Category Archives: Greed

Advice From A War Criminal.

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From The Department Of Who The Hell Cares, Richard “The Dick” Cheney and his unpleasant daughter, Liz (I assume that’s short for Lizard) recently announced that they have formed a Political Action Committee to “restore America.” Restore America to what? To a craven bully that interferes with other governments; that robs resources from third world countries while giving nothing in return; that encourages large agribusiness to dump excess products in other nations thus bankrupting small farmers and throwing them into abject poverty?

Or does The Dick merely want to start another war in order to direct more taxpayer billions to his former company and political allies at Halliburton? Does The Dick want to resume his position as Torturer-In-Chief to cause others to fear him? Does he still believe that we can use our military might and status as the world’s only superpower to force the rest of the world to kneel at his feet and pay tribute to our multinational corporations? Does he still want to extract money and resources from the poor to feed the insatiable appetites of his wealthy friends?

Yes, as part of the Ford, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush administrations,The Dick has done all of that and more.

In an op-ed, The Dick and his disagreeable daughter wrote, “Rarely has a US president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many,” to which White House Press Secretary Jay Carney rightfully replied, “Which president is he talking about?” The only president that meets that description is the one who lived in the White House while The Dick was running our nation to ruin.

Let’s review: First, Cheney and Bush stole the 2000 election through a combination of Jeb Bush denying voting rights to tens of thousands in Democratic-dominated Florida counties, by counting nearly 10,000 unsigned absentee ballots, by bullying election officials, and by appealing to a Republican-laden Supreme Court. Cheney and Bush ignored more than 40 warnings of a pending terrorist attack in the US by al-Qaeda. They then invaded an oil-rich country under false pretenses, ordering numerous atrocities. They stole our privacy. They awarded so many billions in no-bid contracts to Halliburton for rebuilding Iraq that they “misplaced” roughly $80 billion. They ignored outright gambling by our largest financial institutions costing ordinary Americans their homes and trillions of dollars. They then bailed out those same financial institutions in order that they might continue their ritual of handing out six and seven-figure bonuses. Finally, Cheney and Bush were convicted as war criminals in abstentia by an international court.

Now that is a failed presidency!

Did I mention that the Cheney/Bush fiasco included leaving the Middle East in complete turmoil giving Sunni and Shiite Muslims the opportunity to resume their near 1,400-year war over who is the rightful successor to Muhammad? Now The Dick and his spawn want the US to send troops to Iraq to intercede. They’re not worried about the lives of our soldiers, the lives of Iraqis, our national debt or our national reputation. They’re only worried about oil.

Here’s an idea. If The Dick feels so strongly about immersing our nation in another war or occupation, let him crank up his mechanical heart and enter the fray with his shotgun and his oily buddies. Give them military training and draft their children for the fight. After all, The Dick has already proven that he is dangerous to his friends with a shotgun in his hands. Imagine what he can do against his enemies. Anyway, he and his fellow executives of Big Oil are the only ones who stand to profit from another misadventure in Iraq.

Ugly Voices From The Past.

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Since the ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) jihadists invaded Iraq, the media outlets who failed to ask the tough questions in 2002 and 2003 have paraded Bush administration neocons and their apologists from one “news” program to another. In recent days, we’ve heard the warmongering duo of Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen. John McCain, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Iraq Administrator Paul Bremer, chicken hawk Bill Kristol, former Secretary of State Condosleezza Rice, and GOP presidential wannabe Mitt Romney all tell us that President Obama has frittered away all of our hard fought gains in Iraq…that Iraq will soon become a testing ground for more 9/11s.

The obvious question is why on Earth would we ever want to listen to these nitwits again?

