Why Senator Bernie Sanders is one of my personal heroes

SOPA threat to freedom of speech now looms in congress

Why we have deficit spending

The country of america has 308,745,538 people at the end of the last census. We spend 685.1 billion dollars on the millitary each and every year. that's 685,100,000,000 so for every man woman and child int he nation we spend roughly $2200 per year on the total military budget. $6 per day comes out of your taxes. 


This is the Operation budget of the defense department, but the spending doesnt stop there when you consider that the military dips into other departments for its functions such as nuclear weapons research, maintenance, cleanup, and production, which is in the Department of Energy budget, Veterans Affairs, the Treasury Department's payments in pensions to military retirees and widows and their families, interest on debt incurred in past wars, or State Department financing of foreign arms sales and militarily-related development assistance. Neither does it include defense spending that is not military in nature, such as the Department of Homeland Security, counter-terrorism spending by the FBI, and intelligence-gathering spending by NASA. When you include those functions it inflates up to 1.030–$1.415 trillion (the numbers on some of the debt spending for previous wars are scetchy) even taking the smaller amount 1.030 trillion dollars 1,030,000,000,000 it inflates up to $3300 per citizen per year. when you make less than $20,000 a year as many Americans do 3k dollars is a very real very large amount of money.


Americans spend more than any other country in the world on the military

The reason we have so many wars is because we have to justify the enormous cost of continuing post cold war spending on military programs. Dwight D Eisenhower (a republican and former WWII general of the armed forces) warned us of the military industrial complex 50 years ago in his farewell address:

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government,we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

 Medicare and social security account for a large percentage of the deficit and has been on the wanted list for chopping block by republicans since its inception but nobody wants to talk about the elephant in the room military spending.

The War on Thanksgiving

Why is there not an outcry about the creeping of "Black Friday" into Thursday by the easily outraged, especially the super patriotic types on FOX? Why are we letting greedy stores steal this unique national family valued event from their clerks, stockboys, cashiers, and managers?


I remember a few years ago the blowhards started crying about the "War on Christmas" because some folks suggested that wishing Merry Christmas to Jews, Muslims, and Atheists was rude and that people with good manners should simply wish the inclusive "Happy Holidays" so all could be included in the seasonal cheer. To them, politeness is "political correctness". Where is the patriotic outcry about the War on Thanksgiving, the holiday founded by people seeking religious freedom?


To me Thanksgiving is every bit as meaningful as the Fourth of July. When I sit down for dinner on the fourth Thursday in November I reflect on the fact that I am part of a ritual feast shared by so many for so long. And then, as I chew, I wonder, why don't we cook turkey more often? And the answer is. Because Thanksgiving and all the fixins are sacred. Let's keep it that way. Let's not go shopping til Friday morning and let's tell the shopkeepers to let their employees spend this special American day with their families and friends.

More abuse by police in occupy movement

The top voted comment for this video says it all

the use of weapons is not justified by police officers unless they are under threat of immediate attack - thats their own rules and thats the law - try to tell me with a straight face that officer who shot him was in imminent threat of attack by the guy filming.

the next time someone tries to force that old line "christian principals the country was founded on line"...

"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." -- George Washington (From the Treaty of Tripoli).  

"I am tolerant of all creeds. Yet if any sect suffered itself to be used for political objects I would meet it by political opposition. In my view church and state should be separate, not only in form, but fact. Religion and politics should not be mingled."  -- Millard Fillmore 

[L]eave the matter of religious teaching to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contribution. Keep church and state forever separate." -- Ulysses S. Grant

"I could not do otherwise without transcending the limits prescribed by the Constitution for the President and without feeling that I might in some degree disturb the security which religion nowadays enjoys in this county in its complete separation from the political concerns of the General Government." -- Andrew Jackson (In his refusal to establish a national day of prayer).

"There is not a shadow of right on the general goverment to intermeddle with religion. Its least interference with it would be a most flagrant usurpation. I can appeal to my uniform conduct on this subject that I have warmly supported religious freedom." -- James Madison

"I hold that in this country there must be complete severance of Church and State; that public moneys shall not be used for the purpose of advancing any particular creed; and therefore that the public schools shall be non-sectarian and no public moneys appropriated for sectarian schools." -- Theodore Roosevelt