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Posts Tagged ‘THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE’

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LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE PSYCHO PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 15, 2015 at 12:30 am

Americans like to believe they choose rational men and women for their political leaders.

This is especially true when it comes to deciding who will govern the country for the next four years as President of the United States.

And those voters like to believe that, once elected, the new President will base his or her decisions on a firm foundation of rationality and careful consideration.

And in an age when a Presidential decision can, in a matter of minutes, hurl nuclear bombers and missiles to lay waste entire nations, it’s essential for Americans to choose such leaders.

Unfortunately, Presidential leadership hasn’t always been based on rationality.

A classic example of this was Ronald Reagan, the 40th President of the United States from 1981 to 1989.

Ronald Reagan

His wife, Nancy, resembled the last Empress of Russia in her quest for answers from “the other side.”

In the case of Czarina Alexandra, wife of Nicholas II, the last “Czar of all the Russias,” those “answers” came from Grigori Rasputin, the “mad monk” from Siberia.

Rasputin claimed the ability to work miracles on behalf of Alexandra’s hemophilic son, Alexei, heir to the Russian throne.

Similarly, Nancy Reagan had her own Rasputin–an astrologer named Joan Quigley.  The two met on “The Merv Griffin Show” in 1973.

Quigley supposedly gave Nancy–and through her, Reagan himself–astrological advice during the latter’s campaign for the Republican Presidential nomination in 1976.

That effort failed to unseat President Gerald Ford–who was defeated that November by Jimmy Carter.

Four years later, in 1980, Reagan defeated Carter to become the 40th President of the United States.

On March 30, 1981, a mentally-disturbed loner named John W. Hinckley shot and critically wounded Reagan. Hinckley’s motive: Fixiated on actress Jodie Foster, he believed that by shooting the President he could gain her affection.

For Nancy, the assassination attempt proved a watershed.

Shortly after the shooting, Merv Griffin told her that Quigley had told him: If Nancy had called her on that fateful day, she–Quigley–could have warned that the President’s astrological charts had foretold a bad day.

From that moment on, Nancy made sure to regularly consult Quigley on virtually everything that she and the President intended to do.

Click here: The President’s Astrologers – Joan Quigley, Nancy Reagan, Politicians and Their Families, Ronald Reagan : People.c

Many–if not most–of these calls from the White House to Quigley’s office in San Francisco were made on non-secure phone lines.

Joan Quigley

This meant that foreign powers–most notably the Soviet Union and Communist China–could have been privy to Reagan’s intentions.

Nancy passed on Quigley’s suggestions in the form of commands to Donald Regan, chief of the White House staff.

As a result, Regan kept a color-coded calendar on his desk to remember when the astrological signs were good for the President to speak, travel, or negotiate with foreign leaders.

Green ink was used to highlight “good” days, red for “bad” days, and yellow for “iffy” days.

Forget relying on Intelligence supplied by the CIA, the National Security Agency or the Pentagon.  Statecraft-by-astrologer was now the norm.

A list provided by Quigley to Nancy made the following recommendations–which Nancy, in turn, made into commands:

Late Dec thru March    bad
Jan 16 – 23    very bad
Jan 20    nothing outside WH–possible attempt
Feb 20 – 26    be careful
March 7 – 14    bad period
March 10 – 14    no outside activity!
March 16    very bad
March 21    no
March 27    no
March 12 – 19    no trips exposure
March 19 – 25    no public exposure
April 3    careful
April 11    careful
April 17    careful
April 21 – 28    stay home

Donald Regan, no fan of Nancy’s, chafed under such restrictions: “Obviously, this list of dangerous or forbidden dates left very little lattitude for scheduling,” he later wrote.

Forced out of the White House in 1987 by Nancy, Regan struck back in a 1988 tell-all memoir: For the Record: From Wall Street to Washington.

The book revealed, for the first time, how Ronald Reagan actually made his Presidential decisions.

All–including decisions to risk nuclear war with the Soviet Union–were based on a court astrologer’s horoscopes.  Rationality and the best military intelligence available played a lesser, secondary role–at best.

In 1990, Quigley confirmed the allegations an autobiography, What Does Joan Say?: My Seven Years As White House Astrologer to Nancy and Ronald Reagan.

Click here: What Does Joan Say?: My Seven Years As White House Astrologer to Nancy and Ronald Reagan: Joan Quigley

The title came from the question that Ronald Reagan asked Nancy before making important decisions–including those that could risk the destruction of the United States.

Among the success Quigley took credit for:

  • Strategies for winning the Presidential elections of 1980 and 1984;
  • Visiting a graveyard for SS soldiers in Bitburg, Germany;
  • Pursuing “Star Wars” as a major part of his strategy against the Soviet Union;
  • The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty; and
  • Moving from seeing the Soviet Union as the “Evil Empire” to accepting Mikhail Gorbachev as a peace-seeking leader.

Thirty-four years after he became President, Ronald Reagan remains the most popular figure among Republicans.

His name is constantly invoked by Right-wing candidates, while his deliberately-crafted myth is held up as the example of Presidential greatness.

Conveniently left out: The small latter of his government-by-astrologer.

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A WARNING FROM AESOP

In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 9, 2015 at 12:03 am

Tens of thousands of Syrians are pouring into Europe, seeking escape from their fellow Islamics in Syria’s ongoing civil war.

And European countries–such as Germany, Italy and Greece–are throwing open their doors in welcome.

In the United States, 14 Democratic Senators are demanding that President Barack Obama admit at least 70,000 refugees.

That’s in addition to the 1,500 that America has taken in since the civil war began in 2011.

Prompting this is the international outcry over images of a three-year-old boy’s body lying face down on the surf on a Turkish beach.

The boy, Aylan Kurdi, his older brother Galip, five, and mother died while trying to reach Europe.

Amidst all this hand-wringing, it’s well to remember the famous Aesop’s fable about a snake and a farmer.

