Quizzing House Members on their Constitutional Knowledge -- Alan Grayson Style . . . .

The Gadfly dearly wishes that he had a human cloning device.  If The Gadfly had such a device, he would set to work immediately creating an army of Alan Graysons and run them all as political candidates for Congress.

Observe Mr. Grayson's brilliance and rapier wit:






This is an amendment that Congressman Grayson added on to The Defense Authorization Bill.

The Defense Authorization Bill is currently being fast-tracked and rubber-stamped through Congress (because God knows, more murderous war machines and double-naught spy gizmos needs a makin').

Grayson added the amendment to make a statement about the Snowden revelations that the NSA is massively collecting and storing American's private electronic communications without any oversight and all under the pretense of national security.  Mr. Grayson's amendment calls for zero taxpayer dollars funding of these activities.

Notice anything familiar about the wording of Congressman Grayson's Amendment?

Do the words "upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized " ring a bell?

The Gadfly is truly curious whether the Teabaggers and the GOP (and likely a few blueballs Democrats) will actually go on the record as voting against the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution


Grayson deserves a fucking medal for throwing this nice little bomb into the well of the House chamber.



----TFG

Oh Dear! Oh Me!! Oh My!!! Oh Dear, Oh Me, Oh My!!!! . . . . .

There are known knowns; there are things we know that we know.

~ ~ United States Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld

Yawn . . . . . . . :

Earlier this week, tea party activists and GOP lawmakers gathered near the Capitol to rail against an immigration reform bill passed by the Senate.

While the event was linked to a number of controversial figures, including an organizer who has argued for eugenics and called African-Americans a "retrograde species," that didn't deter Republicans like Rep. Steve King (Iowa) and Sens. Jeff Sessions (Ala.) and Ted Cruz (Texas) from showing up to join the chorus against a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

When Ken Crow -- a co-founder of the Tea Party Community -- stepped up to the microphone, however, George Zornick of The Nation said he was taken aback by the talk of "breeding" and racial purity that followed.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/18/gop-anti-immigration_n_3618392.html


The Gadfly is yawning for the simple reason that media reports of the Tea Party having racist elements at the very core of their existence is not news.  It is not news in any sense that the word "news" implies.  As the inimitable Don Rumsfeld stated in the quote at the top of this post - it is a "known known," something "we know that we know."  So for the media to feign outrage at this stuff - it is, at it's most benign ignorance (willful or otherwise) of the world outside of their beltway bubble, and at it's most malignant, it is gross incompetence to the point of their industry being so structurally and ethically compromised that it no longer serves a useful public purpose.

Allow The Gadfly to recount a condensed history of the Tea Party for you dear reader:

• White, male Presidents from the country's inception.  No Tea Party.

• The White President from 2000 to 2008 inherited a national surplus from the outgoing White President and promptly gave it away to the wealthiest Americans in the form of the biggest tax cut in history that benefited primarily the top 2% of income earners.  He ignored the outgoing President's warning of international terrorism's threats to the country and was on vacation in August, 2001 when his security adviser warned of a fellow named Bin Laden being determined to attack the country on it's own soil. He was then "shocked" a month later on Sept. 11, 2001 when that same fellow's pals flew airliners into American skyscrapers and the Pentagon killing 3000 people. In reactionary response, he then trampled the constitution, looted the national treasury to pay for ill-advised wars of choice, and made America a war crimes accused country by torturing prisoners. He labeled Americans with dissenting views on the decision to invade a country that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack as being unpatriotic and warned them to keep their mouths shut.  Concurrently, he was empowering Wall Street and the banking industry by gutting regulatory oversight, and subsequently presided over the worst economic crisis in America since the Great Depression, bailed out the economic gamblers and swindlers on Wall Street and the banking industry with taxpayer money, and attempted to hand over the Social Security system to these same Wall Street criminals. All of this and yet - still no Tea Party.

• Negro elected President Nov. 4, 2008.  Negro officially inaugurated President of The United States on January 20, 2009.  Tea Party formed February 2009.

The Gadfly rests his fucking case.



----TFG

You'll Shoot Your Eye Out!! . . .

Jeebus:

Two Milwaukee men -- each with a state permit to carry a concealed weapon -- traded dozens of shots in a rolling shootout through two sides of town and down a freeway...

