DeRosaWorld

Read It And Weep, America... I Mean Really Weep: Your Republican Party

From Salon.com:

If sexual license was all the Family offered the C Street men, however, that would merely be seedy and self-serving. But Family men are more than hypocritical. They're followers of a political religion that embraces elitism, disdains democracy, and pursues power for its members the better to "advance the Kingdom."

They say they're working for Jesus, but their Christ is a power-hungry, inside-the-Beltway savior not many churchgoers would recognize. Sexual peccadilloes aside, the Family acts today like the most powerful lobby in America that isn't registered as a lobby -- and is thus immune from the scrutiny attending the other powerful organizations like Big Pharma and Big Insurance that exert pressure on public policy.

The Family likes to call itself a "Christian Mafia," but it began 74 years ago as an anti-New Deal coalition of businessmen convinced that organized labor was under the sway of Satan. The Great Depression, they believed, was a punishment from God for what they viewed as FDR's socialism. The Family's goal was the "consecration" of America to God, first through the repeal of New Deal reforms, then through the aggressive expansion of American power during the Cold War.

They called this a "Worldwide Spiritual Offensive," but in Washington, it amounted to the nation's first fundamentalist lobby. Early participants included Southern Sens. Strom Thurmond, Herman Talmadge and Absalom Willis Robertson -- Pat Robertson's father. Membership lists stored in the Family's archive at the Billy Graham Center at evangelical Wheaton College in Illinois show active participation at any given time over the years by dozens of congressmen.

Memorial Day: They Were Expendable

John Ford's They Were Expendable.

The United States has fought and is fighting a lot of wars since 1945 and this latest generation of soldier has seen a lot of desert action. There doesn't seem to be a lot of myth-making storytelling about our veterans of foreign wars in the last 20 years.

Vietnam was the last war that got the big, Hollywood treatment. We have been at war pretty consistently with this latest generation of unknown soldiers, fighting in battles that get little historical perspective back home.

Some times 'war movies' may seem corny, but our entertainment culture needs a way of healing, understanding and incorporating our soldiers back into American society after their service. Movies and television can bring us together as a people instead of separating us... because united we stand... divided we fall.

Sunday Morning Music: Little Richard - Ready Teddy

Damn! This concert takes place in 1966!! The Beatles were giving us Rubber Soul and Revolver and The Rolling Stones released Aftermath... but Little Richard had chicken in the barn.

Saturday Musings: "Bringing It All Back Home' Edition

Where to begin...

"Credit Suisse Group AG (CS), Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc (RBS) each borrowed at least $30 billion in 2008 from a Federal Reserve emergency lending program whose details weren’t revealed to shareholders, members of Congress or the public."

This is awesome… The United States Congress didn’t know about these loans nor did the governments of the country where these banks are located…

So who controls the Fed?  Where does the Fed’s money come from?

This is America; we don’t get to ask those questions.

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But what we do get is a Democratic President that signs an extension on the Patriot Act from Europe… yes the Patriot Act, one of the those hopey, changey things the folks who voted for President Obama thought he was going to help us out of… like Banking De-regulation and Health Care Costs and ending the wars in the Middle East with his all powerful Nobel Peace Prize... the list is growing...

Oh well, what does he care, look what is running against him in 2012, the GOP is mounting the field with a pack of morally degenerate, financially spoiled, politically disingenuous , morally corruptible and intellectually devoid candidates.

What would John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin make of these mopes?

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Speaking of morally degenerates, Pope Benedict the XOXO’s First Officer of The Pedophilia Inquisition… (I have to go for the link to this one.)

"Father Riccardo Seppia, a 51-year-old parish priest in the village of Sastri Ponente, near Genoa, was arrested last Friday, May 13, on pedophilia and drug charges. Investigators say that in tapped mobile-phone conversations, Seppia asked a Moroccan drug dealer to arrange sexual encounters with young and vulnerable boys. "I do not want 16-year-old boys but younger. Fourteen-year-olds are O.K. Look for needy boys who have family issues," he allegedly said. Genoa Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco, who is the head of the Italian Bishops Conference, had been working with Benedict to establish a tough new worldwide policy, released this week, on how bishops should handle accusations of priestly sex abuse."

