Friday, June 14, 2013

This is the best speech I have ever heard Senator Rubio make.




Given his audience the content is appropriate. But, there is no rhetoric. It is probably the best speech of the conference. If this is Senator Rubio speaking from his heart he sincerely needs to keep this style to his leadership.

No rhetoric. I was impressed.

You know, President John F. Kennedy loved his faith. He never preached morality, he lived it, he lead with it. He was a great American that inspired this nation to greatness. In the three years of his leadership the USA moved forward to the future in a very quick way.

President Kennedy never found the need to legislate morality so much as lead with it. He focused on Civil Rights as a means to leading a greater morality within the USA. He sought to understand to lead a greater morality in international relationships.

I hope Senator Rubio hears and values his own words within this speech. He needs to lead without extremism and victimization. He needs to lead with inclusiveness. He needs to lead within diversity.

Those young minds and hearts in that room need to hear the leadership that speaks with compassion, morality and inclusiveness. I hope he doesn't fall back into values of rhetoric and victimization. He is better than that if he allows himself to believe he is capable of leading a nation someday.

It is all about money.

June 13, 2013
LOS ANGELES (AP) — News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch (click here) has filed for divorce from Wendi Deng Murdoch, his wife since 1999, citing a breakdown in the relationship. The matter doesn't alter the succession plan for the media company, which the 82-year-old founder controls through a family trust.
Murdoch filed a one-page document Thursday indicating that he was opening a divorce case in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan.
A News Corp. spokesperson confirmed the filing.
A sealed document with the filing says, "the relationship between the husband and wife has broken down irretrievably," according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the matter was personal....

Dissident investors voice concern over Rupert Murdoch's role as group splits into publishing and entertainment companies (click here)
by Dominic Rushe
News Corp shareholders formally approved a plan to split the media giant's troubled publishing assets from its entertainment division on Tuesday at a special meeting in New York.
Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive, said the majority of shareholders had approved the plan, which will create two companies out of the media empire he created. The News Corp name will carry on as the home of the company's publishing assets while the entertainment division will be called 21st Century Fox.
Both companies will be chaired by Murdoch, who will also be chief executive of 21st Century Fox. The Murdoch family controls the majority of News Corp's shares. Shares in the two companies will begin trading separately on 1 July.
"Today's announcement is a significant step in creating two independent companies with the world's leading portfolios of publishing and media and entertainment assets," said Murdoch. " "We continue to believe that the separation will unlock the true value of both companies and their distinct assets."...

By Med James
David F. DeVoe, chief financial officer of News Corp. (click here) for the last 15 years, is stepping down.
DeVoe, who has been part of Rupert Murdoch's inner circle for more than 25 years, will exit his executive role after the company completes its split into two separately traded companies. At the end of this month, News Corp. plans to spin off its TV and movie entertainment assets into a new company named 21st Century Fox.
The other company, made up of the Wall Street Journal, New York Post and HarperCollins book publishing, will take the News Corp. name....


June 14, 2013
...If you recall, (click here) Fox and Palin publicly parted ways earlier this year. Fox chose not to renew a contract that had reportedly paid Palin $1 million annually for three years.
She’s probably getting paid a lot less than that now, although terms of the contract weren’t released. Still, there had been some grumbling from Fox about the quality, or perceived lack thereof, of Palin’s on-camera work. So what’s changed? Why have Fox and Miss Wasilla of 1984 chosen to rejoin forces?...

Is Rove going to be prosecuted? Because he should be. He used the classification of a 501(c)4 to hide the identities of his donors.

That is fraud that spawned this entire mess with the IRS and finding more like Rove that didn't belong within those protections under the law. So, if the FBI is involved they need to carry forward an investigation into the fraud Rove successfully carried out effecting elections.

May 14, 2013 2:25pm

Attorney General Eric Holder (click here) said on Tuesday that he had ordered an FBI investigation to determine whether the Internal Revenue Service broke any laws when it targeted conservative groups for closer scrutiny of their tax-exempt status.

“I have ordered an investigation. … The FBI is coordinating with the Justice Department to see if any laws were broken,” Holder said. “I think as everyone can agree if not criminal, [those actions were] certainly outrageous and unacceptable.”

Holder did not say specifically which laws the IRS could have violated,  but he said there were various statutes within the IRS code that could apply....

The moaning by the Right Wing is wasting taxpayer dollars. This is being conducted to pacify the Right. Just that simple. No one should be given a pass including Karl Rove. I don't really believe this is necessary, but, as long as the FBI is entertaining the investigation, it needs to be complete with charges of fraud where they belong.

