I’ve understood that most of the problems they had were because the place will also be the home to the Presidential Library and Museum as well as the George W. Bush Institute. Apparently the first draft of the place consisted only of material from the Bush archives: mainly comic books, some eighties vintage porn magazines, and other let’s say less high-browed stuff.

I believe however that the collection is now intact, thanks to Karl Rove and other boys from his administration who contributed to the selection so that now it at least looks like a presidential library, just as the boy barely looked like a the President of the United States in his tome. A club-level washout golfer with a drinking problem would be more accurate a definition, but President Obama will probably abstain from such descriptions.

Besides myself and President Obama, the older President Bush is here in his FDR Deluxe as well as President Clinton. I also noticed they have for some reason invited President Jimmy Carter. I don’t know, maybe they needed help with washing the dishes or something.

Well if there’s one thing I can say, it is that this joint won’t be any kind center of intelligence, that’s for sure. I’m actually here with Dr Kissinger, who recently returned from his trip to Margaret Thatcher’s funeral. Henry mentioned that it was the warmest occasion he ever had with the lady, and I think he got it spot on.

Later we’re getting out of here as soon as possible since the NFL draft is about to start. I have come up with a decent draft plan so let’s see how the thing will evolve. I shall get back to you on that when the show’s over.

Have a productive Thursday and don’t forget that having one’s own library does not correlate with reading good books.

Dick Nixon

I bring this information to the public with a very heavy heart. Some journalists revel in being able to expose the type of dramatic conspiracy contained in this article. I take no such pleasure in bringing this to your attention. I will receive no awards or accolades, nor do I seek any. I am setting myself up to be criticized as “one of those conspiracy theorists” with too much time on his hands who has nothing better to do with my time than to invent wild tales of corruption in an attempt to draw attention to myself. I will not be invited on Coast to Coast AM, to reveal my findings to an audience of 12 million people. Perhaps, 10-20 thousand people will actually take the time to read the stunning facts contained in the following paragraphs. What I am trying to accomplish is to start a chain reaction that will culminate in waking up a majority of the public in order to rise up against the abject evil that runs our country. This article is controversial, and I might not actually believe it myself except that every fact in this article is true.

This article is structured in such a way that if the reader takes the time to follow the evidence trail, there can only be one conclusion that makes any sense.

Specifically, this article will detail the following:

1. The globalists through their government minions are in the process of destroying massive bodies of water including, but not limited to Chesapeake Bay, the Great Lakes, the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. The destruction is not because of neglect, it is willful destruction with very ulterior motives in mind.
2. The globalists are using nitrates from fertilizer and Corexit to accomplish their desire to create a dead zone in the aforementioned bodies of water.
3. The globalists are creating water dead zones which will allow the proliferation of algae growth and the oil companies have initially led the charge to convert our energy usage from oil to algae.
4. Prominent globalists are involved in this conspiracy and have contributed massive resources to this endeavor.
5. Prominent globalists are attempting to buy up as much water as possible to exacerbate the destruction of water resources in the aforementioned areas. In other words, Americans are looking at extreme water scarcity from which the globalists can wage wars and force submission to their will, while at the same time carry out their stated depopulation agenda.
6. My instincts tell me that this conspiracy has more breadth and depth than what is revealed here and it is my sincere hope that my fellow researchers will afford some much needed attention to these issues, because I strongly believe there is more to learn and we do not have much time because humanity’s fate hangs in the balance.

How many times in the history of the insurance industry, have individuals or businesses been caught setting fire to their homes and businesses in order to receive a lucrative payout of insurance money? This is exactly what BP and Exxon are doing. They are intentionally burning down their own home (oil) in order to construct a behemoth palace (bio-fuels).

From Parts Five and Six of this series, it was conclusively proven that BP, Goldman Sachs, Transocean and Halliburton prepositioned (e.g. BP stock dumping) themselves to make money from the destruction of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. However, there is a lot more going on in the Gulf than a handful of corporations each making hundreds of millions of dollars from their contrived role in the oil spill. The motive to destroy the Gulf holds the promise of making certain entities and individuals multi-trillions of dollars.

The Obama administration and many others (individual billionaires, select politicians, BP, Exxon, Nalco, GM, GE, Goldman Sachs, University of Chicago, and many others including the Department of Defense) are all deeply invested in bio-fuels. These billionaire psychopaths will willingly sacrifice the Gulf and all of its residents for this multi Trillion Dollar industry representing a new era of energy applications.

Algae Will Replace Oil As the Nation’s Energy Source

Nitrogen fertilizers and Corexit are being used to systematically create dead zones in large bodies of water in the United States. The use of nitrogen fertilizers and Corexit are accomplishing the same result. This is no coincidence, as the tragedy in the Gulf was perpetrated to accomplish this end.

Farmers apply nitrogen fertilizer to crops to increase yield. Farmers are compensated by the government for crop yield. Therefore, farmers overload the soil. Plants absorb only 30 to 50% of the nitrogen, so as much as 70%, or 87 pounds per acre will end up running off into the nearest body of water. The only thing that grows in this environment is algae. Therefore, nitrogen has a decided evil side as it is creating huge problems with major bodies of water that we are only now beginning to understand. The EPA is aware of the problem, yet remains silent on the issue.

