness for the Sergeant and his family.

In apparent orchestration, 3 – 4 days after the release of Sgt. Bergdahl, the Right Wing flip-flopped their reactions from joy to hate. Taking down their positive tweets and posts and posting negative ones. Hate, not only for the Sergeant but also towards his family.

This week on CNN, Sen McCain said that he doesn’t like the exchange because he wasn’t aware that it included the five designated Taliban prisoners. The same five Taliban prisoners that were discussed in public as far back as Dec. 2011. Senator McCain, can you spell hypocrite?

The following is General Martin Dempsey, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff statement.
(https://finance.yahoo.com/news/americas-top-military-official-gave-143649501.html)

"In response to those of you interested in my personal judgments about the recovery of SGT Bowe Bergdahl, the questions about this particular soldier’s conduct are separate from our effort to recover ANY U.S. service member in enemy captivity. This was likely the last, best opportunity to free him. As for the circumstances of his capture, when he is able to provide them, we'll learn the facts. Like any American, he is innocent until proven guilty. Our Army's leaders will not look away from misconduct if it occurred. In the meantime, we will continue to care for him and his family. Finally, I want to thank those who for almost five years worked to find him, prepared to rescue him, and ultimately put themselves at risk to recover him."

I hope that Democratic candidates will not be afraid to make this fiasco of the Right a campaign issue.