Mandatory Voting & Some Potential Issues

I'll start off by saying that Mandatory Voting is not a bad idea in itself, but the implementation of it may be more problematic than President Obama originally anticipated. The reason is summed up in 3 simple letters: G-O-P. I know, what the heck does the GOP have to do with this? It's actually very simple, but be warned, it's also exceedingly infuriating. More on the infuriating part later.

The reason I say that mandatory voting may be a good idea is that it'll help to increase our widely known abysmally low turn-outs when it comes to elections. By getting more voters to the polls would mean more accurate results, instead of partially accurate results as we saw in 2014. It could also mean that by having people participate it will mean that their voices will be heard through the ballot box.

However, there's a more sinister side to this and here's where the GOP comes in. The fact is that, the since the Republicans' base is primarily in the South, it's a sure enough way to engage in a racially-motivated law-enforcement. What's infuriating about this part is that the way the GOP will apply the law across the South is to specifically target Blacks, especially those who are excluded due to felony convictions, but also those who don't fit the proper racial description of what it means to be a "Real American". By "Real Americans", you know they mean Whites. The other infuriating problem with this kind of law is that it will give them a new excuse to continue with mass incarceration, especially since Southern Republicans will use these laws to place even more Blacks in prison, thus continuing the same discriminatory public policies that have existed since the turn of the 20th Century.

The Reason For Body Cameras

After seeing and hearing about the riots in Baltimore on the news, I'm becoming more convinced that body cameras on cops is a good idea. Now this isn't to say that all cops are racist, as most aren't and aren't selective about how they enforce the law. For the unfortunate few that are, this will weed them out, as they're the ones that give law enforcement a bad name. 

Koch Brother's Troubles

For all my rants on here about how the Koch Brothers are the biggest source of mass suffering here in America, well here's something solid to back that up. The post enclosed is what I wrote on Daily Kos (you can subscribe to me here) after seeing an article on PoliticusUSA documenting that Greenpeace USA discovered malfeasance on the part of the Koch Brothers as per a FOIA request and made a request to the IRS to investigate, via this letter, whether the Charles G. Koch Foundation violated IRS regulations specifically banning political lobbying and campaigning for specific political candidates. This is what the Koch Brothers are notorious for doing when it comes to the GOP;s candidates for public office.

Anyway, the IRS has told Greenpeace that if they turn over more documentation they'll start to investigate. This is a good thing, for all of us. It's not just from an environmental stand-point, it's also from a political stand-point as well. Not because it will crush the Republicans and help the Democrats, it will allow our political culture to remain intact without creating an oligarchy. We've had this happen thrice in our nation's history. The first 2 are called the Gilded Age and the Roaring 20s, the last being the lost decades (1980s, 1990s, 2000s) due to Reganomics (supply-side economics). If this proves anything, it proves that conservatism is a big lie when fully revealed and is only meant to help those at the very top of the income bracket or can be used as a means to launch a campaign of violent hate (i.e., culture wars).

Now in terms of keeping our political culture intact, it will diminish any more attempts by the Kochs, via the American Legislative Exchange Council, to introduce more vote-suppression schemes into law and other attempts to bring more John Birch Society-type laws that are meant to ignite further "Culture Wars", in addition to more attempts to legislate hate and other means of controlling people referred to as the "Other" (i.e., racial minorities, specifically African Americans, who the Right holds its largest hatred towards).

Hopefully at the conclusion of the IRS' investigation the Justice Department will launch a criminal investigation into the activities of both Charles and David Koch.

Suicide Barriers on BART

Okay, let me start by saying that I really don't wish to continually broach this subject, but I need everyone's help to make the BART board of directors make suicide barriers inside every station a top priority. Just this year, an engineer for the system informed me, there's been a total of 6 suicides so far. These tragic events impact everyone, especially when the BART system gets shut down to clean up the mess left behind.

While we should be heartened that BART is doing something about this problem, we need to keep up the pressure. This problem is only going to get worse down the road, especially when the suicide barrier on the Golden Gate Bridge is complete.

So please, go to +BARTable's page on +Google+, or on Facebook or Twitter, and make tell them to make this a priority. ASAP.

Additionally, hit me up on either Facebook, Twitter, Myspace or Google+ if you'd like to pool ideas to get this going as fast as possible.

New Star Wars Episode

Turns out that on +Facebook there's buzz about a new +Star Wars episode called The Force Awakens, which opens in Theaters on Friday, December 18, 2015. This is post-+Return of the Jedi, and the only sad part is that George Lucas isn't directing it (he said he's done with making Star Wars Films), but at least he's guiding its production. Still, it sucks though, since he's made it a franchise and very lucrative one. Enclosed is a teaser clip from the Star Wars channel on +YouTube. 