Chesapeake Bay is polluted beyond repair in which massive fish kills, general habitat degradation and bacteria proliferation threatens the health of humans. The damage is rampant. This massive pollution, resulting from the nitrogen runoffs resulting from agricultural endeavors, fills the Chesapeake Bay and, again, the only substance which flourishes in the bay is algae.

Each and every spring, excess fertilizer is deposited into the Mississippi River which eventually ends up in the Gulf of Mexico, thus causing a massive algae bloom that leads to a giant oxygen-deprived “dead zone” where fish can’t survive. And the same thing is going on in the Great Lakes in places like Lake Erie.

Following the Gulf oil spill, and against all common sense, the most lethal form of dispersant, Corexit, was used to treat the oil spill. Instead, what happened is that the spill has resulted in the creation of the second largest dead zone body of water in the world; second only to the Baltic Sea. And, as the reader will discover later in this article, the new energy craze among the so-called environmentalists is algae.

In isolation, we seem to only be looking at a pollution problem that the EPA should deal with. Simply put, the use of nitrogen fertilizer and Corexit should be banned. However, when we look at the totality of the Corexit/nitrogen problem being used to destroy our water supplies, one should immediately sit up and take notice.
Once one understands that Algae proliferates in an otherwise dead zone of water, then one will understand why Corexit was used in the Gulf. And when one understands that fact, one can only conclude that Gulf oil spill was not an accident as it marks the ushering in of a new era in which the bio-fuel, algae, will replace oil. And, amazingly, the oil companies are among those who are behind this plot to destroy major bodies of water in order to allow for the propagation of algae.

President Obama is also participating in this conspiracy against humanity. On March 15, 2013, President Obama announced that it is his intention to move American vehicles away from oil to bio-fuels. Obama, amazingly in this period of Sequestration, has asked Congress for two billion dollars to expand research in this area. And isn’t it an interesting coincidence that the President’s science advisor,John Holdren, in 2009, advocated for “fertilizing” the oceans? I remember that most people thought Holdren had lost his mind when he proposed this as a solution for global warming. However, in the context of creating dead zones through the use of Corexit and nitrogen fertilizers, his suggestion makes a great deal of sense in light of today’s heightened interest in bio-fuels. This cannot be described as anything but psychopathic thinking in that the EPA would allow nitrogen fertilizers to destroy major bodies of water in which only algae can grow. And that this administration would even entertain the idea of creating oceanic dead zones through fertilizing these bodies of water is nothing but pure insanity. It is dangerous to the entire well-being of the planet. But of course, we are dealing with psychopaths.

How many brush fires equals an all-out forest fire? How many coincidences does it take to make a conspiracy? For those who think that there are some interesting thoughts presented here, but the conspiracy angle of destroying major bodies of water to foster the growth of algae needs more proof, let’s take a look at a variable which will connect all the dots.

Amazingly, the oil companies are attempting to lead the way in the process of converting our energy sources from oil to bio-fuels such as algae.

Burning Down Their Own Houses

I began to realize that many of our major bodies of water were being destroyed and all that was necessary to reverse the destruction was to halt the use of nitrogen fertilizers. Then I discovered that Corexit creates the same kind of dead zones just like nitrogen which also was unnecessary in its use because a less virulent dispersant could have been used in the Gulf. Did you know that Corexit is banned in 19 countries? It was at that moment that the light went on for me as I realized that we were witnessing the systematic destruction of major bodies of water on a grand scale. This was coupled with my discovery that the oil companies appear to be preparing to transition from oil to algae.

In August of 2009, BP entered into a partnership with Martek Biosciences to study the use of algae to convert sugar into biodiesel. Eight months later, BP’s and Transocean’s “negligence” led to the oil spill which gravely impacted the food chain, poisoned all life forms in the Gulf and dealt an eventual death blow to the Gulf by creating a massive series of dead zones where nothing will grow, except for algae, for generations to come.

BP is not alone with regard to a major oil company’s foray into the algae business. ExxonMobil entered into a partnership with Synthetic Genomics in order to develop energy’s next king, bio-fuels from algae. From this work, it was discovered that Corexit increases the bioaccumulation of petroleum hydrocarbons into golden-brown algae. For oil companies to be involved in algae conversion is the metaphorical equivalent of burning down your own house in order to collect the insurance money, and this is precisely what they did to the Gulf.

These facts certainly beg the question as to why BP and Exxon Mobil would be investing in a technology which would threaten their only viable product, namely oil?

Why Algae?

Algae has the potential to avoid most of the problems of conventional bio-fuels production, such as competition with food crops, and in principle can have dramatic effects on carbon dioxide emissions, even consuming emissions from sources such as coal-fired power plants.

The major problem with using algae as the next bio-fuel is that the fuel yields from algae are still too low for it to be a break-even proposition. However, if that problem were to be solved, algae would be king because it is such a low-maintenance substance. In a related and stunning development, Exxon has partnered with Craig Venter, the pioneer of DNA research. Venter has a stellar record of achievement in his work on the human genome. If anyone can solve the algae yield problem, Venter would the guy. However, if Venter cannot solve the problem of algae yield, OriginOil, Inc. is developing a novel technology which will transform algae into a source of renewable oil. Below is a depiction of the process.

