A collection of articles defining our times.
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*You may have heard the saying, “Eventually, your true colors will
show themselves.” Well, I just made that up, but you get the point. And
recent video show a group of cops who raided a marijuana dispensary in
Santa Ana, California as a perfect example.
What idiots!
These
poor excuses for police officers were obviously not aware that the
dispensary they charged into had secret cameras. And obviously smelling themselves they
proceeded to flaunt their authority by showing a complete lack of
disregard for the business; eating marijuana edibles, tossing darts, and
even joking about their behavior towards a disabled person. READ MORE
"We just got here!" is the most notable quote here. In every age there will come a mad man, who will easily fool the young into thinking of war as a glorious and exciting thing. Few will notice that older people, people who have been to wars, will have very different take on the matter. The old know but can't speak, the young don't know and can't think. That's why we always forget the struggles that won the peace we enjoy, and go back to repeating the mistakes of the past.
Pay close attention to what Joseph Heller says about war, most especially towards the end. What comes to mind immediately is; "What would he have had to say, just a few years later with 911 and the Iraq war behind us?" That question sort of proves his point in a way that no mere words could ever do. If one might hope that the Bush adm., might be held to account, that's not going to happen for reasons of national sovereignty and, while we could do it internally, that can't happen either because there are just too many interlocking issues and too much culpability spread around. Such that finding a reasonable border line, would be all but impossible, that is, unless one wishes to engage in some hundred year long debate. Thus the answer becomes that, since we don't know how to do this thing, it's best left to the scholars, bloggers and dust collecting library shelves.
On the bright side, we do have a more modern government that prevented the kind of excesses that were available to pre-Bonapartian ruleers. Where, unlike most legacy government paradigms, the powers of state are more widely distributed. Even that homeless person, sleeping under a bridge, enjoys the protection of some government power, at least in theory, and can assert some statutory rights, enforced by the powers of state.
If one steps back and looks at the problem from "the side of the board" it looks much different than it does to the players inside. Which explains why many very good and sundry suggestions on government, never make it into the codes of law, we simply do not know how to make them practically workable. How, for instance, does one circumscribe executive immunity, without effectively removing it, to such an extent that the executive is hamstrung? While we can speak of "stepping over the line", in reality those "lines" are not lines at all, but very wide, blurry, grey areas. While the "kibitzers view" is borne of hindsight, which we know is 100%, don't be persuaded by it, instead try to turn it around and garner or fashion some guide of conduct that can be used for future events. That is where hindsight and the "kibitzers view" fails.
Las Vegas Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez ruled that a hearing over the
full case will take place in a Nevada courtroom, according to The
Guardian, dealing a blow to Adelson, the owner of Las Vegas Sands and a
major GOP political donor.
"This matter has been pending in Nevada courts for almost five
years," Gonzalez said. "Judicial economy would be served by continuing
his litigation in Nevada."
In the much-needed pile-on lambasting the most recent round of Iraq War
whitewashing, Ex-CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell appeared on the TV
to say that yes, the Bush administration lied to the public about the
intelligence presented to them. He was the one briefing the White House
on that intelligence at the time, and so he is among the most very
qualified people on earth to make that assertion. But he didn't pipe up
with this at the time, you must understand, because that wasn't his job.
[CHRIS MATTHEWS]: You're the briefer for the president on
intelligence, you're the top person to go in and tell him what's going
on. You see Cheney make this charge he's got a nuclear bomb and then
they make subsequent charges he knew how to deliver it…and nobody raised
their hand and said, "No that's not what we told him." [...]
MORELL: As the briefer, my job is to carry CIA's best information and
best analysis to the president of the United States and make sure he
understands it. My job is to not watch what they're saying on TV.
Given the magnitude of death and destruction unleashed as a result of
those misrepresentations, you have to admire the man's devotion to his
own job security. A true hero.
MATTHEWS: So you're briefing the president on the reasons
for war, they're selling the war, using your stuff, saying you made that
case when you didn't. So they're using your credibility to make the
case for war dishonestly, as you just admitted. [...]
MORELL: On some aspects. On some aspects.
Add this to the pile, then. There were many, many Americans that knew at
the time that the intelligence being presented to justify the Iraq War
was weak or simply fraudulent; the case being made against the war at the time
relied on U.N. weapons inspectors, nuclear experts, foreign policy
experts and others who regularly piped up to say that assertions about
"aluminum tubes" or "yellowcake uranium" or an "Al-Qaeda connection"
were simply false. READ MORE
As Jesus once said, “Blessed are rich pastors, for they deserve a private jet.”
Wait, no he didn’t. But that’s essentially the message Creflo Dollar,
a prominent mega-pastor in College Park, Georgia, wants his congregants
to believe.
In March, the website for World Changers Church International,
Dollar’s church, launched Project G650, a campaign to purchase the
53-year-old pastor a Gulfstream G-650 luxury jet valued at roughly $65
million dollars. Dollar (yes, that’s his actual name) reportedly already owned
a private plane, but encouraged members of his church — which claims
around 30,000 congregants, not including thousands of online followers —
to buy him a new one.
“The mission of Project G650 is to acquire a Gulfstream G650 airplane
so that Pastors Creflo and Taffi [his wife] and World Changers Church
International can continue to blanket the globe with the Gospel of
grace,” the website read, according to the Christian Post.
“We are believing for 200,000 people to give contributions of 300 US
dollars or more to turn this dream into a reality — and allow us to
retire the aircraft that served us well for many years.” READ MORE
A U.S. court will hear accusations that Sheldon Adelson, a major Republican donor, has 
