Congress Conducting Paid Protest Against Abortion

If you  need to understand the reason for the excessive rancor in congress, take this anonymous quote shared today by Chuck Todd (MSNBC's MTP Daily).

One particular conservative congressperson stated to him that they spend half of their time in Washington trying to convince people that they are not crazy, and the rest back at home trying to convince constituents that they are.

Whenever the electorate is found in a fury, they are looking for candidates who will give voice to it all.

This is the wave of dissent that seems to be driving the distorted campaign to defund Planned Parenthood, an organization that only receives 3% of its funding from federal dollars.

Poll after poll shows that Planned Parenthood has wide reaching bi-partisan appeal  and not only among the 2.7 million people that used these services last year. In fact, Planned Parenthood out polls every presidential candidate for the 2016 election and Barack Obama as well.  This persistent effort to take on a really old abortion battle by attacking a really popular health organization has way more downside than upside considering the fact that any resolution to defund would only survive the House and would die in the Senate or by presidential veto, but won't be forgotten by those who consider this an attack on the rights of the individual.

Yet, they press on, convinced that the danger of losing a re-election at home is much worse than the risk of a further divided nation.

Planned Parenthood president Cecille Richards, spent today entertaining a crowd in congress that convened another session to convince angry republican voters that they hear them and they are responding, even though this group of voters does not represent a majority of Americans or a majority view on abortion.

Might there come a day when the abortion fight finally turns in favor of those who refuse to let it go?

No!

There is no reasonable expectation that really smart women, who have already decided on their own ability to choose their own health care direction, will suddenly question their own intelligence and hand this decision over to congress.

In fact, there is a really strong expectation that Planned Parenthood, an organization that also funds advocacy and lobbying efforts to further their cause, will coordinate themselves against this opposition taking advantage of their popularity that has NOT diminished even with all of the negative publicity.

The Hyde Amendment itself (the abortion related bill that disallows most federal support of abortions) might be reconsidered since all of this conversation is revealing the lack of federal support that certain health clinics receive as a result of providing abortion services. An effort that began to defund abortions could essentially result in an expansion of fund access to other abortion providers who might seek to display a separation between the funding of abortions versus the funding of other services as Planned Parenthood does to maintain its federal support.

In other words, watch out republican party.  This is not a weak organization without resource or recourse when facing challenges.  Political ads created by this group have typically been powerfully influential and damaging to potential republican candidates.

Given our new found freedom of choice relative to health care, Richards capsulized her argument  before congress into an obvious truth.  If congress has a problem with Planned Parenthood, they actually have a problem with the 2.7 million that choose to use them versus other health care options.

Despite limited hours of availability at most locations, and limited access to certain types of screenings (i.e., mammogram machines), 2.7 million still would rather use Planned Parenthood over the overcrowded clinics that might offer more services but aren't always as clean or capable of meeting the rising demand for health care services.  Whether Planned Parenthood remains or not, America is clearly desperate to meet the growing needs created by expanded health care access from the ACA.

Who a woman chooses as a doctor (and most women seem to prefer their OB-GYN as their primary physician as well) is as personal a decision as is abortion, and as sacred as the right to worship and the right to bear arms.

Stated clearly, there is no potential for a political victory when you threaten to shut down government over an issue that polls so heavily in the other sides favor.  There is only the potential to force out a capable House Speaker in favor of an inexperienced puppet who will soon be in for a sad surprise. Keep in mind that the Speaker of the House sits behind the vice-president in line to the White House, yet- because of conservative infighting- few republicans in congress are remotely interested in this once esteemed post.

The impetus for all of this were these anti-abortion attack videos against Planned Parenthood, however, today's committee did not attempt to include the testimony of the video's producer who was not called by the committee chair and was reportedly unwilling to testify alongside Richards.

Fetal stem cell research had its day under congressional review back during the Ronald Reagan days, and it passed as an acceptable scientific practice that is not exclusively done with Planned Parenthood fetal donations.  Only two of Planned Parenthood's 500+ locations do fetal donations and only one sales the parts in order to offset the cost of the program itself. If the debate over stem cell research and abortion deserve to be taken up again in the halls of congress, there is a way to make this happen.

To Hell With Legislation

Is there an excessive amount of unusual waste in the realm of government?

Of course, but it came to be via a legislative journey that had value and purpose at the time, even if only to insure the full maintenance of "use it or lose it" funding attached to certain bill appropriations.

If you ask Senator Rand Paul, he believes that blocking funding should be the backdoor approach that his party should employ to destroy legislation that they don't particularly agree with instead of actually doing the legislative work that congress is elected and paid to do.

The roughly 60 million dollars of federal assistance that Planned Parenthood receives might not be a significant percentage of our entire wasteful budget, but it should be under the same scrutiny of waste that every area of government spending deserves.  Shrinking wasteful spending is noble and necessary, and if Planned Parenthood is truly an unnecessary expenditure for taxpayers, it should be included in our efforts to reduce the size of government.

Yet, by defunding only the things that a majority in congress doesn't particularly like, they render the path and process of legislation as moot and laws as malleable with back end funding fights designed to circumvent laws.

The Freedom Coalition?

What makes very little sense is why would congressional republicans build a coalition to defund America instead of using the same coalition that it will take to be successful in this effort to simply change the laws in the first place?

The reason is, they don't have the numbers (67 votes in the Senate) to get it done, they only have the numbers to be a nuisance.

Paid political protesters if you will, but hardly legislators.

Yes On 2A...Because (No Debt) College Matters

YES ON 2A...BECAUSE (no debt) COLLEGE MATTERS.  THAT'S IT. (link below)

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=jm#inbox/14ff0b40798b12ec?projector=1

Is Christian Hypocrisy Destroying The World & U.S.?

Before Pope Francis addresses America, I thought I
would offer this great nation a religious address of my own.

Gay marriage, or the war to stop it, is a religious one.

