inthetrunkroom

Every four years there is a major event in this country that captivates pretty much all of us – the election of a new president. For whatever reasons – positive or negative, liberal or conservative, pro this or anti that – we all have a stake in the outcome. At least, we should all see it that way because we do.

Regardless of how one feels about the process or the system under which it operates, it is a big deal and all should be of interest and prompt participation by all who are eligible.
In 2000, the Clinton administration was coming to an end and the candidates for the highest office in the land were jousting for position for the final battle – the November election. After a long campaign season, it all came down to two – George W. Bush and Albert “ Al “ Gore.
Election Day was November 7th, but the election was far from over by the end of that day. In what can only be described as a legal battle more convoluted than a halloween corn maze, the Supreme Court finally had to intervene. It heard arguments and then remanded the key issue back to the Florida Supreme Court.It was their ruling which allowed the then Florida Secretary of State’s declaration of George Bush as the winner in Florida to stand. This gave Mr Bush the needed electoral votes to take the election, win the presidency and move in to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. We have been paying the price ever since for that curious maneuvering of the court system which in effect appointed the president.
Mr Bush took office in January, 2001 and the journey down a very hard road began. Over the next few years, budgets got out of hand, tax breaks for the wealthy were the stock and trade of the administration and between January 2001 and March 2004, over 1.6 million jobs were lost. This trend would continue well in to the administration’s second term – an election jaded by fear and ignorance – when the official unemployment rate went up to near 8 % and, with reckless economic policies providing the impetus, between December 2007 and December 2008, an additional 3.6 million jobs were lost, most going overseas with unchecked outsourcing carried out by multi national corporations farming for profits in the sweat shops of Asia.

\And then the proverbial manure hit the fan. In spite of many warning signs ( such as the now infamous Phoenix Memos from the FBI Office in Arizona ) the intelligence community failed , or chose not to connect the dots and on September 11, 2001, we were attacked by Islamic agents of Al Qaeda from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. It is noteworthy here that the attackers were not from Iraq. This attack precipitated such upheaval on so many fronts, it is hard to gauge the impact even now fourteen years later. What is certain is that a calculated and well planned campaign of fear mongering, outright lies and reckless policy decisions which brought about two unpaid for wars, one of which is still ongoing. There was implemented ( The Patriot Act ) unchecked surveillance on American citizens disguised as keeping the country safe where,it has come out, much of that was to spy on those who were opposed to the wars in the Middle East.
Those who dared to question the authenticity of the so called rationale for it all were chastised as being unAmerican ( sound familiar ) and in one case, when Ambassador Joseph Wilson made public statements questioning the veracity of Vice President Cheney’s charge that Iraq was importing weapons grade uranium from Africa, a White House senior staffer revealed – outed, if you will – the identity of his wife, a CIA covert operative,a clear violation of law and procedural policy.
There is much that has since come to light about the lies and chicanery in the administration, orchestrated by the four key actors in all of this – Bush, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld – far too much to discuss here. Suffice it to say that the mess in Iraq cost near 2.2 trillion dollars and near 5,000 American military lives. One can add over 4.4 trillion in costs for Afghanistan. There is no counting for Iraqi and Afghani soldiers or civilians but it is estimated at over 350,000. One cannot even begin to calculate the toll for this total and complete disruption and chaos caused in the Middle East, paving the way for the havoc existing there now. Again, does this sound sound familiar ? The whole truth and probably far more other secrets may not actually ever be made known by the public but, even with what we now know, one needs to ask the question – why has no one been held accountable. Indeed, even the then Secretary of State, General Colin Powell, finally admitted that he knew he was lying to the U N Security council about the status in Iraq. Why have no charges of war crimes been levied against the former president and vice president and their cohorts, the Secretary of Defense and the National Security Advisor ?