Hillary's In & GOP is screwed

It seems as if the +GOP has yet to find someone credible to take back +The White House these days once +Barack Obama leaves office in January 2017. Then again, credible seems to be a rather high standard when it comes to the Republican Party, because of how low our standards have become regarding them governing us. I think George W. Bush said it best as, "I am the master of low expectations," when it came to regarding the Republicans' ability to do anything other than legislate hate and theft.

But then again, they're a reflection of us in how we're so badly divided in terms of politics and public policy. It's all thanks to the Southern strategy implemented by Richard 'Tricky Dick' Nixon to exploit the growing divisions within the Democratic party following the start of the breakup of the New Deal Coalition. This is why we're starting to see the far-right expose itself

They're bankrupt of new ideas, other than parroting the lie that trickle-down economics is the best thing to happen to us and we'll eventually see the fruits of our labor that have enriched the wealthiest .2% of Americans, and that the homosexuals, transgendered, blacks, latinos, etc., basically anyone who isn't White Christian is to blame for every problem facing America today.

The only thing the Republicans are succeeding in doing these days is showing how they're making themselves politically irrelevant in high-turnout Presidential elections and only making themselves politcallly releveant in low-turnout midterm elections. Not a winning national strategy. Especially not one against Hillary Clinton. Based on polls for now, she'd blow any Republican out of the water with the sole exception of Jeb Bush, at least in a non-rigged election. I'm absolutely expecting that in 2016, the Republicans will not only try to rig the election, but will do so to make sure that their standard-bearer +Ted Cruz wins in a 538-0 landslide, or something close enough to that. Of course, that's wishful thinking on anyone's part. But I'm still under no illusion that the Republicans will do anything to steal elections through various means of fraud and vote suppression just to continue giving their corporate benefactors our hard-earned tax dollars.

Blaming Islam For Terrorism

It's become a self-fulfilled source of irony to blame Islam and its adherents for all acts of terrorism. 90% of devout Muslims are not engaged in any form of terrorism and will readily denounce the nihilistic, self-serving extremists who hijack their faith to justify engaging in acts of violence. If we think about it, other religions face the same problem of a few opportunistic nihilists hijacking their dogma to justify acts of mass murder and injury.

The real irony of blaming Islam for all terror acts is that more and more acts of mass violence are actually the product of Christian extremists looking to start a new set of crusades. Think of how many acts of violence have taken place from the Americas to Africa, Asia, Oceana and throughout Europe in the name of Christianity. In fact, even here at home in America, there's a big problem with Christian extremists. This article from +AATTP's (Americans Against The Tea Party) website lists 8 Christianity-based extremist groups that are just as extreme, or even more so, than ISIS. It says a lot about why Christianity has become the new hot-zone for terrorists, more so than Islam, and why they Christian terror networks make those based on Islam seem sane by comparison.

Again, to re-cap from before, Islam does have a massive problem when it comes to terrorism, but the extent to which it suffers from it is not as widespread as the mainstream media want us to believe. Most Islamic terror acts are generally between the faith's 2 main sects, Sunni and Shi'ite, more so than with other religions like Judaism and Christianity. 

Netanyahu's Electoral Victory Will See The Destruction Of Israel As We Know It

Benjamin Netanyahu's victory in the Israeli election last Tuesday, while impressive only in the sense that it was an upset to Isaac Herzog's Zionist Union, has now done almost irrepairable damage to Israel's standing in the world, especially with it's only true ally/friend, the United States of America. 

I'll be very frank, this is not the first time we've seen a US President say that they're going to be reassessing relations between the United States and Israel. Nor is this the first time it's happened in March. In fact, it's the second. The first was in 1975, when Gerald Ford was President.

The relationship between Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu has become so toxic that it's gotten to the point that we no longer trust the Israelis, at least not for the moment. Additionally, Netanyahu's damage has been so extensive to the point that he almost fully inserted himself into the presidential election back in 2012.

However, if that's not enough to turn some heads, he decided to launch a racist diatribe to get people to vote. This is crazy and not how we Jews are taught to treat others. Even as Netanyahu walks back the previous campaign rhetoric, the damage is already done to any credibility for Israel as a full-fledged negotiating partner for Mideast Peace, specifically on the Palestinian sovereignty campaign. Israel, under Likud's leadership, has turned into an aggressor power seeking to engage in ethnic cleansing & genocide.