Like shooting fish in a barrel… or like putting the fox in charge of the hen house… or like putting Barack Obama in charge of re-regulating Wall Street…

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Oh, sorry, I’m not done with Barry O, yet… now on to Israel and the Second coming speech he made over there... this ‘1967 borders’ speech did not go over so well with our allies in Israel... Welfare Queen Bibi Netanyahu is not interested in anything America is selling right now... don’t get him wrong, America’s global socialism is always appreciated, but don’t try to dictate to dictators and keep your nose out of Jerusalem.

It seems to me Obama’s Israeli/Palestinian peace initiatives may be coming from Secretary of State Clinton and Obama is simply relaying the message. There is no love lost between a Clinton and a Netanyahu… what a mess. A lot of unfinished business there.

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Madam Secretary Clinton is also over in Pakistan trying to sweep up some of the collateral damage done by her boss’ decisive move to kill Osama bin Laden, with no help from the previous President who cannot and will not speak ill of the dead…

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If only Clinton had a stronger President, the work she is doing could be so much more focused on actively changing things for the better instead of trying to keep them from spinning out of control.

President Obama’s failure, and the single thing that will keep him from achieving anything except keeping the Oval Office chair warm for the next Republican President, was not taking control of the Financial Industry reform when they broke the world and were on their knees.

That was the moment... the once in a generation moment when Progressive politics could set the rules… it doesn’t last and the chance doesn’t come often, but our laissez-faire economy does have its cycle… the Great Depression brought on the New Deal, which enabled America to become the greatest nation on earth for a while, ending the Depression and fighting World War Two with a dedicated, united and determined middle class… the pendulum swung back, Republicans moved in and the world almost ended… and President Obama didn’t do the heavy lifting required for change…. Unless you count the bags of money he helped carry out of the United States Treasury…

Anyway… here we stand… heading into President Obama’s re-election… I’m more interested in what Hillary Clinton’s next move will be.

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HBO’s Game of Thrones is getting better each week and stranger….  If you have not read the books by George R. R. Martin, you are in for some crazy television over the next month… winter is coming…

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Books: I’m kind of trapped in the post-World War Two world of both fiction and non-fiction… I’ve been nostalgic for New York City lately and have been looking for books that take place or are about the city that never sleeps… two left of center novels, Gore Vidal’s In A Yellow Wood and James Baldwin’s Another Country offer a look at life in New York City, basically at the same time, but from two very different viewpoints.

Vidal’s book follows a waspish, white WW2 vet into his post war life on Wall Street … with an option for something else that he may have left behind in Europe…

The Baldwin novel follows a black man living in Greenwich Village and the civil rights movement is only beginning to stir in the public consciousness… he too has to choose between staying in America and making his life work, or heading off to Europe…

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Music has drawn be back to these times as well… I got a hold of The Miles Davis Quintet’s’ four album cycle Workin’ Cookin’, Relaxin’ and Steamin’ that came out of the 1956 sessions with Rudy Van Gelder.

Also, Bob Dylan at 70…?! And still crazy after all these years… in fact, as I write this, Bringing It All Back Home is playing for the neighbors to hear.

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So have a relaxing and thoughtful Memorial Day Weekend comrades, rest you weary feet, listen to some good music, smoke some smoke, drink some drink and eat unhealthy food… we have a long summer ahead of us… and Gingrich and Palin and our Republican Congress ain’t going nowhere…

Bob Dylan - Not Dark Yet

Bob Dylan turned 70 this week...

Miles Davis - All Blues

Miles Davis' birthday today.

I think this is from the Steve Allen Show...

Is God Punishing The Red States?

With the Catholic Church coming down hard on climate change deniers and Republican Party fiscal policies, the Religious Right seems to have no where to go for cover. They are congregating in the deep South and mid-West... but the plagues are following them...

Is it science and weather or is it religion and God's wrath that make the winds blow and the rivers rise?

50 Years Ago Today: JFK Explains Why 'We Choose To Go To The Moon'

It is the 50th Anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's first Presidential year... 1961.

Here is his inspiring We Choose To Go To The Moon speech delivered at Rice University on May 25, 1961.

The stuff dreams are made of...

And here is a fascinating historical addendum to this speech released by the John F.Kennedy Presidential Library today... a declassified White House conversation JFK had with NASA Administrator James Webb discussing the future of the US space program.

The meeting was held in the White House on September 18, 1963 and reveals President Kennedy’s private concerns over waning public support for space exploration.

This is great stuff, real, true history, not tainted by bias... the real audio recordings of President Kennedy in the White House.

