This week, a series of released reports converged to highlight the state of hunger and poverty around the world, and in the United States. The release of these reports coincided with Pope Francis’ written document and interviews on income inequality, the dark side of capitalism, the damaging impact of unbridled free market on the rest of society, and the destructive force of economic greed. The data on poverty, hunger, and the poverty threshold, are issued by various governmental agencies, policy research centers, and independent non-profit poverty watchdog and service organizations.  The combined data from all of those sources are used to chart the state of the economy in broad terms, and to determine economic growth, income growth, trends, and statistics in various sectors of the economy and among different segments of the U.S population. The data is also used to define the poverty threshold, and economic equality in terms of shared prosperity. In addition to those independent data sources some of which are headed by researchers and economists from the nation’s top universities, data statistics are also compiled and flow from The United Nation Momentum project and other UN anti-poverty programs, such as AIDS and UNICEF, which monitor world poverty, conduct research, and pursue policy measures to combat world poverty.

In the United States, the most widely used sources of data and statistics on household income and income distribution are the “annual survey of households” conducted as part of the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS), and the Statistics of Income (SOI) data compiled by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) using a sample of individual income tax returns. The Census Bureau also publishes an annual report on income, poverty, and health insurance coverage. This data is converted into a shared file and made available to researchers. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) combines both the Census Bureau’s and the IRS’ data in its own model to project household incomes. To be eligible to receive government assistance, an individual or a family must be living at 130 percent below the poverty level. While studies have shown that poverty kills millions of people in the United States and across the world, and leaves millions more at risk of societal ills and diseases, the government’s calculation of levels of poverty can leave even millions more in the cold. For example, two households with an income of $29,000 are ranked at the same poverty level on the income distribution ladder, even if one of the two contains two children and the other is made of a single individual.  In few cases, under certain types of programs, the income is adjusted based on household size so that the larger household is regarded as having a smaller income.

While we were asleep, the world population grew to 7.1 billion people, and given the failure of governments to bring about economic justice and income equality, poverty and hunger also rose with the increase in the number of people living in poverty and children going to bed hungry around the world. However, while poverty and hunger remain prevalent in poorer and less developed countries (98% of the world’s people live in poverty), there is no excuse for the 15 percent of Americans, or 46.5 million of the 330 million people who live in the United State, to continue to live at or below the government-defined poverty line. 14.5 percent of U.S. households (nearly 49 million Americans, including 15.9 million children) do not have adequate access to food and nutrition. These numbers do not account for those who may be working but are unable to adequately feed themselves or their families, the homeless, and the unemployed. At a time when the poverty rate was roughly 19%, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared an “unconditional war on poverty in America,” in his State of the Union Address on January 8, 1964.  About a decade later in the late 1970’s, following the implementation of government anti-poverty policy program, the ranks of the poor and the hungry in the United States decreased toward the end of the Johnson’s presidency and the percentage of Americans living in poverty was on track to continue to decrease through the 1980’s. Today, the level of poverty in the U.S. is about the same as it was in the middle of the Reagan presidency in 1983 and it remained steady through 1993 at the end of the twelve years of trickle-down economics under Reagan and W.H.Bush.

Before the war on the poor was cranked to full gear with the advent of The Republican Tea Party, there was a declaration of war on the poor, beginning with President Ronal Reagan’s stereotype of the “welfare queen” as a typical lazy and scheming Black American, who lives in luxury, but continues to depend on the government for handout while refusing to work. This image, which was introduced to the American public through television election advertisements, also portrayed the poor as lazy Black government recipients, consisting of drug dealers making thousands of dollars while at the same time robbing the tax-paying public blind, by living on government programs. In reality, the majority of people living in hunger and poverty are children, under-paid workers, the elderly, the disabled, veterans, small farmers, and people who live in rural areas, most of whom are White. Many in the progressive community view President Bill Clinton’s compromise with Newt Gingrich’s Republican Congress to gut the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) as widening the rank of the poor, the program was turned into Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) also known as “welfare to work.” The data shows that far more American live in poverty today than did at the end of the Clinton administration. However, Clinton’s “welfare to work” could be credited, at least in part, for the millions of working Americans who find themselves needing to hold 2 or 3 part-time jobs or work in full-time employment that do not pay them living wages, thereby preventing them from sustaining themselves and their families, in ways that are adequate enough as to allowing them to provide for basic needs, such as food, shelter, and medical expenses. This failed policy, added to the financial crash of 2008, has sent millions of Americans in search of nutritional subsidies through the commonly known Food Stamp program or SNAP. The consequences of Clinton’s dismantling of the welfare program may not have been felt at first, given President Clinton’s expansion of the earned-income tax credit and the low unemployment rate during Clinton’s eight years in office.