It Is Not a Conspiracy Until You Follow the Money

Readers need to keep in mind, that Exxon and BP began moving into the algae business several months prior to the Gulf oil spill and BP and its partners have been caught pre-positioning their stock moves to maximize profits and minimize losses IN ADVANCE of the oil spill event. And now they are leading the way to convert the nation from oil to algae energy use. These twin giant oil companies have had a lot of help in making this massive conversion a reality. George Soros is involved in “clean energy conversion” away from oil. Readers may recall from Part Six of this series proved that Soros financial interests were among the top five of financial institution which dumped BP stock a few short weeks before the oil spill, thus, making him a co-conspirator. And now Soros is heavily invested in Gulf algae farms as he has invested $1 billion dollars in the endeavor.

The US military invested $35 million dollars in algae jet fuel. Blackstone Group consulted with the Chesapeake Bay region energy provider Constellation Energy to sell company to Warren Buffet and his company Berkshire Hathaway. Buffet is majorly involved in bio-fuels and the algae laden Chesapeake Bay is prime hunting ground for this globalist. Al Gore is also involved in various algae projects as well. The same cast of characters keep rearing their ugly faces in their attempt to subjugate humanity while at the same time make a King’s ransom in the process.

Conclusion

T. Boone Pickens is well on his way to controlling the vast Ogallala Aquifer. Pat Stryker and Koch brothers are involved in garnering Colorado’s water resources in the beta test battleground for Agenda 21. Did you know that that it is illegal in Colorado to reuse irrigation water and to catch rain water? We should be asking ourselves why. Additionally, the Bush family controls the biggest water aquifer in South America. Meanwhile, the globalists are destroying vast amounts water resources in the United States. It seems that the globalists are hell-bent on creating water scarcity.

I do not believe that the globalists only motive is to destroy the Gulf and fresh water supplies so that their new biofuel craze can take hold. I think this is a byproduct to what the central planners are truly after, control over all water which will result in control over who lives and dies. This and more will be covered in the next installment of the Great Gulf Coast Holocaust.

Dave is an award winning psychology, statistics and research professor, a college basketball coach, a mental health counselor, a political activist and writer who has published dozens of editorials and articles in several publications such as Freedoms Phoenix, News With Views and The Arizona Republic.

The Common Sense Show features a wide variety of important topics that range from the loss of constitutional liberties, to the subsequent implementation of a police state under world governance, to exploring the limits of human potential. The primary purpose of The Common Sense Show is to provide Americans with the tools necessary to reclaim both our individual and national sovereignty.

Source:  http://www.thesleuthjournal.com/the-mother-of-all-conspiracies-pt-7/

This is certainly not the first time I have seen this promotion of a culture of fear on news broadcasts and among pundits and political adversaries.  Consider this statement, by Bob Beckel, host of the Fox News Channel’s show The Five, and presented on Fox News’ The Nation website:

I think we really have to consider, given the fact so many people hate us, that we’re going to have to cutoff Muslim students coming to this country for some period of time so that we can absorb what we’ve got and look at what we’ve got and decide whether some of the people here should be going, be sent home or sent to prison.

(…)

I’m going to change my one more thing before I get complaints. Let me make something clear about what I meant about Muslim and Chinese students. First of all, I recognize that a Chinese student died in Boston and it was a tragedy. I think anybody that’s here as a Chinese student or a Muslim student should stay here and finish their education.

It is now time for us to take a pause and breath and hard look at the future of immigration of students. And, therefore, I think that we ought to be very selective in allowing any Muslim or Chinese students in here. They are brought here, taught computers, go back home and hack us.”

This is but one example of a man with some media-based influence spouting an argument with no basis, expressly intended to promote mistrust and the culture of fear in America.  He is joined by many others of his political bent.  I believe, and this is my opinion, that the radical fringe members of the Republican Party are the ones using these tactics, and that more moderate Republicans, who have less to gain by spreading anxiety, nevertheless do not speak out because they are afraid of losing access to Republican’s PAC and Super-PAC funding.  Who wants to buck Karl Rove?

This use of scare tactics to whip such groups as Dittoheads and others into a frenzy of fear and blame is carried on both by politicians, and by the media personalities who support them.  Thus we have Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity, to name the three most influential fear-mongering conservatives now operating.  And they have no qualms about using racial slurs and profiling, levels of success and failure in economic matters, and outright questioning of the loyalty of some to America, simply because they have different opinions.

I find this, frankly, abhorrent and evil, and I am not afraid to say it out loud.  We have let this go on for too long.  Now is the time to gather ourselves up, and dismiss these scare tactics for the dishonest, manipulative techniques they personify.  Only then will we make any progress toward a truly involved American democracy.

Please read and consider this quote from H.L. Mencken:

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed — and hence clamorous to be led to safety — by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”– H.L. Mencken

Jeremy Scahill on ‘Dirty Wars‘ and Obama‘s Expanding Drone Strikes!

And Americans wonder why the world despises us so, and creates terrorist events in the U.S.! Maybe we should stop waging wars in the 7+ countries we are currently engaged in!

How far has same-sex marriage come this year?

Just consider that Karl Rove, the man who allegedly masterminded the 2004 Republican strategy to churn out anti-gay state referendums as a “wedge” to stoke evangelical turnout and propel George W. Bush to a second term, told ABC’s This Week on March 24 that he could see a 2016 GOP presidential candidate supporting same-sex marriage.