Representative Ted Poe is working from the "W"rong premise in regard to "True the Vote."

There were many, many complaints about "True the Vote." The investigation by multiple agencies regarding this group was to be expected considering their handy work and the level of concern by US citizens and the level of complaints and petitions against them. 

It might be convenient for Poe to blame the IRS for instigating all the agency visits, but, that is most likely not the case.

True the Vote was practicing harassment of the electorate. Did they actually think they would not be in trouble for their activities by citizens who found they were interfering with the voting process.

HOUSTON, TX. November 6, 2012 - True the Vote (TTV), (click here) the nonpartisan election integrity organization, today commented on allegations reported in the media that citizens trained by TTV forged candidate placement signatures, preventing observer placement in Franklin County, Ohio....

There are ways to have Election Observers, which have been employed before, by the United Nations within the USA following the tinkering of Florida with the voter roles in 2000. True the Vote is not needed in the USA. It specializes in harassing Americans regarding their activities when they vote.

There were record lines of voters in 2012. The Red States were working with organizations like True the Vote to remove voting rights from citizens. Every voter in the USA was completely aware of these efforts. Their problems are not related to the IRS, they are related to their own activities and the suspicion of them by the electorate of the USA.

True the vote does not have a benevolent presence within the USA. They are viewed by everyone except Right Wing Extremists as having dangerous principles. If there are complaints with authorities about their mission and beliefs, well, yeah that is the case. It has nothing to do with the IRS, though. I have no doubt they are one of the most verbal complainers about their IRS status, but, they draw that attention to themselves.

True the Vote does not qualify for a 501(c)4. They are not interested in education about anything, they are interested in monitoring and lobbying, but, not education.

True the Vote is an investigative agency, not a public education agency. The training program involves an investigative process. Poll watchers are not necessary. Every voting district in the USA have people that serve the electorate and are trained to prevent fraud. Every citizen registered to vote is signed in with procedures established by law. True the Vote's 'poll watchers' are interference with the process of voting. It is harassment.

True the Vote are disruptors intent on intimidation. They have no right to a non-profit designation. They are not a benevolent organization. Their presence can not only intimidate voters, but, scare people from entering the balloting facility.
 

The Death Penalty is proving to be a nemesis.

...Governor's Race(click here)
At this point, the 2014 Colorado governor's race is too close to call, with 42 percent for Democratic Gov. Hickenlooper and 41 percent for former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, a possible Republican challenger.
In other possible matchups, Hickenlooper gets 42 percent to 40 percent for Secretary of State Scott Gessler, and gets 43 percent to 37 percent for State Sen. Greg Brophy.
By a slim 47 - 43 percent margin, Colorado voters approve of the job Hickenlooper is doing. Voters are divided 45 - 44 percent on whether he deserves reelection. Voters also are divided in their opinion of the governor, with 45 percent favorable to 42 percent unfavorable.
Tancredo gets a split 32 - 29 percent favorability with 37 percent who haven't heard enough about him to form an opinion.
For Gessler, 74 percent don't know enough to form an opinion. Brophy gets an 86 percent 'don't know....

The former US House Representative has very extreme views in regard to immigration reform. If elected Governor he would lead an assault against immigration and seek deportation as a resolve in balancing Colorado's budget. Tancredo has been quoted in interviews from 2010 stating if the immigrants in Colorado were removed it would bring about tax relief for every Colorado citizen.

March 22, 2013
By Elise Foley

...Tancredo left Congress in 2009, (click here) after failing in his efforts to establish English as the official national language and to put a moratorium on almost all legal immigration until the undocumented population significantly decreased....
 
 Governor Hickenlooper should be pointing out to Colorado's Hispanic and Latin citizens the perils of not voting. He should seek to empower them to register and vote. He also needs to provide information on his position on immigration reform and that of his opponents.

Good luck, the minorities in Colorado need the Governor to continue to empower them.

Colorado Hispanic or Latino Origin Population Percentage by County (click here)



Self deportation works for Mr. Tancredo. Make it difficult to be here and the numbers go down.
June 14, 2013
By Ntsakisi Maswanganyi


...A PROCESS to identify and repatriate Libyan assets (click here) in South Africa, estimated at billions of rand, back to that country has been set in motion, the Treasury said on Thursday, confirming earlier speculation that the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi may have hidden assets in the country.

Initial reports were that Libyan money had been committed to local property projects, including the Michelangelo Hotel in Sandton.

Libyan state assets were estimated at more than $1bn in cash, gold and diamonds held by four banks and two security companies in South Africa.

Gaddafi was believed to have stashed $80bn in assets around the world....