But the data released this week from various research studies on economic inequality, including data on poverty from the Census Bureau figures are shocking. The consumer index and data statistics showed that the top 10 percent of earners saw a 34% gain in their income, while the bottom 90% saw a gain of 0.4% in earning. While some argue that capitalism is not a zero-some game where what goes to one necessarily comes from another, and that income equality will not derive from distributing smaller pieces of the pie but by growing the pie to provide for more slices to be distributed to more people, the U.S. and the world’s economy today may be operating more on trickle-down than capitalism. Trickle-down economy, which was more precisely defined and widely practiced by Ronald Reagan provides for the government to facilitate earning by top earners relying on those top-earners to use a portion of their gains to invest in the economy, thereby benefiting those at the bottom by default through new investment. As an economic model trickle-down has failed miserably in two decades of implementation under Presidents Reagan, George H. Walker Bush, and President George W. Bush, leaving tens of millions of Americans living in economic distress, insecurity, poverty, hunger, and sometimes, abject destitution.

In an article in the Institute for Faith – Work and Economics, Jay W. Richards attempted to salvage what is left of the image of free enterprise as a socially fair and just economic model.

“Greed, miserliness, and hoarding are rightly condemned in scripture [he wrote], but the greedy, the misers, and the hoarders [Edit], these are the stereotypes of free enterprise. The real men and women who live out the entrepreneurial vocation are often far different from these caricatures. They save, they serve, and they take principled risk. This is the essence of free enterprise, not greed.”

The truth is, these characteristics are not mere stereotypes when describing today’s vulture-like model of free enterprise as it is practiced by modern capitalists. Today’s free enterprise in the context of the capitalist society is based fundamentally on greed, hoarding, extreme individualism bordering on selfish gluttony, and everything that goes against the teachings of Christ and his Church. This spirit has become pervasive in the U.S. government with the dominance of the House of Representatives by Tea Party Republicans.

The following are just a sample of the insidious quotes made by Congressional Republicans, using Bible passages to justify the decimation of food stamp and why the government should pursue policies that take food away from the poor, the weak, and the hungry, while continuing subsidies, tax cuts, and loophole for the rich and large corporations:

Senator Orrin Hatch states “I think it’s abysmal 51% of Americans do not pay income taxes.

Congressman Kevin Cramer on Facebook: “2 Thessalonians 3:10 English Standard Version (ESV) 10: For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.” [Nothdecoder.com]

Congressman Stephen Lee Fincher: from the Book of Thessalonians: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.” Representative Fincher happens to be the second largest recipient of farm subsidies in the United States Congress. [Rick Ungar - Forbe]

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Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann: “Our nation needs to stop doing for people what they can and should do for themselves. Self- reliance means, if anyone will not work, neither should he eat.” [addictinginfo.org]

It is economic journalist, Henry Hazlitt, as quoted by Richards, who captured the contour of the problems that have helped to perpetuate poverty; the lack of moral, compassion, and the short-sightedness of law and policy-makers to advance policies that can benefit the population at large, thus advance social and economic equality. To that effect, Hazlitt said,

“The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.” 