If you were paying attention in 2003, you may remember that Graham and McCain told us that there was no history of sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites (Wrong). You may remember that Blair was little more than an obedient lapdog hoping to capitalize by pandering to the Bush administration. And you may remember that Rumsfeld said that we would be welcomed as liberators (Wrong) and the war would be over within a matter of days (Wrong again). Rumsfeld ignored the warnings of Gen. Eric Shinseki that we would need many times the number of troops to secure Iraq and pushed his “shock and awe” race to Baghdad without stopping to secure ammunition depots. (That ammunition was then used to create the lethal IEDs that haunted us for the remainder of our occupation.) Wolfowitz was the one who told us that a war in Iraq would pay for itself in oil. (Wrong!) Bush, Richard “The Dick” Cheney, Condosleezza, and Colin Powell assured us that Saddam was sitting on thousands of WMD. (Completely, provably wrong!) Bush announced “Mission Accomplished” more than four years before our combat role ended. Meanwhile, Kristol and his cronies cheered the war from the safety of their offices.

All of these people showed a knack for making impossibly stupid decisions that cost tens of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars. Yet no one’s decisions led to more disaster than Bremer’s.

Bremer was the genius who, upon the conquest of Iraq, ordered the cleansing of all Baathists from their government positions. In other words, he fired all of the Iraqi military, administrators, government workers…even teachers…leaving a catastrophic void of expertise and creating an angry, displaced population set on payback. That decision alone led to the sustained chaos in Iraq that exists today. Moreover, Bremer’s stupidity gave the majority Shiites an opportunity to oppress the Sunnis and pushed the Iraqi government toward increased cooperation with Iran.

Now that ISIS is rolling through Iraqi cities, our incompetent media are once again turning to these people for more jewels of wisdom. Of course, the neocons have been quick to claim that the failures of Iraq were not their fault. The fault, they claim, lies at the feet of President Obama. “If only Obama hadn’t withdrawn our troops from Iraq, everything in the Middle East would be peachy keen,” they say. Yet it was Bush who destroyed Iraq. It was Bush who wasted hundreds of billions of dollars by awarding no-bid contracts to Cheney’s Halliburton and others to re-build Iraqi cities that are once again being destroyed. And it was Bush who agreed in 2008 to withdraw all of our troops. Not Obama.

McCain and Graham were livid that Obama refused to support the Syrian rebels. Yet, from the beginning, those Syrian rebels have included ISIS, an al Qaeda offshoot formed as a response to our invasion of Iraq. ISIS is now financed by the Saudis and armed with American weapons that were provided by Congress and the CIA or captured from fleeing Iraqi troops – weapons that may eventually be aimed at us.

In other words, we are witnessing a sh*t storm that is the sole responsibility of the Bush administration. And there are no easy solutions to this mess. Our taxpayers have no appetite for placing troops on the ground or replaying the shock and awe bombing campaign. The ill-advised Iraq War has destabilized the entire Middle East and made it possible for the Islamic world to continue an ancient civil war. About all we can hope to do is to somehow minimize its effects on ourselves and others.

Listening to the neocons can only make matters worse.

The Teapublican Zombie Apocalypse.

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Following eight years of the George W. Bush administration, which included two wars (including one pre-emptive war of choice), the failures of FEMA to give aid for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the crash of the housing market, the nation’s second-largest stock market crash, the bailout of the nation’s largest banks, soaring debt, thousands of home foreclosures and skyrocketing unemployment, the general public was understandably outraged. The Democratic Party stood a good chance of tapping into that outrage thereby ensuring its dominance for generations.

Not only did it fail to do so, it allowed the Tea Party to capture the voters’ anger and help the GOP seize the House of Representatives in 2010.

Was that outcome the result of astute planning and insightful strategies by Republicans? No, it was the result of the stupidity, timidity and outright cowardice of Democrats! Instead of charging Bush officials for the war crimes they committed, Democrats allowed them to profit from the speaker’s circuit and to rewrite history with their inevitable memoirs. Instead of pursuing criminal charges against the banksters who defrauded ordinary Americans, the Department of Treasury and the Justice Department allowed them to give each other six and seven-figure bonuses for their misdeeds. Instead of rewriting the tax code to prevent corporations and individuals from avoiding taxes by stashing profits in off-shore accounts, they bowed to Teapublicans making the Bush tax cuts permanent.