Both men admitted they were in a gunfight but said the other had fired the first shot. Both were arrested and interviewed by Milwaukee police detectives...

Adamany said when he first took off after the Dodge, he though he was doing the right thing. I "just kept thinking: What about the next person? What if they didn't have a gun?" he said. "I think they were looking for a random person to shoot, honestly."

http://www.twincities.com/wisconsin/ci_23652611/milwaukee-pair-men-concealed-carry-permits-engage-shootout


Ahh yes -- and for the umpteenth fucking time -- what could possibly go wrong by issuing concealed weapons permits to any Rootin' Tootin' Shootinest' Yosemite Sam wannabe who shows up at the county clerk's office demanding his Constitutional right to play with his growed' up cap guns?

This adolescent-minded society of ours is so irreparably fucked that The Gadfly just has to laugh at how badly and hopelessly screwed we all are.



----TFG

Eeeny Meeny Miny Moe - Catch The Real Terrorists by the Toe . . . .

These are the numbnut charlatans that Fox "News" trots out in front of the camera and bills as "liberal" counterweights to the conservaquacks on their bobble-head shows:

Beckel: "I Would Not Have Another Mosque Built In This Country Until We Got It Worked Out Who Is Not A Terrorist"





The Gadfly might be inclined to agree with Bob Beckel if it weren't for one, simple fact:  Since the terror attacks of 9/11, more U.S. citizens have been killed by right wing extremist violence and more homegrown, right wing extremists have been indicted for attacks on U.S. soil than jihadi-linked terrorists:

Over the past several years, acts or plots of non-jihadist terrorism have derived almost entirely from right-wing extremists like the soldiers' militia in Georgia and the anti-government group in Louisiana. Of the 54 non-jihadist terrorists indicted between 2010 and 2012, 47 were right-wing extremists.

Seven were leftists or animal rights extremists. For instance, three were participants in Occupy Chicago, a leftist political movement, and were indicted on terrorism charges last June for plotting to throw Molotov cocktails at President Barack Obama and other officials during a NATO summit in Chicago. Their lawyers say anundercover government agent had urged them to plot the attacks and build the firebombs.

Since 9/11, at least 29 people living in the United States have been killed by right-wing extremists, while 17 have been killed by jihadist extremists, the majority of whom died in one incident: the 2009 massacre at Fort Hood, Texas. Of course, this story would be much different if al Qaeda recruit Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab had detonated a bomb hidden in his underwear aboard Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas Day 2009.

That's not all:

But it would also be much different if city workers hadn't spotted a suspicious backpack left on the route of a Martin Luther King Jr. parade in Spokane, Washington, in January 2011, in which white supremacist Kevin Harpham had hidden a bomb packed with fishing weights coated in rat poison. Or if police hadn't discovered a napalm bomb and several other live, wired explosives in the suburban Cleveland home of right-wing extremist Matthew Fairfield in April 2010.

And of all the people indicted on terrorism charges in the United States since 9/11, no jihadist suspect has ever acquired or attempted to acquire chemical, biological or radiological weapons, while at least 11 right- and left-wing terrorists either obtained such materials or made serious attempts to do so.

In 2003, federal agents discovered "nearly two pounds of a cyanide compound and other chemicals that could create enough poisonous gas to kill everyone inside a space as large as a big-chain bookstore or a small-town civic center" at the home of Judith Bruey and her husband, William Krar, according to an Associated Press report. Alongside the arsenal of chemical weapons were about 60 pipe bombs, several machine guns, remote-controlled bombs disguised as briefcases, and anti-Semitic, anti-black, and anti-government literature, the report said.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/04/opinion/bergen-right-wing-violence


Now, some of The Gadfly's vengeful, albeit misguided, detractors might take this post as a traitorous defense of Islamic terrorists.  Which would be pretty fucking stupid - not to mention personally offensive - offensive to the point of The Gadfly challenging such claimants to come visit his old hippie/biker ass so that he might plant one of his size 10, American-made motorcycle boots upside your torpid ass.

The point here is that Bob Beckel and Fox and Friends are a bunch of xenophobic, fear mongering frauds and their viewers are gullible, uneducated buffoons who would be wholly inclined to believe you, without batting an eyelash, if you were to tell them that the current President of The United States is a Kenyan-born Muslim who is intent on installing himself as dictator for life and imposing Sharia law throughout the land . . . . . oh wait . . . . . never mind . . . .