This week, Pope Francis put the matter to bed for those Republicans who seem confused about their religion, Bible passages, and Jesus’ parables. In his first “Evangelii Gaudium”  (an 84-page long document) or The Joy of the Gospel, the Pontiff exhorted the world to Catholic values; He wrote:

"Just as the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say “thou shalt not” to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting."

The Pope’s admonishment was published almost simultaneously with multiple scientific researches that showed the devastating and long-term effects of poverty on people, particularly children. In addition to the severe impact and the risks that poverty poses to those at the bottom of the economic ladder, researchers have found that rather than being a factor of individual behavior, morality, or traits, poverty is the net result of the economic inequality that has been almost entrenched in an unbreakable social stratum. In this respect, poverty is at once, both oppressive and pervasive. Contrary to old beliefs and myths that poorer people have lower IQ, poorer judgment, or are lazy, researchers have found that it is, in fact, poverty that hinders some of those higher levels of thinking that people need to function effectively in a complex social structure. Poverty and the minute-by-minute struggle for survival and the struggle for basic human necessities, they found, consume so much of those high cerebral functions nestled in the frontal cortex of the brain that poorer people are left with little ability and brain power to spend on concentration, patience, cognitive tasking, focus, and reasoning outside of money factors. That has led the researchers to conclude that “All the data shows it isn't about poor people, it’s about people who happen to be in poverty. All the data suggests it is not the person, it's the context they inhabit [Edit].” 

The implications of this study are far-reaching and immense in the arena of policy making and the implementation of programs that can effectively lift people out of poverty. For instance, No one knows what poor people need to survive or to improve their lives than poor people. The fact that a person who is poor does not take the effective steps that can get help to lift that person out of poverty, such as education, training, and know-how. is more a factor of resources that it relates to a lack of recognition on the part of the individual of what it will take to break the cycle of poverty. And most poor people, many of whom happen to be children, are not poor because they are alcoholics, immoral, criminal, or drug addicts. Poor people know best what they need to survive, and will use any money they have to meet their basic and immediate needs. A poor family who cannot pay the rent does not need donations of clothes, shoes, or other items of the sort, which may not prevent them from being evicted and being out in the cold. Even a household with food, clothing, and other basic items, needs cash to survive. In a logical world, government would use this data to structure anti-poverty programs to win at least one war since World War II, the war on poverty. After all, the United States considers itself the world’s wealthiest country, greatest power, “exceptional” nation. So, let that “exceptionalism” be put into practice to uplift those who have been left behind due to the actions of others. This is one area that new and innovative thinking, as much as comprehensive actions and immediate attention. If approached earnestly and seriously, without the indignity, stereotyping, and the usual humiliation toward the poor, success in reducing poverty could have a domino effect, which could help improve the broken and disreputable criminal justice system, and education,  and could further heal many of other social injustices that continue to plague America through the 21 century.

Princeton’s Eldar Shafir

Anandi Mani, Sendhil Mullainathan, and Jiaying Zhao

 

“Good morning, everybody! Please have a seat."

Last night I signed legislation to reopen our government and pay America's bills. Because Democrats and responsible Republicans came together, the first government shutdown in 17 years is now over; the first default in more than 200 years will not happen. These twin threats to our economy have now been lifted, and I want to thank those Democrats and Republicans for getting together and ultimately getting this job done.

Now, there's been a lot of discussion lately of the politics of this shutdown. But let's be clear. There are no winners here. These last few weeks have inflicted completely unnecessary damage on our economy. We don't know yet the full scope of the damage, but every analyst out there believes it's slowed our growth. We know that families have gone without paychecks or services they depend on. We know that potential home-buyers have gotten fewer mortgages and small business loans have been put on hold. We know that consumers have cut back on spending and that half of all CEOs say that the shutdown and the threat of shutdown set back their plans to hire over the next six months.

We know that just the threat of default, of America not paying all the bills that we owe on time, increased our borrowing costs, which adds to our deficit. And of course, we know that the American people's frustration with what goes on in this town has never been higher.