The war against aborted babies that may or may not be kicking on a table while clinging to life that is ironically, only being sustained for the proper harvesting of the brain from this particularly described- unwilling research donor- is a religious war as well, even if Carly Fiorina tells you its about the decency of all Americans.

Marijuana? Religious, even among  Catholics (Mexican, Irish, Italian...etc.) who drink for sport but abhor dope heads and question marijuana's medicinal value over that prescribed medicine waiting to potentially be recalled or over prescribed to a depressed PTSD soldier who is likely to die from the depression or the pill addiction but not the weed.

God knows that those hooded folks used religious justification to terrorize long before Dylann Roof thought it could kick off that religious race riot that way too many so-called religious folks promised was sitting on the edge of inevitability 20 years ago or more.

Religiously conservative Jews are now promising us all that Iran is the worlds great Satan while religious Iranians say similar things about Israel and America.  Regardless of who might be right, the mere references are a tug at the heart strings of religious folks who understand man's historical journey towards a manifest anti-Christ destiny, and the unwitting preemptive strikes from all sides that only help to prepare the necessary smokescreen for his comfortable arrival.

I could have titled this post, "Religious Hypocrisy" but that's not an accurate depiction of America's reality or my particular grievance.

Jews are already on record as describing JESUS AS A HOAX while anxiously waiting for the REAL Christ to please stand up and prove that previous Jewish rabble rouser a liar.

Love 'em or hate 'em, the Muslims are too deeply engaged in their own religious disagreement as a tenant of religion itself.  Sharia law could never come to exist without a faction of Muslims insistent on this caliphate mission. How gracious can Islamic Sharia Law pursuant's possibly be towards other religions while struggling to be tolerant towards the very people that they pray with every day and in the same way.

Although Muslims don't quibble with one another over the day, the necessity and quantity of prayer, worship and fellowship, they are at war over the importance of their religions founding prophet, Muhammad, whose family lineage and rebellious life journey pointed one direction for some Muslims, a different direction of thought and behavior from other Muslims, and that inevitable "third" group who can empathize with both sides of this war.

Islam and Judaism are Exempt from Grace

These two confused and thus confusing religions are actually free from the unequivocal call of Grace that asks but one thing from each and every Christian;

Exercise your faith in the gift of Grace by exercising your giving of Grace.

It puts Christians in the cat bird seat of religious pecking order relative to who and whom God expects to be the most gracious.

Might that be religious piety for a Christian (Me) to place a higher expectation upon the behavior of Christianity over every other religion?

I dare any Muslim or Jew (or atheist and agnostic for that matter) to battle EVERY Christian in a war to be gracious. I'll bring my crew and you bring yours, and we'll battle it out near the performance stage at Denver City Park next weekend.

As it stands, American Christian lawmakers, and the people they think they represent, aren't necessarily kicking butt in the battle to be gracious, especially towards desperate middle eastern refugees and migrants praying to God for a little American Christian Grace.

Long before Ben Carson's recent stupidity towards Muslims, Muslims questioned the full divinity of the prophet who inspires Christians to be gracious. Yet, this historically tolerant capacity of people inspired by Grace must have influenced a few of these refugees and migrants into death tempting sea voyages towards western/Christian refuge instead of more Islamic disagreement and violence.

For times like these.

At times like these, I often find myself confident that God needed black slaves in America.  Not so much for the reason that whites found valuable, but for value that would manifest itself in years and days after the scars solidified their shape on our backs.

The necessity of blacks in America and the necessity for America in the world is similarly linked, ordered and scarred to achieve tenacity and temperance when a balance is needed from both powerful forces. Insensitivity and intolerance on a macro or micro level is an entirely understandable human policy for the selfish, the weary or the scarred.

It's just not gracious.

For the Grace of God, trees made to nourish a nation have to grow up and take their place in the forest. Not only to realize the value of their purpose, but to stave off the proliferation of the selfish trees that evil uses to overtake the landscape and swallow up the rain and the sun from the rest of US.

If that analogy doesn't quite make sense to you, its likely because I'm talking to a different kind of Christian.

Will Women Confront Today's "Legislative Daddy's"?

Hillary is currently the only woman Donald has
not tried to destroy. Is he saving it for later?
Don't republican women have a problem with this?

If resiliency is the TRUE test of mettle that helps us to determine our president, than this is actually more of a coronation then any of us knew.

What we know about American politics has been shaken to the core.  First, by two terms of a Muslim named black president, and currently by the total inability to connect the dots on what will happen tomorrow.

Will Bernie "the Socialist" Sanders really keep rising in the polls as Hillary and Trump remain the most hated and likely candidates to represent their party in a general election?

Trump gets away with being utterly offensive towards key segments of the republican electoral path while Hillary gets beaten and battered for reasons we might take years to ever agree about cause we'll be too busy beating her still.

Will she eventually get the positive impact of all the negative press that she's getting when voters have to stand in a ballot box and decide who can actually handle the rigors of the job, realizing that an adversarial media is among the greatest of all human hurdles?

Sort of.

More accurately, the press is proving themselves to be  one part journalist' and two part predators of sensationalism above substance. Like the way in which they've clung like stink to crap on the story about The Donald who dared to describe another presidential candidates facial features as a reason for her inability to preside.

Did Donald actually say that  Carly Fiorina's mean mug and pursed persona makes her less capable of leading others?

No, but I GUARANTEE you that had Donald declared such a thing about any man, the automatic question that would have followed would have been:

"Do you feel that his facial features will hinder his ability as a president"

That question never came. During the interview or in post interview analysis of what he said or what he meant while trying to clean it up.

What also didn't happen....again, is the expected drop in poll numbers that would connect the dots between the behavior and the response that says Americans, primarily republican American women, care about electing a misogynistic president.

Did I just call out republican women?

Actually, all women- including my wife and 5 daughters and my momma, and grandma- are unfortunately squarely in my line of sight today because the more and more we really take a true examination of the REAL war on women (and it is a real war, rather you like it or not), some of the combatants are lobbing grenades at themselves from both sides of the battlefield.

