So Much Ignorance in One so Young

     An acquaintance of my brother, with whom he politically differs, recently wrote the following:

     "Watch it Sarge, a lot of people, including me, think Obama has done a lousy job. Reduced the deficit? Our country is at least 17 trillion in debt. How about border security and foreign affairs! What about the IRS and NSA issues? He's incompetent in my opinion. Do you remember what the gasoline price was when he took office? $1.86 a gallon. What happened? Obama has taken more vacations and played more golf (on the taxpayers money) than all the other Presidents combined! He's a joke!"

     Sometimes it's better to keep one's mouth shut and be thought a fool, than to open one's mouth and prove it.  Let's deconstruct this puerile rant and do something different: state facts, not biased junk e-mail mythology.

1. Reduced the deficit? First, the writer seems not to understand the difference between deficit and national debt. The first year in office, President Obama was working with Bush 43's budget, passed by Congress, and not in any fashion related to him or his policies. The deficit that year was 9.9%. Why am I not outraged? It's simple, the economy had tanked in 2008-09 and God himself could not have paid the bills without deficit. While it is true that the massive TARP spending was under Bush's watch, blaming him would, from my standpoint, be just as ludicrous as blaming, him for bad weather. Now, as to the current deficit (not the debt, stupid, that's total amount owed, not the annual shortfall): For fiscal year 2013, the last complete year the deficit was 4.1% (for the math challenged, that's less than half of the bush budget for 2009) a decrease from the previous year of 37%.  This is the first sub-$1 trillion and sub-5 percent of GDP deficit since the 2008 fiscal year, which ended the very month that Lehman Brothers fell and a deep crisis set in. So, the deficit is markedly lower, not higher.

2.  Border security and Foreign affairs? Taking the first (question, allegation, noun??) "foreign affairs."  For the record, President Obama hasn't attacked Gaza, shot down a plane, participated in terrorism or attacked an embassy, so I'm left to guess what the hell you mean. I'm going to pick one at random....Benghazi?  leaving all the posturing of the right aside for a moment, just know this: the late ambassador was offered additional security not once , but twice, by General Carter Ham, Commander of US Africa Command, in the weeks just prior to the attack on the embassy. He rejected the offers. He wasn't ordered to, he just did. You will hear all sorts of allegations leveled at then SecState Clinton because of the likelihood of her candidacy.  Nowhere in all the public witch trial did you hear the administration blame the ambassador for refusing more security. Why? Because as Clinton stated and was beat up for it, "what does it matter now?"

2a. Border security. My blog of two days ago has several pages on this, but the short version is that the current flood of illegal attempts is unique because it is children and that they are not principally Mexican. The facts: prior to the Clinton administration attempts to enter illegally, if the person was apprehended at the border, resulted in a pat on the butt and a turn around. This resulted in numerous repeat offenders, many of whom tried until they succeeded. Clinton ordered the current process of apprehending, processing and returning without possibility of ever obtaining legal citizenship. Yes it takes longer, yes it is currently straining the system, but what has slipped through the huge cracks in the truth, is the fact that more than twice as many were apprehended during the Reagan years (on average) and allowed to return, than are being apprehended today and being processed for deportation. Additionally, the number of illegals added to the population annually is also about half of the Reagan numbers. Suck it, Rick Perry.  

3. The IRS and NSA. off the bat, Congress knew - both houses have intelligence committees, so the NSA thing, which of course arose out of Homeland Security, remember, 9/11/2001. These are Bush initiatives. Of course, I know, you think the Pres. leaked it!  As regards the IRS, no one has yet even suggested the Obama White House "sic'd" the IRS on anyone, unlike in 1972 when Richard Nixon is on tape telling H.R. Haldeman to use the IRS to harass persons on his enemies list. The director of the IRS has wide scope in who is audited, but... no smoking calculator here!

4. "He's incompetent in my opinion"... noted, but considering how wrong you've been so far, what is your opinion worth?

      

5. The price of gasoline: Out of the gate - the President has zero to do with the price of gasoline in a free market economy; not a little, not a smidgen - zero! It frightens me for the future of the republic that any high school graduate could even think otherwise. Just because you're so easy, I'll play show and tell. in July 2008 (remember who was president?)  gasoline nationally averaged $4.10 per gallon. In fact, (remember "facts?") the price of regular gasoline was above the $3.00 mark from April 2006, to November 2008. When Barack Obama was inaugurated, the price of gas, nationwide was just over $2.50 per gallon. You have a poor memory. Because I like you, and I think you have potential, I'm gonna school ya on gas. Out of a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline selling at  $3.27 per gallon,  18.4 cents is federal tax, and that number is unchanged since 1996! State taxes are another matter, and fluctuate by about 50 cents per gallon. So stop blaming the President.... stop it!

6.  Obama has played more golf than any president in history

This isn't even close to being true. Now, there's no question that he plays on a regular basis: 104 rounds from January 2009 through Aug. 4 of this year, the last time he played, according to Mark Knoller, the longtime White House correspondent for CBS Radio. That puts him about in the middle when compared with other duffers-in-chief. It's less than Bill Clinton, and a lot less than Dwight Eisenhower, who played more than 800 rounds over eight years — four times as often as Obama plays. Woodrow Wilson played 1200 times  and there was a war going on! And why is it an outrage if the president, who heads one of three branches of government, golfs 104 times in three-and-a-half-years, but the head of another branch of government, the Speaker of the House, plays four times as much? You heard correctly: John Boehner once told Golf Digest that he plays upwards of 100 rounds a year. Seems like a double standard, no? Not only does Boehner play more, he has a complimentary membership at Burning Tree, a good old boys club where he and lobbyists can escape the pressure of, oh you know, being honest and open? Of course this multi thousand dollar perk is paid for by the RNC! Think he'd let ya caddy for him?

7. Vacations: You allege that President Obama has taken  too much vacation time. I assume you believe he takes more than most recent Presidents?  This isn't even remotely accurate either, but first, some context from Nancy Reagan: "Presidents don't get vacations — they just get a change of scenery. The job goes with you." The responsibilities, the pressure, the officer with the "nuclear football" — it's all with a commander-in-chief at all times. No exceptions.

But how much time away from the White House has President Obama spent, and how does this compare with predecessors?

POTUS Tracker, compiled by The Washington Post, shows that from January 2009 to October 31, 2012, Obama spent all or part of 72 vacation days in a variety of places, mostly Hawaii in the winter and Martha's Vineyard in the summer. That's about 10 weeks away in three-and-a-half years, hardly extravagant. Through May 18, according to data from CBS's Knoller, he also visited Camp David 22 times, spending all of part of 54 days there.

But what about their predecessors:  In 1798, President John Adams left the capital for seven months to care for his ailing wife Abigail; his enemies said he practically relinquished his office.   Thomas Jefferson and James Madison routinely went away for three- and four-month stretches.  Abraham Lincoln, during the Civil War, was blasted for spending about 25 percent of his time away from the White House.

 In this century,   Dwight Eisenhower took long summer breaks in Denver and spent almost every single weekend at Camp David.  John F. Kennedy rarely spent a weekend in the White House, staying at family homes in Palm Beach, Hyannis Port, and the Virginia countryside.   Lyndon Johnson spent 484 days in five and a half years at his Texas ranch.  Ronald Reagan was away for 436 days, usually at Rancho del Cielo (his mountaintop retreat in California) or Camp David.  Bill Clinton, who didn't own a vacation home, loved to party with his elite friends in Martha's Vineyard and the Hamptons.  