That's not a surprise that the American people are completely fed up with Washington. At a moment when our economic recovery demands more jobs, more momentum, we've got yet another self-inflicted crisis that set our economy back. And for what? There was no economic rationale for all of this. Over the past four years, our economy has been growing, our businesses have been creating jobs, and our deficits have been in half. We hear some members who pushed for the shutdown say they were doing it to save the American economy. But nothing has done more to undermine our economy these past three years than the kind of tactics that create these manufactured crises.

And you don't have to take my word for it. The agency that put America's credit rating on watch the other day explicitly cited all of this, saying that our economy remains more dynamic and resilient than other advanced economies and that the only thing putting us at risk is -- and I'm quoting here -- "repeated brinksmanship." That's what the credit rating agency said. That wasn't a political statement. That was an analysis of what's hurting our economy by people whose job it is to analyze these things.

 

That also happens to be the view of our diplomats, who have been hearing from their counterparts internationally.

Some of the same folks who pushed for the shutdown and threatened default claim their actions were needed to get America back on the right track, to make sure we're strong.”

The new electorate that elected President Obama in 2008 and re-elected him last November is here to stay. the country is center-left and will not be tugged to the right and be made to walk parallel to the ground by the Tea Party occupied Republican Party. Republicans will have to come up with more than one new ideas to win in any future elections. They will also need to accept facts, reality, science, arithmetic, and understand that religion has more to do with taking care of the least among us than it does with policing people's sexual lives and women's uterus. Americans will not go back to 1901 where Republicans seem intent on taking them.  

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Republicans have perverted the public and civil discourse, and are contributing to the degradation of American culture. They are a national embarrassment and a corrupting force on the youth of this country. On November 15, Beforeitsnews.com wrote an article entitled “Why People Should Stop Referring to HealthCare.gov Problems to Crazy Things like Hurricanes.” In that article, the website cited a New York Times’ headline in which the paper compared the “loss of confidence” in the Obama administration to the way the response to Katrina affected the George W. Bush administration. Any literate person would recognize that the New York Times was not comparing the miserable rollout of the open enrollment stage of the healthcare program to the neglectful malpractice that the Bush administration committed after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and left over 1800 residents dead, and hundreds of thousands stranded and dying without basic necessities in the New Orleans Superdome or altogether displaced. The newspaper was merely reporting on the results of the obsessive polls the media have been conducting and reporting on comparing those President Obama to those of President Bush around the same point in time, a mere snapshot. This constant reporting of poll numbers alone is a sign of the degradation that has settled among the discredited news media. Why would anyone believe those poll numbers anyway? During the 2012 presidential campaign and right up to Election Day, the news media tried to convince the public that President Obama was separated from citizen patriot money off-shoring Mitt Romney by only 1 point in the polls. By October, the public figured it all out and voters turned to the New York Times’ Nate Silver and other statisticians like the Pollster on Huffington Post to monitor the race. But no one can accuse people in the media of being bright. For anyone who is too young to know or has not watched documentaries on the great men Americans used to count on for their news, there were, yes Walter Cronkite, former ABC evening news Peter Jennings who did not graduate college but was a hard-working and ethical journalist who grew enormously in standing. We also had Ted Koppel of ABC Nightline, World News’ Charles Gibson, all-American newscaster David Brinkley of “This week with David Brinkley.” There are others, including NBC’s Meet the Press, Tim Russet, CBC’s Lesley Stahl and Mike Wallace, respected anchor and newsman Charlie Rose, PBS’s Gwen Ifill and the whole cast of the McNeil Lehrer News Hour. In its early days, CNN also had some very smart anchor and journalists who knew how to cover the issues, rather than becoming a part of the rumors, misinformation, conspiracy theories, and right out lies. This crop of journalists knew how to conduct an interview, while today's media individuals are incompetent and intellectually deficient to the point where they are incapable of carrying through a decent an interview that a Scholastic Books kid journalist could excel in doing