Sure, Rove is seemingly on the ropes—under attack by his own right-wing forces for not producing during the last election cycle—but this is the man who must have looked Vice President Dick Cheney in the eye (Cheney, who has an openly lesbian daughter and who has publicly supported same-sex marriage since long before 2004) and pretty much told him his daughter was collateral damage in their White House quest.

How big of a switcheroo is this? Well, just last summer the Republican party platform proclaimed: “We applaud the citizens of the majority of states which have enshrined in their constitutions the traditional concept

Read more

The Republican Party has been harassing the living shit out of me for months and months. They call 4 and 5 times a day, often more, from 7 am to 10 pm, wait for my answering machine to begin recording, and then hang up. Once or twice I have picked up the phone and screamed into it, “STOP FUCKING CALLING ME, YOU ASSHOLES!”

Do you think this request be me had the slightest effect on their calls? Do you think they stopped? Do you think Karl Rove and company are the least bit concerned that their calls are harassment? No, not at all. They don’t give a fuck. They want my money and they seem to feel entitled to bully me until they get it. So here’s what I’m going to do. I’ve written down every single phone number they’ve used to bomb my answering machine and I’m going to post them all here on the internet. I’d like for anyone reading this to call these numbers whenever you feel the urge and wait for an answer. Then hang up. This is what they’re doing to me and everyone else they call. So it is perfectly acceptable for all of us to do it to them. If you are so inclined, feel free to program these numbers into any sort of telephone software on your computers and set it to call over and over and over again, nonstop. That’s fine. That, too, is what the Republican party leaders are doing to me, so that makes it OK for anyone else to do it to them.

Here are their numbers along with the various caller id labels they used to try to trick their way in:

202-367-9216        ”IMPORTANT”
202-367-9241        ”REP NAT COMM”
202-367-9295        ”NRCC”
404-891-5694        ”NRCC”
302-394-9726        ”NAT REP CNGR CM”
301-223-0055        ”MEMBER ALERT”
301-223-0051        ”PAT BYERS”
703-398-0804        ”ALEX SMITH”
901-313-4994        ”NRCC”
901-313-4995        ”NRCC”

That’s a lot of numbers, isn’t it? And they’ve all called me over and over and over and over and over, for months, always wanting me to give them money so they can not do a damn thing I ask and instead meet with the leaders of the Democratic Party to discuss how to fuck us all together and destroy the Tea Party. I know this because in the past I answered the calls and managed to speak to someone. They demand money. And they will call you repeatedly to tell you how badly they want it, and complain about how you haven’t given them any.  So how about we show them a little love, and do our civic duty at the same time by treating them the way they’re treating me? Let’s call them up and hang up as soon as they pick up the phone, like they’ve done to me and my machine literally hundreds of times over the past several months. Don’t even bother speaking to them. They didn’t respond to me when I screamed at them to stop calling. Just hang up. That’s what Karl would do. So lets all be like Karl. Give him a call and hang up.

I just got another letter from my insurance agent. If you live in the United States I’m willing to bet that you’ve gotten more than a few letters like this from your agent, no matter who you get your insurance through. It ‘encourages’ me to grant my insurance company the authority to tap into my car’s computers and monitor me 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the rest of my life. It says I’ll save money by showing them that I’m not a bad driver and don’t break the law. They say they’re just asking.

This is like how they used to ask us to buy insurance. And meanwhile they went behind our backs and spent all our money lobbying corrupt lawmakers to make buying insurance mandatory and not buying it a criminal offense. Then they began creeping inside our cars, like Grandma when she sat in the back seat and complained about every single thing I did while driving. They made it illegal not to wear a seatbelt. It isn’t for your safety anymore. No, its to maximize the profits of the insurance political machine, because lobbying is expensive and if you, their client, get hurt in a wreck it costs them more than if you are strapped in place and can’t move. This maximizes the effect of the air bag that explodes into your face and breaks your nose and in some cases an arm or two, even in low speed collisions where no one would otherwise have been hurt expect for the damn air bags. Forget freedom. This is about controlling your every move. Literally.

Rest assured, even as the insurance political machine is ‘asking’ us for permission to tap into our cars computers so they can monitor us like Grandma in the back seat, they are actively lobbying for this access to be made mandatory by law and anyone denying it to them a criminal. Not that it matters. At the rate President Obama is handing out ‘free’ military drones to small town police departments it won’t be long before every insurance agent in the country has a fleet of them and our skies are black with drones buzzing around monitoring our every single move.

To serve and protect …. the State

Pretty soon it won’t just be ‘discouraged’ to smoke cigarettes or grill meat in the backyard or drink from a garden hose. Pretty soon it’ll be a federal offense and drones will be watching our every move to make sure we don’t step out of line and punish us when we do.

EPA approved!

Meanwhile, Obama’s EPA is pushing for ‘smart’ boxes to be attached to every single home in America, not by the homeowner’s choice, but by law. These smart boxes are to allow the government to monitor your specific activities with regard to electricity and utilities. They aren’t satisfied with simply knowing how much electricity and water you use. No, they want to know specifically WHAT you are using it for, and they want, no DEMAND, the power to restrict that and shut it off at their whim, without consulting you. Did I mention that the smart utility boxes the EPA wants can shut off your various appliances, furnace, water heater, etc, when they feel you’ve used enough?