New arms to Syria will escalate the war as the rebels defend their homes.

...18.46 (click here) A Turkish news agency reports that 73 Syrian military officers, including seven generals and 20 colonels, have crossed the border with their families “seeking refuge”. It did not say when the crossing happened.
 
18.35 The White House has identified four cases where the Assad regime had used chemical weapons as justification for its change in strategy. Our graphics department has provided us with a map of those areas... 

This position by the USA and The West should bring favor in Arab Sunni Mosques. I don't really believe a holy war is in order, but, certainly a relief to many that Syrians will be able to defend themselves.

18.30 In Cairo, the Egyptian capital, meanwhile, thousands of Islamists rallied in support of calls by Sunni Muslim clerics for a holy war against Assad's regime

The demonstration took place outside a Cairo mosque where Saudi preacher Mohammed al-Oreifi called in a sermon for a "jihad in the cause of Allah in Syria.

Oreifi urged worshippers to "unite against their enemy."
Saudi Arabia, like Egypt, is an overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim country, and Sunnis are the backbone of the revolt against Assad, whose Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shia Islam.

The Russian President has many interests in Sunni Muslim nations as well. I am sure both nations would like an end to the slaughter of innocent people and stabilization of the region.

16.33 An aide to Vladimir Putin has confirmed that the Russian president will hold a bilateral meeting with Barack Obama at the G8 summit in Northern Ireland on Monday

Mr Putin and Mr Obama will meet on the sidelines of the G8 summit at the Lough Erne resort on Monday and will also kickstart a Syria session at the summit at the request of host Britain.

Yury Ushakov, Mr Putin's foreign policy aide said: 

It would be a huge mistake to place NATO troops in Syria. This civil war is not a threat to The West, but, the region does need stability and de-escalation of aggressions by Assad. Assad has turned the region on it's head for his own purposes and there is no evidence he was about to stop.

Just to be clear when we talk about ‘arming the rebels’ there are six tiers of ‘assistance’ available:
 
1. Non-lethal aid – i.e. Food and medicines. Status: already being supplied to units of the Free Syrian Army

2. Non-lethal military aid – i.e. flak jackets, night vision goggles, sat-phones. FSA sources say the paperwork is complete on these, and supply was expected to flow by August. Unclear if this will now be expedited

3. Lethal military aid – i.e. small arms and ammo. Status: as yet unsupplied by US, though plenty of from other sources. Now being promised by White House officials cited by ABC News, New York Times and others

4. Game-changing military aid – i.e wire-guided anti-tank missiles, surface-to-air missiles. Status: not provided. White House officials not willing to specify.
 
5. Partial Military intervention: i.e. partial/full no-fly zone. Status: some officials and diplomats mooting this as a possibility. White House says “no decision”.

6. Boots on the ground: explicitly ruled out by Barack Obama

Razing the Istanbul park is on hold.

This is a victory for the young people of Istanbul. They have been recognized as having a sincere concern for their park and their desire to keep it. I congratulate them for achieving this through peaceful determination for recognition.

June 14, 2013
 
Turkish activists leading a sit-in were considering a promise Friday by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to let the courts — and a potential referendum — decide the fate of an Istanbul park redevelopment project that has sparked Turkey's biggest protests in decades.

In last-ditch negotiations after Erdogan issued a "final warning" to protesters, his ruling party announced early Friday that the government would suspend a controversial construction plan for Istanbul's Gezi Park until courts could rule on its legality. Even if the courts sided with the government, a city referendum would be held to determine the plan's fate, officials said.

The unilateral pledge aimed to cajole protesters into ending a two-week standoff that has damaged Erdogan's international reputation and led to repeated clashes with riot police. After initially inflaming tensions by dubbing the protesters "terrorists" and issuing defiant public remarks, Erdogan has moderated his stance in closed-door talks this week....
MOSCOW, June 14 (RIA Novosti) – Russia is not planning to deliver S-300 air defense systems to Syria, (click here) despite the announcement by the US administration on Thursday of its intention to supply the Syrian opposition with weaponry, a presidential aide said on Friday.

“The issue has not been raised yet,” aide Yury Ushakov told reporters in Moscow in comments on the US move.

“We are not competing [with Washington] on Syria, on the contrary, we are seeking a constructive solution to this issue which is vital for the situation in the region and the world,” Ushakov said.

Russian officials have previously said they will deliver on existing arms deals with Syria involving "defensive weapons," but President Putin said recently that the S-300 sale had not been completed....

Assad is not leaving.

Lindsay Graham states the global community is now in danger of being gassed by Syria. Can anthrax be far behind?