One snowy day, a farmer found a poisonous snake lying on a road, stiff and frozen with cold.  Feeling sorry for the creature, he picked it up and placed it inside his coat in hopes of reviving it.

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The snake, revived by the warmth, bit the farmer, mortally wounding him.

“Oh,” cried the farmer, “I should have known better than to pity a scoundrel.”

Decades from now, the descendants of these well-meaning Europeans may well have cause to remember that fable.

In his 2009 book, Slavery, Terrorism and Islam: The Historical Roots and Contemporary Threat, Dr. Peter Hammond explored the impact of an increasing Muslim population non-Islamic societies.

Image of Dr. Peter Hammond

Dr. Peter Hammond

And he vividly outlined the increasingly disruptive changes that can be expected to occur within those societies.

According to Hammond, Islam is not a religion nor a cult.  It’s a complete system of religious, legal, political, ecnomic and military components.

The religious component encompasses all the others.

“Islamization” occurs when there are enough Muslims in a country to agitate for their “religious rights.”

Here’s how it works.

(Percentages are from CIA: The World Fact Book, 2015.)

So long as the Muslim population remains at or under 2%, they will act as a peaceful minority and pose no threat to non-Muslims.  As in:

United States – Muslims 0.6%

China – Muslims 1.8%

Italy – Muslims 1.5%

At 2% to 5%, they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups, often with major recruiting from jails and street gangs.  This is happening in:

Australia – Muslim 2.2%

Canada – Muslim 3.2%

Denmark – Muslim 2%

Germany – Muslim 3.7%

Norway – Muslim 2.3%

United Kingdom – Muslim 4.4%

Spain – Muslim 4%

Thailand – Muslim 4.9%

From 5% of the population on, they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their numbers.  They push for the introduction of halal (clean by Islamic standards) food, thereby securing food preparation jobs for Muslims.

They increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature halal on their shelves–along with threats for failure to comply.  This is occurring in:

France – Muslim 7.9%

(On January 7, 2015, the worst terrorist act in France since World War II occurred when three Islamics slaughtered 12 people at a satirical magazine that had published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed.

Guyana – Muslim 7.2%

Philippines – 5%

Sweden – Muslim 5%

Switzerland – 4.9%

The Netherlands – Muslim 4.9%

Trinidad and Tobago – Muslim 5%

At 5% of the population they work to get the ruling government to allow them to rule themselves (within their ghettos) under Sharia (Islamic law).  The ultimate goal of Islamics is to establish Sharia law over the entire world–enforcing it on Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

When islamics approach 10% of the population, they tend to increase lawlessness as a means of protest about their conditions.

Any non-Muslim action that offends their interpretation of Islam results in uprisings and threats, such as in Ansterdam, with opposition to Muhammed cartoons and films about Islam.

Such tensions are seen daily, especially in such countries as:

India – Muslim 14.2%

Israel – Muslim 17.5%

Kenya – Muslim 11.1%

Russia – Muslim 15%

After Islamics reach 20% of the population nations can expect hair-trigger rioting, formations of jihad militias, sporadic killings, and the burnings of Christian churches and Jewish synagogues, as in:

Ethopia – Muslim 33.9%

At 40% of the population, nations experience widespread massacres, chronic terror attacks and ongoing militia warfare, such as in:

Bosnia – Muslim 40%

Chad – Muslim 53.1%

Lebanon – Muslim 54.7%

From 60% on, nations experience unfettered persecution of non-Muslims (including non-conforming Muslims), sporadic ethnic cleansing, use of Sharia law as a weapon and Jizya, the tqax placed on “infidels,” as in:

Albania – Muslim 56.7%

Malaysia – Muslim 61.3%

Qater – Muslim 77.5%

Sudan – Muslim 70%

United Arab Emirates – Muslim 76%

After Islamics comprise 80% of the population, expect daily intimidation and violent jihad, some state-run ethnic cleansing, and even some genocide, as these nations drive out the “infidels” and move toward 100% Islamic.  This is happening in:

Bangladesh – Muslim 89.5%

Egypt – Muslim 90%

Gaza – Muslim 99%

Indonesia – Muslim 87.2%

Iran – Muslim 99.4%

Iraq – Muslim 99%

Jordan – Muslim 97.2%

Morocco – Muslim 99%

Pakistan – Muslim 96.4%

Syria – Muslim 87%

Tajikistan – Muslim 90%

Turkey – Muslim 99.8%

When Islamics reach 100% of the population, “Dar-es-Salaam”–“The Islamic House of Peace”–reigns.

Everybody is a Muslim, the madrasses are the only schools, and the Koran is the only word, such as in:

Afghanistan – Muslim 99%

Saudi Arabia – Muslim 100%

Somalia – Muslim 100%

Yemen – Muslim 99.1%

Unfortunately, peace is never achieved, because the most radical Muslim states wage war on more moderate ones.

Among the reasons for this: The centuries-old ethnic conflicts between majority Sunni and minority Shiite Muslims, now on lethal display in Iraq and Syria.

* * * * *

Europeans are now offering asylum to tens of thousands of Islamics–whose religion directly conflicts with Western values.  And Americans are being urged to do the same.

Before doing so, these Western nations should ask themselves two vital questions:

One: If “The Islamic House of Peace” reigns when Muslims become the majority of a country’s population, why are so many Islamics now fleeing Islamic countries?

Two: What does this presage for the Western, non-Islamic countries they are now flooding into?

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FICTION AS REALITY

In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 8, 2015 at 12:15 am

On August 17, Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump outlined his strategy for defeating the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

He would order American forces to take over the oil fields that ISIS has seized in Iraq.

Trump outlined his plans for future military operations against ISIS on NBC’s “Meet the Press” with Chuck Todd.

Trump said he never advocated a U.S. war with Iraq, but it happened, and “it was a big mistake” because it “destabilized” the Middle East.

“Now we’re there, and you have ISIS….And ISIS is taking over a lot of the oil in certain areas of Iraq.