I’m not kidding.

Not kidding

So anyway, all of this got me to thinking that I should sell my new Dodge Challenger and put the money into my old cars, the ones that have carburetors and not a single computerized anything in them. The guy who bought my dad’s station wagon said that was one of the reasons he wanted it so badly. But I realized earlier today as I was standing in front of the toilet peeing and thinking these deep thoughts, that once they make these computers mandatory and access to them for the Insurance Political Machine a requirement, they’ll just outlaw old cars without computers. Or else they’ll require that we install them at great personal expense.

We are down with the sickness.  We are hip. Our policies are still popular to this day.

What this means is what it has always meant. It means that we should stand up and fight back and stop waiting around for some organization or group to do it for us. Over 95% of the organizations and groups lobbying and fighting in the United States are socialists, the Big Government, Big Brother/Sister, Nazi-loving, Stalinist fanatics who want MORE of this government intrusion and restriction in the daily lives of ordinary people. They don’t like individualism. They think individualism should be outlawed. That’s why they worship collectivism and class warfare. To their thinking, we are all members of some arbitrarily defined group, defined by THEM, of course. And as members of a class or group, we have no individual rights, no right to freedom or privacy or happiness or liberty. This is 95% of the groups and organizations currently in place. Not coincidentally, those groups and organizations receive their funding from a tiny handful of government agencies, including the EPA, and wealthy billionaires who all openly declare their love of socialism and their intent of overthrowing the existing Western world in favor of a global socialist Utopian fantasy.

Let me see your proof of insurance. We are going to monitor you through your car’s computer. If you object, we will arrest you.

It’s worth noting that these same people, promoting these exact same ideals, considered what they did in Nazi Germany to be a realization of that Utopian socialist fantasy, right up until the day it fell to capitalist America. They also considered the horrific oppression under Joseph Stalin in Soviet Russia to be a perfectly valid realization of their socialist utopia. And the purges under Chairman Mao. And the horrible oppression under Castro and Chavez and on and on and on. It’s important to remember that and to face the fact the there are people with great power and wealth today who think that what went on in Nazi Germany was a good thing, and they want to do it again in your country, no matter what country you live in.

The socialist Utopia Doesn’t it look like fun?

So, has anyone else besides me noticed that Don Draper, on Mad Men, is a sociopath? He lies and cheats his way through life, and whenever one of his endless girlfriends asks him about his cheating on his wife, often with friends’ wives, he says, “I just don’t think about it.” He’s a likable character, yet he treats the women in his life like toys. And women everywhere he goes, even those who know this about him, admire him and want to be with him. We had a president like that once. Or several times.

Don Draper for President?

So why did it die?

Well, first you have a “cowardly” group of Senators, although another term for them might be “sociopathetically pragmatic”. Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) sums it up nicely in that piece:

I watch TV and read the papers like everyone else. We know what we’re going to hear: vague platitudes like “tough vote” and “complicated issue.” I was elected six times to represent southern Arizona, in the State Legislature and then in Congress. I know what a complicated issue is; I know what it feels like to take a tough vote. This was neither. These senators made their decision based on political fear and on cold calculations about the money of special interests like the National Rifle Association, which in the last election cycle spent around $25 million on contributions, lobbying and outside spending.

There it is, laid bare. It’s not how Fox News will frame it, not even how the President will frame it (he still has to work with these people for three more years, after all), but that’s what happened. Senators on both sides of the Aisle (and, of course, one side more so than the other) put political capital and fear of retribution ahead of preventing another murder, another suicide, another accident.

What sucks is they’ll probably get away with it, too. That’s how these things work. Hard science using hard data is largely forgotten in the wake of tragedy. Pundits cry out “How could this have happened!” but they mean it rhetorically and politicians urge people to come together and pray, or hug their children (assuming they weren’t the ones who lost them). Everybody ignores the science because to face it would mean to acknowledge that this wasn’t a “random act of violence” but one more data point on a pattern that has been emerging for years. They ignore it because to face it would be too hard. How could this have happened? We allowed it to.

A major argument that gun rights advocates use is to suggest that restricting guns is restricting freedom. They say that guns in the home are the last bastion of defense against “tyranny”. They’re wrong, but that’s beside the point. The irony here is that a bill like this being killed with 90% public support is proof positive that our system of democracy is savagely misaligned. The only tyranny here is that a small group of wealthy and politically powerful men and women were able to, for reasons as shallow as profits and image, outmaneuver the entire country’s moral intuition. To take a page from their own playbook, this CANNOT be what the Founding Fathers intended. They could not have foreseen a political system moored so completely to the interests of business that even a massacre of 20 children cannot result in any constructive legislation.

Somebody should tell the guy on Facebook holding an assault rifle and warning that he is willing to die shooting to protect his freedom that he already lost it. Sure, in this case it’s to a political lobby that he thinks is on his side, but it demonstrates a larger point that public opinion can only do so much now. “Speak softly and carry a lot of cash”, to update a popular witticism. Next time it might be something he does care about that gets filibustered because a corporation or interest group has decided it might cut into profits. The NRA aren’t the only ones who have taken note of how easily they derailed the political process, anyone with an agenda and a sizable bank account could do the same thing. They might even be able to do it more easily, most agendas don’t have to contend with 11,422 homicides and 19,392 suicides in 2010 (source).

