It's Not a Question of "Just Getting Used to It"

Here’s a trilogy of good news stories.  The family of the slain Michael Brown is going to file a civil suit - - charging “wrongful death” against the Ferguson police department.  There were “other ways short of deadly force of dealing with the suspect”.   And file this under “pressing your luck” but could I then ask for a change of venue do to the emotionally charged nature of the community?   Or looking at it another way- - I’d be perfectly happy picking from a two-thirds black jury pool- - - but what kind of a bias judge are we going to get?   If the charges leveled by Eric Holder are true- - then the whole system is corrupt including the courts.  But to disagree with Fugelsang, I have no doubt that given a fair jury selection and a fair trial- - it’s a slam dunk for a wrongful death conviction.   Next item is Wringling Brothers phasing out their elephant acts.  Elephants are perhaps the number one item people come to the circus to see.  To just “allow the current class of performing elephants to retire” and not replace then- - it is a little sad and naustalgic.  However I guess the better goal is to improve animal rights.   There was a roomer that Andrew Jackson’s picture is going to be retired from the twenty dollar bill.  He’s got one of those faces that sticks with you.  Of course if you’re a Charokee- - and I have a little Cherokee blood in me- - Andrew Jackson is associated with the “trail of tears” to Oklahoma, like the “death march to Battan” or something.   Personally I think Cher is the perfect candidate to replace Jackson on the twenty dollar bill.  It’s about time we had a woman on our money, after all we husbands have been complaining forever that it’s the women who spend it all anyway.

There are theologians, and there are propagandists.  Martin Luther, based on a lot of the hostile things he’s said about Jewish people, might be called a propagandist.  There ARE real theologians out there.  Bertrin Russel is a theologian.  The maharishi is a theologian.  Mohamed was a theologian.  Paul Tillich, Soren Kirkigard and St Thomas Acquinas are theologians.  However some of the Christian “founding fathers” aren’t theologians but propagandists, such as Justin Martyr, Ireneus, Tertulian, and chiefest among them, Eusubeus- - those are propagandists.  Their role is not to talk about or to describe “God” but rather to say “Why our way of thinking and living is better than yours”.   People from Justin Martyr to Chuck Smith have highly egocentric writing.  If your writing is punctuated with constant rants and attacks about various specific individuals, then you are a propagandist.  The more virlent you are about other specific individuals, the less likely it is that you actually "have your eyes on God", if you know what I mean.  They say the best way to train bankers looking for counterfeit bills is to show them nothing but the Real Thing, so that they get to know that through and through.  Then it's an issue you don't even have to debate.  Many issues I can agree with John Calvin on.  I too believe in God being omnicient, omnipresent and all powerful and "totally sovreign" in the absolute sense of the word "sovreign".  I believe that God is 'immutable' or another word for unchanging. However - - I myself am much more of a propagandist than a theologian.  My job is to persuade or - - propagandize.   My job is to put forth a point of view.  I am not a deep "Cosmological thinker" if you will.

The body releases constant stress hormones that act like a poison to people who are continually with employment or job, and most likely marital problems.  Therefore having a decent safety net is “good for the mental health” of society.  It isn’t just a question of “getting used to anything” like “getting used to the New Normal”.  People on SSI and Social Security are constantly falling further and further behind because their payments don’t keep up with inflation just as poor reading students fall further and further behind their classmates in school.  I got so fed up with Jerry Brown and his “crazy train” to nowhere- - which may never be built and will suffer from countless ‘cost overruns” - -and also these free Apple computers they hand out to LA school kids they only lose or damage.  So I find no solice at all in Browns touted “reserve fund for a rainy day” because that money should be going to the poor right NOW in the form of renters tax rebates and the like.  I have fifteen dollars in drug co-pay expenses this month- - and add to that the possible cost of a haircut for Easter and also being “in the hole” both with Tess and with the Bank.   I would say to my family “name your terms” in terms of getting Money for not smoking.  Should I throw away all my cigarette lighters and do you want to inspect my drawers to see that I haven’t got packs of cigarettes socked away?  Unemployment is down to 5.5% and that is a good thing.  295,000 new jobs were added.  And we are constantly being told that manufacturing jobs are returning to the United States, perhaps because China is having their own economic problems.  Their own people have found a voice now and are demanding better wages, and the like.  I remind you that once upon a time when the unemployment was 5.4% under President Bush ten years ago, Larry Elder carried on about how well the economy was doing.  I didn’t believe that then, and I don’t believe it now.  What say you?

David Petrayas won’t go to prison for giving classified government secrets to his mistress.  But instead he will just be slapped with a forty thousand dollar fine and probation.  Of course fines should be punitive meaning that they actually discourage the conduct they are put there as punishment for.  These fines polluting corporations pay ought to be hiked at least by a factor of ten to be at all realistic.  Instead it’s merely a “cost of doing business”.  Thom Hartman is on right now saying if you are pulled over in Denmark or one of those countries- - you might be fined sixty thousand for a speeding ticket- - if the authorities find out you can afford it.  So why can’t the Ferguson people just fine people like Charles Koch a hundred thousand for speeding in their town next time?   First of all being a mathematician I differentiate between a geometric progression and a logarithmic progression.  The logarithmic is the steeper of the two progressions, because if you square everything- - the percentage increase will progressively Decrease - - - as you continue the squaring process.  Thomas Jefferson is said to have said “We might have to resort to some sort of logarithmic tax on the rich, if they are getting too powerful such that the democratic process is subverted”.  We know that the founding armies didn’t want standing armies so that’s why they passed the second amendment as a means of having a peacetime militia without the necessity of standing armies in peace time.   The founding fathers feared concentrations of Power in whatever form.  Even KEIB’s own quotation of Madison said “No one with a great deal of power ought to be trusted without reserve”.

The magnitude of what the Clinton Administration did in 1996 with the communacations act passed that year by congress- - - is something that has ripple effects in society all the time.  The damage from that one Act can hardly be fathomed as far as cheapening the integrity of network news departments and the like.  According to Thom, “Comcast” is a “deeply conservative” corporation down there in Florida, which is now the major owner of PMSNBC.   If I were ever to win at power ball or whatever, giving a thousand dollars would be a snap for me.  I’d probably give a thousand to Stephanie and a thousand to Thom Hartmann and a thousand to Bill Press, and have meet and greet lunches with all three of them.  I have no need of that BBQ apron, but I’d be happy to take a bunch of Thom Hartman’s books on a complementary basis.  It was either ABC or NBC news I was watching last night which falsely stated that Hillary Clinton was in violation of federal law “for all the time she was at the state department” doing those private E mails.  From what I’ve heard it seems that security on Government sites is poor, and Hillary may have been doing us all a national security favor in having the server in private hands.   But this network news broadcast was really going after Hillary as though this E mail infraction were really serious or something.   Networks will never talk about net neutrality or wall street corruption or bastardized news broadcasts or massive corruption of the FDA.

AMERICAN LEGISLATIVE EXCHANGE COUNCIL    ALEC

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