Sorry ladies.  I say this with all of the due respect and humility that a male feminist represents.  The mere notion is an oxymoron and nearly moronic if you think about it.  How can the slave master pretend to be interested in ending slavery while benefiting from free labor and idly watching the systematic brutality that insures the future of the program?

Our women are victims of men. They are victims of our inability to understand their core motivations.  Where men failed to fulfill the role of leader/provider, women have done what was necessary.  Changing your duties doesn't necessarily change your core motivations but it will expand your capacity to do what otherwise had been expected of others.

Is it proper for women to be in leadership roles?

Is Nina Turner too passionate for her own good, or is she willing
to sacrifice anything and everything for the cause of  justice?

I grew up around churches that didn't know if women could be trusted to preach (so they took over testimony service, which is now mostly gone as a result), or be trusted in pant suits similar to the style a man commonly prefers.

Today, we still don't trust women to be smart enough about their own reproductive choices.  "What makes them think we need legislative daddy's to tell us what to do. We are grown 'A' women" said former state Senator Nina Turner of Ohio on Saturday's (9-12-15) MSNBC's Melissa Harris Perry Show.

In her always passionate refrain, Turner added, "If your hair is on fire, make like your hair is on fire" responding to the tacit response that women often choose to avoid the risk of agitating the fearful masses and risking their own existence.

Her words inspired me to wonder why I always run to the television when Nina Turner speaks, but don't necessarily feel the same heat from other women who undoubtedly feel the same burn Turner has.

To be Square and fair, black folks do this towards black folks and every group of challenged individuals picks sides in the struggle to either embrace or reject their plight.

Not just black on black crime, I'm talking black on black criticism, or white looking Mexicans who denigrate those who cruise and low ride during Cinco De Mayo.  

I listened to an interview with Dr. Damon Tweedy, a black doctor who recently describe how one elderly black patient rejected him as a doctor feeling that the hospital had passed the inferior black doctor upon an unwitting black patient. (NPR interview)

Self hatred examples are ample, but y'all women really need to do some reckoning.  Not because you are the sole cause of the problem, but because you are the focus of the change. Men can Lean In, but we have to bend our posture towards the cause of happiness for the women in our world and in our lives.

We know that our drunk and disgruntled daddy can do a lot to help cure the damage of our childhoods that we carry into our adult lives, but the real work is personal.  Sometimes drunk daddy isn't ready to help you in the healing. Yet heal you must.

Women must heal themselves from misogyny by addressing the misogyny that they do to each other, as we've long since realized that women mostly dress up for each other and hardly for us guys.  In kind, women criticize each others dress and hair style while we guys obsess over the hips and curves hiding behind all of the pomp and circumstance of being a woman.

 We've always known that women are notoriously skeptical of other women relative to the issue of rape. When it comes to Bill Cosby, I don't really want to tell you the lack of universal disgust among women, even in my house.

Donald can get away with being an ass because he knows what we all need to come to grips with.  Women are as tough on women as anybody.  Maybe worse at times.

Had Hillary's assistant been Anthony Weiner and  Weiner's wife was caught sending naked pictures on a phone, goofy looking Weiner would be a hero of sorts, especially if the nude woman involved was his rather attractive wife Huma Abedin, whose nude photos would only draw criticism from other women judging the size or the amount of firmness in her breast', or the presence of stretch marks if she's had children and/or a weight control issues.

This demand to be beautiful could also be blamed on men, but it loses its impact among wise women who know that men are attracted to ALL types of women, especially confident ones.

Whether she's elected or not, Hillary is going to win in the court of public opinion just because of the perseverance she gaining vis a vis this media butt kicking she's bravely enduring .   She won't get it from The Bern, who is too nice to go there, and Joe Biden is hoping that this email thing will hurt her instead of help her as it ultimately will when it comes time to actually vote for just one of these candidates on either side of the isle.

Americans notice the attacks, but not more than the camera which has a way of focusing itself over and over upon the person who eventually gets the nod.

Is Hillary Struggling With Women Too?

Hillary not only needs to actively court the support of women, she needs to actively court the vote of black women like Michelle Obama, Nina Turner and the 6 that are in my immediate family (all will be voters in #2016).

 While a coalition of black voters can be inspired to get out and vote by the Obama voter turnout machine, who they vote for (especially in the primary races) could be a mixed bag without some necessary female guidance.  

Some aspects of that guidance will need to softly inspire that segment of society that only a soft spoken black woman can push into action. Other parts will need to go Nina Turner all over this nation to inspire those people who only listen when passionate, trustworthy black women like Nina Turner challenge you with her vision and values.  Does that represent a form of my own male self hatred?  I won't pretend not to be more cautious around a smooth talking man versus a loud but loving lady.

Does Hillary need a "blacker" woman to lead her cause?

With rugged women, you may not always like what you see but you always trust that it is real.  That is the power of what it means to be a woman, and nobody seems to harness and utilize this power better than black women. Hillary needs a couple of strong voice, dark skinned (no offense Karen Finney. we insiders know you are black) black women to get out in front for her for the sake of both the female vote and the black vote, key reasons for 8 years of Obama.

Women must harness the breadth of their power for more than just silent control of unsuspecting men. Women can force the hands of justice by simply patting out the fire in each others hair and destroying all of the matchbooks of self hatred that starts many of them.

What does that mean exactly?  Push back at Trump's polling numbers until he lets up on Fiorina, and remind all of the other legislative daddy's that Roe .v. Wade was decided by a lot of smart adults, some of which were women.

Can You Win Any Election Without Women?

Even that cute skinny comedian who did the Fat Shaming video has a reason to join this cause since she will not be young and pretty forever, however, she MIGHT decide to remain a woman since she mentioned that being a man would have made her humor more funny or  more generally accepted. (But you knew you weren't a man going into the satire that you hoped would shamefully inspire people..........huh????)

Women could insure the wage equity that they seek as well, but not without bringing along other disadvantaged people (men) in the process.

Don't assume that I see women as some monolithic conglomerate of voting sameness? Hardly!