Since those days, to the end of the Administration, reckless economic policies sent the nation in to a deep economic recession rivaling the Great Depression of the twenties and thirties. The administration was handed a modest surplus in the deficit in 2001 but by its end in January 2009, Bush handed a deficit of over six trillion dollars to his successor. The impact of his overall tax plan to date has cost the nation over two trillion dollars in revenue; His policies increased the federal budget by almost 53%. And we are still paying for it.
In an effort to dilute some of this deep deep red ink, the Bush administration vetoed bills for continuing Child Health Insurance, slashed the Veterans Administration budget and crippled the No Child Left Behind Act ( the Elementary and Secondary Education Act updated ) by so much it was rendered almost useless as a means to improve K-12 education. In addition, as if to add insult to injury, especially to seniors and those on fixed income, Mr Bush pushed hard to privatize Social Security – something which Republican presidents have been pushing since the days of Harry Truman. Fortunately, the fear of not getting reelected held sway with even the GOP members of congress and millions of people dodged that bullet once again.The succeeding administration has had to spend well over what would be acceptable levels just to try to bring some level of stability to a crashing economy.Costs for medical and rehabilitation care for the thousands of returning veterans has skyrocketed to over 134 billion,and , with an obstructionist GOP controlled legislative branch keeping them in tact, those tax cuts for the upper 10% continued to add to the deficit year after year until some modest changes were made in 2013. The Bush years drove us to the very brink of complete fiscal collapse and that red ink is deeper than ever due to his complete reckless abandon regarding the well being of the nation.

It is time for everyone to acknowledge the damage the Bush administration has and continues to do to this country. The time for an accounting and accountability is now and it is time for those very courts which appointed this traitor and his minions to be held liable for damages caused.

After posting what is an outside the beltway state of the union, it seems appropriate to take some time and put a question flat out on the table with the challenge for some answers, doubtful to be forthcoming but needing to be asked anyhow.

According to the Constitution – which so many members of the GOP use as their bible though I fear few have actually read it – government , this government, was established “ ……. to insure domestic tranquility …… promote the general welfare…..”. It was also designed to “….form a more perfect union…” as the Articles of Confederation were deemed inadequate. In U S vs Cathcart, the courts reputed the “heresy” that states could at will or against the will of other states consider secession OR nullification.
So, as is often said here, one needs to ask the question. Why is the GOP agenda so dead set against domestic tranquility and the general welfare of the country, a condition prevailing not only inside the beltway but also inside every red state, several of which are deliberating nullification bills, as well.
It is well known that on the night of the first inauguration of President Obama in 2009, the GOP leadership met in a hotel suite to discuss and plan for years of obstruction, a plan well carried out over the six years of this administration. Now, I accept that there is blame on both sides of the aisle for the complete and utter dysfunction of the federal government but one must certainly fault the GOP for its continuing and flagrant disregard for the “ insuring of domestic tranquility…”.
But this did not start in 2009. No, it clearly did not. The modern day GOP has been a thorn in the side of progressive thinking, forward movement and general consideration of the well being of the nation for decades. Unpaid for wars costing trillions, not to mention thousands of lives, brought to the brink of economic collapse more than once, disdain for the middle class, not to mention those in poverty, and an all out obsession with conferring upon big business the mantle of complete immunity in its reckless drive for unlimited profits, the cost to social and environmental balance be damned.                  The GOP fought against Social Security from the beginning and it continues to do so today under the Ryan budget plans. The plan still calls for the privatization not only of Social Security but also of Medicare, capping medical insurance at $15,000 annually.

It has taken a dark blue pencil to SNAP – the food stamp program – and doesn’t think school lunches are important. It has fought raising the minimum wage, unwilling to accept that most people who are working in the $7.25 to $10.00 / hour strata are not only working for a wage which cannot support a family on any level, but are usually not working a forty hour week, making the task of making ends meet next to impossible
The modern GOP, controlled by the extremist Tea Party wing, continues to block job growth initiatives, equal pay for equal work, efforts for clean air and clean water, support for higher education costs, student loans and any efforts whatsoever at reform directed at the robber barons on Wall Street, whose blatant greed continues to keep the nation off an even keel. Trickle down doesn’t and never did !!!
This is, in no way, limited to high jinks inside the Beltway either. No, this insanity has filtered down to the state level especially in those dark red states whose austerity measures have brought about incredible hardship for so many populations.
In numerous states, most notably Texas, within the hour of the Court striking down Section 4 of the Voter Rights Act ( Chief Justice Roberts seems to think that racism in the voting process no longer exists ) executed a raft of anti voting measures which rival the Jim Crow measures of the fifties and sixties. Many states are doing away with redistricting commissions, paving the way for the legislature to design the voting patterns virtually eliminating whole voting districts. And then there are those “nullification” laws alluded to earlier which are gaining traction by the week.
In Arizona, capitalizing on the tea party mantra of fighting federal government overreach, Proposition 122 was passed. False information about its scope and only a 26% voter turnout being major causal factors, the State now is flexing its anti federal government muscles and poised to allow developing on federally protected lands and, most detestable of all, mining at the rim of the Grand Canyon – one of the most scared of all protected national monuments.