Anyhow -- back to the more salient message of The Gadfly's point -- if Beckel's criteria for his statement, as it makes reasonable sense, is that American Muslims should have their civil, constitutional and religious rights trampled upon because of the unsanctioned actions of other disassociated Muslims, then why isn't there a similar outcry against American right-wing extremists, who The Gadfly would bet dollars to donuts are mostly of the Christian faith, for their violence, which has claimed more human lives and resulted in more criminal indictments since 9/11?

Talk like Beckel's is blow-hard narcissism at it's most simplistic and frightfully dangerous at the other end of the spectrum - for like the Nazis in pre WWII Germany, it assigns unmitigated blame for a society's upheaval and wretched circumstances to a small section of the populace, and then foments hatred and violence against those people to the point that the act of killing 6 million of them becomes a mere "solution" to their perceived grievances.

The Gadfly despises Fox and Rupert Murdoch for putting these idiotic hate mongers like Beckel and company on the public airwaves.  Hopefully Murdoch's living days are coming to a quick end (natural causes is just fine by The Gadfly) soon - either that or the UK authorities finally tire of his corrupt old ass and get serious about frog marching him off to the Chokey.


----TFG

Girl - Don't Go Away Mad! Girl - Just Go Away!! . . . .

Jeebus.

Apparently the mother grizzly of all attention whores has yet to satiate her hunger for even more adulation from the sociopaths and the witch doctor crowd:

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) is considering going back on the ballot.

In an interview on "The Sean Hannity Show" Tuesday, the 2008 vice presidential candidate indicated she might throw her hat in the ring to become one of Alaska's U.S. Senators.

"I've considered it because people have requested me considering it," Palin said, after Hannity mentioned rumors of a potential Senate run.

"I'm still waiting to see, you know, what the lineup will be and hoping that, there again, there will be some new blood, new energy -- not just kind of picking from the same old politicians in the state," Palin continued.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/09/sarah-palin-senate-run_n_3569374.html


The Gadfly wonders (as in laughing uproariously while musing aloud) -- have any of Caribou Barbie's snake handlers explained to her that the position of U.S. Senator is a 6-year job - unlike the 4 year job she had as Alaska Governor which she abandoned after 2 years when the going got tough?

As annoying as she is, The Gadfly does have to admit that the Wasilla Wingnut's continued presence on the national political scene is always good for the entertainment value -- if by entertainment you mean repeatedly cockpunching yourself until your eyeballs spurt blood and you are wheezing like a final-stage emphysema victim.


----TFG

Your Weekly Punch to the Solar Plexus . . . .

Hardly surprising to The Gadfly, but still appalling when viewed in the context of human morality and decency:

A global super-rich elite had at least $21 trillion (£13tn) hidden in secret tax havens by the end of 2010, according to a major study.

The figure is equivalent to the size of the US and Japanese economies combined.

The Price of Offshore Revisited was written by James Henry, a former chief economist at the consultancy McKinsey, for the Tax Justice Network.

Tax expert and UK government adviser John Whiting said he was sceptical that the amount hidden was so large.

Mr Whiting, tax policy director at the Chartered Institute of Taxation, said: "There clearly are some significant amounts hidden away, but if it really is that size what is being done with it all?"

Mr Henry said his $21tn is actually a conservative figure and the true scale could be $32tn. A trillion is 1,000 billion.

Mr Henry used data from the Bank of International Settlements, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and national governments.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18944097


The study further notes that the $21 TRillion does not include fixed assets such as real estate property and luxury possessions such as yachts and cars.  It's all cold hard cash baby.

It is estimated conservatively that $300 billion alone could practically eradicate worldwide (worldwide as in the whole fucking planet) hunger over the next decade ($30 billion per year).  Apparently though, the elites feel that $300 billion, which equates to approximately 1.5% of their total stash of $21 trillion, is simply way too much money to be spread around -- and money with a minimal or no ROI (Return On Investment) to boot. Oh no - can't have that - can we?  Nope - they would much rather spend their "hard earned" cash buying up the millions of homes that their criminal accomplices on Wall Street and in the banking industry have foreclosed on as a result of their manufactured world wide economic "crisis."  Their loot is also better spent buying the souls and the votes of the politicians and judges to clear all of the oversight and regulatory hurdles from their path so that they can consolidate their wealth and power in addition to compounding the misery and indentured servitude of the remainder of society.