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It is pathetic enough that we now have a major political party that has descended into the pathology of lying on national television day after day, without having people who consider themselves journalists, or at least part of the news media, to join Republicans into the weeds of political perversion. Since Republicans have no governing agenda and their policy positions have been soundly rejected by voters, time and time in the past 5 elections, despite their attempt at deceiving the electoral and stealing elections, the party has resorted to lying in a chorus about everything, from lying about President Obama to lying about his policies, and lying about lying. The real pity here is to watch the so-called media leaping to provide a partner to the degenerate Tea Party Republican Party and join in the lying tango. Some of this is the result of plain laziness and a lack professional ethics among individual members of the media, while the essential part of it derives from pure imbecility. It is at best embarrassing to watch as the news media follows insane tea party conspiracy theories and disgracefully report on them: “the president is not a U.S. citizen; he is conducting mind-control; President Obama is trying to take away people’s guns; he leads from behind; he is a Muslim; he is an Arab; he is a socialist, communist, fascist; the president watched on video as his own ambassador was being murdered in Benghazi and ordered the military to stand down; the President lied about “promising” to allow people to keep their non-health care insurance, “don’t-get-hit-by-a-bus coverage,” which scheming insurance companies have been issuing for years, bringing financial ruin, unnecessary suffering, and pre-mature deaths into the lives of millions of Americans. And it goes on and on. Moving forward, no one who cannot spell Benghazi or point to it on a world map should be allowed to say the word.

As for the latest idiocy that has overcome the disgraceful Republican Party, having to do with Hurricane Katrina and the failure of the commissioned healthcare website coupled with the fact that people who receive those cancellation notices from insurance companies have not able to go on the site to shop for new and better plans at lower costs, a few bloggers and commentators have tried to shoot down the senseless comparison with the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 under the stewardship of President George w. Bush. However, President Obama does not need defending against such scurrilous charges. Most intelligent sixth graders could confront and disassemble such a comparison. In fact, there is no comparison to be made here at all; and the very idea that individuals posing as news anchors could entertain this type of stupidity is scary for the future of this country, given that the job of the media is to be at the avant guard of the welfare of this country through the proper gathering, sourcing, monitoring, use, and dissemination of information.

Republicans have no scrupulous and the news media has shown a propensity to sink to the very depth of their pathological delusion with them. Bloomberg columnistAl Hunt said on MSNBC Morning Joe, on November 14, “I think Katrina may be the best analogy” to the handling of the AHCA rollout. Al Hunt looks too washed out to be bothered with. He may even not be all with it. Also on MSNBC Morning Joe, that Friday, former Bush Communication DirectorNicole Wallace presented her theory to Joe Scarborough and his yes – maybe so group that this healthcare rollout bust was somehow comparable to “our [Bush’s] Hurricane Katrina moment.” Of course, that crowd has been trying to re-habilitate itself since President Bush left the country in shamble in 2009 with 2 failing wars, high unemployment, millions of foreclosures, and a nearly fatal crash in the economy. Since Republicans lie in unison and typically try to support one dumb idea with an even dumber one, Wallace’s false comparison of the circumstances surrounding the health care law with the collapse of New Orleans’ structurally unsound and defective levy system was quickly followed with similar comments by the contemptible Dick Cheney, who conspired to lie his way into a foreign war and drag the country with him. Mr. Cheney should give back all those hearts he has been getting to people who might really need them. Before the weekend, shameless Mitt Romney who should be hanging his head in shame for the way he conducted himself during the election season quickly joined in with comments on the President health care, as if most Americans cared what he had to say from here on end.

Beforeitsnews.com also wrote that Dean Baker of the Center for Economic Policy and Research noted that “the comparison to the response to Hurricane Katrina has to qualify as more than a bit over the top.” This is not over the top. It is intellectual bankruptcy. However, to be intellectually dishonest one must first possess an intellect, and there is no evidence that there is much intellect or too many neurons firing around the news media circle.

