Truth & consequences

 Actions have consequences, intended, or not. The statement of discovery, below, is a solid insight into how our politicians in Washington time and again hold themselves above the law. And, our democracy depends on law to see to it that democracy actually works. It’s sort of that way by design. 

Now, on matters political, Mrs. Feinstein has held a fairly good record throughout her tenure. When we, the electorate, see one of our elected officials falling over into the dark side, we have a Constitutional duty to send said politician packing. This is the biggest argument for term limits at every level of governance. The longer they stay glued to seats in Washington, the more insidious the greed becomes, and deals like the one mentioned below take place without the batting of an eyelash. On the matter of Blum/Feinstein being “two public service crooks, I believe the Blum side of the equation is in the privet sector, not the public sector.

 

But, all that aside, let’s get to the core of the argument. You may start by asking, “Why would a commercial, private sector company want a barrel full of old Post Office buildings?” Start by looking back in time when the USPS was at the top of its game, and there were a slew of “overnight” courier services available for substantially higher prices. Those courier companies morphed into United Parcel Service (UPS), Federal Express (FedEx), DHL, and a few lesser players.

Their business models have outstripped the Post Office in performance, not only in the domestic market, but also in the international market. I have to believe that this has not occurred without the wheeling and dealing of Big Business. To set the record straight on some facts quoted below, the USPS is not mismanaged. It has been under the thumb of an unrelenting Congress for the last forty odd years. The USPS has been literally robbed of its revenue by acts of Congress, and that is why they are in such financial chaos. The government mandates on their pension system add untold “on paper” losses that keep the USPS in the red.

Now, along come the aforementioned “courier” companies who have set their eyes on the entire mail and package delivery system, worldwide. If the business lobby can force the USPS to go under, their clients can walk right in without firing a shot, and take over the entire show. That’s how capitalism works, when greed is King. So, the number quoted below, $117 billion in the last ten years, is not a very surprising amount.

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“The US has entered into a contract with a real estate firm to sell 56 buildings that currently house U.S. Post Offices. The government has decided it no longer needs these buildings, most of which are located on prime land in towns and cities across the country. The sale of these properties will fetch about $19 billion. A regular real estate commission will be paid to the company that was given the exclusive listing for handling the sales. That company is CRi and it belongs to a man named Richard Blum.”“Richard Blum is the husband of Senator Dianne Feinstein and is shown with her in the picture above. (Most voters and many of the government people who approved the deal have not made the connection between the two because they have different last names). Senator Feinstein and her husband stand to make a fortune (at between $950 million and $1.1 billion!!) from these transactions. His company is the sole real estate agent on the sale. CRI will be making a minimum of 3% and as much as 6% commission on each and every sale. All of the properties that are being sold are all fully paid for. They were purchased with U.S. taxpayers dollars.”“Well, the folks in Washington have given the Post Office the OK to do it! Worse yet, most of the net proceeds of the sales will go back to the U.S.P.S, an organization that is so poorly managed that they have lost $117 billion dollars in the past 10 years! No one in the mainstream media is even raising an eyebrow over the conflict of interest and on the possibility of corruption on the sale of billions of dollars’ worth of public assets. How does a U.S. Senator from San Francisco manage to get away with organizing and lobbying such a sweet deal? Has our government become so elitist that they have no fear of oversight? And it's no mere coincidence that these two public service crooks have different last names; a feeble attempt at avoiding transparency in these type of transactions. Pass this info on before it's pulled from the Internet. I even verified it on Snopes:” http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/blum.asp
“And, Snopes usually puts a liberal spin on whatever it reports. It also was verified on TruthofFiction.com, which is a more reliable source for checking Internet rumors. You can read what they said by clicking on:”  http://www.truthorfiction.com/Blum-Post-Office-Sale-061013.htm“Now, here's the test.”“The U.S.P.S. is allowed free and clear, tax exempt use. The only cost to keep them open is the cost to actually keep the doors open and the heat and lights on. The United States Postal Service doesn't even have to pay county property taxes on these subject properties.”             “QUESTION?”                    “Would you put your house in foreclosure, just because                                    you couldn't afford to pay the electric bill?”   “DOES THIS PISS YOU OFF?”
 “If it doesn't, then don't complain about the corruption and the ineptness in D.C. You apparently have given up or have turned a blind eye and don't care.

The second amendment doesn’t work anymore! So, let’s get rid of it.

As ratified by the States and authenticated by Thomas Jefferson, then-Secretary of State: ^[24]

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state,

the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

24. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=001/llsl001.db&recNum=220

If the original intention of Amendment II of our Constitution was properly executed, there would be no Grand National discourse as to how many, and what type of, guns a civilian might be “allowed” to have.

Ideals that helped to inspire the Second Amendment in part are symbolized by the minutemen. ^[41]

                                                                                       41.  Cornell, Gun Control, p. 2

This little piece of our National Constitution in no way mandates that every household in the Country has to have firearms. 