To be fair to Obama and the Senators who confidently assured us that the bill would pass the Senate, if not the House, they were outmatched. No one could have expected the NRA to be so gifted at getting their message out there and more determined to not yield one inch in the direction of gun safety. It’s no longer enough to have 20 dead children, you must have a strong enough message. We truly live in the age of memes. For a look at four reasons why the bill failed, The UK’s The Telegraph sums it up nicely in this article. It explains how determination from the gun lobby and diffidence from the left destroyed any chance this bill had. Maybe we should have seen it coming.

Truthfully, we really do have one final bastion of defense against tyranny. It’s the one area that cannot be entirely subverted by money and interest groups. Say it with me: Voting. As the billionaire Koch brothers and Karl Rove learned in the last election, money doesn’t buy everything. It’s important to elect people who won’t be bought either. That’s not always easy to see during an election, and once they get to the capitol or the White House they may have second thoughts about their campaign assurances to remain stoic in the face of the Lobbyists but we can try. We can move the needle in the direction of morality and away from the side of pragmatism. It will have an amplifying effect as well because as representatives start seeing that their jobs are in jeopardy not because of the NRA but because of their constituency, they might hesitate to listen to the NRA’s nonsense. If you’re looking for a place to start your research for the 2014 elections, you may want to consider the 46 men and women who decided to vote against common sense and integrity yesterday.

You’d think he’d know that the people who hold the first presidential primary are New Hampsherites.

This came up in a discussion about Scott (“Empty Barn Jacket”) Brown’s possible run for Senate from there in 2014.  Brown lost his Massachusetts seat to Elizabeth Warren in 2012.

Brown “summers” in New Hampshire.

The first thing I did was create a twitter account, and then use it to follow a bunch of outspoken politicians and news organizations and such. For whatever reason, I chose to use my name for the twitter account, rather than some sort of alias. Anyway, I spent like half an hour searching for people to follow…and then I promptly forgot about the twitter account. I never saw the point in actually participating in the twitter thing, since I fill my “give-a-shit” quota by looking at facebook once or twice a week.

Recently it seems like all of the interesting people I enjoy reading about use twitter as their only means of interacting with their fans. Also, I eventually plan on telling people about this blog, and figured twitter would be the ideal method of doing so. Earlier this week I decided to login to twitter again, for the first time in at least two years.

The first thing I noticed is that a handful of people “followed” me, despite the fact that I’d never twittered anything. My lack of tweets must have been disappointing for them.

The second thing I noticed is that HOLY SHIT KARL ROVE IS FOLLOWING ME.

Obviously this means I’m famous now, but in an ironic way, sort of like Reddit’s obsession with Nicolas Cage. Whatever, I’ll take it.

But my real concern here is the simplicity of thought that was demonstrated. Ms. Palin and her ilk demonstrated again their inability…and spiritual unwillingness…to hold contradictory notions in their mind at the same time. They failed to see that Ms. Perry was not proposing that children are not the primary responsibility of parents. She was merely emphasizing that children are a gift to us all, that we have a collective responsibility to provide an hospitable world to them, and that failure to do so is a grave error in judgment. It is possible to hold both notions in one’s mind at the same time but it will not happen with the hard-core extremists who are not capable of Pauline “spiritual discernment.”

And this problem is very much related to their anti-science stance.  Quantum physics portrays the world as full of contradictions and conflicts, a teeming morass out of which our God-given mind has given us the ability to impose order upon. But beneath this “order” there is still Mother Nature in all her conflicted glory and we ignore this conflicted glory with our neat little conceptual packaging at our own peril. One anecdote from quantum physics which is very relevant is the notion that molecules are “waves” and “particles” at the same time. That makes no “sense” at all but Mother Nature is not required to fit into our world of “sense.” Quantum physics also teaches us that we are basically empty space and that the world we see is ephemeral, including the world of our own body and psyche. Grasping this notion is very humbling but very invigorating and empowering. It has allowed me, for one, to see God at work in a marvelous though mysterious way that is tremendously exciting. But I am deprived of the specious “power” of having it all figured out any more or having any hope of doing so. Alas and alack, I’m left with nothing but faith!

Now, I am wont to emphasize that I see both sides of the picture and give some faint nod of respect to the other viewpoint. But, there are instances in which I am less apt to do so and this is one of them. Keep in mind I am not talking about conservatism as a whole, only those who are what Karl Rove called the “nutty fringe.” Their ignorance is not merely a lack of intelligence or education but is darkness personified. And, unfortunately, there are many conservatives who know better, who do not subscribe to the lunacy of the extremists, but who have allowed themselves to be controlled by them merely to get their vote. “The best lack all conviction and the worst are filled with passionate intensity.” (W. B. Yeats)

So, what do we know? Still April, not too much, though it is gratifying to see the Yankee offense explode when necessary. No, it didn’t happen against the A’s or Rangers (currently number one and two in pitching in the AL) but I thought it was a nice rebuttal to all of the analysts whining about the Yankees seeming lack of offense. It’s there. What is truly key is good starting pitching, which the Yanks got beginning on Sunday with C.C. Sabathia in Detroit. Hiroki Kuroda struggled in the first inning in Cleveland but found a way to battle back and earn his first win of the year. And Andy Pettitte is turning into an ageless wonder, starting the season with two seven inning gems. Please, oh, please don’t let him test positive for anything but Bengay.