     George W. Bush spent 32 months at his ranch (490 days) or Camp David (487 days) — an average of four months away every year.  Make sure you get that - Dubya vacationed 1/3 of his time in the job.  The truth is, time off doesn't mean goofing off. President Bush, for example, met with a variety of foreign leaders at his ranch. President Obama held a G-8 summit at Camp David. Modern Presidents never really unplug. But if anyone deserves a vacation, it is the person who serves in the world's most stressful and demanding job.

So. let's recap. How did you do? Well, Sparky, (and don't call me "Sarge", because I'm a master Chief petty Officer") if I were mean spirited, I'd say that  you don't know shit. But since I'm a nice person deep inside (very deep) suffice it to say that there seem to be gaps in your knowledge. Big wide gaps, which appear to have been filled with spam e-mails, Faux News drivel and hatred. It makes me sad.     

"I Ain't got Time to Play Fair!"

     A friend recently posted to Facebook some remarks critical of Jesse Ventura in the wake of a recent civil court decision in which he was awarded $1.8 million as compensation for lost income due to what amounts to libel. This seems to stem from the writer's idol worship of the recently deceased libelor, Christopher Kyle, author of the bestselling book, American Sniper. 

     Allow me to assure you, I have thought of Jesse ("the body" -his 'rasslin' name) Ventura as mainly an interesting speed bump in the political parking lot. He has always projected a larger than life, outspoken persona. Even when overshadowed by Arnold Schwarzenegger in Predator and portraying a mortally wounded hero, his "I ain't got time to bleed" is a classic line.

    As a politician his four years as Minnesota governor were far superior to many.  Ventura entered politics as Mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, at 77,000 +, the sixth largest city in the state, from 1991 to 1995. He was the successful mayor of a city more than ten times the size of Wasilla, Alaska, home of Faux News calendar girl, Sarah Palin.  He ran, four years after his mayoral term ended,  in the Minnesota gubernatorial election of 1998, running a low-budget campaign centered on grassroots events and unusual ads that urged citizens not to "vote for politics as usual". Ventura's campaign was successful, with him narrowly and unexpectedly defeating both the Democratic and Republican candidates. Ventura is the highest elected official to ever win an election on a Reform Party ticket.

     As governor, Ventura oversaw reforms of Minnesota's property tax as well as the state's first sales tax rebate. Other initiatives taken under Ventura included construction of the METRO Blue Line light rail in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area, and cuts in income taxes.

     Ventura left office in 2003, deciding not to run for re-election and  became a visiting fellow at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government in 2004. He has since also hosted a number of television shows and has written several political books. Ventura remains politically active and currently hosts a show on Ora TV called Off the Grid.   

     So who cares? I do; because while both men , as members of UDT/Seal teams served honorably, only Kyle felt the need to slander a colleague for alleged incidents which , a jury agreed, never happened. The fact that Chris Kyle was capable of killing people over very long distances doesn't entitle him to destroy the reputation of another for money and/or book sales. I get that there are some Americans, usually those who haven't deployed in the military, who idolize those who have.  In any case, the soldier, sailor, airman  or marine is doing his job as assigned. In Kyle's case, this entailed the ability to kill people in a nice sanitary manner from a great distance, (in one case 2,100 yards). At 2100 yards, no one is shooting back. Kyle's proven slander of Jesse Ventura violates the spirit of UDT/Seal culture, in any case.

     What is worse, is that Kyle's allegations, barely noted in most media at the time, were flaunted publically by Faux News, the whore of all airwaves, in a typical ratings ploy. Why, you ask, would Faux News do this? Could it have to do with Ventura/Faux conflicts having nothing to do with the current issue? You bet it does.  Could it have to do with Ventura's outspoken criticism of the Bush '43 presidency?  You bet it does. When you run Faux News and your cousin "W"  is (was) President, as is the case with (Fox CEO) Roger Ailes, you just might kick honesty and objectivity to the curb and leave it there,

    For years, Ventura and various Faux "newspersons"  have gone head to head on various topics. In very few of these cases, by the way, am I and Ventura in agreement.  The problem for me is, that even if I disagree with Ventura's personal viewpoint in some area, that shouldn't result in me (or Faux News) marshalling all available resources to portray him in such a negative way based on slanderous statements by a third party as to cause him a loss of reputation and/or income. Faux hosted Kyle several times prior to his death on the subject of the civil suit filed against him (and later, his estate) by Ventura. As with most Faux events, these were carefully stage managed to make Kyle appear almost Christ-like with Ventura cast as Judas. Understand, this was the trained killer being given favored moral support by a major "news" outlet in what was, at best, a case of "he said-he said."  

     The verdict is in, Ventura has been awarded $1.8 million, which is just about how much income he has lost in the wake of Kyle's libel. Now Faux is appalled at the result of the furor they helped hype, even to the point of one talking head (or whatever part of his anatomy he discourses with) saying that "If Ventura was a real man, he'd refuse the money from Kyle's estate."   

    Like him, or don't like him, Jesse Ventura was entitled to sue for Chris Kyle's libelous statements. He was entitled to a fair hearing in court without being tried both before and after the case by a phony news outlet with an axe to grind.  Just because people like Christopher Kyle are the subject of one's private midnight fantasies shouldn't mean that logic, reason and critical thinking are thrown out the window.   

Immigration for Dummies, Part Deux

     Saw these numbers, had to pass them along. Don Imus's  20 year younger trophy wife,  Dierdre, a Faux News contributor, was engaging in Faux's favorite sport, lying about the Obama Administration.

      Invoking the name of Saint Ronald Reagan, she alleged that the current border spate of "illegals" couldn't/wouldn't/ didn't  happen on the "Gipper's" watch. So what do you think? Was she right? We all "know" (if we believe Faux News) everything bad is worse under the current President than any Republican administration, don't we?

     Specifically, Mrs. Imus stated on her hubby's (formerly funny and now practically unlistenable) radio show, "What has happened under President (Barack) Obama, is people thinking they can come here, especially unaccompanied minors, thinking they are getting amnesty."  Of course, such a statement has all the Faux talking heads nodding in agreement, but there is a problem. Not only is Mrs. Imus incorrect, she is incorrect by a huge amount. I will say this, when she is wrong, she stands by her falsehood.

     The actual exchange between Dierdre Imus and Lis Wiehl, believe it or not also a Faux News business analyst, but apparently one with a conscience, went like this: after Imus' initial  statement, quoted above, , Ms. Wiehl stated that this had been going on a long time and in fact, it was no different under Reagan. Imus was nonplussed.

Imus: "They were not pouring in like that, Lis. Are you really going to say that?"

Wiehl: "Yes, they were. They were pouring in. Yes, they were." 

Imus: "No, they weren’t. No, they were not."     

     Well, were they? What is the truth (a murky construct at Faux) of the matter?  Never fear, that's why I'm here. There are two ways to evaluate the number of illegals entering the country, the first is by the number apprehended by the U.S. border patrol each year, the second by the increase in illegal population each year. Apprehensions is the more realistic tool for evaluation, because many illegals aren't eager participants in the census process, even when reassured that it won't result in deportation.  

     Considering data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, we see some rather interesting numbers. In 1986, halfway through Reagan's second term, 1,615, 844 illegals were apprehended and returned, the highest in his eight years in office. During Reagan's eight years, the annual average of apprehensions was 1,056,500.  