The existence of this Amendment grants only the “right” to “keep and bear arms”, not a mandate that every household needs to be armed to the teeth.

If you interpret this Amendment as it was most probably intended, you can easily come to the conclusion that the British, French, Indians, and Spanish are not going to storm our shores, loot, pillage, plunder and rape any time in the foreseeable future. Based on the size of our National arsenal, I would venture a guess that, save the lone terrorist group, no one will ever attempt to overrun our borders using lethal force.

I know the theory of “monkey see; monkey do” is a statistically valid theory. This is pointed out by the fact that our Nation has been involved in 166 incidents of armed conflict over its 248 year history. That translates into 1 ½ such conflicts/wars every year of existence as a sovereign Nation.

The United States ranks first in a good number of categories. The fact that we seem to like to shoot first and ask questions later might be a category we no longer need to be the best at.

The United States has, for quite some time, had the absolute best Military of any Nation in the history of man. This is a position that is part of our national DNA. We tend to enjoy protecting ourselves against any enemy anywhere in the World. This is not a bad thing, until you start pulling the trigger as often as we seem to.

What does this have to do with our 2^nd Amendment? What our elected officials do by waging war so often, on our behalf, has been replicated in the people’s psyche. It’s as if we all want to be G.I. Joe, or Rambo. Civilian life isn’t supposed to be like that; hence the definition of the word “civil” (Go ahead, look it up. I dare you.).

Since there is no one about to huff and puff and blow your house down, we should get rid of this 2^nd Amendment completely. It has outlived its usefulness, and has, indeed, become a detriment to life as it should be.

Is it really our intention, as a people, to run around shooting our children let alone each other? Can’t we leave the shooting to those we ask to protect us? Let’s get rid of our paranoia and, at the same time, lose the 2^nd Amendment.

The Dumbing of America….

             ........................The journey continues!

                                                        Remember this face.

You will soon learn to 

appreciate that this is 

a face only a mother 

could love.

The “Center for Media & Democracy” (CMD) has taken up the cause of exposing the wonderful folks who are bringing us to the end of Public Education. I recall the days when “Charter Schools” were all the rage, and listening to the call that this was going to be the saving grace for our Nation’s education system. Well, looks like they are finally getting their cake and eating it, too. The CMD has launched a project called “OutsourcingAmericaExposed.org”. They’ve come up with an initial accounting of twelve corporations that have made serious inroads on the take-over of our Public Schools. It is not lost that, coincidently, our State and Federal prison system is being taken over in a similar fashion. (More on the Prison System later.)

 

As the caption, above, reads, this fellow runs a little “consulting” firm called K12, Inc. No, the company has nothing to do with mountains in Nepal. They have everything to do with little Johnny’s kindergarten through twelfth grade education. The corporate classroom is where our children and grandchildren are headed to be educated exactly how the owners of this Country see fit. Only one small glitch so far. They haven’t been experiencing much success. With only ¼ of their schools making the grade ^[1], they are struggling to meet even the least strenuous State criteria. What they do extremely well is get paid. The gentleman pictured above took in a cool $19 million for 2013 (according to their 10-k report). The same report boasts of $848.2 million in gross income for 2013 with $730.8 million coming from their “managed public schools”. ^[1] You may ask, “Where the Hell do they get this kind of money?” The answer isn’t going to surprise you, but it sure as Hell better concern you. This money comes from diverted educational funds allocated by the U.S. Congress. Yup! Your tax dollars are funding this supposedly capitalistic venture in educating our youth.

According to a release by the Center for Media and Democracy, there are twelve major players, so far, making “phatt” money off the spoils of Federal taxation. When was the last time you ran

into a teacher who was making $19 million, and whose company investors were the likes of Mike Milken and Wall St. investment firms? ^[1] ………………………I didn’t think so!

The only advice I can render is, “Hold on to your wallets. They’re coming for every last penny they think they can bleed from you.” I do sincerely hope that the citizens of this Nation wake up and react to the corporate take-over of virtually every institution we hold near and dear.

[1]                                                                                          CMD Exposes America’s “Highest Paid Government Workers”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

CONTACT: Friday Thorn, friday_thorn@prwatch.org

- Hint: They aren’t your local teachers, nurses and social workers

- New initiative will expose the CEOs who take over public services

and divert millions of tax dollars out of communities and into their pockets.

CenterForMediaAnd Democracy.org

http://www.prwatch.org/cmd

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

“THE DUMBING OF AMERICA”©

The next Chapter:

Slowly, but surely, the wheels are turning and the American people are learning about the state of their National Education System. The “end-game” being played out has been evident to this observer for quite some time (since 1993). What has eluded me are the actual tactics that have been employed. Now, even those tactics are going to light.