Red states have embarked on diluting to the point of extinction collective bargaining for public sector employees and Right to Work legislation is moving straight ahead in those states which do not already have such. And per usual, these same public sector employees who provide so many of much needed services will soon be unemployed as states are using severe cuts to public agencies as their way to dilute the deep red ink in which they all find themselves swimming. And, as there is insufficient time and space to address the issues around education, suffice it to say that cuts in education, especially in higher education are reminiscent of that old Mitt Romney adage, if your daddy can’t afford college, then try a trade school or something you can afford, supporting the now well acknowledged GOP policy agenda of keeping the rich richer and well educated while keeping the ever fading middle class broke and uneducated. Red states are using their legislative agenda to balance their debt by cutting services to those populations in most need. TANF, Medicaid, SNAP – all finding new eligibility rules, new limits and new restrictions – all designed to find those dollars which are scarce in a trickle down budget – and all this while, for some inexplicable reason, downsizing sources of revenue. Some states are going so far as moving toward eliminating state income taxes and corporate taxes all together.
I suspect some day the fearful and ignorant will awaken to find that not only are they struggling to maintain their lives as the quality is being greatly diminished, but to find also that the services which helped them survive the stupidity of across the board austerity are no longer to be found. Then, just then, we might see a greater than 26 % voter turnout. One proposes that the question on the table is, with such a pervasive and long standing agenda which clearly runs counter to the “… promotion of the general welfare…” how can anyone with any sense of moral compass cast a vote for any GOP candidate on any level ?

As per Article II of the Constitution, the President is required to present a report on the state of the union before Congress. Congress invites the President to make that address usually shortly after the new Congressional session begins. This year there is talk around the halls of congress that they will, in fact, not invite the President to make that address before Congress [ I suppose if this happens, it will revert to the written form usual before the days of radio and  television ]. If true, it would not surprise me as the 113th Congress , in addition to failing to govern across the board, took a most intensive obstructionist position on virtually everything in the president’s agenda. both domestic and foreign. This all began on the very evening of the inaugural in 2009 and continued to the seating of the 114th Congress. I suppose we shall see just what the president offers as his “State of the Union” . However, allow a different take on it based on this observer’s assessment.

The year 2014 has mercifully come to an end and the GOP House has accomplished little or nothing, having worked less than one hundred and ninety days, except continuing the hard obstructionism which began on the very night of the President’s first inaugural in 2009. We have endured six years of this agenda and sadly, there does not appear to be any end in sight.
The GOP Administration of 200 – 2008 left us with an economic picture dangling dangerously close to complete Depression and the amnesia continues. The economy has indeed improved but the benefits of that rather slight recovery have been mostly for the upper ten percent while most are still trying to manage in minimum wage jobs. The so called job creation statistics, much like the unemployment figures are not reality based nor do they reflect the bulk of those underemployed nor do they make note that much of the alleged job creation numbers are in fact part time jobs. The “official” unemployment figure is now around 5.6% while in truth, the unemployment if far higher, such as in Arizona where the calculation is, according to independent sources, closer to 16 %.