It is okay if Graham and McCain state, "They don't get it." We already know that

The people of the USA REJECT any escalation of war in the Middle East

This is a peace process, evidently, it is new to many people and not just the Shi'ites

Oh, yeah and of course, everything is on the table. Right.When will USA killing become justified? It is never justified. Necessary to stop dangers to the USA Homeland. Yes. But, justified. Never.

There is no danger to the USA from Syria. I thought we invested in Homeland Security, FBI and CIA for a reason. Oh, wait. There is that whole Press outing thing that is so unpredictable that would require bombs. Of course.

McCain wants Regime Change. That isn't going to happen.

Stability in the region is the only goal The West should be seeking. I am confident The West will have a partner in Russia if that stability is the goal.

There is no US and THEM. There is a peace process that includes Syria, Russia, the other ethnic interests whom are the opposition and The West along with regional nations to stop the killing through supplying the opposition with enough military strength, establish humanitarian aid, return function to lives, stop and reverse refugee movement and seek a coalition government. Resolving the problems of the region will allow stability. The West is not invading any country. That is a given. As a matter of fact, NATO will continue to withdraw from Afghanistan.

Wisconsin's other corrupt politician states the USA cannot afford to be an isolationist nation.

The USA is never an isolationist in the Middle East. It has an active alliance with Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the Arab League and Europe. So, Johnson's rhetoric is still yet more misinformation by those politicans that lie no matter the cost.

June 25, 2011
...Johnson's plastics company (click here) paid him $10 million in deferred compensation shortly before he was sworn in as Wisconsin's junior senator, according to his latest financial disclosure report.

The first-term Republican declined to say how his Oshkosh firm, Pacur, came up with a figure that so closely mirrored the amount he personally put into his campaign fund.

"You take a look in terms of what would be a reasonable compensation package, OK?" Johnson said this week. "It's a private business. I've complied with all the disclosure laws, and I don't have to explain it any further to someone like you."...

Johnson's business experience is all in the family.

...According to his campaign biography, (click here) Johnson moved to Oshkosh in 1979 to join Pat Curler, his brother-in-law, in running Pacur, which had recently relocated to Oshkosh with a new name and a new product line.

 The company, formerly known as Wisconsin Industrial Shipping Supply, was founded by the Curler family in 1977 in New London to produce shipping pallets. A Feb. 16, 1986, Northwestern company profile indicates the city of Oshkosh and its industrial-development arm, Chamco Inc., lured the company to Oshkosh in 1979 by securing a $75,000 federal grant to build a rail spur and by providing assistance with construction of a 20,000-square-foot factory in the North Industrial Park....

...Johnson’s biography describes Pacur as having “grown from a company supplying a single customer to the largest producer in the world of a specialty plastic used in medical device packaging and high-tech printing.”
That early single customer at the time was evolving into the plastics giant Bemis, which had named the Curlers’ father, Howard Curler, CEO in 1978. Jeff Curler, Jane Johnson’s brother, is now executive chairman of the board of directors.

Bemis continues to be an important customer, having purchased $9.5 million to $12.6 million in goods and material from Pacur for each of the last 10 years, according to proxy statements Bemis has filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission....

Johnson is a rhetorical Republican. He won his Senate election based strongly on his opposition to the 2008 bank bailout. Basically, what he says is never the truth, factual or considered a good policy statement. If one has to stick a name on him; he is a reactionary talking head.

For example, the cash Johnson (click here) received from the Financial Services Roundtable PAC on August 27 and the American Bankers Association PAC on July 8 and July 30 came from, amongst others, hardcore Treasury bailout beneficiaries such as JP Morgan Chase, SunTrust, Bank of America, Regions Financial, Zions and First Horizon. The money Ron Johnson received from the Bluegrass and Senate Majority Fund PACs came, in part, from one of the greatest bailout beneficiaries of them all, Goldman Sachs. Despite statements about staying out of politics this cycle, Goldman donated to both PACs on March 31 of this year. On June 24, Ron Johnson's campaign received two $5,000 donations from the Bluegrass PAC, a day later the campaign received two donations from the Senate Majority PAC in the same amounts.
 

Citizens don't have the credentials or do the research. They are targeted with propaganda for the ballot box.

May 16, 2013; 10:53 AM 
A new in-depth analysis (click here) of peer-reviewed summaries on the topic of global warming/climate change that were published in the past 21 years shows an overwhelming consensus among scientists that recent warming is mostly caused by human actions. 
The research team, which was led by John Cook of the University of Queensland, found that 97% of those summaries endorsed the consensus. This new report was just published today in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
According to EurekAlert, a 2012 poll indicated that more than half of Americans disagree or are unaware that scientists overwhelmingly agree that the planet is warming due to human activity.