By 2010, the populist outrage created by Teapublican policies was re-directed toward Democrats – not so much for what they had done, but for what they had NOT done. They have not established a brand, making their core values clearly understood. They have not embraced those who joined the Occupy movement and the 99 percent. Too few have stood up against big money and big business. They have not fought hard enough for what they claim to believe in. And, instead of staying focused on solutions to our nation’s problems, they have too often and too easily buckled to criticism.

Now we are heading toward yet another seminal moment in politics and the analysts are suggesting that the Teapublicans will not only hold onto the House. They are likely to take over the Senate! In other words, voters are likely to reward the party that blocked the regulation of financial institutions; the party that panders to large corporations and billionaires while demeaning and dismissing nearly half our population; the party whose policies have hollowed out the middle class and transferred trillions of dollars of wealth upward to those who least need it; the party that took us to war based on a series of lies; the party that has repeatedly tried to cut Social Security and Medicare; the party that refused to allow the duly-elected majority to legislate through a record number of filibusters; the party that prioritized the profits of large corporations over jobs; the party that ignores the needs of small businesses; the party that has destroyed labor unions; the party that underfunds Veterans Affairs then howls when it can’t meet demand; the party that believes that climate change and environmental conservation are based on flawed science.

If you’re a small business owner, a white collar worker, a blue collar laborer, a woman, a retiree, or anyone who wants to breathe clean air and drink clean water, the GOP has made it abundantly clear that they don’t care about you. By the same token, many in the Democratic Party have shown an unwillingness to fight for you. And their election strategy seems to consist of, “A Republican said (or did) something stupid, send us money.” Maybe that explains why so few Democratic voters show up at the polls during midterm elections.

Indeed, the two parties can best be summed up by two quotes. In the HBO series The Newsroom, Jeff Daniels’ character stated, “You know why people don’t like liberals?…cause they lose. If liberals are so f***ing smart, why do they lose so goddam always?” And conservative author P. J. O’Rourke famously wrote, “Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work, and then they get elected and prove it.”

Unfortunately, I believe they are both right.

What Next For VA?

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Now that Gen. Eric Shinseki has resigned as Secretary of Veterans Affairs under pressure from the crass reactionaries and the weak-minded in Congress, what’s next? Shinseki had been charged with taking over an already flawed and expanding system. He dramatically reduced the wait time for those in line for VA benefits. He helped many homeless veterans get off the streets. He replaced a cumbersome and antiquated system that relied on paper with a modern computer system. And he pushed and incentified hospital managers to cut wait times for medical appointments.

Unfortunately, he was deceived by those who falsified records in order to make themselves look good and receive bonuses. He was never given a chance to weed out those white collar criminals and bring them to justice. And he was not given the time needed to fix the system by those who would rather gain political leverage than tell the truth and serve the public.

So let’s look at the reality of the VA medical system. First, it should be understood that the VA was originally created to serve veterans who had suffered combat wounds and service-related medical issues. It was never intended to provide a lifetime of free medical care to anyone who ever wore a uniform.

Second, the number of veterans seeking free health care from the system has grown dramatically. As Vietnam veterans have aged, they have placed ever greater demands on the system, especially those who were exposed to Agent Orange. So, too, have the veterans of Desert Storm with Gulf War Syndrome. And those who served multiple deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan are already flooding the system. Many of these soldiers have returned with severe medical issues, such as PTSD, severe head trauma and worse.

Third, even though the annual budget for the VA medical system has steadily grown, it has not kept up with demand. As a result, many VA hospitals have been woefully understaffed and their workers underpaid. Just recently, Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced a bill intended to give the VA an additional $21 billion to meet its needs. But GOP senators objected to the way the bill was to be funded – by using funds leftover from the Iraq War. GOP senators also decided to play election year politics by trying to add an amendment that would have forced the Obama administration to increase economic sanctions on Iran, even though such a measure would derail current negotiations over the future of the Iran nuclear program. When Democratic leadership refused to allow the amendment, the GOP blocked Sanders’ bill with a filibuster.

I will admit that the GOP did have one valid point with regard to the bill. They objected to further expansion of the VA which would have given even more veterans without service-related conditions access to the system.

So what now?