The agenda for the 113th congress, as per the senator from Kentucky, was to be certain that this administration was a one term administration and so the blocking of any and all domestic policy was set.
In spite of the economic circumstances, a major jobs bill, passed by the Senate in 2011, was still sitting in Rules as of the close of the 113th, with the Speaker vowing it would never get a vote as long as he was speaker. So much for any progress in not only the jobs which would have been created but the vast amount of infrastructure rep[airs which are so desperately needed. The House, during the 113th , sent sixteen bills to the Senate for action, all titled jobs bills when in reality they were nothing more than deregulation actions. So much for making real strides in the employment picture, not to mention any semblance of community renewal.
Congress passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010 and, while the managing of its implementation was just sort of a disaster, the intent to bring access to health care to millions who, to this point, could not afford it, was a most laudable pursuit. The GOP controlled House did, in its own obstructionist way, draft and pass legislation to repeal this legislation no less than fifty-two times, wasting time and tax payer money on this obsession, denying so many the health care which damn near every other industrialized nation provides to their citizenry. And to add insult to injury, this obsession filtered down to the GOP controlled states as well, supported by a mindless decision rendered by the Supreme Court which allowed states to opt out of Medicaid Expansion, an integral part of the ACA. Sadly, that battle continues and the fate of this historic attempt to afford health care to so many is shaky at best. One item is the proposal to add the requirement of a forty hour week being full time. This would mean that unless you work a forty hour week, your employer does not have to provide insurance coverage. Leaves the door open for employers to require a thirty-five hour week but still have no responsibility to provide insurance, forcing employees to turn to the health exchanges in their state for health care.

Akin to this craziness is the continuing attack on what are the two major safety nets for seniors – Medicare and Social Security. George W. Bush tried to privatize Social Security and fortunately failed. In the 112th, Congressman Paul Ryan, then Chair of the House Budget Committee, tried to force a measure which would hand over social Security to Wall Street and make Medicare a private insurance package with a $ 15,000 annual cap. It likewise failed at the presidential level. He tried again and failed again in the 113th.
However, with the seating of the 114th Congress, the talk again is about privatizing Social Security and raising the eligibility age to sixty-eight and likewise Medicare, which would become a private voucher system having that same $15,000 cap.
Once again, the average worker is being attacked and denying access to health care for not only working class folk but also for seniors is being cast as a viable way to reduce the deficit – a deficit which, for the record, has been declining progressively for several years already. [ Even those on the Hill confuse the deficit with the debt]. Interestingly, this all began with a GOP effort spearheaded by Congressman Ryan who would not have gotten out of high school if it were not for social security benefits.
Mr. Ryan’s budget plans also call, in the name of reducing spending, the decimation of Pell Grants, serious cuts in the school lunch programs and major reductions in the budget for the newly created Office for Consumer Protection. In addition, the GOP strategy, while obsessively adhering to the supply side economic ideology of the Reagan era, will, as Mr Ryan loudly proclaims,not add any taxes to the upper ten per cent nor to corporations, many of which do not pay taxes at all. However, they will support a tar sands pipeline for a foreign oil company, gut the Environmental Protection Agency and fight hard to dilute, if not eliminate the controls levied by the Dodd-Frank Act, allowing the banks on Wall Street to return to their reckless banking practices which brought us to near collapse in the late nineties.

Fear indeed is warranted, not of attacks from foreign aggressors but from the complete disdain for the middle class – or what’s left of it – by this congress. One need only look at their agenda of the GOP, which now controls both houses of congress. One should be concerned about the agenda that we know and especially about the agenda we do not know
And before one goes ballistic about this rant against the GOP, it must be said there is plenty of blame for our circumstances on the other side of the aisle as well. Spineless is a word that comes to mind and as the GOP is obsessed with destroying this administration and everything it stands for, the Democrats are obsessed with trying to time after time find a way to back step and compromise their way out of what should be a serious fight. What little gains there have been are, in my opinion, a result of failure rather than as a result of successful governing and now that the GOP controls the House and the Senate, the Oval Office is the only thing standing between some level of sanity and a complete destruction of our way of life.
All in all, the state of the union is weak at best and on a road to complete chaos, indeed class warfare brought about by , if I may paraphrase President Eisenhower, the power grab by the industrial, military, and now banking complex. Sadly, when we had a chance to turn it around in the mid term elections of 2014, only 36% thought it important enough to vote and I submit most of them did so in ignorance of the stakes. 2016 is two years away but that , politically speaking, is a lifetime during which havoc in so many areas can be wreaked and we, all of us, will pay the price. Is that what it will take for us to wake up ??