This Sucks... Literally and Figuratively... Cheap Thrills, Indeed

 

A five-year study commissioned by the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops to provide a definitive answer to what caused the church’s sexual abuse crisis has concluded that neither the all-male celibate priesthood nor homosexuality were to blame.

Instead, the report says, the abuse occurred because priests who were poorly prepared and monitored, and were under stress, landed amid the social and sexual turmoil of the 1960s and ’70s.

What Would America Be Like If The 2000 Presidential Election Wasn't Stolen?

 

When he was alive, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke  was effectively gagged, unable to comment on what he saw as missteps of the Obama administration that he served. But as we face a crisis in Pakistan after the killing of Osama bin Laden, it’s worth listening to Holbrooke’s counsel — from beyond the grave.

 

Didn't the Republican Party (Including Birthers) Want To Change The Constitution And Run this Asshole For Presdient, Just A Few Years Ago?

Schwarzenegger fathered a child with longtime member of household staff.

Maybe They Should Have Reinforced The Levees

The US has reached its debt limit of $14.3 trillion (£8.6tn) and is taking measures to cut spending to avoid breaching it.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (excuse me while I puke) has said that he will suspend investing into two large government pension funds.

This delays any breaching of the limit to 2 August.

Congress is currently negotiating an increase to the limit, without which the US risks defaulting on its debt.

Sunday Morning Music: Randy Newman - Lousiana 1927

Saturday Musings: 'Petunia Pig Is Back and He's Running For President' Edition

The Republican Party is demanding, and acting with their votes, to protect the right of people on the FBI terrorist watch list to buy guns. God Bless America.

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And for God’s sake, are we really going to have to hear what Newt Gingrich (aka Petunia Pig)is thinking every day between now and Election Day 2012? As an American, this is embarrassing.

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Speaking of God blessing things, the Chosen People have lost an advocate this week with the resignation of George Mitchell as the President’s Special Envoy to the Middle East. He had to call it quits because both sides are run by nuts and people who feast on violence, hate and war. What can you do with that? Go with God, George Mitchell.

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So if opening oil drilling in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico doesn’t reduce the price of gas at the pump, can we throw stones at oil executives and their families? That should actually be in the legislation.

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The television spokes people for the Republican Party and their leading Presidential candidates have lost a major moral ally in the Catholic Church.  Global climate change denial and Republican Party fiscal policy are now actions that are considered sinful. What’s  a sexually promiscuous Catholic politician to do? They have needs and pressures to protect America… give a brother a break…

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It’s a shame that our national media is unwilling and frankly, unable to cover world news properly. There is a dynamic, divergent, complicated, scary, dangerous and inspiring global democracy fueled revolution happening…  oh, man Aston Kutcher is replacing Charlie Sheen?!!!!!?!!  WTF! I'm so Tweeting this shit.

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Still haven’t figured out what to do with my iPhone4 beside check my work email at home without having to turn on my computer.

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Cell phones have changed the way we communicate so pervasively that even old people are driving cars and checking their text message at the same time.

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I have been listening to a Miles Davis album that is freaking me out a little: Filles De Kilimanjaro, probably because I don’t completely understand it, but I am really into it… it seems the same can be said for the musicians… what the hell are they up to…? that and the fact that I am reading James Baldwin’s Another Country make me want to visit to Manhattan this summer... it’s been twelve years since I thought about that old rock. I’m sure it is nothing like how I left it.

I heard there was a Cuomo in the Governor’s Mansion again, but this apple may have fallen far from the tree.

DeRosaWorld has been facing the Pacific Ocean with his back turned to the rest of the country for too damn long… and now the waves are filled with flash mobs of dead fish off the pier at the end of my street.

Winds of change are blowing...

The shattered water made a misty din.
 Great waves looked over others coming in,
And thought of doing something to the shore
That water never did to land before.
The clouds were low and hairy in the skies,
Like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes.
You could not tell, and yet it looked as if
The shore was lucky in being backed by cliff,
The cliff in being backed by continent;
It looked as if a night of dark intent
 Was coming, and not only a night, an age.
Someone had better be prepared for rage.
There would be more than ocean-water broken
Before God's last Put out the Light was spoken.

                                                  -Robert Frost

In Case You Missed It... Protest On Wall Street Yesterday

Our fair and balanced media did not cover the street protests on Wall Street yesterday.

The organizers should have called it a Tea Party.

What's A Good, Practicing Catholic To Do?... Follow The Beatitudes?... God Damn It!