During the Obama years to date, the worst year wasn't even this year or last year, but in 2009, his first year in office, during which there were 540,856 apprehensions, just over half of the Reagan highest!

     "But, Mike," you say, "Surely the population increase figures will set this straight and prove Saint Ronnie was tougher on illegals, won't they?"  

      It’s worth noting that apprehensions include everyone who is caught in the United States illegally. This would include the unaccompanied minors who have stirred such concern recently. We know the number of these young people has been rising rapidly and the data in this table only run through 2013. So it is probably  fair to ask if the exponential growth among children would be enough to change the results of this comparison if we had a complete count for 2014. The answer is, probably not.  In 2013, unaccompanied children represented about 6 percent of the total. While they might be the focus of the current debate, even if they continue to grow dramatically, they have a limited impact on the overall numbers.

     There is another issue. There has been a paradigm shift in how attempts to enter illegally are handled since the Reagan/Bush years (1980 -1992), according to Susan Martin, a migration policy expert at Georgetown University, who emphasizes that border patrol tactics changed between the 1980s and today. "The basic strategy in the 1980s, and before, was to apprehend and then return people immediately back to Mexico," Martin said. "A substantial number attempted re-entry until they were successful. It was, in effect, a revolving door. Beginning in the Clinton administration, the strategy shifted to deterrence." Let me reemphasize: it was a Democrat, Bill Clinton who forced a change in policy resulting  in more permanent deportations,

     For a while, that deterrence strategy, which included fingerprinting and a hardened border, tended to push the numbers down as persons apprehended were on record and banned from immigration, legal or otherwise.

Simply put, there were far more apprehensions during the Reagan administration than during the Obama administration, even though efforts are much more stringent now than then.

     The other, previously mentioned method for estimating the scale and numbers of persons illegally entering the U.S. is by   estimating the undocumented population. Measuring the number of undocumented people during most of the Reagan years is difficult. Before 1986, the Census Bureau made no allowance for people who were in the country without authorization. The bureau’s best estimate was that starting in 1980, about 200,000 undocumented people entered the country each year.

     In 1986, the Census Bureau began tracking these numbers, by much more significant than survey methods, in 1986 President Reagan signed  a major immigration reform law that offered amnesty to people who had been in the country continuously since 1982. In short order, more than 1.5 million people applied for and gained legal status.

    Jeffrey Passel is a senior demographer with the Pew Research Center and a leading authority on immigration statistics. Allowing for the people who changed their status, Passel finds "a net increase of about 1.6 million" during the Reagan years. To put that in annual terms, while the flow might have gone up and down, the average rate of 200,000 per year held true throughout Reagan’s administration.

    For Obama however, , Passel said the numbers are "far less than under Reagan." (this, of course in spite of the oft criticized "Dream Act!!) Passel said there was a net increase of 370,000 undocumented people and the average annual change was 120,000 from 2009-12. Not only that, but data from the Department of Homeland Security show an actual decline. The estimated undocumented population in 2010 was 11.6 million. For 2011, it was 11.5 million, and in 2012, it was 11.4 million.

By definition, estimating is not an exact science and so Homeland Security summarized the trend as "little to no change."

    So what does it all mean? For starters, it means that Republican pundits and fellow dittoheads are willing to ascribe almost anything they dislike to the Obama Administration. Truth is always the first casualty in such an instance. Mrs Imus' outraged rant turns out to be much like Karl Rove's 2012 election night meltdown, a tantrum caused by an unpleasant, one might even say, "inconvenient " truth.    

Generalities and other lies:

               Does BP really stand for Bullshit                    Propaganda?

   

     British Petroleum is currently running a series of ads trumpeting the "fact" that oil and gas from Alaska creates jobs all over America. This would seem to be part of their continued efforts to atone for the Gulf Deepwater Horizon disaster of years past. A significant part of the commercial is the  shot of a ship being constructed, from  CAD drawing to the completed hull in a slipway. The obvious message here is that BP is good for American shipbuilders. That is a blatant lie. All of (every last one of!!!) BP's tanker fleet, oil, gas, lubricants, KY jelly, you name it, is/was built and overhauled by either Japanese or, increasingly, Korean shipyards! Topping it all off, the port of registry on essentially the whole fleet is Douglas, Isle of Man, which with its semi-autonomous economy, means that even Great Britain doesn't realize much if any income  (port fees, registry fees, etc) from the fleet.

                      Skeletor Scott and the Blame Game 

    Florida governor Rick Scott's campaign is running a series of scurrilous ads citing economic numbers aimed at making it appear that former governor Charlie Crist was personally responsible for significant drops in state revenues and jobs while he served from 2007 to 2011. Of course this is phrased as "Charlie Crist 'lost'  X number of jobs, whole Rick Scott 'created' X number of jobs." Is anyone interested in the facts?  well, you won't get them from Scott, so here they are. It should be noted that I am not a huge Crist fan, but I hate liars.  

     Governor Crist  took office at the same time as the Former governor's brother, George W. Bush was leaving - a time of national recession, triggered, in part, by a nationwide housing bubble collapse, which in turn spread throughout the banking world, introducing us to the term "too big to fail."  the problem in Florida to a large extent is that the state's economic structural house of cards , a slave to sales tax and high real estate fees, suffered disproportionately,   causing many home buyers who had been encouraged by reckless lending practices to buy homes they couldn't afford with payments they couldn't make if unemployed.  This perfect storm triggered a shortfall in tourism, again disproportionately affecting Florida.

    The next paragraphs cite data from the Graph below

     Ignoring national trends, and focusing on Florida, Governor Crist faced a drop in state revenues , symptomatic of job losses and decreased tourism, domestic and international, of from $150 billion in 2007, the last year of the Jeb Bush administration,  to $125 billion in 2008, to $95 billion in 2009, which just happens to be the data set the Scott campaign is using, as it was the low point. Summarizing, Charlie Crist inherited a 40% drop in state revenues. did this require state budget cuts? Of course. Was it Governor Crists's fault, and could he have avoided it? Hardly, with a Republican controlled state House and Senate. are those Republican lawmakers taking any responsibility? Of course not, nor should they.  

     According to Scott, he has "created" some hundred thousands of jobs and we are to ignore the fact that the decrease in  unemployment reflects an upswing in the national economy and huge jump in tourism spurring hiring in Florida's booming "attractions" economy. The current year's direct revenue is almost exactly the same as the year Crist left office, numbers, by the way, which Scott won't cite, since jobs and revenues had gradually improved from the 2008 nadir. What Scott also won't point out  is the revenue drop in the two years after he took office. Much of Scott's job creation has come at a price - the loss of corporate tax revenue, as he rewards his, already rich,  social peers with even more tax breaks and incentives. We now have a Governor (who narrowly escaped conviction for massive Medicare fraud by "taking the fifth" numerous times in his trial regarding billions in  fraudulent  billing) who is trying to convince us he's honest and trustworthy, while he signs gas pipeline authorization for a company in which his "blind" (wanna bet?) trust holds large interest!    

     As an afterthought, while Crist and the legislature were dealing with the 40% decrease in revenues in 2009, State Medicaid spending zoomed up by 7.4%, reflecting the loss of health care insurance accompanying job losses. By the way, an examination of national unemployment trends over the same span (2007-2014) shows that Florida has mirrored the nation almost exactly. In simplest terms, Rick Scott has done nothing more than would have happened if he had done nothing! 