The Gadfly is certain though that this form of depraved gluttony by the few cannot last forever. And while The Gadfly cannot predict when the tide will turn against these monsters, and it eventually will as history has proven over and over again, he is fairly certain of one thing -- when the time does come for these Galtian overlords, and/or their heirs, to be held truly accountable for their unforgiving viciousness toward their fellow human beings, it is likely to be one helluva bloody culmination to a long (and already bloody) history of economic iniquity and the propagation of human suffering in the never ending, psychotic pursuit of power and profit.


---TFG

But We're the "Moral Authority" . . . (two words that ought to scare the shit out of anyone who loves democracy)

Sigh --- another "No Shit Sherlock" discovery:

By Bill Briggs
NBC News contributor

Drone strikes — billed by President Barack Obama as tactically surgical and less deadly to civilians than conventional air power — are 10 times more likely to cause innocent casualties than bombs or missiles unleashed from U.S. jets, according to a new study based on classified military documents.

http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/02/19254842-study-us-drone-strikes-more-likely-to-kill-civilians-than-us-jet-fire?lite


The Gadfly has some significant disagreements with President Obama on a variety of issues.

This issue is significant.

Blowing up a whole house full of women and children just to get one pissant jihadi asshole is fucking not an effective way to position your country as the moral arbiter of right and wrong in the world.

In fact - it makes you look like an uncaring, fucking unrepentant bully and tyrant.

Obama is being advised by some real stone-age fucking characters and they aren't doing their jobs solely in the interest of national security.  The Gadfly doubts that Obama has any political courage or will to look those murderers in the eye and question their judgement.  It's a conundrum.

Bottom line is - this country is run by sociopaths and it makes The Gadfly question the validity of this government (Democrat or Republican) and the people who are running it.

Think about it.  They have already lied us in to two wars.  They have lied to us about their domestic spying activities.  They have lied to us.  Liars.  Liars. Liars.

Lying Liars. It's what they are.

'Nuff said . . .





----TFG

An Independence Day Testimonial That Doesn't Give a Shit about Fireworks or Flags or . . . .

The Gadfly had a very special motivation, not associated with America's founding, for celebrating this year's Independence Day festivities.

One year ago yesterday, The Gadfly's oldest son died suddenly from a ruptured aorta.

It rocked The Gadfly's world.

The Gadfly's son was actually an adopted son.  The Gadfly had married an El Salvadoran refugee beauty many years ago who had children from a previous, disastrous relationship.  That woman, who was a businesswoman in her home country had fled her homeland because of Ronald Reagan's support of murderous death squads back in the mid 1980's and the civil wars that had ensued as a result of that U.S. support.

The brother of The Gadfly's wife had been brutally murdered by these U.S. financed thugs and it arrived at a point that she no longer felt safe to live and do business in her home country as a result, and fled El Salvador for the United States -- where she and The Gadfly eventually came together in 1987.

The Gadfly worked tirelessly for 2 years to bring his spouse's children to this country legally through the maze of immigration laws -- and finally they arrived in 1989 - and a family was complete.

The Gadfly raised those kids.  He taught them.  He shared with them.  He loved them.  They weren't El Salvadoran refugees to The Gadfly -- they were his own kids.

So losing that oldest son one year ago truly tripped up The Gadfly's life plans.  That son was so proud to have become an American.  He loved the yearly celebrations -- it was arguably his favorite holiday of the year.  And then in a blink of an eye - The Gadfly's son was gone.  It's been a year and The Gadfly is still struggling with that loss.

But now The Gadfly has reached his grieving apex and is ready to move on -- not forget -- but move on.

The Gadfly is devoting his efforts here on this shitty blog to his beloved son Fredy.  His pal, his shoulder to cry on, his child.

Thank you for reading this blog dear readers.  Thank you for the support.   The Gadfly will not waver from his quest to see a better America, a more equitable America, a more just America -- a more caring America.