First and foremost, the new Secretary of Veterans Affairs will need the funds to fill the vacuum of primary care physicians throughout the system. The VA hospital in Phoenix which experienced the most severe delays currently has 400 openings to fill. (You read that right…400!) At the same time, the new Secretary should file fraud charges against the hospital directors who scammed the system, claw back the undeserved bonuses and find replacements for them.

Finally, Congress will need to stop playing the blame game and interrupt election year politics long enough to pass an adequate funding bill. It should also examine the eligibility requirements for VA medical care. All veterans should not be treated equal. Under the current system, taxpayers cannot afford to give all veterans free medical care for life…with or without vouchers. The system should be limited to combat veterans and those with service-related medical conditions. Until this country comes to its senses and creates a universal health care system for all of its citizens and negotiates the cost of care, many veterans can be served through Medicare, Medicaid and private facilities…especially non-combat veterans who can afford private insurance.

Horrified By Yet Another Mass Shooting? Get Used To It.

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In the history of our nation, our individual citizens have never possessed such lethality. Guns are available to anyone, even children. At the same time, our federal, state and local governments have cut back on social programs, including mental health programs. The combination of the two is certain to ensure that more mentally ill people will be able to act on their inner demons with extreme violence and force.

The young man in Santa Barbara is a prime example. His parents knew he was mentally disturbed. They desperately sought help from law enforcement. But, under the  circumstances, there was little anyone could do to stop him. He was able to convince police that he was not a danger. And anyone who is mentally ill can buy a gun as long as they have not been previously confined. So he was able to legally purchase three semi-automatic handguns and more than 400 rounds of ammunition.

As a result, a number of promising young lives were snuffed out. Even those who survived or witnessed the event will be forever changed.

Responsibility for these deaths falls directly on the gun industry, the National Rifle Association, other gun groups and their members. (To be clear, I have owned guns most of my life, but I’ve never carried one and I’ve never embraced the anti-government paranoia of some gun owners.) Because of the NRA, we have been unable to reduce the lethality of available guns; unable to conduct universal background checks; unable to track the transfer of guns between individuals; unable to keep records of the number of shootings and deaths from guns. Thanks to the NRA, in some states pediatricians are even banned from discussing the potential problems of guns in the home with parents.

Had it not been for the greed and paranoia of NRA leaders, the parents of Elliot Rodgers might have been able to deny the shooter’s ability to obtain guns by notifying authorities of the potential danger and entering that information into a database to prevent him from purchasing a weapon. Had it not been for government cutbacks on mental health programs, his parents might have been able to force the young man to get help.

Where has the money for mental health programs gone? Most states have put the money into prisons. Indeed, prisons have become the American substitute for many social programs. By allowing people to commit crimes, we can house them in cells where they receive no treatment and no counseling. They are a danger to no one but the detention officers and themselves. And they contribute to the economy by generating profits for private prison corporations.

Sure, this system is inhumane. Sure, it results in more crimes and more deaths of innocent people. Sure, the system causes unimaginable pain to the families and friends of the mentally ill. Sure, the rest of the world is puzzled by such callousness. But this is the USA. We’re the world’s only super power. We can be as stupid and as mean as we want!

So get used to mass shootings. Get used to the sensationalized news stories. Get used to the deaths and the severe wounds. Get used to the anguish of families and communities. Get used to the mourning. Cover your eyes and ears to the horror. Close your minds to the obvious solutions. This isn’t about right and wrong. This is about maximizing the profits of the gun industry. It’s about business, power and politics.

Walmart May Be Finally Getting What It Deserves.

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Earnings reports show that same store sales for Walmart have dropped for 5 consecutive quarters. One theory is that the slump is the result of wealth inequality and lower salaries for the bulk of Walmart’s customer base.

If so, it couldn’t happen to a better company.

Walmart began as the American flag-draped spawn of Sam Walton. For years, it advertised that its inventory was American-made even though the labels on its products clearly stated otherwise. Meanwhile, Walmart used predatory pricing to eliminate its competition. As a result, the retailer eviscerated small town America, forcing thousands of small retailers to close. When the competition had been eliminated, Walmart’s prices began to rise. At the same time, Walmart was putting such severe cost-cutting pressure on its suppliers that it caused the majority to outsource their production to nations that offered cheap labor with no labor protections and no benefits.