     Meanwhile Scott has said nothing of the Republican controlled legislatures (all 4 years of Crist's term) who submitted the budgets which Crist approved! Blaming Crist for education cuts necessitated by this double whammy is, like Rick Scott's campaign ads and the man himself, specious, devious and mean spirited.      

An Uncomfortable (for some) Truth

A quick quiz: Note, the information herein comes from multiple unimpeachable sources, I have simply collated and tried to hide the surprise to the end.

Who was a professed friend of the brutal Hatian dictator , Jean-Claude Duvalier, visiting them in person in 1981 and praised the Duvaliers and their regime as “friends” of the poor, their testimony on Duvalier's  behalf shown on state-owned television for weeks?  who also lauded the  Nicaraguan Contras and brutal Albanian Communist dictator,  Enver Hoxha?  Who was a beneficiary  of convicted S &L fraudster Charles Keating's efforts to cleanse his soul, having received $1.25 million in donations , refusing to return any of it, even when it was pointed out that it had been looted?

Who was awarded the Nobel Peace prize, prompting many realists to note that,  " Few people had the poor taste to ask what (they)  had ever done, or even claimed to do, for the cause of peace”?

Any ideas?

Who campaigned in Ireland " “Let us promise Our Lady who loves Ireland so much that we will never allow in this country a single abortion. And no contraceptives, ” and  also campaigned in Ireland to oppose the successful 1995 referendum to legalize divorce in that predominantly Catholic country ?

Who routinely squirreled away multi-millions in donations in Swiss bank accounts  and rebuffed all efforts ever over 25 years to audit these mega-millions ?

The  free clinics provided care that was at best rudimentary and haphazard and at worst unsanitary and dangerous, despite the enormous amounts of donations  received. Multiple volunteers at these  clinics,  have testified to the inadequate care provided to the dying. Despite routinely receiving millions of dollars in donations, the clinics were kept  barren and austere, lacking all but the most rudimentary and haphazard care.

Volunteers such as Briton Mary Loudon, and Western doctors such as Robin Fox of the Lancet, wrote with shock of what they found.  No tests were performed to determine the patients’ ailments. No modern medical equipment was available. Even people dying of cancer, suffering terrible agony, were given no painkillers other than aspirin. Needles were simply rinsed and reused, without proper sterilization. No one was ever sent to the hospital, even people in clear need of emergency surgery or other treatment.

Again, it is important to note that these conditions were not the unavoidable result of triage. Their  organization routinely received multimillion-dollar donations which were squirreled away in bank accounts, while volunteers were told to beg donors for more money and plead extreme poverty and desperate need. The huge amount of money  received could easily have built half a dozen fully equipped modern hospitals and clinics, but was never used for that purpose. No, this negligent and rudimentary care was deliberate – about which, see the next point. However, despite their praise for poverty, our subject  hypocritically sought out the most advanced care possible in the Western world when  personally in need of it.

Got an idea yet?

Despite the widespread perception that  the object was  to relieve the suffering of the poor, the truth was anything but, they  actually considered suffering to be beneficial. This is why  clinics were so rudimentary – not so that sick people could be cured, but so they could get closer to God through their suffering. As one critic said, “(they) were thoroughly saturated with a primitive fundamentalist religious worldview that sees pain, hardship, and suffering as ennobling experiences and a beautiful expression of affiliation with Jesus Christ and his ordeal on the cross.”

But, of course, suffering like Christ was of no benefit if the sufferer did not actually accept Christ. To this end,   clinics were run as conversion factories.  Ex-volunteers have testified that they  followers were taught to secretly baptize the dying – people who could not resist, or were not aware of what was happening to them – without their consent. As ex-volunteer Susan Shields wrote, “Material aid was a means of reaching their souls, … Secrecy was important so that it would not come to be known that (their) helpers  were baptizing Hindus and Muslims”.

By now many readers have already tumbled to the fact that the subject is one of the great frauds of the 20th century, Mother Teresa. 

Florida Politics for Dummies

This in response to a reader who asserted that we deserved better than a choice between Charlie  Crist and Rick Scott - a position I endorse, in the main.

    At least Crist isn't a criminal. He is at  best, well meaning and law abiding . At worst, he was  rather average and somewhat ineffectual in his previous term, although, to be fair he had a widespread economic recession driving much of the decision making process in a state which is a slave to sales tax.  Neither Crist or Scott is close to  Bob Graham, Lawton Chiles or Jeb Bush in character, intellect or job performance. (but then neither "W: or his daddy was the man Jeb is. While I often disagreed with Jeb on  policy issues, I never questioned his character.) 

     Scott's significant life accomplishment to date is showing the ability to bilk the nation of billions of Medicare fraud funds and take the fifth 75 times to avoid being held accountable for it. He also rode economic recovery to prosperity and blames Crist for the cuts he had to make in more trying times.  He also has shamelessly pandered to the wealthy, while boasting of his poor origins. We deserve better but, unfortunately,  politics  trumps the interests of the state as long as we whore ourselves to developers, the affluent,  and tourism at the expense of our environment and the aquifer.

    Granted that no one really "wants" a state income tax, which is the environment created in the 40s-50s-60s to encourage wealthy retirees to move south and bring their monies with them. Having said that, we are slaved to sales tax in a way that places us at the mercy of economic ups and downs in a way that few states are. Meanwhile, services taxes are high, but high value  non-real estate personal property taxes are essentially non-existent.

      An example that hits home: a person awning a 12-15 foot boat pays  around $25 to register it. A person owning a 65 foot yacht only pays about $100 more for the same registration. Both are personal ownership decisions reflecting disposable income choices that most Floridians don't have the option to make. Even in Connecticut, a no income tax state, the same two boats would register for $30 and $525. See where I'm going here?

     In Florida, because the wealthy have such influence over revenue, car registration costs are rated by weight, regardless of cost or make; a car under 2499# casts about 46 dollars per year, Kia  five years old or BMW brand new. In Connecticut, however, it doesn't work that way. A passenger vehicle regardless of weight, make or model registers for a reasonable $80, $40 if the owner is over 65, but it doesn't end there . Automobiles are assessed as personal property,  based on the assessed value of the car, every year (it decreases over time, obviously) and the owner pays that fee as well as registration and  the same applies to boats. This makes tax burden proportional to the ability of the taxpayer to afford these luxury items. No one "has" to have a personal watercraft, and if one can afford a 28 foot yacht, then one can afford tie extra tax as well. This sliding scale also allows the low earner who drives a nine year old "beater", to afford to pay for it, while the person who just has to have the $70,000 new Mercedes pays a proportionally higher tax for the privilege, a tax which they can also afford. Ct.  also has a means test of around $41,000 per couple to ease the burden a bit on the personal property taxes.

     While far from perfect, this has resulted in no state income tax in Connecticut. In Florida, it might actually allow a reduction in the state's demand for sales tax, and other fees which affect all payers equally.  Of course, Connecticut lacks one huge Florida asset - tourism, domestic and international. As is, in Florida, a recession causes an almost knee-jerk  drop in sales tax revenue, as tourism declines, a revenue hit over which we have no control. This almost always results in losing teachers (a brilliant move, no?)  while student loads remain constant. A personal property tax proportional to the value of these personal lifestyle options instead of sales tax levied equally on us all and to a large extent tourism dependent, would flatten these ups and downs to a large extent.

