Time to Investigate the US Department of State

Yet again we hear about Hillary Clinton's emails from the ongoing, seemingly endless US Department of State investigation. It's bad enough that there has been a deliberate, slow release of the 'latest' over this entire presidential campaign, despite most in the know realizing there is nothing here. The Department of State has been relentless in this regard. But this time we hear about the latest some 72 hours before the all important Iowa caucus. Mainstream media explains to us that no doubt this latest 'scandal' can be explained away as the nothing it is - however they point out Clinton probably doesn't have the time to do so before caucus night, given the timing. Then we are treated to statements like 'what an unfortunate coincidence' - said with straight faces no doubt.

I am no attorney but I would imagine deliberately trying to influence election results by abusing administrative authority and releasing potentially damaging information just prior to a vote is illegal in this country. My question then - is this a coincidence?

It is not much of a stretch to suppose someone or some group of people in the US Department of State and/or the US government are deliberately trying to influence this election. At the very least it appears they are trying to advance their own careers through relentless pursuit and sensational timing. Even if there is no real fire - enough smoke over a long enough period of time and people just assume there is a fire - especially if you limit people's processing time.

Even if the timing of this latest was not deliberate, it could be argued that those in State had an ethical duty not to release this latest information until such time that Clinton could have responded to it - before it had a chance to damage her election chances - and then let the people decide. 

I think by and large people in this country take a very dim view of non-elected bureaucrats deliberately attempting to influence elections while they build their own careers. I'd like to see an investigation into the actions of these investigators - enough is enough.

Not Just Because It's There

Got a problem?
Climb a hill.
Got an even bigger problem?
Climb a bigger hill.
Got a really, really big problem?
Climb a mountain.

The Cost of Sarah Palin's Indignation

Sarah Palin has crawled out of her money pit long enough to endorse Donald Trump. Full of righteous indignation and false bravado at some vague notion as the 'establishment' she now stands behind this racist, bigoted, sociopath.

Wonder what that cost him?

If Sarah Palin is so up in arms and indignant towards "establishment" politics why isn't she running for office? Could it be as simple as it doesn't pay enough?

Sarah + Donald Sitting Having Tea

Sarah Palin has endorsed Donald Trump in the Republican primary.

If Sarah Palin endorsed me, for anything, I'd find myself in a struggle of a lifetime not to shoot myself in the head while in free fall, after jumping off a bridge, with the rope tied around my neck, paying out.  

Apparently destroying Senator McCain's shot at the presidency wasn't enough for Sarah. And just when you thought it couldn't get any more bizarre.

Rubio's Way

Marco Rubio dismisses the importance of the recent Obama negotiated release of Americans held in Iran, implying the methods used were weak, and tells us he 'would have done it as Reagan did'. Apparently Rubio gives the credit to Reagan for the release of the US Iranian embassy hostages. In Rubio's mind, Iran was so afraid of Reagan that they just gave up and released the hostages literally just moments after he was sworn into office. The truth is Reagan had nothing to do with their release.

Jimmy Carter won the hostages release through negotiation. Ronald Reagan, when faced with his own Iranian hostage crisis in his second term, chose instead to try to bribe Iran by giving them guns in exchange for hostages. Since it was illegal to do so, Reagan had Israel sell Iran the guns, and we then resupplied Israel - using the funds to support the anti Sandinistas in Nicaragua - all of it completely illegal, and morally bankrupt. 

So Obama and Carter successfully won hostage releases with calm, measured, negotiations. Marco Rubio has declared he would instead prefer Reagan's way - bribing our enemies with weapons.

Good to know. 

To Fly!

Guy in middle seat devouring his fingernails - endlessly. His knee 1/3 of the way into mine. 
Woman in front of me sharing her seat into my lap.
Guy behind me, foot in my back, talking, moving, pushing, incessantly.

Oh yes flying

People screaming into their cell phones tucked into their selfish spheres of cluelessness - oblivious. People lined up to get onto planes to no where while completely blocking hallways and not really caring, just as long as they get their carry-on into overhead compartments - first. 

Oh yes - flying  

Delays and glazed eyes. 
Bad air and soda. 
Airline reps and bulkhead stares.

How did something so cool become so painful? Really sort of dehumanizing.
A corollary to modern life?

Give me another option - I'm there.

Fear and Intolerance

Donald Trump jokes about Putin murdering reporters while telling us he admires the man, and people think it’s great. He regularly makes hurtful, racist slurs, lies compulsively, and does so with all the finesse, grace, and charm of an ape throwing excrement around, and the more he does so, the more his poll numbers climb.

The NRA makes the leap from Obama wanting to slightly expand common sense gun control by closing the gun show/internet loop hole – a plan of action the NRA itself used to support – to dressing Obama up in military garb in Photoshop and making the extraordinary claim that this is an attempt of Obama’s to ‘take away everyone’s guns. ‘

What on earth is going on here? In a word – fear.