No company has had such a profound effect on the outsourcing of American jobs. A 5-year study found that, over that period, Walmart alone accounted for the loss of 133,000 American jobs!

In 1996, labor rights groups exposed the fact that a line of clothing sold by Walmart and endorsed by Kathie Lee Gifford was being made in sweat shops. Although Gifford had no control or responsibility for where Walmart chose to make her clothing designs, Walmart let Gifford take the criticism as it continued to wave the American flag.

More recently, labor rights groups have exposed the amount of corporate welfare given to Walmart in the form of tax write-offs, taxpayer-funded infrastructure for its stores and the taxpayer-funded benefits for its underpaid employees. A large percentage of Walmart employees are paid so little they need food stamps and Medicaid benefits to survive. Indeed, it has been reported that Walmart’s Human Resources department provides the government-assistance forms to employees the day they are hired.

The company has used its size and political clout to bully local governments to keep them from raising the minimum wage. It has demonstrated a pattern of suppressing employee hours in order to avoid providing benefits. Yet, while it forces a large portion of its labor force to live at or near the poverty level, Sam Walton’s heirs have become the wealthiest family in America.

Now, according to a report by Robert Greenwald published by Salon, Walmart says that it will spend $50 billion a year more on US-made products by 2022 in order to help build families. One suspects the retailing giant may have realized that, as a result of its policies, fewer and fewer Americans can afford to purchase what they once could. Nevertheless, let’s hope Walmart follows through on its pledge. But given the company’s past history, don’t hold your breath.

IRS Did Not Unfairly Target Tea Party.

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In 2013, it was alleged that the IRS had subjected Tea Party groups that applied for nonprofit status to extra scrutiny. Led by Fox News, hate radio and Rep. Darrell Issa’s House Oversight committee, the right howled with indignity. The IRS Director was removed from office. IRS agent, Lois Lerner was vilified. There were even charges that President Obama ordered the IRS to deny right wing groups nonprofit status.

It made for a sensational story. Unfortunately, it was based on a lie.

Recently, ThinkProgress offered proof. The organization reviewed IRS documents it received as a result of the Freedom of Information Act. The documents requested are lists of words that would trigger IRS agents to give extra scrutiny to organizations that requested 501(c)(3) charitable status. According to Josh Israel, the author of a ThinkProgress report, “The 22 ‘Be On the Look Out’ key words list distributed to staff reviewing applications between August 12, 2010 and April 19, 2013, included more explicit references to progressive groups, ACORN successors, and medical marijuana organizations than to Tea Party entities.” You can read the entire report by clicking here.

Nevertheless, the real problem isn’t whether nonprofit groups representing one side of our political spectrum are targeted more than others. The real problem is that 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) nonprofits are allowed to engage in politics at all. By applying for nonprofit status, these groups purport to be primarily charitable or educational in nature (the language of the IRS rule governing nonprofits was changed from “exclusively” to “primarily” in 1959.) Yet one nonprofit after another has been found to spend most of its time and money sponsoring political ads targeting specific candidates than educating the public.

No one has abused nonprofit status more than the Koch brothers. The “Kochtopus” of non-profits used to influence elections is both extensive and unprecedented. In 2012 alone, they spent $383 million to help conservative candidates. And they were just getting organized. Since then, they have expanded their complex network of nonprofit “social welfare” groups and trade associations to allow them to spend even more money to influence elections.

They rely on nonprofits in order to take advantage of tax loopholes that allow them to hide the list of donors.

More recently, they have embraced the use of “disregarded entities” – Limited Liability Corporations (LLCs) that are “owned” by nonprofit organizations and considered part of them for tax purposes. So far, this is a political tactic used exclusively by the Kochs to disguise their political spending. Unlike their more famous shill groups such as Americans for Prosperity and 60 Plus, the names of these groups are often just a jumble of letters such as PRDIST, RION, TOHE, ORRA, TRGN, SLAH, POFN, RGSN, TDNA, DAS MGR, and STN. Although these organizations are prohibited from engaging in politics, that is clearly their primary focus. And the amount of money spent by these groups is staggering.