And with that, The Gadfly leaves you with this:





That is the goal of this blog -- fighting the good fight.  Join The Gadfly in his quest.  Make things right again in this great nation (sure it sounds corny, but you fucking better make a choice dear reader - time is of the essence).



----TFG

4th of July

Happy Independence Day dear readers.

Try to remember why we fought and died for that independence to begin with (and no it wasn't just so we could drink whisky and rye - although The Gadfly does recognize that as a worthy cause worth fighting for - lol).





Have fun.  Be safe.



----TFG

Don't Be The Frog in the Slowly Boiling Pot of Water America . . . . .

This is the America that the Koch Bros. and the Wall Street money barons along with their bought and paid for mercenaries in the GOP and the Tea Party envision:

In the past 15 years, however, the town of roughly 27,000 people has lost more than 5,000 manufacturing jobs. Companies like century-old Thomasville Furniture Industries, Inc., Duracell, and others downsized, relocated or closed.

From 2007-2010 alone, unemployment spiked from 5.5 to 13.5 percent. Today, with an unemployment rate of 9.1 percent, Thomasville still ranks higher than the state and nationwide averages.

Mike Turner was laid off in 2005 from Thomasville Furniture,  but found factory work in nearby town, much like many of his former co-workers.

"All of those guys were struggling," said Turner. "Some of them didn't even know how to read or write. Furniture was all they knew."

The town’s economic hardship has since translated into a hunger problem. It touches those who cannot find work, those who are sick, single-parent households, traditional households, the elderly, and children.

And despite the best efforts of Turner, and other local organizations, sparse food donations, unapproved grants, and inadequate funding have made it difficult to provide enough food for the growing number of needy families.

http://inplainsight.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/03/19119404-after-jobs-move-out-hunger-takes-root-in-factory-town?lite


It is all about creating a perpetually dependent and subservient underclass of American workers whom the moneyed elites can manipulate and string along by virtue of some politically well-timed, token safety net giveaways which amount to to the equivalent of breadcrumbs in their world.  More than anything, however, it is the mere presence of this impoverished, and now predominant social order, that the Kochs and friends intend to sustain, and plan to cynically utilize as a weapon of fear, to keep the remnants of a once thriving middle class in line and nearly equally subservient.

And The Gadfly will tell you one thing that is for certain and that is happening as we speak which is meant to expedite this new world order --- the destruction of the public education system and the rise of the  privatized education system, wherein little Dick and Jane can be taught the way and the glory of unfettered and unregulated capitalism and forgo the teaching of honest, introspective U.S. and world history, or science or social studies or art and music -- or god forbid - ethnic studies.

These fuckers, as George Carlin so eloquently stated -- want nothing more than obedient, non-thinking workers whom they consider nothing more than company-owned assets who are uneducated, poor and hopelessly NOT upwardly mobile.  It is basically their own wholly purchased population of slave labor.

Watch a quick 3 minute video of George explaining it:





So there.

The people of Thomasville, NC are just as fucked as around 60% of the rest of the country.  The Gadfly said it.  He is not happy about it, but it is the truth.

This is not an accident of changing economic times folks.  This shit has been planned for quite some time -- and by all appearances the plan has been executed to stealthy perfection.  How else can you account for the taxpayers bailing all of these fucking banks and financial instrument companies out after their criminal behavior and now these same fuckers are posting hand-over-fist profits again and right back at the same goddamn financial roulette wheel that brought about the collapse of the world economy to begin with?

The Gadfly is not shy about stating his opinion about these people.  They are out and out monsters.  So much unneeded suffering by their fellow countrymen and nary an offer of sacrifice on their own part to ease that suffering.  Nothing.  In fact they continue to pump money in to the campaign coffers of those soulless fucking politicians that they have recruited to go to Washington D.C. and do their bidding.  They are like leeches - the more blood they suck, the more life they have.

The Gadfly surmises that if he is lucky, he might have another 25-30 years of conscious life left in this plane of existence.  It sure would be a wonderful denouement to The Gadfly's life if he were able to stick around long enough to see these sons of bitches brought to heel by the power of We The People.

But until the collective batch of courage and the accompanying will to stand up and say - "no more" - is gathered and focused where it needs to be focused by the aggrieved masses, the song will remain the same:





----TFG