Recently mid term elections were held and the outcome was less than desirable, to say the least. In spite of years of a calculated obstructionist strategy , a complete government shutdown and an agenda that should be abhorrent to any intelligent American, the GOP swept not only congressional seats but most governorships as well. It all seemed to be beyond rational thinking.  In one state, a governor who beat a recall by rigging the ballot box was reelected. In another state, a long time senator who continues to vow to repeal the Affordable Care Act – even though that would mean over 400,000 people in his state who never had health coverage before and have it now would lose it, was likewise reelected.  There are numerous examples one could site but one still needs to ask the question, what the hell happened. What caused voters to elect incumbents who clearly were the cause of single digit congressional approval ratings, historic dysfunction in both the House and Senate and for all intent and purpose, bringing the processes of government to a screeching halt. To try to understand this curious phenomenon, one needs to look at some key forces which made this outcome possible.

A major issue which contributes to the pain for both parties is the lack of turn out. According to several sources, of the eligible voters across the board, the turn out for the mid term election did not exceed thirty-six per cent ( 36% ). When one listens to the displeasure with and the disdain for congress and how for years it has miserably failed in its charter to govern, one has to ask why did the voters reelect these idiots or worse, why did they not vote at all ! The most important part of civic engagement afforded to us as citizens is the right to vote. How does one explain that more than half chose to ignore it! There are two sides to every coin and the flip side of this one is the issue of voter suppression. It is very real and it is a yet unsolved problem.While many, particularly the GOP leadership, would have you believe the measures enacted in the red states were so to protect the voting process from fraud, none has been able to document any record of such activity. However, there is compelling evidence of voter registration lists being strategically purged with no justification or, as in the case of Georgia, over forty thousand voter registration forms being “lost”. Funny thing, though, they were all from heavily minority districts , being a product of a huge voter registration drive conducted by a state wide advocacy group.

A second force, if you will, is that of the influence of so called “dark money” . Dark Money is defined as funds used …. to pay for elections the source of which need not be disclosed. Usually these funds flow through organizations known as “ SUPER PACS “ which somehow are granted non profit status under rules which are in serious need of revision. There is also, as earlier posts alluded to, the now apparent consequences of that dreadful Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case. Which is why we are, in no uncertain terms, seeing the buying and selling of elected offices.
Millions upon millions are being spent on elections – some in support of a candidate but far more in antagonism toward a candidate. Smear campaigns, waged with complete immunity from any oversight as to the truth of what is presented – have created a major disregard for the needs of the community in deference to the needs of the political party as it grabs for power. Case in point was the congressional race in Arizona in which the GOP candidate, whose state legislative background was questionable at best, levied charges against his opponent that were simply and legally impossible to actually have happened. In the governor’s race in that same state, millions of dollars from Koch Industries were pumped in to the race to discredit the Democratic opponent, playing on the current widespread disdain for government or anyone who had a part in government. The fact that the GOP candidate had been state treasurer and had made millions on the bankruptcies of his franchisees didn’t seem to matter.Take all this and add the calculated and unrestrained gerrymandering, made so much easier by yet another disastrous decision by the Supreme Court and the fix is in, so to speak, and the voting population either doesn’t see it or it doesn’t matter to them – gross misinformation and undisclosed spending notwithstanding. There is part of both of these at work here but there is more and more evidence that the voting population, being pathetically uninformed or misinformed, has to be a primary root of how we got to the level of chaos we are experiencing.