The Huffington Post’s Paul Blumenthal and the Sunlight Foundation studied the spending of such groups since January 2013. Contrary to IRS rules, these groups spent at least $24.6 million on ads that named specific candidates. And that was in an off year for elections! Koch-funded groups have even spent money to influence local elections, such as school board elections.

Clearly, billionaires are trying to subvert our democracy. But they can be stopped. We don’t even need a constitutional amendment or a Supreme Court ruling to stop them. All we need is for the IRS to act; to change its rules prohibiting nonprofits from engaging in politics – even political “education.”

20 Things President Obama Should Do After The Mid-Terms.

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In no particular order of importance:

  1. Normalize relations with Cuba.
  2. Support Palestine for UN membership.
  3. End the War on Drugs and begin the process of decriminalization.
  4. Renew calls for a Public Option as part of the Affordable Care Act.
  5. Negotiate pharmaceutical prices as all other industrialized nations have done.
  6. Rally Americans to aggressively deal with Climate Change.
  7. Push for an end to mandatory sentences for non-violent criminals.
  8. Order the Justice Department to aggressively pursue criminal charges against the banksters who collapsed our economy in 2008.
  9. Order the Justice Department to aggressively pursue charges of war crimes against those involved in the CIA’s torture program.
  10. Deny permission for TransCanada to build the Keystone XL pipeline.
  11. Push for changes to the tax code to prevent the use of offshore tax havens by individuals and corporations.
  12. Push the IRS to prevent 501c3s and 501c4s from engaging in politics.
  13. Aggressively push for immigration reform.
  14. End drone assassinations except as an absolute last resort to deal with terrorist leaders and increase transparency.
  15. Order the removal of ALL American troops from Afghanistan.
  16. Offer government-backed, interest-free college loans based on need.
  17. Demand that Congress pass common-sense gun control measures, including universal background checks and a ban on large ammo clips.
  18. Order the Justice Department to create uniform voting rights across all states.
  19. Aggressively push for an end to human trafficking.
  20. Order the Department of Defense to reduce its reliance on private contractors.

Nevada Rancher Is Just Another Ungrateful “Taker.”

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The Tea Party and those who believe states’ rights trump the federal government have hailed Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy as a “freedom fighter” and an “American hero” for standing against the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service. But the fact is, by the definition of Mitt Romney, he’s just another one of the 47 percent – a “taker” who relies on federal government largess.

As a cattle rancher, Bundy benefits from numerous federal subsidies to support his cattle business. He and other ranchers who graze their cattle on public lands receive $100 million annually in direct subsidies. Such ranchers receive federal subsidies for losses from drought. They are eligible for low-cost federal loans. Their private properties are taxed at a lower, agricultural rate. There are government subsidies to provide emergency feed for cattle stranded by blizzard. Even the fences needed to contain the cattle are built with public money.

Worse, like most ranchers who graze their cattle on public lands, Bundy is greatly contributing to the destruction of our ecosystem. According to Mike Hudak, author of Western Turf Wars: The Politics of Public Lands Ranching, “Among 1,207 plant and animal species that are endangered, threatened or proposed for listing, 22 percent are affected by cattle grazing…” This is especially true on arid lands such as those used by Bundy. Such grazing damages the area’s water supply. Cattle pollute streams, destroy riparian and forest habitats for wildlife, and cause erosion.

In addition, such ranchers are often given permission to kill predators the ranchers believe are preying on their cattle. (The Arizona legislature is currently considering a bill that would allow ranchers to kill one or more of the 90 Mexican wolves that remain in the wild.) Yet, although ranchers like Bundy have a large impact on sensitive lands, they have little impact on our food supply or our economy. They represent only 2% of America’s cattle producers and only 2.8% of the nation’s beef supply.