Yet, the attack of Carly Fiorina's face is an attack on the entire gender, regardless of political bend. And the cause of gender equality is ONE.

 This was a similar revelation that Dr. Martin Luther King faced when last he marched on earth.  How do we fight for the conditions (via policy) that impact blacks the most without fixing the greater impact on poor people as a whole?

How can ONE woman rise above beauty as a pre-requisite if so many other women tacitly support these trappings of beauty and popularity?

You can't do it, so don't try.

News Flash: Huckabee Racing To Campaign On Davis

Mike Huckabee has been vocally using Kim Davis to do a reset on his candidacy, so this really wise judge, who put Davis in jail with no bail to begin with, is letting her out before Mike Huckabee can use her for further grand standing.

On a brighter note.  Kim Davis is polling at 7% support, twice that of Mike Huckabee and several other GOP presidential hopefuls.

If you can't cherry pick from Donald Trump's supporters then you settle for the Kim Davis voters.

One reporter for MSNBC, when confronted with
the details from this poll, seemed hard pressed to agree with the numbers as she stood out in front of the Kentucky County detention center with throngs of Kim Davis supporters, not realizing that the nearly all of the 7% were the throngs surrounding her.

With Uncertain American Presidential Election Looming, Why Should Iran Trust U.S. Commitment?

Required listening:The chairman of Iran's parliament, Ali Larijani, spoke with NPR's Steve Inskeep in New York last week -


In classic NPR fashion, they've landed a key interview exposing another perspective on the Iran deal.

While it is fairly easy to know exactly what many Americans, primarily those in Congress, feels about this Iran nuclear agreement, most Americans have little clue about the sentiment from the other side of the deal.

Sure, we get those death to America pieces of propaganda that are easy to find from Iran, but WE had that open letter to Iran from congress, and WE've got plenty of television commercials that are still running on American television, even though the numbers to dismantle the deal have never materialized, and the president is likely to push this deal through by virtue of a weak opposition force instead of strong support.

"Push" is the only accurate description for how this round deal will make it through the square hole of opposition, which is why some in Iran are just as skeptical of the U.S. as WE seem to be of them.

And why not?!

Lindsey Graham and other presidential candidates have taken the more sanctions rhetoric route to destroy Iran's courage in our commitment and encourage a better deal, or at least encourage voters to believe that a better deal remains to be had.

The quality of the deal is basically connected to the reality of Iran's future.  If they intend to cheat, any deal would free them up to get started, dismantled reactor or not.  If they intend to do as they've seemingly done for a century- work with the world to control middle eastern nukes- America has totally won this deal complete with the power to sanction for suspicion.

Historically, America has been seen as the more aggressive party between the two nations, and many Iranians with a view of this historical timeline are curious about our distrust of them.  After all, before we had to destroy Iran's sworn enemy, Saddam Hussein, we supported him against Iran and chiseled the tenor of our relationship into stone.

Follow this timeline (from the NY times) on the past century of  U.S. relationship with Iran.

Even stone crumbles, and old sentiments die away if you allow them.  Iranians feels totally on the bad side of this deal because they have shut down a nuclear reactor in order to achieve it, and pushed themselves to a place that they could not instantly snap back to even if the U.S. instantly snap backs sanctions for real or assumed violations.

Stated more clearly, Iran will never be exactly where they were, however, sanctions could put them back where they didn't want to be when they decided to make a deal in the first place.  In addition, it is the U.S. presidential candidates, some who are Senators, with the power and will to threaten congressional snap back of sanctions just to thwart the deal.

Not that opponents of the deal will listen to the details that matter, but for those who do, it might matter to know that Iran is mostly afraid of a weak deal that leaves them eerily close to the edge of sanctions again.

In other words, Iran is afraid of sanctions.

If history tells us anything valuable about this moment in time, it might be that REAL sanctions really work.

Never Forget: One Man Can Change The World

I'm not really sure what it is you are going through right at this moment.

But God told me to remind you that when you are weak, he is strong.  Whatever it is, it is not the crucifixion.  It soon shall pass.

God Bless.

Because Of Common Core, There's An App For That

Keep in mind for just a moment how and when Common Core curriculum changes came to be.

That's not hard at all for me because my youngest of 5 daughters is finishing high school this year and she is the full embodiment of where Common core is succeeding and where it is not.

Before I hastily mount this really high horse and take a terrible fall, I must repeat my skeptical black man (occasionally angry) statement underlined in the last paragraph.

Common Core is not and must not succeed in the effort to keep standardized testing alive.  That........(sorry, but I did say occasionally angry) SHIT, needed to go right about the time it got started.  Black foke been tellin' y'all for years that it will always have embedded biases that skew strongly against certain students of various backgrounds, and will never truly achieve the goal of NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND while worrying so much about the classroom teacher.

These tests have never been equitably done or tangibly assessed, and now they are full of Common Core word problems that are extremely easy for the schools who've embraced Common Core curriculum and even harder for schools that have not.  The testing that children should receive regularly as it relates to internal educational goals can, and should be catered to provide the data we seek so that we can finally stop testing teachers while pretending we're assessing kids.

Stop testing our teachers.

TRAIN THEM OR FIRE THEM.

Now.

Back to civility.

The issue of teacher training has always pointed directly at school administration which is often times a lifetime achievement group of teachers who've paid their dues in the classroom, and really really love kids and education, but don't always have the confrontation skills to force the needed curriculum changes like Common Core because they are now the boss of the same teachers they were peers with before.

This trend is extremely common in education and contributes to the reason why good classroom teachers, who would like to pay a few more bills, leave the classroom  for administrative jobs chasing cash instead of  passion.

Why so many people have decided that Common Core is crap is because so many people were raised in the fulfill a mission, solve an equation, get a factory job that our parents and grandparents remember so well and think might be gone because of crap like Common Core.

If you follow the trends in education, especially the ones that say we are not leading the world in very many categories at all, Common Core has long since been a way of life in the countries that beat us.  In Japan, students in a math class may spend the entire day working on one complex math word problem, which is common to Common Core teaching.