In addition, think for a minute that he had the Mossad inform Congressional Republicans on the status of the negotiations with Iran in a coordinated effort to completely destroy them. It's as if Israel's far-right controls our nation's foreign policy and can violate our sovereignty with impugnity.

Understand that with Netanyahu as Israel's Prime Minister, it's a matter of when WWIII happens.

Keeping In Mind The Mindboggling Mindlessness of the Republicans and Likudniks

Okay, the simple explanation I can give you about the title is that in both America and Israel there's more craziness coming out of the +GOP and +Likudniks than that of Russia and Iran combined. This isn't to dismiss the hardened attempts by Vladimir Putin to rebuild the Soviet Union in more ways than we can imagine, which one can call insane, but that's not the point. The point is that the globalizing of the far-right here in America would put the hardliners elsewhere to shame, even Putin himself. How? Simple, think of all the stunts the Republicans in Congress have pulled to undermine +Barack Obama, particularly with regards to Iran.

I'm not going to say that Iran did anything crazy, and so far they're not going to bother for the sole reason that their economy is crippled very badly from the comprehensive sanctions regime imposed backed in 2010. They'd like these sanctions lifted so they can regrow their economy and so far have been willing to allow intrusive inspections from the IAEA to verify their claims that they're not seeking to build a nuclear bomb. In addition, it's to put the entire international community at ease so they can pursue their right to generate peaceful nuclear electricity and nuclear isotopes for medicinal purposes.

For the Republicans, their insanity is easy enough to explain. They're unwilling to allow anything to happen with Iran unless it's a war with that nation, a war with the goal of regime change. Let me be very clear, we have no leverage in terms of using force on Iran, our military is exhausted from fighting long wars in Afghanistan (13 years) and Iraq (8 years). We don't have the capacity to execute a war, much to the GOP's disdain. The only way to resolve the crisis over Iran's lack of disclosures for its nuclear program is by talking to them.

Which leads me to my next point about the GOP: real cute in penning that op-ed (I'm calling on you Tom Cotton) signed by 47 of the 54 members of the +Senate GOP. There's nothing in terms of the history of the United States Senate, as the +CBS Evening News reported Joe Biden saying in a strongly worded statement. Enclosed is the video, from that segment, via +YouTube. It's easy to understand why +The White House was so livid when they learned about this. However, I'm not so upset by the fact that Cotton even penned that letter, as to do something stupid like that is absolutely expected by a freshman politician. What's pissed me off more than anything is the fact that Mitch McConnell, the Republicans' leader in the Senate signed the letter as well as other senior Republicans like Chuck Grassley and +Senator John McCain, who should have known better than to sign that letter undermining the White House during a time of critical negotiations with Iran. It's easy to see why President Obama and Vice President Biden are livid about this act, in addition to Secretary John Kerry.

This is where Likud (the party of the +Prime Minister of Israel - Benjamin Netanyahu) comes into play. Their playbook is the same as the Republicans', fear-monger and war-monger. To both, only war can resolve this crisis. This is also Likud's stance towards the Palestinians, only force is the means of solving the crisis of their attempts to take Israeli land for a state of their own and their support for Hamas and other "terrorist" networks. And by "their", he means all the Palestinians, which is completely bogus. However, that's not what has me irked about Likud.

Apparently the fear-mongering worked for Likud, who managed to pull of an upset victory in Tuesday's election.

Republicans And War Via Israel

Somehow the Republicans' lust for war and especially so in the Mideast says a lot about where their priorities lay. I'm not surprised by the treasonous letter sent by 47 of the 54 Senate Republicans, as they'll do anything to undermine the President. Moreover, it's also not surprising that Republicans in Congress are just not willing to resolve the crisis diplomatically as it takes too long, while war resolves the crisis with Iran quickly and with the added effect of giving them pleasure in seeing innocents die while they profit off their deaths. This may be 1 reason they're colluding with Benjamin Netanyahu to undermine the intense negotiations with Iran.

Also, this plays to the neocons very closely. It's also showing us that they're not done yet, even though George W. Bush is no longer in the Presidency. They're still at work aiming America's guns at Iran, looking to manufacture a crisis to take back the Presidency and fully execute a war alongside Israel. In the end, I'm unsurprised by the amount of wrangling going on with groups like AIPAC, in addition to Congressional Republicans and the Israeli embassy in Washington. It shows the true interconnectedness between the American and Israeli far-right, and the dangerous game of chess they're playing.