And that brings us to the third force – fear and ignorance.
In recent studies conducted by several universities, including the University of Maryland and Fairleigh Dickenson University, it was shown that people who rely on Fox news for their information are woefully misinformed at best and worse off than if they watched no news at all.
A recent Pew study found similar results.
Earlier in the year there was a vote in the Senate to either yeh or nay sign on to a U N Treaty on Small Arms. Far right wing groups together with the extreme so called Second Amendment protectors such as the NRA and again Fox News would have you believe that this treaty would call for the confiscation of all hand guns in participating countries. IN reality, the treaty simply was to establish a guard against the international trade and trafficking of illegal small arms
There are far too many like instances to list here but one should get the drift. During the mid term campaign, following the old Fox News agenda of promoting fear with misinformation, many believed ISIS warriors were coming across the border from Mexico and were beheading U S citizens in border towns. One can’t be sure where that one started but a California congressman stated not once but twice in public speeches that DHS and the Border Patrol had in custody, ten such ISIS warriors. DHS’s response was that this was pure nonsense and no such prisoners existed. However, the seeds of fear had already been sown and xenophobia had taken over rational thinking.When you add up the incredible lack of civic engagement and the pathetic level of political ignorance in the U S, one should not wonder about the why and how that a well oiled propaganda machine can successfully commandeer an entire election and the agenda to follow. When the likes of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and the Heritage Foundation are the information source for so many, does anyone wonder why that gate to hell is getting closer and closer.It is nothing short of criminal that a nation of such wealth on the one hand should have one in six children go to bed hungry and one in thirty will spend some time in their early years being homeless. The question has to be asked- have we as a nation completely lost any moral compass ? Are fear and ignorance proving to be effective fertilizer for this mindset, for this power grab by the ten per cent, for this complete lack of community ?

The field of law and the study of law is complicated, to say the least. The execution of and the enforcement of law can get to be a contentious event. However, the defining and interpreting of law, especially law which affects an entire nation – that, my friends is a formidable task indeed. Such is the role of the Supreme Court. It is the final arbiter of questions and controversies regarding law and particularly law under the Constitution.The current U S Supreme Court (SCOTUS ) is an interesting cadre of legal minds and it poses a likewise interesting posture when it comes to decisions. Of late, many, if not most of the decisions were a 5-4 split and the composition of this Court is a key as to why this is the case.

The Court is composed of nine justices and the Roberts Court is , as many see it,composed of two quite opposite philosophical camps, in my opinion, it is controlled by a hard line  neocon approach to matters. In this writer’s opinion, the collective mind of the Court has sacrificed the temper of the times in deference to a hard line, narrowly defined, seriously myopic interpretation of current issues. One should not, I further hold, attempt to interpret law outside of social context.
Of  late, the Court has made, in the social context of today, nothing short of disastrous decisions which unless overturned by legislative action on the part of Congress, will be wreaking havoc for decades to come.
Case in point – the now infamous “Citizens United vs the Federal Elections Commission and its corollary decision “McCutcheon vs Federal Elections Commission . These two decisions held that corporations could spend unlimited funds to support or defeat political candidates. In essence, it put elections up for sale. With some other rulings regarding PACs, etc. much of these so called donations can go unreported as to source. Under the guise of free speech, it would allow certain corporate interests to flood the market to elect candidates which support their own agenda, i.e. enhancement of profit margins. Pair that with the unchecked gerrymandering and elections now are virtually out of the hands of the electorate and in the hands of the corporate moguls. A prime example is, for the upcoming 2014 mid term elections, Charles and David Koch, have pledged over three hundred million dollars to advance their agenda by influencing elections. In a scene from an episode of “Sex and the City”, the girls are debating whether or not Carrie should take a loan from Big so she can buy her apartment. Miranda responds in what is so timely in this discussion. “ If a man gives you money, he controls you”. Think of it – if corporations get a candidate elected, they do not in fact control that candidate ! One must ask the question, is democracy dead ?Again we saw how the Court failed to be in touch with current realities in the case of Shelby County vs Holder. Prior to this decision, there were nine states which, because of their long history of discrimination and election rigging, were required to seek prior approval from the Justice Department before making any changes to their election processes which included their redistricting plans. In Shelby vs Holder, the Court ruled that while discrimination probably still existed in election processes, Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was outdated and a new law reflecting more modern concerns should be enacted. Therefore the Court repealed that portion of the VRA ! They were willing to allow discrimination to continue because the wording of protections against it were “outdated” ! REALLY !!! Did Chief Justice Roberts really think he would get this Congress to do anything, let alone pass legislation which would address corruption in the election process. Within the hour of handing down this catastrophic decision, Texas and North Carolina both enacted their shameless, discriminatory voter suppression laws. In Texas, by virtue of their new redistricting, entire voting districts which were predominantly democratic in registration were summarily eliminated and reconfigured in to sub district wards. In North Carolina, student ID’s issued by state universities were no longer valid under their new photo ID voter laws and thousands of students as well as seniors who do not have the required photo IDs will be forced out of the polls come election day.