The Cook-led research team considered a total of 11,994 papers that were published in 1,980 different scientific journals. Of those papers, 32.6 percent endorsed man-made global warming, 66.4 percent stated no position and just 0.7 percent rejected man-made global warming.

To break it down further, the researchers asked the question... are we causing global warming? They found over 4,000 studies written by 10,000 scientists that stated a position on this, and 97 percent said that recent warming is mostly man-made.

The existance of Hezbollah is somewhat of a no brainer. Right?

Hezbollah are Shi'ites. They are supported by Assad and Iran. Hezbollah is Shi'ite deployment to insure sovereign nations. Iran fell from the Shah some time ago. It was after the senior Assad took power in 1971. The Shah fell in Iran in 1979 by the Iranian Revolution. That makes Iran a sovereign nation under the leadership of the Shi'ites over 30 years. This leadership in the region is fairly new when measured by more stable Arab governments.

June 14, 2013
By JTA

Poland and the Czech Republic (click here) expressed “reservations” about blacklisting Hezbollah at a discussion in Brussels earlier this month, JTA has learned.

Both Poland and the Czech Republic are considered more supportive of Israel than Western European nations that supported blacklisting Hezbollah, the source said....

But, the region has been unstable and it has been unstable for some time now. At least 50 years. None of this struggle is new. Is there any reason why the USA invasion into Iraq was more threatening than any American was willing to realize. Then to add to the American invasion Bush was targeting the Shi'ites of southern Iraq for annihilation.

The entire idea the USA should ride into Syria on a White Horse to save the day is the most hideous nonsense I have ever heard. It is all Neocon hubris without any understanding of what underlies these issues.

There are reasons why this mess has continued for nearly three generations now. The end is not even close to being near. The best that can happen is to allow those that want to battle to decide not to. There is dearly nothing The West is going to do within these nations to end the fighting. NOTHING.

These are god wars. Why do they kill Americans rather than surround them as their savior from violence and death? That is a more than interesting question.

We don't belong in Iraq.

We never did. 
The Alawites in Syria are 12% of the population. Assad is a Alawite. The majority of the nation is Sunni Muslim to 74%.

The West could easily arm the Sunni Muslims and watch as they annihilate 12% of the population including Assad. That is called ethnic cleansing

The Alawites at one point were persecuted and tortured until Hafez al-Assad took power in 1971. He ruled until 2000. Not surprisingly Bashar al-Assad took power as President of Syria in 2000.

Besides these two ethnic groups there are smaller populations of Kurds (Kurdistan), Christian and Hebrew.

Riding USA tanks into Syria as if Iraq is not going to happen. The parties have to negotiate for a peace, otherwise, there will be war for a long time.

Part of what is feeding the instability in the region are the Kurds.


Kurdistan encompasses Syria, Iran, Iraq and Turkey. The instability in the region is profound because there are many, many interests seeking power. This is going to go on for awhile and it is up to the people to decide they need to stop killing each other and live within their borders or not.

WW III is not going to happen because the ethnics can't get along.

The USA is not going to conduct a war in Syria. NOT!


The US is to supply direct military aid (click here) to the Syrian opposition for the first time, the White House has announced.
President Obama made the decision after his administration concluded Syrian forces under Bashar al-Assad were using chemical weapons, a spokesman said.
Ben Rhodes did not give details about the military aid other than to say it would be "different in scope and scale to what we have provided before".
Russia said the US claims on Syria's chemical weapons use were unconvincing.
Yury Ushakov, a senior aide to President Vladimir Putin, told reporters that Washington had provided Moscow with its evidence, but "what was presented.... does not look convincing to us"....

Think outside the box, it might be an interesting experience for you.

KARACHI: (click here) The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has formally invited the Muttahida Qaumi Movement to renew their alliance in Sindh and offered to address its ex-ally’s main sticking point: local government.
A party panel comprising Makhdoom Amin Fahim, Khursheed Shah and Qaim Ali Shah will flesh out a power sharing agreement. Committee members are due to meet representatives of their former ally following President Asif Ali Zardari’ s arrival in Karachi this week.
In the aftermath of the May 11 polls, the PPP suffered a resounding defeat at the centre, but managed to retain its position as the largest party in Sindh by winning a simple majority.
Sources within the PPP told The Express Tribune that a power sharing formula would be finalised and MQM would be given a firm assurance on the local government system. “The PPP will retain around a dozen portfolios but will allocate six to seven ministries to the MQM,” said a senior PPP leader....