    

"...More than 75 professors at Catholic University and other prominent Catholic colleges have written a pointed letter  to Mr. Boehner saying that the Republican-supported budget he shepherded through the House will hurt the poor, the elderly and the vulnerable, and that he therefore has failed to uphold basic Catholic moral teachings...."

Just what are super-Catholics Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and John Boehner to do?  Burning abortionist at the stake just doesn't go over well anymore... 

In a statement on the Vatican  website, Pope Benedict XVI made a bold “call to action” for “all people in all nations.”

"...We are committed to ensuring that all inhabitants of this planet receive their daily bread, fresh air to breathe and clean water to drink, as we are aware that, if we want justice and peace, we must protect the habitat that sustains us. The believers among us ask God to grant us this wish.

The bold remarks came after the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (PAS) presented new evidence on climate change to the Vatican..."

The true hypocrisy of the 'moral majority' is about to under-reported by the American media.

The Price of Rubies...

Secret US embassy cables released by Wikileaks show nations are racing to "carve up" Arctic resources - oil, gas and even rubies - as the ice retreats.

"...Instead of seeing the melting of the Arctic ice cap as a spur to action on climate change, oil companies like Cairn are rushing in to extract the very fossil fuels that caused the melting in the first place," campaigner Ben Ayliffe, who is on the Greenpeace ship Esperanza, told Newsnight.

Some experts think that what is happening in the Arctic is like the Scramble for Africa in the 19th Century when European nations raced to secure resources.

However, it is not just a race for oil and gas. Russia hopes that the Northern Sea Route will open up and allow northern European shipping to get to the Far East a third quicker than via the Suez Canal.

New fisheries are opening up and Greenland in particular has mineral resources including aluminium and rubies.

50 Years Ago Today: JFK and NSAM #52 - 'Before the game is afoot, thou still let'st slip.'

The Kennedy Administration begins to leave its paper trail of National Security Action Memorandum that will twist through the dark forest of American foreign policy in the 1960s.

On May 11, 1961 we get NSAM #52.

There are clues in these NSAMs and what becomes of them... including how they are preresented in history... that can lead us back to 11/22/63... if we dare to look.

 

Super-Crazy, Smart Stuff

"Nasa's Gravity Probe B has produced remarkable new confirmation of some key predictions by Albert Einstein.

The satellite's observations show the massive body of the Earth is very subtly warping space and time, and even pulling them around with it...

I hope this is okay with the religious, Texas-set. Wouldn't want to contradict the Book of Genesis, now.

...Gravity Probe B was put in space to confirm two important consequences stemming from Einstein's Theory of General Relativity - his description of gravity. The predictions characterise the way space and time will be distorted by the presence of huge objects such as planets and stars.

One, known as the geodetic effect, is the amount by which the mass of the Earth will warp the local space-time in which it sits.

The other, which physicists refer to as frame-dragging, is the phenomenon that sees the Earth twist local space-time around with it as it rotates..."

Sunday Morning Music: Amos Lee - El Camino

Amos Lee performing El Camino.

Saturday Musings: "Allergies and Assassinations" Edition

Why was Madam Secretary Clinton the only person in the room asked to defend her face during the assassination of Osama bin Laden?

The President looked like he was taking a shit in the corner.

And how many Nobel Peace Prize winners have ordered the assassination of their enemies?

It’s starting to look like gloating Mr. President…

I wish President Obama had shown this side of himself in the days after taking the oath of office… maybe we wouldn’t still have this sinking feeling in country that the Republicans still run the place.

And no, I don’t think in this land of free speech, in which the enemy hates us because of our freedoms, we should ever stop questioning the events of 9/11.

The Bush, Jr. /Cheney Administration never spoke an honest word including “the” and “and”.

Where is the track record of truth? That anything said by them wasn’t the complete opposite… a total lie?

So I’ll keep asking until someone can tell me why and how Building Seven was pulled, so I can sleep better at night.

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William & Kate and Osama have kept American televisions free from news for over three weeks now.

How are our wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Yemen going… did I miss any? should I be saying ‘hotspots’?

And all this bin Laden is DEAD analyzing seems to have justified our government’s pass on the Middle Eastern revolutions in Syria, Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain… where even Senator John McCain can see that the incredible power of satellites, smart phones and social media can spark democracy with the same raw power of lighting striking Ben Franklin’s key and kite… while in modern America, we download 'Angry Birds’ and pop music and occasionally email pictures of our asses to each other.