“And I said, you take away their wealth. You go and knock the hell out of the oil. Take back the oil. We take over the oil, which we should have done in the first place.”

After taking over the Iraqi oil fields, said Trump, “we’re going to have so much money.

“And what I would do with the money that we make, which would be tremendous, I would take care of the soldiers that were killed, the families of the soldiers that were killed, the soldiers, the wounded warriors that are–see, I love them.”

Actually, Trump’s idea forms the plot of The Profession, a 2011 novel by bestselling author Steven Pressfield.

The Profession

Pressfield made his literary reputation with a series of classic novels about ancient Greece.

In Gates of Fire (1998) he explored the rigors and heroism of Spartan society–and the famous last stand of its 300 picked warriors at Thermopylae.

In The Virtues of War (2004) he entered the mind of Alexander the Great, whose armies swept across the known world, destroying all who dared oppose them.

Finally, in The Afghan Campaign (2006) Pressfield–this time from the viewpoint of a lowly Greek soldier–refought Alexander’s brutal, three-year anti-guerrilla campaign in Afghanistan.

Steven Pressfield Focused Interview

 Steven Pressfield

But in The Profession, Pressfield created a plausible world set into the future of 2032.  The book’s own dust jacket offers the best summary of its plot-line:

“The third Iran-Iraq war is over. The 11/11 dirty bomb attack on the port of Long Beach, California is receding into memory. Saudi Arabia has recently quelled a coup. Russians and Turks are clashing in the Caspian Basin….

“Everywhere military force is for hire.  Oil companies, multi-national corporations and banks employ powerful, cutting-edge mercenary armies to control global chaos and protect their riches.

“Even nation states enlist mercenary forces to suppress internal insurrections, hunt terrorists, and do the black bag jobs necessary to maintain the new New World Order.

“Force Insertion is the world’s merc monopoly. Its leader is the disgraced former United States Marine General James Salter, stripped of his command by the president for nuclear saber-rattling with the Chinese and banished to the Far East.’

Salter appears as a hybrid of World War II General Douglas MacArthur and Iraqi War General Stanley McCrystal.

Like MacArthur, Salter has butted heads with his President–and paid dearly for it.  Now his ambition is no less than to become President himself–by popular acclaim.  And like McCrystal, he is a pure warrior who leads from the front and is revered by his men.

Salter seizes Saudi oil fields, then offers them as a gift to America. By doing so, he makes himself the most popular man in the country–and a guaranteed occupant of the White House.

And in 2032 the United States is a far different nation from the one its Founding Fathers created  in 1776.

“Any time that you have the rise of mercenaries…society has entered a twilight era, a time past the zenith of its arc,” says Salter.

“The United States is an empire…but the American people lack the imperial temperament. We’re not legionaries, we’re mechanics.  In the end the American Dream boils down to what? ‘I’m getting mine and the hell with you.’”

Americans, asserts Salter, have come to like mercenaries: “They’ve had enough of sacrificing their sons and daughters in the name of some illusory world order.  They want someone else’s sons and daughters to bear the burden….

“They want their problems to go away.  They want me to to make them go away.”

And so Salter will “accept whatever crown, of paper or gold, that my country wants to press upon me.”

More than 500 years ago, Niccolo Machiavelli warned of the dangers of relying on mercenaries:

“Mercenaries…are useless and dangerous. And if a prince holds on to his state by means of mercenary armies, he will never be stable or secure; for they are disunited, ambitious, without discipline, disloyal; they are brave among friends; among enemies they are cowards.

 Niccolo Machiavelli

“They have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men, and destruction is deferred only so long as the attack is. For in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy.”

Centuries ago, Niccolo Machiavelli issued a warning against relying on men whose first love is their own enrichment.

Steven Pressfield, in a work of fiction, has given us a nightmarish vision of a not-so-distant America where “Name your price” has become the byward for an age.

Both warnings are well worth heeding.

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A LABOR DAY REMINDER: CEO GREED VS. EMPLOYEES’ NEED

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on September 7, 2015 at 12:57 am

John Schnatter, the CEO of Papa John’s Pizza, doesn’t like the Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as Obamacare.

And Schnatter bluntly warned his employees: When the Act took effect, Papa John’s Pizza would change in two ways.

First, it would be forced to do something it hadn’t done since its founding in 1984: Offer healthcare coverage to its 16,5000 employees or pay a penalty to the government.

Second, it would raise the prices of its pizzas.

John Schnatter

How high would they go up?

By as much as eleven to fourteen cents price increase per pizza, or fifteen to twenty cents per order!

And Schnatter made it clear: He wasn’t going to take this lying down.  He was determined to pass along those costs to his customers.

“If Obamacare is in fact not repealed,” Schnatter told Politico, “we will find tactics to shallow out any Obamacare costs and core strategies to pass that cost onto consumers in order to protect our shareholders’ best interests.”

After all, why should a multi-million-dollar company show any concern for those who make its profits a reality?

Consider:

  • Papa John’s is the third-largest pizza takeout and delivery chain in the United States.
  • Its full year 2014 revenues were $1.60 billion, an increase of 11.1% from 2013 revenues of $1.44 billion.
  • Its full year 2014 net income was $73.3 million, compared to 2013 net income of $69.5 million.

Click here: Papa John’s Announces Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2014 Results (NASDAQ:PZZA)

Nor should anyone expect Schnatter to take a pay cut, just so his employees can obtain medical care when they need it.

Schnatter’s total calculated compensation for 2014 came to $3,456,146.

Click here: John H. Schnatter: Executive Profile & Biography – Businessweek

“We’re not supportive of Obamacare, like most businesses in our industry,” Schnatter–a supporter of Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney–admitted in a 2012 interview with Politico.

To demonstrate his opposition to providing medical insurance for all Americans, Schnatter hosted a fundraising event for Mitt Romney at his own Louisville, Kentucky mansion in May, 2012.

The luxurious setting for the fundraiser gave Romney a rush of pure, plutocratic ecstasy.

