What's Really Going on in Syria?

As most of us already know, the US has been calling for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s removal from power and Washington has already admitted to providing logistical and communication assistance to militants in Syria. Now, US intelligence agencies have detected that Assad's government is preparing its chemical weapons stockpile for possible use. Of course, that conveniently follows Hilary Clinton's chemical weapons red-line rhetoric. The "there will be consequences" hype echos loud and clear, reminiscent of the Bush administration's false “weapons of mass destruction in Iraq” pretext for the Iraq War. Meanwhile, there are 17 US Warships and thousands of US soldiers near the Syrian coast.

"It is in close proximity to the coast of Syria. On board the ship are 70 fighter-bombers and a total 8,000 US servicemen."

However, despite what we see and hear from our officials and the mainstream media "news" outlets, the Syrian government claims that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country. You may not believe that, but consider this: President Bashar Al-Assad, a former physician who said, "Syria faces not a civil war, but terrorism by proxies," banned GMOs in food ‘to preserve the health of human beings.' Now, does that sound like someone who doesn't care about his people?  Even if he doesn't give a damn about innocent human life, anyone with the slightest bit of common sense knows that to use those chemical weapons would be tantamount to suicide.

The reality is right now that fear mongering, media manipulation and creating pretexts for regime change are just as prevalent, if not increased since the last administration.

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Gas Tax Holiday is the Proverbial Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

Unlike President John F. Kennedy, who asked we, the people, 47 years ago, not to ask what our country can do for us, rather, what we can do for our country, politicians today ask and expect very little of the American people and with good reason...they risk losing the American people's vote.

We're quick to blame the politicians for not being honest; yet it is our job to keep them honest. What choice do they have but to pander, as John McCain is doing with this "Gas Tax Holiday" (GTH) b$llsh$t", when they know the majority of American people do not want to be asked to sacrifice anything nor take the time to think about what they're told?

Len Burman, former senior analyst at the Congressional Budget Office, 1989 to 1997 and currently Director of the Tax Policy Center, Senior Fellow, Urban Institute and finally author of "The Labyrinth of Capital Gains Tax Policy: A Guide for the Perplexed calculated, estimating that the average American family drives a car that gets 25 mpg, will drive that car 4,000 miles over the course of the summer, using 160 gallons of gas and then he multiplied the 160 gallons by .18 cents. He concluded the average American family would save a whopping $29 over the summer if the GTH goes into effect...$29!

Mr. Burman believes the amount saved would be much less considering the GTH may encourage people to drive more, thus increasing the demand for gas and causing supply to tighten. Supplies are already tighter in summer because people drive more. It's not Rocket Science, it's Econ 101...the cheaper the gas, the higher the demand, the tighter the supply, will cause prices to go up, not down. Not to mention, the GTH rewards those driving the gas guzzling SUVs, Hummers etc. because they would save the most.

Why doesn’t cutting the gas tax this summer make sense? It’s Econ 101 tax incidence theory: if the supply of a good is more or less unresponsive to the price, the price to consumers will always rise until the quantity demanded falls to match the quantity supplied. Cut taxes, and all that happens is that the pretax price rises by the same amount. The McCain gas tax plan is a giveaway to oil companies, disguised as a gift to consumers. -- Paul Krugman

And what about the nation's long-term energy goal? Doesn't the GTH further escalate the already problematic over consumption of limited resources? The 18.4 cent-per-gallon gas tax is the main source of revenue that pays for roads, bridges, and public transit. Suspending the gas tax would siphon off $10 billion from public transit and road and bridge repair, part of the solution to preventing the unnecessary depletion of our resources.

What good does teaching your child how to read in the womb; paying Ivy League prices so your child can attend prestigious pre-schools; insisting your child compete athletically at about the same level University students used to compete in previous generations, etc do when we have pushed the limits of the resources our civilization depend on simply because we over-consume? The rising standards-of-living across the globe - China and India - will only, to put it mildly, add fuel to the fire.

While John McCain continues George W. Bush's subversive tactics and Hilary Clinton follows right along, Barack Obama believes Americans are ready to sacrifice and smart enough to understand that if we continue on the same path that we've followed for the last eight years, the downfall of our nation may result. He trusts that Americans can figure out that the GTH is nothing but a politician's attempt to fleece the American public.

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty. -- JFK

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There is Venal Public Disgrace and Then There is Mortal Public Disgrace

As the Catholic Church categorizes sins as venal or mortal, we must decide which public disgrace deserves our time and effort and which ones do not.

NPR's gallery highlights nine separate men who have publicly "disgraced" themselves in front of a nation and the women who "chose" to stand by them. Did these women really choose or were they strongly encouraged? Did all of these men "disgrace" themselves or were some set up to take a fall?






Whatever the case may be, we have to ask ourselves:

Did the disgraceful person's behavior interfere with what we elected them to do?

If “victims" did result from the disgraceful person's actions, did those who were harmed, "consent" or were they innocent bystanders?

Hilary Clinton was the clear "victim" in the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal, however she is an adult who consented to be in a relationship with a man whose charisma oozes from every pore, and flirtatious behavior is legend. Hilary is only a victim as far as any of us are victimized when we choose to engage in intimate relationships. In other words, the Clinton "scandal" was none of our business. On the other hand, the people who spent untold amounts of money and time to expose our President of the United States as a womanizer, something all of us already knew on some level, yet elected him anyway, intentionally put our country at risk.

As for Larry Craig, there is no doubt he was set up to take a fall by a police force that had nothing better to do, than to spy on adult men, urinate. Once again, his wife, although sad, is at most a gullible person or overly trusting, but not a victim in the true sense of the word. However, Larry Craig's case presents another problem, hypocrisy. As horrible as hypocrisy is, it's not enough to convict someone, in and of itself...if that were the case, we should all be sentenced to unemployment.

President Nixon's conduct clearly violated his public duties, the oath he took, the public trust and disrupted the function of government, a perfect example of "mortal" public disgrace. However, the answer is not always obvious, as in the case of Edward Kennedy and possibly Eliot Spitzer, as there has not been enough time to get all the facts; nevertheless, we must not group all ignominious behavior as if it is all the same. As sad as it must have been for Hilary and Larry Craig's wife, their husband's lack of self-control, cannot be compared to the conduct of someone, whose lack of ethics or disregard for human life, results the suffering of many, it’s almost impossible to quantify.

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Hilary Clinton on International Law

Don't get me wrong, Hilary Clinton is no George Bush...not even close. I would vote for her against any of the Republican candidates, but she's not my first choice among the Democratic candidates...not even close.

"Ironically, the current front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president shares much of President Bush’s dangerous attitudes toward international law and human rights."

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