·        War, war, and more war

·        Trickledown economics

·        Business deregulation

·        Tax cuts for the rich (the job creators)

·        Abolishing the Departments of Education, Commerce, EPA, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services

·        Defund PBS and the Institute for the Arts and Humanities

·        Banning abortion, redefining rape, and ordering transvaginal procedure for pregnant women against their            doctors’ advice

·        Bans on gay marriage voter suppression

·        Voter suppression

·        Taking food out of the mouths of children and the elderly

·        Demonizing the poor

·        Scrapping Medicare, Medicaid, and privatizing Social Security.

·        Self-deportation of non-White immigrants

This is the agenda the news media is so cheering for. This explains why they run around like chickens whose heads have been cut; dragging giant microphones to catch the most outrageous non-sense they can gobble up from slow-minded Tea Party Republicans. The same news media then turn around and claim that they cannot judge whether or not anyone is making racist statement because “they’re” not in their hearts and minds. If this has become  the standard by which we judge whether or not people make racist statements, we now need to apply those same standards before we can claim that anyone is making anti-Semitic or homophobic remarks.

Lackey ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulous tweeted: “How can President Obama recover from his Katrina?” Former Bush speechwriter David Frum tweeted: “President Bush did not design and enact Hurricane Katrina.” Of course, President Bush did not design and enact Hurricane Katrina. What President Bush designed with his bare hands were two wars, his tax cuts for the rich, plus his unpaid prescription drug program, which left the economy in a ditch and the country on the verge of a Great Depression. GeraldoRivera asked on Fox & Friends: “Is this like weapons of mass destruction? Is this like President George W. Bush after Katrina?” Geraldo can say anything he wants on Faux News. The majority of Americans understand that Fox News is the Tea Party Republicans’ cable news channel. Fox News earned a pass for showing their true color. Fox also won the comedy news channel award for having the sense of humor to stamp their entire pile of anti-Obama programming with a “fair and balance” stamp. That is funny!

In his piece “Republican proposal permits people to keep current health plans even if they don’t meet standards established by new law,” the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza also took on the issue. He wrote,

“We are fortunate that, through the failures of the Obama administration, the GOP is in a better spot,” said Terry Nelson, a leading Republican strategist. “But we still have to answer the question that voters are asking, which is: What would we do? That’s our opportunity, and we have to seize it.”

On the other hand, in “Is Obama Already a Lame Duck?”Jonathan S. Tobin |of commentarymagazine wrote,

“It’s been a bad summer for the Obama administration. At home, the president’s negligible legislative agenda remains stalled as his incessant attempts to demonize Republicans have poisoned efforts to find common ground on even those areas where large elements of both parties might work together.”

“Abroad,” Tobin continued, “the administration’s embarrassing failures in Syria (where it has ignored the “red line” the president enunciated about chemical weapons), Egypt (where its embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood has been followed by a dangerous ambivalence as the military has launched an effort to decapitate the Islamist movement), Iran (where it has wasted five years on pointless diplomacy as the ayatollahs get closer to a nuclear weapon), and the Israel-Palestinian conflict (where it has invested heavily in a revived peace process that has little chance of success and may do more harm than good) have worsened his standing in the world as well as at home.”

This sums up the raison d’être of the 5 parts and 10 subparts of the Republican Party today. Their sole purpose is to seek the country’s failure by working to boycott the President’s agenda, while trying to de-humanize him using under-handed and despicable tactics unbecoming of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. And the media is too deep in the weeds to pull their tails away from this swamp. The most outrageous aspect of this is the way the toxic mix of the sub-groups within the dying Republican Party traitorously and actively works to undermine the President’s foreign policy to the detriment of the country. In the midst of a sensitive two-prong diplomatic negotiation with Iran after 35 years of hostility and Syria where President Obama has managed to initiate diplomacy to achieve the desired results without shedding American blood, Republicans are trying to pull the plug on the negotiations by demanding more sanctions and siding with hard-liner and known war mongering Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel. What makes this even more absurd is that those negotiations are barely a month old. These are healthcare.gov will be made operational. The healthcare law will work for all Americans once it reaches it maturity, as all programs need to. The President’s legacy will survive the onslaught intact. History will be very kind to this President, as he is one of the gentlest, most honest, genuine, and compassionate presidents this country has had in its near 400 years history. President Obama has achieved more in his first term alone than some presidents have accomplished in two, and he has more brain and class than the sum of the people who have mounted this all-out assault upon his administration, his person, and his dignity. Ultimately, this President will prevail and the voters who elected him will never forget or forgive those who have subjected him to this utterly unfair, disgusting, and unjust treatment.