“What a home this is,” gushed Romney. “What grounds these are, the pool, the golf course.

“You know, if a Democrat were here he’d look around and say no one should live like this. Republicans come here and say everyone should live like this.”

John Schnatter’s estate

Of course, Romney conveniently ignored a brutally ugly fact:

For the vast majority of Papa John’s minimum-wage-earning employees–many of them working only part-time–the odds of their owning a comparable estate are non-existent.

In a typical demonstration of corporate thinking, Judy Nichols, a Papa John’s franchise owner in Beaumont, Texas, said:

“I have two options, I can stop offering coverage and pay the $2,000 fine, or I could keep my number of staff under 50 so the mandate doesn’t apply,” she told Legal Newsline.

In short: Defy the law, and employee helathcare needs be damned.

In fact, that’s exactly what Schnatter announced he would do: Reduce his workers’ hours–since Obamacare mandates that only employees working more than 30 hours per week are covered under their employers’ health insurance plan.

Nichols claimed that the the law might cost her $20,000 to $30,000 in taxes: “Obamacare is making me think about cutting jobs instead,” she said.

Translation: If you force me to behave responsibly, I’ll just have to take it out on millions of willing-to-work Americans.

So how can America cope with behavior that destroys not only lives but the economy as well?

By passing–and vigorously enforcing–a nationwide Employers Responsibility Act.

Among its provisions:

Employers would be required to provide full medical and pension benefits for all employees, regardless of their full-time or part-time status.

Increasingly, employers are replacing full-time workers with part-time ones—solely to avoid paying medical and pension benefits.

Requiring employers to act humanely and responsibly toward all their employees would encourage them to provide full-time positions—and hasten the death of this greed-based practice.

The seeking of “economic incentives” by companies in return for moving to or remaining in cities/states would be strictly forbidden.

Such “economic incentives” usually:

  1. allow employers to ignore existing laws protecting employees from unsafe working conditions;
  2. allow employers to ignore existing laws protecting the environment;
  3. allow employers to pay their employees the lowest acceptable wages, in return for the “privilege” of working at these companies; and/or
  4. allow employers to pay little or no business taxes, at the expense of communities who are required to make up for lost tax revenues.

Employers who continue to make such overtures would be prosecuted for attempted bribery or extortion:

  1. Bribery, if they offered to move to a city/state in return for “economic incentives,” or
  2. Extortion, if they threatened to move their companies from a city/state if they did not receive such “economic incentives.”

This would

  • protect employees against artificially-depressed wages and unsafe working conditions;
  • protect the environment in which these employees live; and
  • protect cities/states from being pitted against one another at the expense of their economic prosperity.

It’s past time for America to protect employees who work for a living from CEOs who simply take credit for the work those employees do.

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GEORGE W. BUSH: “I TRUST PUTIN”

In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics on September 3, 2015 at 1:00 am

Since the late 1940s, Republicans have hurled the charge of “appeasement” at every Democratic President

Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton found themselves accused of “selling out” to the Soviet Union.  The motive for this was usually attributed to cowardice–if not outright treason.

And now it’s the turn of President Barack Obama.

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President Barack Obama

“The President is afraid of provoking Vladimir Putin,” U.S. Senator John McCain told Reuters.  “Vladimir Putin is on the move because he has paid no price for his aggression.”

Another United State Senator who charges Obama with appeasement is Ted Cruz of Texas.

“Putin fears no retribution,” Cruz said on ABC News’ This Week. “Their policy has been to alienate and abandon our friends, and to coddle and appease our enemies.

“Putin is a KGB thug.  When the protests began in Ukraine, the president should have stood unapologetically, emphatically for freedom.  When the United States doesn’t speak for freedom, tyrants notice.”

It’s clear that the American Right–long aching for a chance to lob nuclear missiles at the former Soviet Union–is itching for the chance to do so now.

Yet America’s frustrations with Russia generally–and Putin in particular–long predate those of Barack Obama.

A major reason for this: America’s dealings with Russia have not always been as wise as they should have been.

In his memoir, Duty, Robert M. Gates, who served as Secretary of Defense for Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, candidly writes:

“I shared with [President Bush] my belief that from 1999 onward, the West, and particularly the United States, had badly underestimated the magnitude of Russian humiliation in losing the Cold War and then the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

“The arrogance, after the collapse, of American government officials, academicians, businessmen, and politicians in telling the Russians how to conduct their domestic and foreign affairs…had led to deep and long-term resentment and bitterness.”

Convincing Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev to allow a United Germany to enter NATO proved a major success, asserts Gates.

But moving quickly–after the collapse of the Soviet Union–to incorporate many of its former members into NATO was a serious mistake.

U.S. agreements with Romanian and Bulgarian governments to rotate [American] troops through bases in those countries was a needless provocation (especially since we never deployed the 5,000 troops in either country.”

Gates further notes that the United States later made an even worse mistake:

“Trying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly overreaching.  The roots of the Russian Empire trace back to Kiev in the ninth century, so that was an especially monumental provocation.

“Were the Europeans, much less the Americans, willing to send their sons and daughters to defend Ukraine or Georgia?  Hardly.

“So NATO expansion was a political act, not a carefully considered military commitment.”

This “undermined the purpose of the alliance” and recklessly ignored “what the Russians considered their own vital national interests.”

Nor were relations between the United States and post-Soviet Russia helped by the naievity of President George W. Bush.

In June, 2001, Bush and Vladimir Putin met in Slovenia.  During the meeting a truly startling exchange occurred.

President George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin

Putin, a former KGB Intelligence officer, had clearly done his homework on Bush. When he mentioned that one of the sports Bush had played was rugby, Bush was highly impressed.

“I did play rugby,” gushed Bush.  “Very good briefing.”

But more was to come.

BUSH:  Let me say something about what caught my attention, Mr. President, was that your mother gave you a cross which you had blessed in Israel, the Holy Land.

PUTIN:  It’s true.