Again, it’s April. It’s still nice to see a glimpse of what the 2013 Yankees are capable of. Will they be winning the division, let alone making the playoffs? I wouldn’t bet Karl Rove’s math on it. But, they are capable of playing above .500 baseball now, and maybe get a little better when Jeter, Granderson, and Teixeria return. Kevin Youkilis looks to be back to his 2008 form, thus thinning the need for an “A-Roid” return. Vernon Wells and Travis Hafner are also reliving the good days, maybe there’s something to be said for a change of scenery. Despite a hit-by-pitch scare, Eduardo Nunez continues to give Yankee fans a preview of a Derek Jeter-less future, perish the thought. Jayson Nix is turning into a first-rate utility player, and potential Justin Verlander-killer. And Lyle Overbay has delivered a few clutch hits in addition to playing the kind of solid defense needed in Mark Teixeria’s absence. And finally, any team with Robinson Cano in the lineup should never have to worry too much about a lack of offense, ever. I just hope the league doesn’t get wise and start walking him with Bonds-esque frequency.

I’m pretty sure the Joba Chamberlain experiment is over. The time to cut bait on this over-hyped headcase has come and gone. I’m looking for Phil Hughes and Ivan Nova to bounce back from their respective first starts and provide decent work in their #4 and #5 roles. If the Yanks can get 10 wins from each of them this season, that would be a step in the right direction.

And finally there’s Mariano Rivera who, in addition to looking solid in his first two appearances, is making the most out of his last season in pinstripes. The Yankee legend is actually going out of his way to meet with the staffs of the ballparks he is visiting for the last time. He’s taking his time to thank ground crews, ushers, as well as local fans, for the work they do and their fandom. He even chatted up John Adams, who has been banging the drums in the Cleveland stands for over forty years. Mariano Rivera makes me proud to be a Yankee fan. I look forward to many more posts about him over the course of the season. Just hope my keyboard can sustain the tears as I write.

Next up, Baltimore at home. Let’s see what happens. Gotta love April.

It’s quite sad that hundreds of thousands of our troops are permanently damaged from Iraq and Afghanistan! Two wars started over GREED & POWER!
It’s all about the oil!

The University of Massachusetts-Amherst welcomed him with protests and shoutings during his speech.

No I am not suggesting that Bill O’Reilly is a homosexual.  Not that there would be anything wrong with that.  Rather, that he is a moderate to conservative Republican who for some reason likes to refer to himself as an Independent.  And while there is more effort on his part to be “balanced” than say Sean Hannity or Rachel Maddow, he too falls short.

Here are two ways to look at this.  One, is O’Reilly’s position on issues.  And two, is the composition of his guests.  Two(A) would be which guests he agrees and disagrees with most.

First, on the issues of the day.  Which party does Mr. Bill side with or more closely align with on the following?

• The deficit?
• Taxes?
• Job Creation?
• Obamacare?
• Abortion?
• Use of military force?  (He has been fair to President Obama when he does as President Bush did before him.)
• “War” on Christmas and Judeo-Christian values?
• Immigration reform?
• Gun control?
• Same sex marriage?
• The justice system & Supreme Court? (Jessica’s Law, trying terrorists on foreign soil versus U.S., etc.)

In some cases O’Reilly does walk a moderate line on social issues while still leaning Republican. In most others the distinction is clearly conservative/ Republican.  Unless I’m misunderstanding the meaning of what it means to be politically independent, given the above, and no clear prominent positions where he is on the left, it’s hard to imagine O’Reilly being a true Independent.  When it comes to who he will vote for in an election, it’s a fair bet that he votes Republican.

In 2016, if Hillary Clinton is running against Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, or whoever the Republicans put out there, my money is on O’Reilly voting for the Republican.  And I’ll double down and suggest he’ll know that very early on in the process, (like as soon as the respective candidates win their primaries).

I challenge O’Reilly to do one of his unscientific FOX News polls and see who his viewers, (and guests), think he would vote for in a hypothetical 2016 Presidential match-up:  Clinton, lets say Rubio, or Undecided.  I’m thinking Rubio wins that poll over Clinton and Undecided in a landslide.

Alan Colmes, Monica
Crowley and Bill O’Reilly

Let’s look at his guests.  O’Reilly will have on two guests at a time with each representing a different point of view.  Currently, he has a weekly segment called “Barack and a Hard Place”, with Monica Crowley and Alan Colmes.  It’s not even close who he agrees with more.  It’s the conservative,  Crowley.  Colmes, the liberal, is also more likely to be ridiculed, disrespected, demeaned and yelled at.

You can go through the years and find that O’Reilly will side with the Republican in any two-guest pairing a majority of the time.

This isn’t wrong in and of itself.  In fact, his positions on the issues aren’t being debated here. Rather that it is disingenuous for him to refer to himself as an Independent given the clarity, confidence and boldness with which he holds and asserts his opinions.

O’Reilly used to have a segment: “Weekdays with Bernie (Goldberg) and Jane (Hall)”. They’d discuss the media’s treatment and response to political issues.  Same deal as with Colmes.  Goldberg, who O’Reilly was more likely to agree with, (taking the conservative position), gets treated with more respect and isn’t interrupted or challenged with the same voracity nearly as consistently as was Jane.  Somewhere along the line they got rid of Jane and now Goldberg comes on alone.  Where’s the balance?