Where our parents were shown how to do math, asked to do it themselves and then asked to explain their method, Japanese math students (much like our kids now) have to tackle the problem all by themselves while the teacher sits close by to analyze the manner in which they've solved a problem before the teacher shows them the various known methods of answering the question at hand.

On occasion, students who learn this way might discover an answer to a question that was not originally expected.

That's the point of Common Core. To be a thinker and a problem solver and not just an equation do'er. Whenever I struggled the most in math, it was finding the focus to figure out why I needed to know this stuff in the first place when my stomach wouldn't stop growling before lunch.  Even our greatest teachers (R.I.P. Mr. Troutman) who could take a ball of string and make geometry come alive couldn't keep it from being a question answering session instead of true critical thinking practice.

When education is already answering real world questions, there is no longer a lingering battle with Why- only distracting belly growls.

(HAVE YOU SEEN GOOGLE CARDBOARD?....WOW!!)

Maybe I can explain it to you another way, like our teachers had to do back in the day when we didn't fully connect with their first example.

I was desperately trying to get hip with the new generation by downloading the Instagram app onto my phone, but I needed to let go of one or three of my golf course navigation tools.  When one of my basketball players that I coach heard me grumbling over too many apps on my phone and where to find that app eraser, she calmly but sternly cut me off mid-speech and said;

"You can never have too many apps!!"

At the time, I wanted to take my phone that I couldn't really figure out how to erase apps from, and show her the message saying delete something if you want to add Instagram- yet she said it in a way that was like, teaching me something, or something.  Due to natural impulse, I almost started a devils advocate debate with her but I didn't know where to start nor did I see a clear path to victory.

So I slept on her words, finally found the screen that allows you access to every app, and proceeded to realize that my note pad and calendar and everything that lives on the phone, accessible with the touch of a finger, IS AN APP that somebody created once upon a time ago and got paid for their idea.

An old world of manufacturing and farming and hard labor was probably under challenging for the quality of education that we and our parents received.  In this new world where hard labor is going overseas or captured by immigrants, creating new industry is the new industry; one in which outside of the box thinking is the norm and no longer the exception.

Come to think of it, with the necessity for critical thinking we could probably create an app on our phones that helps us practice this skill in the form of some Facebook game like Candy Crush.  Scientist have created a game that is a brain boosting app designed to help Alzheimer's victims exercise their brains, but can also detect the potential for Alzheimer's as well.

Without Common Core, America will have to buy an app for that instead of create the app for that.  Common Core is giving our kids the mental bandwidth to globalize and capitalize on these opportunities of necessity.  If you are still living inside of the box, you are losing bandwidth so fast its scary.

Previous Post.

I'm All For Common Core

Recycle. Save The Earth.

One of my neighbors threw out a white trash can that I recycled into our family indoor recycling bin. With some help from my daughter the art student who turned it into an inviting place to visit.

The picture is taken with my turnip plants that came last summer from a winter time composted bag of vegetables. I don't compost year round because I hate flies and love my neighbors.

Every little bit helps.

Recycle.

Save Our Planet.

Can Clinton/Trump Win This War With The Media?

Trump Letter To CNN's Jeff Zucker

What we are experiencing right now is a form of a litmus test and it is being conducted at the hands of the two leading candidates for president.

On the republican side, there is a test of whether or not a republican candidate can achieve their ultimate mission with Fox News in an adversarial posture against them.

As it stands, Fox is not necessarily an adversary to Donald Trump, but they have yet to fully resolve that Megan Kelly beef or the underlying sense that each reporter on the network is totally torn between their gut journalistic instinct and front office instructions.

The best we can tell thus far, Trump is winning this war and has forced Fox to cater or lose access to a candidate who doesn't currently need any one network to achieve his purpose since each of them seems eager to chase after an interview by phone, in flight or with Trump Towers decorating the backdrop.

Whether or not Trump's posturing will ever need to extrapolate out into the details we seek still lingers in the wind since Donald gave into the GOP by signing that Pledge of allegiance, and Fox gave into Donald by treating him with kid gloves, leaving no one left (but Hugh Hewitt) to corner Donald on details.

Trumps republican opponents will soon have to wage a combine and conquer approach to take out Trump if they can, and then we will see if the GOP party is truly ready to let Trump lead them into permanent change from having to give themselves over to the most liberal republican EVER.

This is a statement campaign worthy of watching for that reason alone, but that is a sideshow to the war between Clinton and the predominant liberal press.

Can Clinton actually win the White House against the will of a LIBERAL mass media still trying to make her say sorry?

Somehow the really smart media thinks Hillary is stupid enough to hope sorry solves the problem.  The moment she says sorry, the question evolves towards new questions of what exactly is there to be sorry for, the actual behaviors or the perception?

Gotcha!!!

The media is a fraternity that only really respects journalistic integrity.

Translation:  the media will search for gotcha moments or obscure military groups like the Quds instead of the familiar Kurdish fighting group to confuse candidates who didn't read the Cliff Notes before the interview, and they will try to make Clinton trip, fall and grovel to their feet just to get a hand up from them, which notoriously never comes.


Why Do You Think They're Called The Press?

Every politicians has been placed in the media wine press to determine their quality and tolerance.  This campaign season, however, a couple of these grapes are not nearly as fragile as usual- kind of with a rubbery, push back quality in fact.

For years in wine and politics, we've only focused on the grape quality looking for stronger varieties that would project powerfully before the world while succumbing to the squeeze of the press as a necessity to the process.

Modern mass media- and wine making- are a whole new world now since do it yourself options have thoroughly invaded each industry.  While home brewed wine has only added to the richness and vastness of an industry that more people understand and deeply engage in, Twitter and Facebook and Yahoo and cable television and everything else that is twice as fast as waiting for that newspaper or network news report,  has changed the media in a unique way that we've yet to give a thumbs up or down to.