BUSH:  That amazes me, that here you were a Communist, KGB operative, and yet you were willing to wear a cross.  That speaks volumes to me, Mr. President.  May I call you Vladimir?

Putin instantly sensed that Bush judged others–even world leaders–through the lens of his own fundamentalist Christian theology.

Falling back on his KGB training, Putin seized on this apparent point of commality to build a bond.  He told Bush that his dacha had once burned to the ground, and the only item that had been saved was that cross.

“Well, that’s the story of the cross as far as I’m concerned,” said Bush, clearly impressed.  “Things are meant to be.”

Afterward, Bush and Putin gave an outdoor news conference.

“Is this a man that America can trust?” Associated Press correspondent Ron Foumier asked Bush.

“Yes,” said Bush.  “I looked the man in the eye.  I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy.  We had a very good dialogue.

“I was able to get a sense of his soul, a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country.  I wouldn’t have invited him to my ranch if I didn’t trust him.”

Of course, no one from the Right is now recalling such embarrassing words.

It’s far more politically profitable to pretend that all of America’s tensions with Russia began with the election of Barack Obama.

And to pretend that those tensions will vanish once another Right-wing President enters the White House.

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I LEFT MY BUM IN SAN FRANCISCO

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 28, 2015 at 12:14 am

Yes, welcome to San Francisco–home of cable cars, Ghiradelli Square and the Golden Gate Bridge.

Oh, and thousands of stinking, disease-ridden, lice/bedbug-infested, drug-addicted, alcohol-soaked, often psychotic men and women whom Politically Correct city officials refer to as “the homeless.”

Privately, many of the police, social workers and paramedics who wrestle with this population have another term for them–DDMBs: Druggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bums.

Thanks to its mild climate and social programs that dole out cash payments to virtually anyone with no residency requirement, San Francisco is often considered the homeless capital of the United States.

Although the city spends $200 million a year on “honeless” services, the population surges between 7,000 and 10,000.  Of these, 3,000 to 5,000 refuse shelter.

Yet mere statistics don’t capture the true intensity of the problem.  To do that, you must confront its realities at the street level.

One of those realities can be seen every Sunday, when many stores on Market Street close for lack of workday traffic.  Stroll along the street and you’ll find it crowded with passed-out drunks/druggies, ranting psychotics and aggressive panhandlers.

Another such reality is Suzie Wong, 66, who goes by the name Ling Ling.  A resident of the Nob Hill District, Wong daily gives residents and tourists a sight to remember her by.

She alights from the 27 Bryant bus from the Mission and halts at the nearby bus stop.  Then she drops her drawers to leave a yellow or brown deposit on the sidewalk.

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Finally, she crosses the street, and catches the 1 California bus for Chinatown.

When she doesn’t relieve herself on Nob Hill, she often does so on Stockton Street in Chinatown.  Then she heads to her usual spot to panhandle.

Children and pets often step in her feces.  So do adults, who are preoccupied with their cell phones.  Parents vainly try to shield their kids from the disgusting sight.

Residents have lodged scores of complaints about Wong’s repeated defecations.  The Department of Public Works sent crews to clean up her messes at least 44 times in a six-month period.

Druggies Drunks Mentals Bums

Police have repeatedly scooped up Wong for a 5150 involuntary psychiatric hold at San Francisco General Hospital.  But doctors usually release her before the cops even get back to the station.

Under a 5150 designation, people can be held at the hospital for up to 72 hours to determine:

  • Are they gravely disabled?
  • Are they mentally ill?
  • If they are mentally ill, do they pose a danger to others or themselves?

But authorities have repeatedly determined that Wong doesn’t fit any of these criteria.  The reasons:

  • She has a mental health case worker at a North Beach clinic.
  • She’s arranged housing and food services through the city.
  • She can use public transit.

Chalk up another win for the DDMBs.

San Francisco officials have effectively washed their hands of the problem. If local residents must put up with repeated violations of the most basic sanitation laws, that’s their tough luck.

What matters to the Mayor and Board of Supervisors is this:

The “rights” of those whose filth poses an immediate threat to public health take precedence over those of tax-paying, law-abiding San Franciscans.

San Francisco residents can be fined for feeding pigeons–but not for feeding street bums.

During the Mayorship of Willie Brown (1996 – 2004), Hizzonor proposed what he thought was a brilliannt way for residents to “contribute” to street people. Those who were somehow certified as “homeless” would be issued special electronic “cash cards.”

When someone wanted to make a “donation,” s/he would swipe a credit card against the one owned by the street bum, for whatever amount s/he wanted to donate.

But before the program started, someone at City Hall realized a blunt truth: Residents–especially women–weren’t likely to whip out their credis cards in front of a ranting, foul-smelling, probably disease-ridden street bum.

* * * * *

It’s long past time for San Francisco–and other cities–to stop catering to the druggies, alcoholics, mental cases and bums who prey on the guilt or fear of law-abiding, tax-paying citizens.

The same laws that protect citizens against patients with highly communicable diseases like typhoid and cholera should be vigorously applied to those whose filthy habits threaten similar public contagion.

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WALLING OUT ILLEGAL ALIENS

In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 27, 2015 at 1:17 pm

According to Donald Trump, stopping illegal immigration is easy.

Just build a massive, impenetrable wall along the U.S./Mexican border to keep out Mexican immigrants.

“Building a wall is easy, and it can be done inexpensively,” Trump said in an interview. “It’s not even a difficult project if you know what you’re doing.”

Really?

Among the obstacles to erecting such a barrier:

  • The United States/Mexican border stretches for 1,954 miles–and emcompasses rivers, deserts and mountains.
  • Environmental and engineering problems.
  • Squabbles with ranchers who don’t want to give up any of their land.
  • Building such a wall would cost untold billions of dollars.
  • Drug traffickers and smugglers could easily tunnel under it into the United States–as they are now doing.

Click here: Trump says building a U.S.-Mexico wall is ‘easy.’ But is it really? – The Washington Post

There are, in fact, cheaper and more effective remedies for combating illegal immigration.