     Unfortunately as long as big money talks and bullshit walks the halls of the capitol in Tallahassee, don't hold your breath for meaningful change. Continue to support the Euro trash,  domestic multi-millionaire retirees and northern bankruptcy cheats  with our uber lenient bankruptcy laws and tax system. That guy in the 6000 square foot mansion   with his 40 foot yacht moored in the canal appreciates it! Ignore  fact that he pillaged his failing business in PA of all available cash and fled here, knowing his home, no matter how expensive  was protected  in FL from bankruptcy provisions. Ignore the fact that he then sold the $7 million  home after the bankruptcy proceedings were finalized, bought a  $3 million shack and the big boat. He's living on the income from the $3 mil  he invested. Meanwhile his former employees in PA are job hunting .

     The Rick Scotts of this state play to this crowd shamelessly. Governor (then US Senator) Bob Graham actually attempted to level the field a little some years ago with a  tax on optional services, in other words, if you could afford some optional luxuries, you could pay proportionally. That lasted a very short time!.  Florida is like Ado Annie in "Oklahoma" when it comes to her relationships with the influence peddlers and the lobbyists that infest the state capitol (and in Scott's case, the Statehouse) - She's "just a girl who can't say no!"            

Thing about which I wonder

Things I wonder about

The late George Carlin called them "brain droppings" -you know, those little things you think about and ask yourself, "Where did this idiom come from or what the hell does this even mean?"

Some examples, with no particular continuity or grouping:

"I know, right?"   If I know(and I just stated that I do) , why the hell would I immediately ask you if what I just said is correct? This phrase , as is "like" is a throwaway phrase that is essentially meaningless.  

"I could care less" You could? So why then, don't you care even less, to the point of not using this doubly negative phrase which actually means "I care."  Now if you "couldn't care less" you have actually conveyed the meaning you so badly mangled in the first place.

"I was headed towards town anyways" -No you weren't . Toward is actually a preposition having no plural, which is what the "s" you gratuitously added to both "toward" and "anyway", tries to make them into. Stop it.

"I would've like to have seen.......whatever!"  I don't know exactly what tense the extra' 've' transforms this statement into but it ain't kosher. I would like to have seen what you meant. I hope it wasn't "Should've," the bastard illiterate cousin of would've.

"Till the cows come home" - I sort of know what the speaker means, but is certainly is archaic unless of course you are a farmer and your cows have run off, in which case, they may or may not come home anyway.

"The dog followed John and I to the door, trying manfully to hump our legs." Although the animal in question may have some embarrassing  behaviors, so does that use of  "I" vs "Me." This may be the most common misuse in the language, probably because we think "I"  always sounds more proper  than "Me."  Certainly that is sometimes true. One common misuse  is "So and so and me are going...." No. He is going and I am going. We are going. But the errant canine in the opening sentence is following John and he is following "me". If there is a question, break the sentence into two phrases and try "I" or "me". Truly simple and apparently beyond the grasp of many, this test works every time! The close relative of this pronoun botching is "Him" and "Her" vs "He" and "She."  She and I might go somewhere, but her and I never can.

"Fierce"  Synonyms for this word include : ferocious, savage, vicious, aggressive and more, also hardly adjectives applicable to a three year old girl.  I applaud parents who raise their children with a sense of purpose,  drive,  motivation and appropriate self confidence,  This word seems more likely to imply clambering over the side of a boat with a knife between their teeth prepared to slit the throats of  anyone who takes their favorite toy. If your toddler is truly "fierce" get help!

"Basically", "Absolutely",  Currently these may be the most overused words extant, because they are usually used as space fillers with no real thought for the meaning. Other than zero degrees Kelvin, "absolutely"  is fraught with murky meanings. The most common meaning is one that is impossible for essentially every human situation. Stop using it. "Basically", on the other hand, has no real meaning due largely to its indefinite application.

"There's no time like the present", "A watched pot never boils."  Since I just bemoaned the use of "absolute" in many situations, let's discuss two trite stale and banal phrases which are diametrically opposed.  "There's no time like the present" is always true, but is immediately invalid before you've finished uttering it! Only in Steven Hawking's world, and then only maybe, could there ever be another time like the present. Conversely, I have watched pots on the stove come to a boil. The  statement is provably erroneous.

"It was magical" It was not. It may have an explanation which escapes your feeble grasp of physics or sleight of hand, but magic?" Uh-uh.

So, for now, that's the kind of stuff which occupies the recesses of my mind. Sort of weird? I know, right?

Immigration for Dummies

Immigration for dummies

We are  daily bombarded by pundits, whose political affiliations are well known, hurling invective and insults at the Obama Administration for the current  surge of illegals entering the country across the Mexican border even though these persons are being detained for return. The legislation which prescribes the process is a Bush administration piece of legislation. 

Such (un)worthies as Rick Santorum and Lou Dobbs have specifically blamed the surge in illegals on the Obama Administration's 2012 policy statement which applied only to those who have been in the US more than 5 years, and before 2012. It has no relevance to the current surge in crossings.

Santorum specifically stated, " Children are crossing the border because President Barack Obama said "if you come, you’re going to be able to stay, because we’re not going to enforce the law."    If that were true, that would be problematic; the problem is however , that it's far from true, to the point of being simply a partisan lie.

  Dealing first with Santorum's fallacious claims:  A few months before the 2012 election, Obama issued an executive order that allowed certain young people without legal immigration status to apply for a two-year deferral of any removal proceedings. That deferral could be extended, and anyone who was accepted would also gain the ability to work in this country. Generally speaking, it targeted people who had come across the border with their parents when they were little and had lived in the United States for many years. The move came after Republicans rejected a bill, the DREAM Act, that would have put these people on the path to citizenship. The Homeland Security Department summarized who qualified:

You came to the United States before reaching your 16th birthday;

You have continuously resided in the United States since June 15, 2007, up to the present time;

You were under the age of 31 as of June 15, 2012;

You entered without inspection before June 15, 2012, or your lawful immigration status expired as of June 15, 2012;

You are currently in school, have graduated or obtained your certificate of completion from high school, have obtained your general educational development certification, or you are an honorably discharged veteran of the Coast Guard or Armed Forces of the United States;

You have not been convicted of a felony, significant misdemeanor, or three or more misdemeanors, and do not otherwise pose a threat.

No child arriving at the border today would meet those criteria. Santorum claimed that Obama said, "If you come, you’re going to be able to stay." That would not follow under Obama’s deferred action memo, nor his public statements about the situation. The president didn't say it, and it has no relevance to the current crisis! It's a blatant lie, and has been rated "Pants on Fire" (blatant lie) by conservative fact checker, Politifact

As for Dobbs: Faux news Business analyst Lou Dobbs, who has made immigration his straw man since 2008, said: "They (the administration)  manipulated deportation data to make it appear that the Border Patrol was deporting more illegal immigrants than the Bush administration," Dobbs said July 1, 2014. "The Homeland Security secretary had to admit before Congress that was not the case -- that, in fact, they were manipulating the numbers."

The issue here is, or should be, are we getting more or fewer illegals out of the country and back across the border? Dobbs is playing fast and loose with terminology in keeping with Faux News' policy of excoriating the administration and especially the President at any and every opportunity. There are several mechanisms by which persons who have illegally entered the US are sent back to their points of origin -  removal, return, and deportation. Dobbs chooses to look at only those actions specifically called "deportations" and ignore any other method by which illegals are dealt with, even if the result is the same.