Then there is the most recent and what might be the most insidious decision, the Court ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby. In the case of “Sebelius vs Hobby Lobby” the Court said that, in effect, a private corporation ( in this case, a family owned corporation ) can force employees to adhere to the religious beliefs of its CEO. OK, that’s rather simply put, but it is indeed the proverbial bottom line of the decision. The CEO in this case, a Southern Baptist and hard line fundamentalist, did not believe, under freedom of religion, that he should have to pay for insurance that covered certain contraception methods included under the Affordable Care Act. The Court agreed and , again, under the notion of freedom of religion, sided with the Hobby Lobby corporation and its key ally in this, the Beckett Fund for Religious Freedom. My conspiracy sense is telling me that, along with the Beckett Fund, someone with a far larger agenda pushed Hobby Lobby to this challenge. As we are all or should be well aware , the GOP and their neocon right wing allies have been trying to destroy the ACA since 2010. That being said, how utterly shortsighted this decision was will only be measured over time as more and more corporations will decide that their so called religious beliefs, conveniently invoked as they usually are, are not consistent with whatever law in current. Can one imagine if, say, The Gun Shop, a well know firearms store in Arizona, decided that it would not sell any weapons to African Americans because it offended their religious beliefs. Or if Outback Steak House felt it offended their religious beliefs to serve Hindu customers. Sounds ridiculous, yes, but it is decidedly exactly where this decision is headed. In fact, as reported in the Los Angeles Times, there has already been at least one request from the Chief Executive of Catholic Charities USA to provide for “religious exemptions” to the upcoming executive order banning discrimination against members of the LGBT community by federal contractors. Contrary to Mitt Romney’s pathetic assertions, corporations are not people and if this decision stands, it could get beyond sanity. This is not about religious freedom. If it were, it would not allow Southern Baptists or Catholics or anyone to impose their religious agenda on their employees – unless, of course they only hired members of that religious denomination.

All this points back to the issue of law, its interpretations and something which I contend has been lost especially by the Roberts Court, the understanding of law in social context.  One must ask whether or not the Roberts Court really believed that discrimination was a thing of the past, especially in the deep South . One must ask if the Roberts Court did not see the long term ramifications of ruling that a corporate CEO can determine insurance coverage based on his or her own religious beliefs. There are various definitions of the term “law” but the one I find appealing is that law “…. is a system of rules that a country or community recognizes as regulating the actions of its members..”. If one accepts that definition, one also is obliged to accept the idea that in order to be relevant to the country or community, law must be made relevant by being configured in context of that community. As far back as one can delve, laws were created to protect members of a community, or country as the case may be and preserve some semblance of order – freedom from chaos, as it were. There have been some mistakes. Prohibition under the Eighteenth Amendment was such. It was corrected by the Twenty-first Amendment. It was legislated out of context and it was finally corrected, albeit thirteen years later. One has to hope that the recent decisions by the Supreme Court do not take that long to be corrected. The consequences are far too compelling to allow that much time to pass before at least these three colossal mistakes are corrected.