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Illegal aliens crossing into the United States

(1) The Justice Department should vigorously attack the “sanctuary movement” that officially thwarts the immigration laws of the United States.

Among the 31 “sanctuary cities” of this country: Washington, D.C.; New York City; Los Angeles; Chicago; San Francisco; Santa Ana; San Diego; Salt Lake City; Phoenix; Dallas; Houston; Austin; Detroit; Jersey City; Minneapolis; Miami; Denver; Baltimore; Seattle; Portland, Oregon; New Haven, Connecticut; and Portland, Maine.

These cities have adopted “sanctuary” ordinances that do not allow municipal funds or resources to be used to enforce federal immigration laws, usually by not allowing police or municipal employees to inquire about one’s immigration status.

(2)  The most effective way to combat this movement: Indict the highest-ranking officials of those cities who have actively violated Federal immigration laws.

In San Francisco, for example, former District Attorney Kamala Harris—who is now California’s Attorney General—created a secret program called Back on Track, which provided training for jobs that illegal aliens could not legally hold.

She also prevented Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from deporting even those illegal aliens convicted of a felony.

(3) Even if some indicted officials escaped conviction, the results would prove worthwhile.  

City officials would be forced to spend huge sums of their own money for attorneys and face months or even years of prosecution.

And this, in turn, would send a devastating warning to officials in other “sanctuary cities” that the same fate lies in store for them.

(4) CEOs whose companies–like Wal-Mart–systematically employ illegal aliens should be held directly accountable for the actions of their subordinates.

They should be indicted by the Justice Department under the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, the way Mafia bosses are prosecuted for ordering their own subordinates to commit crimes.

Upon conviction, the CEO should be sentenced to a mandatory prison term of at least twenty years.

This would prove a more effective remedy for combating illegal immigration than stationing tens of thousands of soldiers on the U.S./Mexican border. CEOs forced to account for their subordinates’ actions would take drastic steps to ensure that their companies strictly complied with Federal immigration laws.

Without employers luring illegal aliens at a fraction of the money paid to American workers, the flood of such illegal job-seekers would quickly dry up.

(5) The Government should stop granting automatic citizenship to “anchor babies” born to illegal aliens in the United States.

A comparable practice would be allowing bank robbers who had eluded the FBI to keep their illegally-obtained loot.

A person who violates the bank robbery laws of the United States is legally prosecutable for bank robbery, whether he’s immediately arrested or remains uncaught for years. The same should be true for those born illegally within this country.

If they’re not here legally at the time of birth, they should not be considered citizens and should–like their parents–be subject to deportation.

(6) The United States Government–from the President on down–should scrap its apologetic tone on the right to control its national borders.

The Mexican Government doesn’t hesitate to apply strict laws to those immigrating to Mexico. And it feels no need to apologize for this.

Neither should we.

(7) Voting materials and ballots should be published in one language: English. 

In Mexico, voting materials are published in one language–Spanish.

Throughout the United States, millions of Mexican illegals refuse to learn English and yet demand that voting materials and ballots be made available to them in Spanish.

(8)   The United States should impose economic and even military sanctions against countries–such as China and Mexico–whose citizens make up the bulk of illegal aliens. 

Mexico, for example, uses its American border to rid itself of those who might demand major reforms in the country’s political and economic institutions.

Such nations must learn that dumping their unwanteds on the United States now comes at an unaffordably high price.  Otherwise those dumpings will continue.

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THE GOOD NEWS IN THE ASHLEY MADISON SCANDAL

In Bureaucracy, Business, Law Enforcement, Social commentary on August 26, 2015 at 9:50 am

It’s the nightmare-come-true for corporate America.

Name-brand companies, trusted by millions, hit with massive data breaches.

And with a series of keystrokes, the most sensitive financial and personal information of their employees and/or customers is compromised.

Among those companies:

  • Target
  • Kmart
  • Home Depot
  • JPMorgan/Chase
  • Staples
  • Dairy Queen
  • Anthem, Inc.
  • Sony Pictures
  • Primera Blue Cross
  • U.S. Postal Service

Click here: Data Breach Tracker: All the Major Companies That Have Been Hacked | Money.com

And as of July 15, Ashley Madison joined this list.

Ashley Madison is, of course, the notorious website for cheating wives and husbands.

Launched in 2001, its catchy slogan is: “Life is short.  Have an affair.”

One of its ads featured a photo of a woman apparently kneeling at the feet of a bare-chested man, her hand passionately clawing at his belt.  Next to her was the caption: “Join FREE & change your life today.  Guaranteed!”

Ashley Madison - Ashley Madison Agency

Ashley Madison claims to have more than 37 million members.  And now, untold numbers of them may find their lives changed forever.

Its hackers were enraged at the company’s refusal to fully delete users’ profiles unless it received a $19 fee.

Referring to themselves as “The Impact Team,” they stated in an online manifesto: “Full Delete netted [Avid Life Media, the parent company of Ashley Madison] $1.7 million in revenue in 2014.  It’s also a complete lie.

“Users almost always pay with credit card; their purchase details are not removed as promised, and include real names and address, which is of course the most important information the users want removed.”

On July 20, Avid Life Media defended the service, and said it would make it free.

Adultery-dating website Ashley Madison hacked

The hackers demanded: “AM [Ashley Madison] AND EM [Established Men] MUST SHUT DOWN IMMEDIATELY PERMANENTLY.

“We have taken over all systems in your entire office and production domains, all customer information databases, source code repositories, financial records, emails.

“Shutting down AM and EM will cost you, but non-compliance will cost you more.”

The hackers threatened to “release all customer records, including profiles with all the customers’ secret sexual fantasies and matching credit card transactions, real names and addresses, and employee documents and emails.”

Avid Life Media assured its customers that it had hired “one of the world’s top IT security teams” to work on the breach:

“At this time, we have been able to secure our sites, and close the unauthorized access points. We are working with law enforcement agencies, which are investigating this criminal act.”