Defining deportations is not as easy as it sounds.

In federal government lingo, official judicial or administrative orders to leave the country are called "removals," and they can happen right at the border or anywhere else on American soil. A removal is what most people would consider a deportation.

For people caught illegally crossing the border and simply turned around, there’s another term: "return."

Unlike removals, a return does not bar someone from legally entering the country someday, though that is hard for most because they do not have a family or employment connection necessary to get in line for citizenship, says David Martin, a University of Virginia School of Law professor. Martin also worked as Immigration and Naturalization Service general counsel in the Clinton administration and as DHS deputy general counsel from 2009-10 under Obama.

The Border Patrol primarily handles voluntary returns to Mexico, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) , equipped with immigration judges and detention center beds, generally handles removals.

Over the past several administrations, the Department of Homeland Security has shifted its immigration focus to undocumented immigrants who commit crimes or are caught at the border. The idea is to get them out, and keep them out. The shift picked up in the George W. Bush administration and intensified under Obama’s watch.

Whereas many immigrants previously caught at the border simply were bused back to Mexico, they now are returned with official deportation orders, prosecuted, or moved to different parts of the border so they cannot reconnect with their smuggler, Martin said.  In short, these people previously would have been classified as a "return," but the policy has been to put them through removal proceedings. As such, they are classified as a "removal."

The figure shows those illegals leaving the country by all means. It is worthy of note that Dobbs, apparently an equal opportunity hater, was also critical of the  Bush administration in this area, and the fact that he is attempting to flay President Obama with Bush statistics says much about both his faces.  

Take note that in 2009, President Obama's first year in office,  the total numbers of illegals being sent back (by all methods) rose dramatically. whether it was by border removal (allowing reentry, favored by Bush,) or  interior removals. While the number of border removals remains high (remember, these persons can come back as legal immigrants, the use of interior removals (permanent deportation) has skyrocketed under the Obama administration.   Total removals, which is what Dobbs would cite if he were a person of integrity, were in 2012, over 100 million higher than the largest Bush are number! Dobbs is liar and even conservative fact checkers have said so.

There can be little doubt that there is an immigration crisis at our southern border. There has been zero willingness on the part of Tea Partiers especially and Republicans in general to create meaningful bipartisan immigration legislation. Blaming the guy who would eventually sign such legislation instead of those tasked with writing it is morally bankrupt political posturing. 

Let me Explain it to You

Let me explain it to you

The editorial cartoon above ran in the Villages Daily Sun Tuesday, July 15. The hubris of the cartoonist is astounding, as is the lack of homework done prior to drawing this piece of drivel.

Where to start? Ok, let's start by pointing out that rarely is a speaking fee based on wisdom. Dr. Ben Carson commands high fees yet he believes the earth is about 4800 years old! Few high school dropouts are so naive. Former President George W. Bush routinely (141 times since leaving office) "earns" (is paid)  $100-150 thousand per talk.  Most, including Republicans would hesitate to use the adjective "wise" when discussing Bush 43. Sarah Palin has been paid $100,000 for speaking at the graduation ceremonies of a college no one has even heard of.

So, what implies and  imparts  "wisdom" in a person? Experience? Education? Diversity of  endeavor? By those yardsticks, at 34, Chelsea  Cinton leads the above mentioned in most categories. Consider Chelsea Clinton at 34 years of age compared to previous three I named.

I'll simply be kind and point out that Dr. Ben Carson, a groundbreaking neurosurgeon, overcame significant personal obstacles to achieve his well deserved renown in the medical community  In other areas of science, he is a relative dunce. I'm not being unkind, I am simply telling the (probably now highly offended) reader to check out his stances on other scientific issues. His fundamentalist religious beliefs have stunted his intellectual growth outside the neuroscience field. Good guy, scientific tunnel vision.

George W. Bush at 34? Well, it took him 29 years to accomplish an (almost assuredly charitable, since he was a "C" student) MBA. he  then worked a bit in the oil business and by 34 failed in a run for Congress. We know the rest of the publically known and not so publically known facts, including cocaine use, alcoholism, etc. Wisdom? Not so much.

As for Sarah Palin, after five different college stints, she earned a bachelor's degree in communication and, by 32 was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, a metropolis of about 7500 persons and huskies, from which , she alleged, she could  "see Russia,"  which apparently constitutes her entire foreign policy portfolio, which earned her second seat on John McCain's ticket in 2008. She resigned from her only elected position as Governor of Alaska.  

So what of Chelsea Cinton? Start with 8 years in the White House, from ages 8 to 16, exposed to the inner workings of government as few ever are. No one ever elected president other than John Quincy Adams has  had similar experience  (I know, "W"s daddy was......., yes, but "W" wasn't there!)  In fact, during his  father's vice presidency, there was at least one incident where brother Jeb Bush intervened between a drunken "W" and George Senior. Chelsea, on the other hand delivered over 100 speeches in support of her mother's Presidential campaign, supporting her, as she had done during Hillary's New York Senate campaign.

Chelsea Clinton has been essentially constantly involved in politics as observer or participant since the age of 2 when she actually accompanied her dad during his Arkansas Gubernatorial race, which is a ton of experience. But, you say, what is experience without the intellectual means to apply it? A National Merit Scholar finalist, Ms. Clinton has a BA in History from Stanford,  an MPhil  in International relations from Oxford, a PhD in International Relations from Oxford, which makes her far better prepared at 34 than either Bush or Palin ever were at any time. Additionally, Ms. Clinton has earned a Master's of Public Health at Columbia, where she is also adjunct faculty.   

Unlike the other three mentioned, Ms Clinton has  broad

 background outside the political In addition to her adjunct faculty post at Columbia University, Ms. Clinton has worked for McKinsey & Company, Avenue Capital Group, and New York University and serves on several boards, including those of the School of American Ballet, Clinton Foundation, Clinton Global Initiative, Common Sense Media, Weill Cornell Medical  College and IAC/InterActiveCorp.

So for those who might still agree with the cartoonist regarding choosing one's parents wisely and wisdom....I have two words - Bristol Palin.

This ain't those Bundys

Apparently in Nevada some apples don't fall all that far from the tree. Remember ol' Cliven Bundy? C'mon, you remember:  the rancher who has been breaking federal law since the Clinton administration by refusing to pay for his cattle grazing lease like law abiding citizens around him do?  The common scofflaw, the mention of whose name gave all the NRA members a stiffie for about two weeks. That paragon of good old American  independence who stood up to the "gummint" when they came to legally seize his cattle. The old asshole who should have been jailed for threatening federal law enforcement officials for simply enforcing a law that was on the books for aver 40 years? Oooh, him, yeah right, we forgot about him after his 15 minutes of fame.

Well, it turns out that Cliven Bundy has a son, Cliven Lance Bundy (goes by Lance, wouldn't you? Really...Cliven?) who is also a felon. Apparently Lance has the same regard for the law and other peoples' property as his daddy, except Lance doesn't use it illegally, he steals it! Lance Bundy now faces arrest in a separate criminal case stemming from his felony conviction on burglary and weapon theft  charges.