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Clouds are forming over the ocean in time to ruin any hope of a sunny weekend… so it is Jameson’s Irish whiskey and the new Emmylou Harris album for me.

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Oh, and remember to support Bill Nye, The Science Guy... The Inquisitors are after him for defying the Book of Genesis.

Remember This Idiot? Part II

The fact that this guy was President for two terms is unbelievable.

He doesn't have hurt feelings... he just would never been seen celebrating the death of a bin Laden family member. The Saudis would have hurt feelings.

America's Manned Space Exploration Began 50 Years Ago Today

"At 9:34 on the morning of May 5, 1961, as America watched on black-and-white TV, the Redstone blasted off, cleared the pad and rushed skyward. Seconds later, Shepard radioed down, "Ah, Roger liftoff, and the clock is started." 

Two minutes and 42 seconds later, the engine burn ended, and Shepard was traveling faster than any American before him: 5,134 mph. The capsule separated from the booster rocket, and he was weightless. He took control, firing retrorockets on NASA's commands, adjusting the Mercury's position on all three axes."

50 Years Ago: And The Hits Just Keep Coming For The Kennedy Administration: May 4, 1961...The Freedom Riders Start Their Ride

"...James Farmer, national director of CORE, and thirteen volunteers left Washington on 4th May, 1961, for Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. Governor James Patterson commented that: "The people of Alabama are so enraged that I cannot guarantee protection for this bunch of rabble-rousers." Patterson, who had been elected with the support of the Ku Klux Klan added that integration would come to Alabama only "over my dead body."

The Freedom Riders were split between two buses. They travelled in integrated seating and visited "white only" restaurants. When they reached Anniston on 14th May the Freedom Riders were attacked by men armed with clubs, bricks, iron pipes and knives. One of the buses was fire-bombed and the mob held the doors shut, intent on burning the riders to death..."

In These Heady Times...Remember, Beware The Military Industrial Complex

The Admirals, Generals and Intelligence Chiefs sometimes have a different agenda...

Remember This Idiot?

This is the guy that gut-shot the nation.

In Other Words: The Powell Memorandum... The Corporate Takeover of America Spelled Out As Cleary As Mein Kampf.

A fascinating must read from New Economic Perspectives. Modern Conservatism's link with Corporate Fascism begins to lay out its game plan... The Powell Memorandum.

August 23, 2011 will bring the 40th anniversary of one of the most successful efforts to transform America. Forty years ago the most influential representatives of our largest corporations despaired. They saw themselves on the losing side of history. They did not, however, give in to that despair, but rather sought advice from the man they viewed as their best and brightest about how to reverse their losses. That man advanced a comprehensive, sophisticated strategy, but it was also a strategy that embraced a consistent tactic – attack the critics and valorize corporations! He issued a clarion call for corporations to mobilize their economic power to further their economic interests by ensuring that corporations dominated every influential and powerful American institution. Lewis Powell’s call was answered by the CEOs who funded the creation of Cato, Heritage, and hundreds of other movement centers.

"...Powell’s solution was for corporations to act like real corporations by using their wealth and ownership to take control of the universities and media and use that control to further corporate interests by causing the universities and media to extol the virtue of corporate dominance and by influencing the law to support corporate interests. But his central theme was that business must cease its “appeasement.” CEOs should show:

    “no hesitation to attack the Naders … who openly seek destruction of the system. There should not be the slightest hesitation to press vigorously in all political arenas for support of the enterprise system. Nor should there be reluctance to penalize politically those who oppose it.”

Powell: Do what we do Best – “Produce and Influence Consumer Decisions”

Powell’s specific prescriptions for how corporations should use their economic power to achieve dominance are filled with hortatory expressions about quality.

    “Essential ingredients of the entire program must be responsibility and "quality control." The publications, the articles, the speeches, the media programs, the advertising, the briefs filed in courts, and the appearances before legislative committees -- all must meet the most exacting standards of accuracy and professional excellence.”

But Powell knew corporations’ real strength – manipulating the public through advertising and marketing.

    “It is time for American business -- which has demonstrated the greatest capacity in all history to produce and to influence consumer decisions -- to apply their great talents vigorously to the preservation of the system itself.”

Osama Bin Laden Is Dead

Osama's Last Stand:

Sunday Morning Music: The Rolling Stones - Sympathy For The Devil