This statement gives new meaning to the phrase, “Closing the barn door after the cow has gotten out.”

And it raises the question: Why wasn’t this “top IT security team” hired at the outset?

After all, its database is a blackmailer’s dream-come-true. Yet apparently its owners didn’t care enough about the privacy of their customers to provide adequate security.

On August 18, the hackers began releasing their pirated information.

As usual during a corporation’s data breach, Ashley Madison issued a reassuring statement: “We are working with law enforcement agencies, which are investigating this criminal act.

“Any and all parties responsible for this act of cyber-terrorism will be held responsible.”

Eight of those customers (so far) have decided to hold Ashley Madison responsible. They have filed lawsuits against the company in California, Georgia, Minnesota, Missouri, Tennessee and Texas.

They seek class-action status to represent Ashley Madison’s 37 million users.

The lawsuits claim negligence, breach of contract and privacy violations. They charge that Ashley Madison failed to take reasonable steps to protect the security of its users, including those who paid the $19 fee to have their information deleted.

If they win–and force the owners of Ashley Madison to pay up big-time–this could set a precedent for lawsuits by other victims of such data breaches.

An October 22, 2014 “commentary” published in Forbes magazine raised the highly disturbing question: “Cybersecurity: Does Corporate America Really Care?”

And the answer is clearly: No.

Its author is John Hering, co-founder and executive director of Lookout, which bills itself as “the world leader in mobile security for consumers and enterprises alike.”

Click here: Cybersecurity: Does corporate America really care?

“One thing is clear,” writes Hering. “CEOs need to put security on their strategic agendas alongside revenue growth and other issues given priority in boardrooms.”

Hering warns that “CEOs don’t seem to be making security a priority.”  And he offers several reasons for this:

  • The sheer number of data compromises;
  • Relatively little consumer outcry;
  • Almost no impact on the companies’ standing on Wall Street;
  • Executives may consider such breaches part of the cost of doing business.

“Sales figures and new products are top of mind,” writes Hering. “Shoring up IT systems aren’t.”

The key to sharply reducing data breaches lies in holding greed-obsessed CEOs financially accountable for their criminal negligence.

Only then will their  mindset of “We don’t care, we don’t have to” be replaced with: “We care, because our heads will roll if we don’t.”

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DAVY CROCKETT VS. DONALD TRUMP

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Politics, Social commentary on August 25, 2015 at 12:06 am

It’s a scene you couldn’t imagine seeing in John Wayne’s 1960 film, “The Alamo.”  Especially with The Duke playing a hard-drinking, two-fisted Davy Crockett.

John Wayne as Davy Crockett

But it occurs in the novel, Crockett of Tennessee, by Cameron Judd.  And it is no less affecting for its being–so far as we know–entirely fictional.

It’s the last night of life for the Alamo garrison–the night before the 2,000 men of the Mexican Army hurl themselves at the former mission and slaughter its 200 Texian defenders.

The fort’s commander, William Barret Travis, has drawn his “line in the sand” and invited the garrison to choose: To surrender, to try to escape, or to stay and fight to the death.

And the garrison–except for one man–chooses to stay and fight.  That man is Louis “Moses” Rose, a Frenchman who has served in Napoleon’s Grande Armee and survived the frightful retreat from Moscow.

He vaults a low wall of the improvised fort, flees into the moonless desert, and eventually makes his way to the home of a family who give him shelter.

But for the garrison, immortality lies only hours away.  Or does it?

An hour after deciding to stand and die in the Alamo, wrapped in the dark of night, Crockett is seized with paralyzing fear.

“We’re going to die here,” he chokes out to his longtime friend, Persius Tarr.  “You understand that, Persius?  We’re going to die!”

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“I know, Davy.  But there ain’t no news in that,” says Tarr.  “We’re born to die.  Every one of us.  Only difference between us and most everybody else is we know when and where it’s going to be.”

“But I can’t be afraid–not me.  I’m Crockett.  I’m Canebrake Davy.  I’m half-horse, half-alligator.”

“I know you are, Davy,” says Tarr. ”So do all these men here.  That’s why you’re going to get past this.

“You’re going to put that fear behind you and walk back out there and fight like the man you are.  The fear’s come and now it’s gone.  This is our time, Davy.”

“The glory-time,” says Crockett.

“That’s right, David.  The glory-time.”

And then Tarr delivers a sentiment wholly alien to money-obsessed men like Mitt Romney and Donald Trump–who comprise the richest and most privileged 1% of today’s Americans.

“There’s men out there with their eyes on you.  You’re the only thing keeping the fear away from them.  You’re joking and grinning and fiddling-–it gives them courage they wouldn’t have had without you.

“Maybe that’s why you’re here, Davy–to make the little men and the scared men into big and brave men.  You’ve always cared about the little men, Davy.  Remember who you are.

“You’re Crockett of Tennessee, and your glory-time has come.  Don’t you miss a bit of it.”

The next morning, the Mexicans assault the Alamo.  Crockett embraces his glory-time-–and becomes a legend for all-time.

David Crockett (center) at the fall of the Alamo

David Crockett (1786-1836) lived–and died–a poor man.  But this did not prevent him from trying to better the lives of his family and fellow citizens–and even his former enemies.

David Crockett

During the War of 1812, he served as a scout under Andrew Jackson.  His foes were the Creek Indians, who had massacred 500 settlers at Fort Mims, Alabama–and threatened to do the same to Crockett’s neighbors in Tennessee.

As a Congressman from Tennessee, he championed the rights of poor whites.  And he opposed then-President Jackson’s efforts to force the same defeated Indians to depart the lands guaranteed them by treaty.

To Crockett, a promise was sacred–whether given by a single man or the United States Government.

And his presence during the 13-day siege of the Alamo did cheer the spirits of the vastly outnumbered defenders.

It’s a matter of historical record that he and a Scotsman named MacGregor often staged musical “duels” to see who could make the most noise.