Cliven Lance Bundy, 34, said during a telephone interview with The Associated Press that he knows he’s named in a contempt-of-court warrant issued July 8 in Las Vegas for failing to appear before a Clark County District Court judge who oversees a drug diversion program.  “I’m trying to get ahold of my counselor to see what I’m supposed to do,” said Lance Bundy, who is not currently represented by a lawyer. It appears that  Lance ought to "get ahold" of himself and show up in court. It seems Lance chose to have minor outpatient surgery instead of go to court, an appointment he has missed not once or even twice, but three times. Court records show Bundy missed several previous hearings, and that officials said they were unable to reach him to notify him of court dates, although he says he was at his parents' home. 

Lance could face up to eight years in prison for his crimes, which he says were a result of his addiction to opiates, having  attributed his conviction to an addiction to opiate pain killers, and alleging  he has been getting counseling. One has to wonder how the elder Bundy would have felt if instead of his white son, the crime had been committed by a person of color who used the "addicted to opiates" excuse. Would Ol' Cliven still think court ordered counseling was adequate punishment. I think we all know the answer to that question.

 Apparently the Bundy's of Nevada are as dysfunctional as the Bundy's of TV land.  Unfortunately they are  nowhere near as funny.

In search of the lowest common denominator

I remember when The Learning Channel, A & E, and even occasionally the networks,  used to produce and air meaningful television. That illusion is dead and the decision that killed it was the decision to show the "Honey Boo-Boo show." For those of you fortunate enough to have no idea regarding the subject of this rant, warning: save yourself and look no further. This "show"  featured a thoroughly repulsive six year old troll from Georgia and her equally grotesque supporting cast of inbred family members. My introduction to this was my inadvertent following of an "interesting" link on my news page that took me to "Toddlers and Tiaras," another TLC show exploiting the already exploitative world of child beauty pageants.

Apparently, not satisfied with creating programming that exemplifies  Dante's  third and fourth levels of hell (greed and gluttony, as exemplified by "The Apprentice" and   Fox's late, unlamented "The Glutton Bowl")  we moved on down the list to levels eight and nine, fraud and treachery, all neatly wrapped up in , among others, "The real Housewives of (apparently anywhere)" Toss in the hefty dose of racism, sexism  and unhealthy addiction to camouflage clothing  that is "Duck Dynasty, " and the nether regions are filling up rapidly.

Pundits lament America's 27th place academic standing in the world. All the conservatives, of course blame teachers' unions (for not teaching them "Creation 'Science' " ???!!!). To worsen the reality, innovative teachers are sometimes punished for utilizing more creative ways to get students to think and actually express themselves in writing. What arrant bullshit! When kids come to school having been raised on mindless garbage, real education becomes very difficult. The dumbing down of America begins at home, not in the classroom. The very same advertisers who pay the pundits and critics also cultivate the cult of the mind numbingly stupid and vacuous with tripe such as "Toddlers and Tiaras," " Dance Moms," "Big Smo'", "Hillbilly Handfishin' " and the like. Really?? This is all you got?

Merely a small sampling of the vapid human detritus who populate Reality Television. Of course the real blame goes to TV executives who figured out that simply showcasing the behavior of persons of marginal mental acuity, morals , or even better, both, was far cheaper than hiring writers, directors and/or actors to do real drama!    

When more young adults (actually older adults as well)  can identify any "housewife" of "anywhere" and every  datum related to things Kardashian than can identify any member of  the U.S. Supreme Court, I smell decay in the wind. I recently downloaded and am re-watching the BBC series "Civilisation - A Personal Perspective with Kenneth Clark." We certainly have come a long way in the wrong direction since its original airing. I  lament the loss of programming of this kind. I'd write more, but it's time for "Jersey Shore." This week Snooki's s going to demonstrate how to become a media personality without even a vestige of discernible talent other than fecundity.  I can barely wait!

True or false for Dummies

     It seems that pointing out lies of the right has become a never ending task. Of course the bulk of them are aimed at POTUS because he's, well, you know....."tall."  A recent sampling includes:

The mystery executive order decisions

     From RNC national Communications Director, Sean Spicer on July 6, 2014: "In the last three years alone, 13 times, the Supreme Court, unanimously, 9-0, including all of the president's liberal picks, have struck down the president's executive orders."

     The truth: This would be less troubling if it had even a ring of truth to it. Not only has President Obama signed fewer executive orders than G.W. Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Carter and Nixon , but 14 of the executive orders claimed by the Republicans to be the most heinous, were actually signed by JFK, LBJ, and Ford!

     It is worthy of note that these wildly false claims come from a chain e-mail of several years ago, since debunked by everyone, except, apparently the communications office of the RNC. If I were a Republican, I'd be very concerned that the person being paid to provide factual communications to party members apparently gets their data from such discredited sources.

     Regarding the SCOTUS rulings:  To begin with,  nine of the 13 cases actually originated when President George W. Bush was in office. Bush’s Justice Department handled the initial court proceedings in most of those instances. Only one of the 13 cases actually had to do directly with Obama’s overreach: National Labor Relations Board vs. Noel Canning. In that case, decided in June, the Supreme Court said unanimously that Obama went too far when he appointed members to the National Labor Relations Board when the Senate wasn’t technically in session. But even that case had nothing to do with what Spicer said last weekend on CNN. Spicer claimed that the court has unanimously rejected "the president's executive orders" 13 times in three years.  None of these  cases actually has to do with executive orders issued by Obama. More wrong than this is impossible!

     Summary: Most of the litigation cited by Spicer as SCOTUS refutations of Obama actually came in response to actions under the Bush administration. In the few cases initiated during Obama’s two terms, the court wasn't even ruling on challenges to  executive orders. Spicer took an already debunked argument and made another mistake in repeating it, so it was even more incorrect. In other words, he's a liar.

Who released whom and when?

     Another tried and true far right smear tool is blaming virtually everything that went wrong in Iraq on POTUS. In my opinion, that is correct; what's wrong is that it's the PPOTUS (previous Potus!)

      On June 14, as the forces of ISIS were engaged in the genocide between Islamic sects which we have gotten far too used to,  Jeanine Pirro, Faux News talking head said: "The head of this band of savages is a man named Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the new Osama Bin Laden," Pirro said. "A man released by Obama in 2009, who started ISIS a year later. And when Baghdadi left Camp Bucca, where the worst of the worst were held in Iraq, he threatened his American jailers saying, ‘I’ll see you in New York. "  Wow! "Why did President free the bad man, daddy?" Well, Bobby, it turns out he didn't.

The pentagon confirms , "Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim Al Badry, also known as ‘Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’ was held as a ‘civilian internee’ by U.S. Forces-Iraq from early February 2004 until early December 2004, when he was released," the Pentagon said in a statement. "He was held at Camp Bucca. A Combined Review and Release Board recommended ‘unconditional release’ of this detainee and he was released from U.S. custody shortly thereafter. We have no record of him being held at any other time."  In short, according to the Defense Department, the man who heads ISIS was released in 2004, long before Obama took office, and was not recaptured! Apparently according to a former commander of Camp Bucca,  He  "looked familiar." The colonel who said this has refused further comment after it became obvious his recollection might be flawed.

      As in most of these fabrications, there are multiple levels of deception and chicanery.  Toward the end of Bush’s second term in 2008, American and Iraqi negotiators moved toward getting the United States out of the business of holding large numbers of Iraqis. Neither side wanted to see the network of detention centers continue.  Its demise reflected a "deliberate policy choice by the United States and Iraq to phase out that system and to rely instead on the Iraqi criminal justice system as the sole mechanism for detention going forward."