Extremism, divisiveness, intolerance, hate, even violence too often has roots in irrational fear. ‘They’ are coming to get us. Be ‘they’ extreme Islamic jihadists, the brown hoard pouring over our southern borders to ruin our way of life, pedophiles lurking for our children, a corrupt big brother coming to get you and/or your guns (which by the way you’re not going to stop if they truly wanted to, guns or no guns), road rage, violent criminal acts, the loss of our way of life. Most, if not all, greatly exaggerated, imagined threats, with little or no evidence to support them.

There are those in the media and in politics that use fear as a means to an end. Fear equals ratings and/or control – it’s use, as such, systematically harming our country. It only takes one video clip of a stranger leading a child out of a store, with no attempt to put the event in perspective, to change our culture in ways that are harmful. Now try to withstand constant media, talk show, and politically motivated hype of the latest fear, the latest threat and it’s nearly impossible to remain rational. We have lost perspective; our fears are way out of proportion to reality – fears propagated by those who would profit from them.

When I was a child I used to ride my bike to elementary school. The freedom and sheer joy of getting myself to school while zooming along something I loved dearly. In front of the school were dozens of other bikes crammed into full racks. Today kids do not ride or even walk to school. They are accompanied by their parents all the way into their classrooms. If I were to let my 8-year-old ride her bike the ½ mile to school or to play in our neighborhood on her own, as I did at her age, Id most likely be arrested for child endangerment. Endangerment that is simply not real.

The vast majority of crimes against children occur in the homes they or their relatives live in, perpetrated by those they know and trust – not strangers lurking behind bushes, at their local grocery stores, or in their daycares and churches. This idea that we cannot let our children out of our sight, even for a moment, is a reaction to irrational fear perpetrated in large part by continual media bombardment of extremely rare events. The odds of your child being abducted by a stranger are about the same as your child being stuck by lightning - 1:700,000 per year, and yet I’ve not seen tin foil hats becoming all the rage. For perspective your child’s odds of dying in an automobile accident are 1:800 per year.

Three of four Americans say they feel more fearful today than twenty years ago – despite dramatic reductions in crime on children, and in violent crime in general. 44.4% of Americans rank fear of being harmed in a terrorist attack among the top four of their greatest fears according to a recent poll. And yet their odds of being killed by a terrorist – even given recent events – is about 1 in 17 million per year - less than being crushed by an unstable television set or piece of furniture in you’re home, 900 times less likely than being killed while driving, or 4 times less likely than being struck by lightning in any given year.

People don’t like feeling afraid. They strike out, become rigid, divisive, intolerant, angry. Our collective fear then goes a long way to explaining Donald Trump, cable ‘news’, an almost completely dysfunctional congress, our inability to discuss differences calmly and with respect, and perhaps even our mass shootings. It certainly explains play dates in place of spontaneity and the robbing of our children of their independence and self exploration. 

Perhaps if we all worked harder to keep things in perspective – self inform, limit our exposure to media and political hype, and recognize what it is when we see it; a more rational outlook with more tolerance, compassion, and respect could find its way back into our lives. One thing is sure - we simply cannot allow irrational fear to be our guidepost any longer.

My Conservative 'Friend'

He denies global warming and yet still fantasizes his zombie apocalypse future.
Thinks he will survive a nuclear holocaust in his hole in the ground - well stocked with ammo, beer, and a 12 year old's fantasy.

He drives his oversized, over powered, gas guzzling, survivalist mobile - odd since there won't be any gas to drive it once his post-apocalyptic world is realized. 

His answer to gun violence? - more guns. 
NO government in HIS medicare.

He believes in magic – psychic shadows, shadowy prediction of the future, unseen forces he can control through fingertips and his mind. His belief in his magic so complete he moves from the coast to remote rural America in psychic anticipation of an apocalypse that never occurs. Did he learn anything from that? – of course not. Believing in magic cannot be deterred by something as inconsequential as reality - nor can his approach to our global problems.

Normally we could tolerate his foolishness and the foolishness of the millions of others like him – as we have for tens of thousands of years - save for one simple fact. We are faced for the first time in our history with global problems that if not solved, and solved soon, will usher in the destruction of our planet. He and his minions will destroy us all in their ignorant, foolish ways.

We simply cannot tolerate this anymore. Isolationists, the fearful haters, the purposefully ignorant, the xenophobic, bigoted, religious nut jobs, the deniers and cowardly selfish'survivalists' , all need to be exposed for what they are, and no longer tolerated. We need to expunge them from government and chastise them in personal interaction - call them out.  The survival of our species, of our world, is at stake.