You can go back to pairings of Kirsten Powers and Michelle Malkin to Juan Williams and Mary Katharine Ham, O’Reilly is consistent with who he sides with.  The Republican.  And just because he doesn’t think Obama is a socialist, doesn’t make O’Reilly an Independent.

O’Reilly also has individual guests that he interviews and debates.  The dominant personalities in the run up to the 2012 presidential election were: Karl Rove, Dick Morris, Laura Ingraham, Charles Krauthammer, Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck, and Brit Hume.

Not exactly a who’s who of Democrats.  Oftentimes O’Reilly’s Democratic guests rotated and or were not as notable as their Republican leaning counterparts.

O’Reilly will play devil’s advocate with his conservative guests, but you do not see him get in their faces and shout like he has with Colmes, Barney Frank, and Geraldo Rivera.  (When Rivera was defending a liberal position on immigration.)

If he does get loud or disagree with a conservative guest, like he did with Laura Ingraham on his April 2^nd broadcast, it is usually over style and not substance.  They usually agree on the heart of an issue but perhaps not in the way it’s being advocated for.

O’Reilly was defensive because he felt Ingraham was “tacitly” criticizing him for his use of the phrase “thump the bible”.  They weren’t arguing over same-sex marriage, but the way in which those against it present their case.

To further illustrate this, on April 3rd, in response to a viewer emailer, who sided with Ingraham, and was framing same-sex marriage as a sin, O’Reilly stated to the emailer, “if you want to keep your country from going down the drain, be smart”.   This is a reference by O’Reilly that the religious argument will not convert anyone on the same-marriage issue.  What you can infer from that is  O’Reilly may believe that the legalization of same-sex marriage will cause America to go down the drain.

If you say O’Reilly never has controversial conservative guests to argue with over substance, I believe Ann Coulter has been on his show a few times.  And did I mention Glenn Beck?  Have they never said anything worth, “an independent”, like O’Reilly, raising his voice over or being in vehement disagreement with?

Bill O’Reilly and Dennis Miller

For a conservative, part comedic and part serious political discussion, O’Reilly will have on: Dennis Miller, Adam Carolla, Greg Gutfeld and Bernard McGuirk.  There is no weekly Democratic counterpart to this group.  Could you see O’Reilly and Bill Maher mocking Republicans and having a jolly old, never confrontational, time with it– like he does with Miller at the expense of Democrats?

O’Reilly has a field producer, Jesse Waters.  Waters generally scours the streets looking for uniformed liberals to make look bad.  I guess all or most conservatives are informed and reasonable?  Perhaps not week-to-week, but over time, shouldn’t a show hosted by an independent offer balance to these segments?

And when talking to or about liberals, O’Reilly oftentimes refers to them as “left wing loons”, or “far left fanatics”.  There are no counter pet names for the right.  He will point out that there are ideologues and bomb throwers on both sides, but the frequency and specificity of name calling and identifying as radical or loon, usually comes at the expense of the left.  If O’Reilly were an Independent would this be the case?

When talking about liberal bias in the media, O’Reilly discusses two kinds.  Intentional and subconscious.  With the subconscious being a result of a journalist’s political leanings that just seeps into their work.  I’m willing to give O’Reilly some benefit of the doubt that some of his bias is unintentional and a result of his passionate and authentic beliefs.  But he and his staff are too intelligent and too good at what they do to not be aware of any of this.

Interestingly, since the presidential election, FOX dismissed Dick Morris, and reduced Karl Rove’s role.  Democratic strategist, Bob Beckel, now has a regular segment and Dr. Marc Lamont Hill is making more appearances.  This does help the show’s balance but doesn’t alter my premise.  O’Reilly is an “Iino” (Pronounced: I Know, meaning, Independent in name only).

I do watch O’Reilly more than shows hosted by Hannity or Maddow because despite his slant there is more attempt at balance.  However, I would never recommend getting your news from just one source.

What O’Reilly is not, is a blind ideologue.  He will own mistakes (sometimes) and call his own on the carpet.  (See the recent Michelle Backman flare up.) He’s passionate and confident in his beliefs, but most of the time he provides a forum for those who disagree to get their point across.  Granted they must have gravitas to stand up to him when he’s in interrupt mode.

If O’Reilly was as biased or to the right as a Hannity or Rush Limbaugh you would have never seen a then Senator Barrack Obama on his program when he was running for President.   And Obama must have been okay with it because he was interviewed by O’Reilly again at half time of the Superbowl when he was President.  Further, you would not see former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney avoid O’Reilly’s show.

Other prominent Democrats, such as Hillary Clinton, that would never be interviewed by Hannity, do go on O’Reilly.  And there are Republicans other than Cheney that avoid O’Reilly because they know even though he is more likely to side with them on the issues, he will still ask tough questions.

However, just because O’Reilly is not a blind ideologue, who interviews some prominent Democrats, while scaring off some Republicans; that too does not make him an Independent.

A question I’d like to ask O’Reilly is: who are the last six presidential candidates you’ve voted for?  Any Dems or Independents in that group?  How about Senators and Congressmen?

I would ask him not to dodge.  I would say: no spin Bill!  Come out of the closet.  Admit it!  You are a Republican.