      That goal became part of the U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement, signed in November 2008. It should be noted that this Bush agreement was being followed by POTUS in pulling troops from Iraq per the agreement. Events subsequent may reflect flawed policy, but not the current administration's policy.   Under that agreement the United States agreed to "turn over custody of such wanted detainees to Iraqi authorities pursuant to a valid Iraqi arrest warrant and shall release all the remaining detainees in a safe and orderly manner."

    The United States continued to hold about 200 prisoners judged to pose the greatest risk. They were what remained from a group that numbered about 14,000 at the start of 2009.

      Other  from the ‘Deck of Cards’ detainees held at Camp Cropper (the top leaders in Saddam’s government), it’s hard to imagine how anyone in Washington would have any interest in who we held or released,  By the end of 2009, it’s hard to imagine how we could have continued to hold anyone if the Iraqis themselves didn’t decide to detain them.

Summary:  The legal contract between the United States and Iraq that guaranteed that the United States would give up custody of virtually every detainee was signed during the Bush administration. It would have required an extraordinary effort to have held on to Baghdadi ( or "Puff Baghdadi" as he now wants to be known), (sorry)and there is no evidence that he was on anyone’s radar screen, even assuming that he was in custody at all in 2009. The U.S.-Iraq agreement drove the release of thousands of detainees in 2009, but President Obama had nothing to do with that.

Jeanine Pirro is a liar

"Let's pile on the ACA"

One of my favorite names, if I had a favorite rad right name would have to be  "Reince Priebus."  Sounds like a problem for a  urologist, doesn't it? Actually it the name of the Republican  National Committee chairman. He was an unsuccessful Wisconsin state Senate candidate in 2004. He  also worked  as general counsel to the Republican National Committee. Apparently his reward for losing the state senate seat. His record of truth telling is horrid. More than half of every statement he has publically made in criticism of the current administration has been false , really false, or arrant bullshit!

Recent statements include but are not limited to:

"Thanks to ObamaCare, average E.R. wait in California is 5 hours."   A brief summary of reality shows :  The statement and statistic  was based on data from 2012 -- two years before the provisions of the ACA could have had any impact. Meanwhile, the five-hour figure is just one of three measurements of E.R. wait times -- and not even necessarily the best one. If you count from the time of a patient's arrival to being seen by a health care professional, the wait time was actually 31 minutes in California. A far cry from 5 hours!

Another claim: On the Today show in 2011, a low point of the current recession, Priebus claimed, "We’ve lost 26 million jobs, since he’s (Obama) been president. He promised under an $850 billion stimulus program that we’d be on a path to recovery. We’ll none of that has come true. … I think that pointing out a snail’s pace in the job (growth) numbers is not going to be enough to undo 26 million jobs that are lost."

Without going into why he's an idiot, the number is wildly inaccurate, off  by at more than a factor of 10! Even if true, that was 2011, and totally inaccurate today.

Reince Priebus is a liar.

I was going to quit with Reince Priebus, because I want the reader to be as unable as I in trying to get that weird name out of their heads, but I stumbled across one last liar who needs to be revealed for what he is and what he tried to do.

Playing the Veteran card

    Bill Cassidy is a Republican Congressman from Louisiana, that bastion of honest politics, who wants to be a Senator more than anything.

     On July 5, 2014, he said. "Only after news broke that our veterans are dying because of inadequate health care did Harry Reid and Senate Democrats take action." By extension , of course, this lays the blame for what are, in fact, truly egregious conditions in some VA facilities on Senate Democrats. Only in Cassidy's world is this a reality; examination of the truth reveals a different set of facts.

 The bill Cassidy refered to was  H.R. 3251, the Department of Veterans Affairs Major Medical Facility Lease Authorization Act of 2013. The bill, authored by Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., authorized the funding of 27 new Veterans Affairs health facilities around the country. On Dec. 10, 2013, the House passed the bill almost unanimously with a vote of 346 to 1. (Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., was the lone "no" vote.)

The bill stalled in the Senate. In fact, it never made it out of the Veterans' Affairs committee. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., introduced S. 1950, the Comprehensive Veterans Health and Benefits and Military Retirement Pay Restoration Act of 2014, on Jan. 16. The bill was much broader than just funding 27 new VA health clinics. For example, it also included an expansion of physical and mental health benefits for some veterans and their families. Republicans objected to several components of Sanders’ bill, including its funding mechanism. Sanders would pay for his bill with money that would have gone toward the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  Republicans  made support for the bill contingent on the inclusion of sanctions against Iran. Democrats tried to bring Sanders’ bill up for a vote on Feb. 27. Republicans made a parliamentary maneuver that imposed a 60-vote threshold to bring it to the floor. With just 56 Senators voting "yea" — including only two Republicans — the bill failed to advance.

     Understand;  this meant that a bill which would have addressed  many VA problems was stifled by the Republicans in the Senate. In a press release, the American Legion lamented the bill’s failure."There was a right way to vote and a wrong way to vote today, and 41 senators chose the wrong way," American Legion National Commander Daniel Dellinger said. "That’s inexcusable."  The votes in question were those of all save two Republican Senators. Once again Republicans blocked needed legislation and then blamed the administration for inactivity.

Bill Cassidy is a liar

                                          Truthiness

In truth, writing these is almost too easy, since the avalanche of lies is almost overwhelming and easy to show. So let's finish with some "truthiness"  (with all due acknowledgement to Steven Colbert for the term)

Poor John gets confused!

     A critical voice raised against the administration regarding the ransoming of Bowe Bergdahl comes from none other than tjhat old warhorse, Senator John  (I'm really too old for this shit") McCain. Among other soundbites he has said, "It is a mistake and it is putting the lives of American servicemen and women at risk and that to me is unacceptable," (Republican news conference June 3) On CNN on June 8, McCain affirmed he would never have released the five Taliban officials. "What we're doing here is reconstituting the Taliban government, the same guys that are mass murderers," McCain said.  

If this were consistent with McCain's track record on prisoner swaps, there would be no issue here. Unfortunately, it is inconsistent.  In an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper 2 months earlier, McCain sang another tune:

 Here is the exchange between Cooper and McCain:

COOPER: "Would you oppose the idea of some form of negotiations or prisoner exchange? I know back in 2012 you called the idea of even negotiating with the Taliban bizarre, highly questionable."

MCCAIN: "Well, at that time the proposal was that they would release -- Taliban, some of them really hard-core, particularly five really hard-core Taliban leaders, as a confidence-building measure. Now this idea is for an exchange of prisoners for our American fighting man. "I would be inclined to support such a thing depending on a lot of the details." Whaaat?

COOPER: "So if there was some -- the possibility of some sort of exchange, that's something you would support?"

MCCAIN: "I would support. Obviously I'd have to know the details, but I would support ways of bringing him home and if exchange was one of them I think that would be something I think we should seriously consider."

Oh, I know what you're thinking, he didn't know we'd release bad guys for this deserter (which is what, it turns out he is/was). The problem is that he actually did know who four of the five Taliban were! McCain sits on the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees and was familiar with who was in play when he spoke to Cooper, calling them "five really hard-core Taliban leaders."

I won't call McCain a liar in this instance, out of deference for his age and his service;  let's just call him....... confused!? By the way, Rachel Maddow broke  this story, which is true, but then, Rachel Maddow isn't a Republican liar, is she?