Despite the consequences, the BLM continues to make public lands available to ranchers for a modest annual grazing fee…a fee that Bundy has refused to pay for more than 20 years. As a result, Bundy now owes more than $1 million for unpaid grazing rights. Bundy’s only defense for his refusal to pay is that the government changed the grazing rules in order to protect an endangered tortoise. He refuses to accept the government’s authority to make changes, saying his family has grazed cattle on those lands since the 1800s. So what? Native Americans hunted on those lands for many thousands of years. Should that give them the right to hunt Bundy’s cattle? My ancestors farmed in Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland for generations. Does that give me the right to take produce from those lands without compensating the current owners?

Even after the BLM was awarded judgments by the federal courts, Bundy still refused to pay. As a last resort, BLM officials finally decided to seize Bundy’s cattle by removing them from federal lands and holding them until Bundy made restitution. Not surprisingly, Bundy and his government-hating friends went nuts. (Well, that’s not entirely true. They likely were already nuts.) Militias and Tea Party parasites swarmed to the area to make a stand against such “injustice.” They came armed with semi-automatic pistols and assault weapons. They waved their American flags and their “Don’t Tread On Me” flags. They screamed and shouted. They blocked roads. They threatened and assaulted BLM officials.

Never wanting to miss a good photo op and the opportunity to denounce our government, Tea Party congressional and legislative officials from several Western states, such as Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar, flocked to the area to rally the resistance. Afraid that the incident might lead to more violence, the BLM eventually released Bundy’s cattle, packed up and left. The question is: Why? Not only did Bundy act in contempt of court, his gun-wielding militia friends are guilty of transporting weapons across state lines in support of civil disorder. Should other American citizens be allowed to defy the law by threatening violence? What message does this send to the more than 18,000 other cattle owners who pay for permits to graze their cattle on public lands?

Imagine what would have happened had the Occupy Wall Street crowds armed themselves with assault weapons and refused to obey orders. Do you think the local, state and federal agents would have shown such restraint? Would government officials show such restraint when confronted by a group of armed individuals who refuse to allow the arrest of an individual guilty of other crimes, such as drug sales, especially in a minority neighborhood? Would Fox News, Americans For Prosperity and the Tea Party support them?

You know the answer.

With Friends Like These…

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The Karzai government in Afghanistan was put in place with the help of the US. Since the government is a supposed ally, we have spent more than $100 billion to rebuild the country that the Soviets and we destroyed – more than we spent to rebuild Japan or Germany after World War II; more than we spent to rebuild South Korea; even more than we spent to rebuild Iraq. Most of the money has been wasted. Indeed, much of it has found its way into the hands of the Taliban and Pakistanis. It has been used to prop up the most corrupt government in the world…a government that has accepted our money and redirected much of it into the pockets of Karzai, his associates and family members.

In truth, the Afghan government cannot and likely will not be able to survive on its own. It exists only because of our military forces and our taxpayer money. Indeed, the government’s entire annual revenue totals only $2 billion per year. Yet it costs more than $4 billion per year just to support the Afghan military. Without our financial aid, it has no money to pay for roads, schools, an electric grid, safe water supplies, waste treatment, emergency services and health care. Despite that fact, Karzai refuses to agree to a sustainable level of US military advisors following our pullout at the end of the year. This almost guarantees that much of the country will fall back into Taliban control.

Of course, that likely won’t mean a stop to the waste of our foreign aid. We are committed to funding the Afghan government at the same levels until at least 2017. There are simply too many military leaders, weapons manufacturers and private contractors who profit from our taxpayers’ largess to allow the flow of money to end.

And there are more long-standing recipients of our military aid. For example, we have been providing financial support to Israel for more than 60 years. Despite the fact that the Israeli standard of living and Human Development Index roughly equal ours, we send them more than $3 billion a year. And how do they repay us for our support? They bluster and threaten their neighbors. They continue to expand housing developments onto Palestinian lands. They ignore our attempts to broker a long-term settlement with Palestine and the rest of their neighbors. They have sent operatives to spy on our military and our government. They meddle in our politics. They have even sold some of our most secret military technologies to Russia and other nations.

Yet, because of the power of the Israeli-American lobby, no American politician dare complain.