I was hoping to be writing about highly ethical men I have had the privilege of meeting in law enforcement, in official positions, and in the justice system. I am anxious to write about two of the most exceptionally ethical men I have ever met anywhere in any professions:  Retired First Justice of the Lawrence District Court, Judge Thomas Brennan, and Vermont State Police Lieutenant of Internal Affairs, Lt. David Miller, also retired. I am also looking forward to writing about other policemen and public officials that every citizen should be proud about, such as Internal Affairs Lieutenant of the Cambridge Police Department, Chief Court Officer of the Lawrence District Court, Paul Mangon, Former North Andover Town Manager in the year 2008, and several North Andover Policemen. I have interacted with some of these men at various levels, in circumstances unrelated to my personal interests, but with ethical code of conduct and the proper administration of justice.I will write about these men and show how easy it is for men to do the right thing. What each of these men have done will also show why good police conduct – or the conduct of personnel in any organization – closely reflect the type of leadership that derives from the very top, such as an ethical police or fire chief,  ethical chief justices, or an ethical CEO or administrator.

Unfortunately, I have to write this follow-up article about Andover police and fire and rescue personnel, for having escalated their contemptible behavior. I did challenge Andover Police for an incident that happened on February 8, 2011. However, after my first post regarding what had transpired, I was sure that the matter had been put to rest, given my impression that the Haverhill, Massachusetts police department was yet the most corrupt police department that I was aware of.

(a) Are really stupid

(b) Are really mad for having being challenged and want revenge

(c) Have some sort of fascination with the person that I happen to be

(d) Are more corrupt than I thought (sure - with some exceptions)

(e) Need to understand me better

(f) Think that anyone who challenges them must be crazy, given how dangerous they can be, if they choose to be

I choose all of the above. Consequently, following the description of the event in question, I will spoon-feed the Andover police department some fresh new ideas. Andover Police can take solace in one thing: Once my mission here is done, I will be gone.

I could easily invoke racism, but I won’t. The reason is, where I am concerned, wrong is wrong whether or not it is triggered by immorality, a lack of conscious, corruption, prejudice, racism, bigotry, or plain hate. When police behave badly, they equally inflict injuries to the citizen whom they hurt and every other person in law enforcement everywhere. The net result is an enduring image of police as a glorified gang of people who will do anything and are not to be trusted. This cascading effect creates a negative atmosphere in communities, and is destructive to the fabric of the nation.

In one of my most recent posts entitled “Cops – The Half of the Rotten Basket of Apples – Andover, Massachusetts,” I discussed extensively the way Andover Police abused their power to violate my rights, and perpetuated abuses against me, when I challenged them over their handling of my domestic disturbance calls. Although I did not expect the police department to be happy with the article, I did go through great length to depict exactly what happened, and tried to be fair throughout my presentation. Before I wrote the article, it took me a year of trying to get the department to simply admit that they had done something wrong and apologize. At the end, they proved that they were not capable of admitting any mistakes. Although I preferred to believe that the department was above retaliation, I still anticipated that, given the chance, they might seek revenge. And it happened sooner than I could have possibly expected.