Let me start with a brief re-hashing of my past writing on this subject. I had the opportunity to attend college for a brief time, 1992-1994, to get an Associate’s Degree in an engineering discipline. My degree takes a back seat to my experience with a much younger student body and what I learned were their sort-falls in their educational journey. Much to my amazement, to a man/woman, none of these youngsters could construct a complete thought orally and in writing. Let me just mention that the education afforded me by my parents enabled me to leave even the “brightest” of these students in the dust. I could complete a thought. I could write coherently on the various subjects at hand.

Foe years, I simply shook my head, and wondered what had happened to these poor, unfortunate students. It finally dawned on me that there was something sinister going on behind the educational “curtain”. It wasn’t the Wizard of Oz behind that curtain; it was big business, including Wall St. They were in the process of hijacking our public education system for their own greedy little ends. They obviously wanted to create a Nation of lemmings who would do their bidding with no questions asked.

         Why can't little Johnny  

    do readin', writin', or 'rithmatic?

It looks as if this “beast” has grown three heads. One head is concerned with downwardly standardizing the Nation curriculum. The second head is attempting to introduce false competition to our public system. The third head is very busy making certain that private business will be extremely welcoming to the new breed of “dumbed down” graduates. Running through all three of these heads is the tactic of hooking students on the drug they call Student Loans. Now costing a whopping 6.4% interest. These kids will be working the minimum wage until the day they die, and still pass

a remainder  of their student loan debt on to their unsuspecting    

children; who themselves will be shackled to the same loans (most likely at a higher rate of interest than the current 6.4%).

I am not going to get embroiled with quoting statistics. The numbers have already been published, and, by this time, are public knowledge. What I will get embroiled in is calling out those people we currently name as philanthropists to the Nation’s education structure. Watch out for “for-profit” benefactors like Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee, Arne Duncan, Jeffrey Imelt, Jaime Diamond, et alia. These are the folks who seem to be spending a lot of time and money “reforming” our education system. Don’t you be fooled for one second. They are all interested in just how many of your tax dollars they can place in their bank accounts. Take a look very closely at who’s plowing their vast interests into dumbing down (aka standardizing) our National curricula. That wouldn’t be our captains of industry, or the 1%, or the owners of our Nation production, or the money lenders, now would it be?

The theory and practice of Capitalism in its purest form works best when not regulated, or impeded by government regulations, stipulations, mandates, or laws. I sincerely hope this is not where we’re going, but I just get that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that tells me something is going terribly wrong, here. Matt Taibbi and Henry Giroux come as close as you can get to that “voice in the wilderness” crying foul against teaching our children. Look them up, they have a lot to say on this subject.

"If the right-wing billionaires and apostles of corporate power have their way, public schools will become 'dead zones of the imagination,' reduced to anti-public spaces that wage an assault on critical thinking, civic literacy and historical memory." - Henry Giroux, 2013.

Dumbing Down America: The Decline of Education in the US as Seen From Down Under

[Friday, 22 November 2013 09:25, by Niall McLaren, Truthout | Op-Ed]

Excerpt: “Social critics regularly blast American public schools as little more than mind-deadening factories designed to propel working class white students into brain-dead jobs and minority students straight into the arms of the prison-industrial complex.”

RELATED STORIES

Students in Debt: "Can't Pay, Won't Pay, Don't Pay"

By Rachel Signer, The Nation | Op-Ed

Education Preserves Class Inequalities

By Jason DeParle, The New York Times News Service | Report

Student Debt Is Crushing the Economic Future of the Young

By Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism | Op-Ed

Source: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/20043-dumbing-down-america-the-decline-of-education-in-the-us-as-seen-from-down-under

  *all graphics are from: Google images

The wife………………………..

    I've just installed strobe lights in the bedroom. It makes the wife look
like she's moving during sex.

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    The wife's back on the warpath again. Last night she said she wanted to make a sex movie, and all I did was suggest we should hold auditions for her
part.

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   My sister-in-law sat on my glasses and broke them. It was my own fault. I
should have taken them off.

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    I spent a couple of hours defrosting the fridge last night, or "foreplay" as
she likes to call it.

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    After both suffering from depression for a while, the wife and I were going
to commit suicide yesterday. But strangely enough, once she killed herself,
 I started to feel a lot better. So I thought, screw it, I'll soldier on!

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    I woke up this morning at 8 and just felt that something was wrong. I got
downstairs and found the wife face down on the kitchen floor, not breathing!
 I panicked. I didn't know what to do. Then I remembered McDonald's serves breakfast until 11:30.

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    The other night, my wife asked me how many women I'd slept with. I told her, "Only you. All the others kept me awake all night!"

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    My wife packed my bags and said "GET OUT!!  As I walked out the front
door, she screamed, "I wish you a slow and painful death, you bastard!"
 "Oh," I replied, "so now you want me to stay!"

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