Is The Media NOW On The Ballot?

The Summer of Donald has been the season in which a potential presidential candidate tweeted his way to the top.  It might also become the summer that America's most powerful politician finally gets placed on the presidential ballot too- so to speak.

If Trump can actually continue his campaigning without really spending a dime of his billions, he will have done it without a SuperPAC in tow, showing each of US that money is powerful, but not insurmountable if you have media savvy.

That is equally the statement being made in this war against the mass media that Trump and Clinton are actually winning right now.



Eureka!

I have seen the light.  And it is good.  Not only are Trump and
Clinton fighting common enemies, they are doing together.

I just had a revelation that this new observation connects right back to MY same old Clinton/Trump conspiracy theory of the two working together to dismantle a fractured party from the inside out.  If these non media savvy republicans  don't figure out how to out savvy Trump/Clinton, Trump just signed the pledge that beholds the republican party to him versus he to them as the GOP is praying.

So yeah! Add the mass media and even SuperPAC's to my list of groups under coordinated attack by both lead candidates in this election.  I can say with certainty that each of these candidates are individually coordinating against the GOP elite, the mass media and SuperPAC's out of individual necessity.

Are Trump/Clinton also working together?

Was it originally a drunken joke during Donald's wedding reception or an accidental occurrence that is distorted in perception?

 If Clinton was to have a presidential coronation, Trump is providing the red carpet and an etched in history example of how to own the mass media, still the most irresponsibly dangerous politician alive, even worse than Trump.

Vida

Until She Quits, Kim Davis Is A Paid Civil Servant

"There ought to be enough space for her to act on her conscience and for gay couples to be able to get married." 

That's what Jeb Bush is now saying after previously standing with the crowd of candidates who understand the importance of the rule of law.  Tapping into that vein of Christian conservative angst that wants republican candidates to understand their pain is  pretty predictable . Laws enacted by Supreme Court intervention can produce protest behaviors, and gay marriage seems to have a strong wave of opposition.

As understandable and expected as Kim Davis and other contrary clerks who will do this are, these are also the people we expected to be throwing into jail because of inevitable protest against this new law. 

 Lawyers who make money at these moments have long since positioned themselves for this opportunity and now its time to go to work. Davis' seemed fully equipped with lawyers (hard to say for how long) who knew very well what the judge would be forced to do regarding this case, although they probably anticipated a hefty bail for their sacrificial lamb to help encourage that "Go Fund Me" page and raise major loot from sympathetic supporters.

Feeling a little raped by conservative GoFundMe causes, GoFundMe has altered their policy to counter against such calculated cash raising. Yet, that will only hamper the effort to get rich off of the gay marriage protest, not stop it.  With no bail set and no GoFundMe page for Davis, staying in jail could be her back door to martyrdom that fulfills this protest mission with Davis as its face.

SCOTUS Laws Come When Congress Collapses

It would be so great if this conversation REALLY had something to do with gay marriage, but capitalism is a predictable opportunist and the Supreme Court only cares to direct America when Congress Does Not. Enough on that.

Conservative Governors have long since wondered how much they could test the power of Federal control over state laws.  With the end of pot prohibition in a couple of states, and undocumented workers having sanctuary states, even liberal leaders are testing a Federal willingness to enforce certain laws exactly as they are written on the books.

Whether these pokes at the Constitutions perimeter have created the leaks in law enforcement that makes Kim Davis wonder if she is duty bound to sign marriage licenses for gays is truly a worthy debate too, but not this time.

This time, we have to point the questions and the fingers at each of the presidential candidates that don't have the integrity or the sense to defend the rule of law at least until after they become president like Obama did.

How any member of congress could find the audacity and verve to complain about a Supreme Court decision given their power to define or redefine law is interesting. How any potential president who is expected to uphold the rule of law would equivocate on such an issue is eye blinking.

Go take your judicial branch Quiz (send a copy to Kim Davis)

4. True or false? State courts must follow the holdings of the Supreme Court of the United States. Your answer: True False The correct answer is "True". State courts as well as federal courts must follow the Supreme Court of the United States.

5. A Supreme Court decision that a law is unconstitutional can be invalidated by (Choose two) a. a majority of district and appeals court judges’ rejection of the decision, with a showing of why it was erroneous b. a later decision by the Supreme Court c. a new law enacted by Congress upholding the first law d. an amendment to the Constitution e. a motion by a majority of the justices to rescind the decision f. Kim Davis. Your answer: a b c d e  f The correct answer is "b and d". All federal and state courts must follow the Supreme Court’s decisions, and Congress may not strike down its decisions. The Supreme Court can overrule its own decision only in a ruling on a new case. Constitutional amendments are rare.

In the absence of any reasonable alternative to support Kim Davis and her decision to disobey the law, many candidates have chosen the kind of politics that you only do when you know you can't win and you never intend to run for president again.

Either Davis must follow the law as Donald Trump and Lindsey Graham and Hillary Clinton and every lucid candidate has declared, or sit in jail until the statement she's making has been made to her satisfaction (ie., rot in hell if you so choose).

Those who are supporting the actions of Mrs. Davis are either way too low in the polls  or way too angry about OPS (other people's sins) for the repercussions to matter much in their calculations.

But they are wrong and waving the white flag on the presidency at the same time.  This matters because this is the same rule of law as women's suffrage was or interracial marriage became which both were once illegal because God didn't used to like women or folks with jungle fever.  Now, God has reduced his list to disliking only gays who want to marry and maybe people who get abortions- rape exception excluded (I think).

I absolutely agree that God's law supersedes man's laws forcing each of us of faith to draw this line at times. I'm still not sure how I even finished high school science with my big bang skepticism.

Whenever principle forces you to challenge Supreme Court decisions, prepare yourself and your principle to sit in jail (or the principals office) for as long as principle remains your key motivation. Long long ago, America chose it necessary to separate Church from State , and the State won that war of hierarchy.