It was MacGregor with his bagpipes against Crockett and his fiddle.

Contrast this devotion of Crockett to the rights of “the little men,” as Persius Tarr called them, with the attitude of Donald Trump, the currently-favored Republican candidate for President in 2016.

Donald Trump

On June 16, while announcing his candidacy, Trump said:

  • “…I don’t need anybody’s money. It’s nice. I don’t need anybody’s money. I’m using my own money. I’m not using lobbyists, I’m not using donors. I don’t care. I’m really rich.”
  • “I did a lot of great deals and I did them early and young, and now I’m building all over the world….”
  • “So I have a total net worth, and now with the increase, it’ll be well-over $10 billion.”
  • “But here, a total net worth of–net worth, not assets, not–a net worth, after all debt, after all expenses, the greatest assets–Trump Tower, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, Bank of America building in San Francisco, 40 Wall Street, sometimes referred to as the Trump building right opposite the New York–many other places all over the world. So the total is $8,737,540,000.”

Those who give their lives for others are rightly loved as heroes.  Those who dedicate their lives only to their wallets are rightly soon forgotten.

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TWO LIVES, TWO LEGACIES

In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on August 24, 2015 at 12:32 am

Benjamin C. Bradlee and Richard M. Nixon.

Both men were driven to succeed.  And both achieved fame and power in doing so.

Bradlee made his name in journalism.

Benjamin C. Bradlee

Nixon made his in politics.

Richard M. Nixon

Both served in the United States Navy in the Pacific during World War II.

Both had strong connections to John F. Kennedy.

  • Bradlee knew him as a friend and reporter during JFK’s years as a Senator and President.
  • Nixon–as a Senator and later Vice President–knew Kennedy as a Senatorial colleague and as a political adversary, unsuccessfully contesting him for the Presidency in 1960.

For both, 1948 was a pivotal year.

  • Bradlee joined The Washington Post as a reporter.
  • Nixon, as a U.S. Representative, accused Algier Hiss, a former State Department official, of having been a Communist spy.  Hiss was eventually convicted of perjury and sent to prison.

Both attained their positions of maximum power in 1968.

  • Bradlee became executive editor of The Washington Post.
  • Nixon became the 37th President of the United States.

Bradlee made it his business to dig up the truth.  Nixon made it his business to distort the truth–or to conceal it when distortion wasn’t enough.

Nixon and Bradlee had their first major clash in 1971 with the Pentagon Papers, a secret government study of how the United States became enmeshed in the Vietnam war.

  • Although the Papers concerned events that had occurred during the Presidencies of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, Nixon was outraged at their release by a former Defense Department analyst named Daniel Ellsburg.
  • Nixon ordered his Attorney General, John Mitchell, to enjoin The New York Times–which had begun publishing the study–from continuing to publish its revelations.
  • Bradlee, as executive editor of The Washington Post, urged his publisher, Katherine Graham, to take over where the Times had left off.
  • The controversey ended when the Supreme Court ruled, 6–3, that the government failed to meet the burden of proof required for prior restraint of the press.

In 1972, Bradlee and Nixon squared off for their most important battle–a “third-rate burglary” of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel.

Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein and Benjamin C. Bradlee

  • Bradlee backed two young, aggressive reporters named Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, as they probed the burglary.
  • This led to their discovering a series of illegal dirty tricks the Nixon re-election campaign had aimed at various Democratic opponents.
  • The Post’s revelations led to the formation of the Senate Watergate Committee, the discovery of Nixon’s tape-recordings of his private–and criminal–conversations, and, finally, to Nixon’s own resignation in disgrace on August 9, 1974.
  • Bradlee was one of only four men who knew the identity of “Deep Throat,” Woodward and Bernstein’s famous undercover source, then-FBI Associate Director W. Mark Felt.  Felt outed himself in 2005.
  • Nixon, who died in 1994, never learned the identity of the most famous whistleblower in history.

Bradlee became an advocate for education and the study of history.

Nixon entered history as the only American President forced to resign from office.

Richard Nixon saying farewell at the White House

Bradlee became a media celebrity.  Nixon became a media target.

  • Bradlee was portrayed by Jason Robards in the hit 1976 film, All the President’s Men (for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor).
  • Nixon was portrayed–in Oliver Stone’s 1995 drama, Nixon–by Anthony Hopkins.

Bradlee and Nixon each published a series of books.

  • Bradlee’s: That Special Grace and Conversations With Kennedy focused on his longtime friendship with John F. Kennedy.  A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures was Bradlee’s memoirs.
  • Nixon’s:  Among his 11 titles: Six Crises; RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon; The Real War; Leaders; Real Peace; No More Vietnams; Beyond Peace.

After leaving the White House, Nixon worked hard behind-the-scenes to refashion himself into an elder statesman of the Republican Party.

  • Throughout the 1980s, he traveled the lecture circuit, wrote books, and met with many foreign leaders, especially those of Third World countries.
  • He supported Ronald Reagan for president in 1980, making television appearances portraying himself as the senior statesman above the fray.
  • For the rest of his life, he fought ferociously through the courts to prevent the release of most of the infamous “Watergate tapes” that chronicled his crimes as President.
  • Only since his death have many of these been made public.

Nixon died on April 22, 1994.

  • Eulogists at his funeral included President Bill Clinton and former Presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, California Governor Pete Wilson and the Reverend Billy Graham.
  • Despite his efforts to portray himself as an elder statesman, Nixon could never erase his infamy as the only President to resign in disgrace.
  • To this day, he remains a nonperson within the Republican Party.  While numerous Republican Presidential candidates quote and identify themselves with Ronald Reagan, none has done the same with Nixon.

Bradlee remained executive editor of The Washington Post until retiring in 1991. But he continued to serve as vice president-at-large until his death on October 21, 2014.

  • In 2007, he received the French Legion of Honor, the highest award given by the French government, at a ceremony in Paris.
  • In 2013, he was named as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. He was presented the medal at a White House ceremony on November 20, 2013.