On September 11, 2012, there was an attack on the U S Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi, Libya. Four U S persons were killed, including U S Ambassador Stevens. There was much scrambling to unwind the why, wherefore , the responsibility and though little about what should have been done to prevent this mess. There was little or no talk about what wasn’t done that could have lessened the impact of the attack. Republicans were quick to blame the then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for failure to take adequate measures to insure the safety of members of the diplomatic service. It didn’t help that then U N Ambassador Susan Rice went on national television and, working with the information sheets she was given by the CIA – an important point here – made several statements which were not exactly accurate. As usual, there are key pieces which have been left out of the common exchanges on this matter. One is that the Annex post in question was in fact a CIA outpost in the region and whose activities in the region are still classified, even from Congress. Secondly, there is the matter of the State Department on several occasions had asked for additional funds for security at these missions but were summarily denied by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan. Nonetheless, the Tea Party Republicans are making this their new cause celebre for the mid term elections and especially in anticipation of Secretary Clinton’s possible run for the White House in 2016. The main mantra is that because of the State Department’s failure, this incident cost four American lives. Yes, all this about four lives and Oversight Committee Chairman Daryl Issa is looking for someone’s head to chop off – preferably Hillary’s. Makes one continually wonder about the whole motivation thing and again, the blatant hypocrisy of the GOP. Congressman Issa wants to know who was responsible for this attack on the U S Diplomatic Mission and , as others in the party are, is demanding accountability. According to the GOP, we must learn the truth about all this and someone needs to be accountable for these four deaths. On a recent CNN program State of the Union with Candy Crowley, Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann was insistent that Congress, and Daryl Issa specifically, is only seeking the truth in demanding to know who was responsible for these four deaths. Time and time again she asserted there is no political agenda here ! Her seeming dedication to finding the truth and holding persons accountable is laudable. OR IS IT ?? Perhaps it is really laughable !!!!!!

In the Spring of 2003, the United States invaded the nation of Iraq. There was no provocation nor was there any legal justification. All the so called reasons, including those forever elusive WMDs about which the entire leadership of the Bush Administration continually lied. Even then Secretary of State General Colin Powell knowingly lied to the U N Security Council regarding the so called presence of a threat to the region’s security.The team of President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld cooked up this scheme for one and only one purpose – to gain control of the Iraqi oil fields and to position the US to eventually control the oil fields in Iran. Many were suspicious from the beginning but as more and more documents were declassified, the truth was revealed. When Senator Rand Paul ( R – KY ) made the comment that the Iraq war was all about profits for Haliburton and Dick Cheney, he was, in fact correct. The information, which is still flowing about those years, will reveal even more I suspect but that is not the issue here.

The point here is , simply put, the out front hypocrisy of the GOP as it demands accountable for the four deaths in Benghazi.
Let’s look at the record. My sources ** delineate some horrifying facts. From the Spring of 2003 until the Fall of 2010, the war in Iraq accounted for 5,400 U S military deaths accompanied by over 320,000 severe injuries. There were, by best estimates, over 1.4 million civilian deaths, including 348 journalists. All this, and yet there is no outcry from any direction. NONE. Least of all, there has been and I submit there never will be a demand for accountability for this huge atrocity. How four people, including the President of the United States, orchestrated this attack on a sovereign nation with no justification – either legal or political ( aka national security ) and have not been called to task as war criminals in beyond rational thinking. Can one even approach thinking this invasion was about anything other than enriching oil companies, both now and in the future, as well as those who continue to profit from this nation’s wage war anywhere we can make money at it mentality. I clearly understand this premise will be hard to take for many but, in addition to the sources cited below, I also have a primary source which corroborates this position. What makes me ill is that the orchestra leaders of this folly are now basking in retirement with no hint of ever being held accountable. The complete and total lack of conscience aside, why are they not worried ? Because too many poor lemmings bought in to the propaganda that Iraq was responsible for the attacks on 911 and were getting prepared for yet another of even greater proportions. Mired in fabricated stories of potential Muslim world domination ( sounds like the ol domino theory of the sixties ) and pointing to 911 as proof, the nation did not ask why so much preparation for war with Iraq was indeed happening long before that September.
The proverbial bottom line – the party line is the rule, no matter what the cost. Congresswoman Bachmann and dozens like her care naught for facts, let alone the truth and for her to say that these Select Committee hearings held to once again investigate the incident of September 11, 2012 are to seek the truth is pure crap, plain and simple. What about getting to the bottom of the War that was allegedly waged in response to September 11, 2001. Why are we not investigating that one ??????? Why are there not hearings and, indeed, trials for these true war criminals ???

** In addition to my listed sources, for this article I also used BBC, the New York Times, AP, DOD and a web site called AntiWar.com which cited numerous of its sources including DOD, WikiLeaks and declassified documents from the Central Comand. Also, information contained in the publication “Hubris – the Inside Story of Spin, Scandal and the Selling of the Iraq War by Michael Isikoff and David Corn and well and information revealed in Why We Did It, a documentary produced by Rachel Maddow of MSNBC