Kim Davis and Kim Davis alone was elected to fulfill a PAID civic duty. Once Kim Davis is tired of the statement she's making in jail, she must either return to sign every marriage license expected of her according to Kentucky law, until her term is over, or go right back to jail. In her new career after civil service, Davis could become an organized protester since she's getting some background in the work and her jail time should provide a little protester street cred.

Lindsey Graham: BEST Republican With Worse Polls

I'm giving up on Jeb

I have accepted that Jeb Bush did not want to do this president thing and should have listened to his momma who told his butt not to get involved in this race.  According to Barbara Bush, America has more families than just the Bush family to bleed the life out of, and I just decided that momma was right.

He is still the decent man that I believed of him, but he's letting Donald Trump dictate his words nearly beyond repair and totally beyond respect.

How low exactly are these zeroes?  

If Lindsey Graham can remain funny and engaging during the next debate
maybe he has the last laugh on Donald Trump.

I was watching the interview with Lindsey Graham on Morning Joe (MSNBC) this morning and found myself really interested in what he has to say.

Aside from the fact that he outlined the same collaborative military force to address ISIS that we agree upon,  he was really really funny.  

(previous post on ISIS)

On Donald Trump:

"Donald Trump is going after that group of Republicans who still think Obama is a Muslim.  And I want the other folks"

Graham offered several really thought out suggestions of economic reform, but mostly focused on the entitlement reform of Social Security and Medicaid which he thinks must be means tested according to age in order to keep in solvent for the long term.

Graham was, however, willing to increase taxes on hedge-fund managers too, an idea that Trump has also brought to the fore, but he would only do it if it involved reducing the debt as a part of the deal.  To reduce taxes and give that extra cash back to a wasteful government was not in the agenda of Graham.

Graham had the hook in my mouth for the humor and the vision, until suddenly the interviewer asked him about his jobs plan.

He answered Dodd-Frank and then returned into the reducing the debt part of his answer in order to comfort those who don't know what he meant by Dodd-Frank as a jobs plan.

Where has Dodd-Frank succeeded and failed? -Bloomberg

Conservatives and Liberals alike have all come to accept that loose lending is not great, but stiff lending is stifling, maybe even strangling to the jobs market, especially the key area of jobs created by the small business owner.

The biggest reverberation from our economic downturn was the shake up on lending to the small business man, the undisputed lifeline of the American economy.  Small business owners are not strangled by corporate enormity which traditionally bleeds payroll for profit as its primary method of operation, especially when times are tough.  

Read about companies who don't bleed payroll during tough times -Bloomberg

Profit through sales can be a really dicey proposition when the consumer is forced into a fickle corner as gas prices pretend to get better but egg prices blow the hell up from that aviary disease ($3.00 per dozen??).

Lindsey is fully unbridled by the fact that he has just enough American support to register 0% in the polls.  One percent might be a number that you could put into a computer algorithm and calculate into an actual headcount of support.

Zero is a formula for quitting the race or giving up on the game playing.

Lindsey Graham has quit the game and was amazingly unbridled in a way that could be game changing if he has the chance to dominate the kiddie table debate like Carly Fiorina did.

My sad hunch is that Graham is speaking a little too real and raw for Republicans or America, with the message that we must destroy ISIS in Iraq and then coordinate the next phase- getting them out of Syria too.

What seems imminent is that he will get the chance to introduce himself in this way again, real soon.  Much like Ben Carson who has broken through from winning a really boring debate of little nuanced substance using one closing zinger (people only remember the opening and the close), Graham showed this ability today and could shake up the conversation by starting one that we are reluctant to have.

Or he could relegate himself to less than zero percent because only 2 people in America are interested in war with ISIS, RIGHT NOW.

Don't worry Lindsey.  SomeONE is still listening to you.

I CU Lindsey.....I CU!!!

Donald Trump: "We'll Win Until You Are Sick Of It"

Communication is a powerful tool.  The more you bathe in its power the more you realize that words are only one manner of communication.  Often silence speaks louder than words ever could.

As in that moment when you confront your spouse with the question of "are you cheating on me" and they do not say a word.  The level of communication associated with certain moments of silence are absolutely astounding once you condition yourself to pay close attention to such things.

Donald Trump has been virtually silent on details but has parlayed a wealth of conversation into a sizable lead in the Republican race for the White House. 

Don't look now, but Ben Carson is racing from behind  and is polling as the second option for Donald Trump supporters who may be asked to choose a more reasonable second option before this is all over.

What's happening at the top and the bottom of the Republican polling?

Yet, what critics of Trump keep claiming of him is a dangerous lack of specifics connected to bold claims of wide sweeping reforms.

What I have begun to really believe of this Trump run is that he is in fact an internal plant of the Democratic party designed to corner the Republicans into a web of their own often confusing rhetoric of fear, which they've used for way too long, and with way too little to show for it.

Can We Soften Rich Hearts Into $12 min wage?

Either Socialism is really bad and Bernie Sanders needs to be killed before he kills America, or the cash is not going to trickle down like Reagan promised it would. Right now is a prime opportunity for the wealthy to open the faucet  and rain on the regulars. Instead, they are proving  the case that human greed will always dictate human behavior where strong policy doesn't resist it.

Have you heard the billionaire Donald Trump talking about taxing those hedge fund managers recently?  You better believe that those hedge fund managers and those who they elect to correct this kind of stuff heard it. The millions that are closely watching Trump, including those who actually hope he wins should have heard it also.  From my estimation, that excludes about 3 people in America who don't have media access because they live on the street............ and can't hear, speak or talk. (had to cover that last base)

In some ways, the election feels like it is a long time from now.  For us political junkies it feels like Christmas is here again.  Speaking of Christmas, if you don't start taking advantage of  early purchasing and best price guaranteed, you will get the worst parts of the upcoming Christmas shopping season which starts up in 90 days.

I didn't say that to scare you. I recognize that the sun is still shining in most places across the land, however, way too many of us just drug those Christmas lights to the basement or attic.

I'm more sympathetic now to those bold or lazy folks who have taken to simply leaving the lights hanging instead of enduring that deja vu  that you just put the lights up that happens every year as you put them back up again.

A year is never as far off as you think, and several SuperPAC's with a struggling candidate had better spark up the lights and start spending that money to justify all of their other hard work of getting behind that candidate in the first place.  That should translate into heavy media blitzes (sooner and not later) and the feeling of an elongated campaign season that we'll be ready to burn in effigy when its all said and done.

Hard to imagine a better helper to the Hillary's cause than Donald Trump is right now.  How come Trump blows up Megan Kelly but only offers predictions about his great friend Hillary?  How great a friend is Hillary Clinton, Donald?

Currently, conservatives are adopting the copycat model relative to Donald Trump and what to do about his surge.  Every time he gets attacked, the attacking candidate loses steam in the polling, so few are eager to take him head on anymore, preferring to mimic him and see how that works instead.  
This is where and why I've come to see this guy as a genius spy planted by the other side with a mission to implode a party with an unstable foundation- from the inside out.

eep opp ork- ah ah!....and that means I love the Bible,
The Tea Party, Mexicans and Women- and they love me.

What makes him so genius is the ability to talk so long and say so little.  In reality, he is saying just what needs to be heard by the people needing to hear it. He has learned to stick his thermometer so deep into the back side of social media and media types that he not only understands what they had for lunch, he's chosen their dinner and desert to hit them in  that visceral spot that words can only partly reach.

That viscerally pleasing silence, where Italians prefer a gesture or odd sound so they can perfectly fill in their own blanks. (Must be all those years of living in New Jersey for Trump)

Donald Trump wipes and reinserts his thermometer as we sleep, and wakes up saying what needs to be said the next day to bring that angry political fever down and push his poll numbers up.  No one has ever done it quite so well, or done it so badly all at the same time.  Donald has tools that Ronald Reagan would only dream about, both technology and a supreme media savvy from catering to the green light of a camera all of his life.

Trump Talk or Donald Speak?

When Trump tells you that voters don't need detail only the media does, believe him. The need for detail either happens late or never during campaigns; substantially less when power and charisma are the traits we're pursuing in the first place.   When details don't matter, someone has to stand in the communication gap that happens from what Donald is saying and who, in fact, he is actually saying it to.

If he actually wins the White House, time will help us all learn what he means versus what he says, but that might be a bit too late. In the process of selecting a president, it's vital that we are clear about the leader we select, and right now the lead republican is just too difficult to get a read on.

So I Will Translate For You 

Trump:
"The largest suppliers of heroin, cocaine and other illicit drugs are Mexican cartels that arrange to have Mexican immigrants trying to cross the borders and smuggle in the drugs. The Border Patrol knows this," Trump wrote. "Likewise, tremendous infectious disease is pouring across the border. The United States has become a dumping ground for Mexico and, in fact, for many other parts of the world."

TRANSLATION:

Don't worry people of the conservative South.  I realize that there are way too many Mexicans shopping at Sam's Club down South these days instead of just California and Arizona. Just because they have Grandma, mom, dad and all of those bad kids clogging the free sample line doesn't mean that those Latin men are not sexual, drugging rapist., so I'll send them back for you...and make them pay for the fence.

Trump:
Free trade is terrible. Free trade can be wonderful if you have smart people. But we have stupid people.

Translation:
Pick me because I'm smarter than Obama and Hillary or anybody else who makes trade bad.

Trump on ObamaCare:

We do have to help people
. ... we have a 5 billion dollar website. I have so many websites … I hire people. They do a website. It costs me three dollars. 

Translation:
ObamaCare is working pretty well except  for the name and that web site thing, so don't ask me about health care until people stop signing up for the help, because we gotta help people.

Trump:
I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created.

Translation:
Nobody cares how they get a good job (i.e., details) so why tell them how you'll do it?

Trump:
When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let’s say, China in a trade deal? They kill us. I beat China all the time.

Translation:
How are we going to make lots of money without cheap Asian goods?  I better tell them that I can beat China and get  Asian goods even cheaper so we don't screw up the TPP.

Trump:
What about Huma??!!! And her husband, the perv??!!

Translation:
I like Hillary too much (and might be her internal plant) to hit on her or her assistant, so I will attack the low hanging fruit cake husband and hope nobody notices how nice I've actually been to Hillary versus everyone else running.

We're Going To Win


Now the latest Trumpeting almost sounds like a replay of Howard Dean's screaming rant during his presidential run.  "We're (republicans) going to win so much you're going to get sick of winning", which translates to mean- "We're so sick of losing to Obama that we just need to feel like a winner again, and I'm going to say "winner" even if I'm voting Hillary".

This present line of Trump stump has carried on for a little longer than expected.  Apparently, the thermometer says that the fever for a victory has not yet subsided and probably won't until Trump fully destroys those unreliable republicans who don't fulfill their promises.

If you had to wrap everything Trump is saying into one digestible quote, even his "Making America Great Again" theme, is all about winning- finally- and not being a loser.  The entire brilliant, understated campaign message of Donald Trump is, don't worry about winning anymore because my name is Donald Trump and I always win.

The evidence is very far from the message, but only reporters research evidence.  Trump doesn't own all of those towers or all of that facade of wealth that he puts up for the sake of the deal. Eventually everyone takes the raw end of negotiations- or runs out of money and has to settle for only putting his name on those Trump towers instead of collecting rent on them too.

Even the Democrats took a major loss during the mid-term elections but the Republicans haven't enjoyed that victory or basked in the feeling of #winning.  Angry conservatives post all day long on social media sites about getting beaten by Obama at home, and Obama capitulation abroad, but they are furious towards their own party's passivity that allows him to do it.

The thermometer says losing  sucks and winning is good, so Donald changes his stump speech to "We're Gonna Win... and win a lot."

Sorry Donald. If you win that means WE all lose.  In fact, there is no win win with Donald.  Every victory that Donald tallies is a victory for Donald, and Donald alone.

........and maybe Hillary too.