As I explained in the previous article, the fire and rescue department and the police department in Andover are housed in the same building. I was fully aware that they worked together. That would have been fine, except that what started this in the first place was the undue influence that the police had exercised upon the EMTs in the incident that prompted me to write the first article to begin with. Therefore, when I needed to go to the hospital last weekend, I called the fire and rescue department non-emergency number and told them this. Two policemen showed up. One of the officers, Officer Benjamin Ledwell was extremely pleasant and polite from beginning to end. On the other hand, the other office and I did not seem to understand each other at first, but at the end, everything was fine. They did not feel that I needed an ambulance, so they offered to call me a taxi. I could have done that myself, but I told them it was OK to call me a cab. I waited, and five hours later I started feeling really sick. I called the fire and rescue department back and told them that I was feeling faint. I suspect that they might have transferred the call to the police department, because whoever answered the call told me to call back if I still felt like that later. I knew how I felt, so I hang up and called 911 on my cell phone, knowing that the emergency call would be picked up by the State police. As soon as the State police transferred the call to Andover, an ambulance arrived within a minute.

I am very familiar with how ambulance transport works, from taking care of my mother with strokes, heart attacks, and congestive heart failure. I had developed a great deal of respect and appreciation for what emergency workers do, until I found out how they can become corrupted by police. Typically, there are two EMTs responding to a call. While one of the two would sit with the patient to take a medical history and check vital signs, the other would be in contact with the hospital to report what is going with the patient and take instructions from the hospital as to what to do. After all, paramedics are there to provide first aid, and in serious cases try to keep a patient alive until they can get to a hospital. This time, however, one of the men was very hostile from the start. The other man started using profanity while he was taking my information, because in the process he somehow became offended by something I said until I told him to calm down because he was misunderstanding what I was saying. All the while, I knew something was going on because I could hear the other man on the radio talking to the police station rather than the hospital. By the time I got to the hospital it was clear what they had done. They knew that they could not take me to the Holy Family Hospital, given what they had done the last time around, which started this conflict between me and the police in the first place. I also specifically requested that they take me to Lawrence General Hospital. I could not imagine that Andover Police would do the same thing twice, especially after my last post about the scheme they had pulled. But, there I was in the hospital, placed in this dark room with no phone and almost a bare wall, as I watched the two men at the nurses’ station telling some story. I could tell from watching them that they were making stuff up: They reported bringing me to the hospital for mental evaluation.

That was not going to sit well with me. So, I demanded to be transferred to a different room. The nurse was right down nasty and accused me in my face of being on drugs. I believe she was told this by the crooked Andover EMTs. I’m kind of getting used to being accused of being on drugs, as this must have been the thousandth time someone had accused me on being on drugs. At this point, I’m not even sure what that means. It could mean anything. There are so many kinds of drugs, I guess any one of those assumptions and accusations could fall anywhere in between. For examples, I've been accused of being on drugs for the way I speak slowly with an accent; for saying things people don’t understand, because when I speak, I use some pretty big words and engage in all kinds of complicated explanations, illustrations, preface, and footnotes, and I extrapolate. In addition, I suffer from such an extreme dry eye condition that I used to rub my eyes to the point where they’d be almost bloody red and I could barely open them. I've also had six eye surgeries so far and might need more. As a result, my vision is low and my eyes look all blurry, beat up, and unfocused. Because of these problems, I have been in many situations where people literally look at my eyes and treated me in all kinds of horrible ways based on prejudices and false assumptions. That’s not all. The problems with my eyes, combined with what follows have caused people to act negatively toward me, say derogatory things about me at earshot, and taken various adverse and injurious actions to hurt me intentionally and maliciously. 

Andover Police should give up their fool’s errand. I can’t take credit for the following, since I didn't design myself. It would have taken the average human being a couple of hundred years to do all that I've done. I can say that I seemed to have always been placed in various places at various times doing multiple things almost seamlessly [therein lie the matter of "ultimate realities" and the beauty of "knowing stuff"]. In the grand scheme of things, the fundamental  knowledge  of the inner-workings of "all things," which others might find mysterious or inexplicable, make everything else - including being misunderstood - seems insignificant and very pale in comparison. This  is similar to going through life carrying a crystal ball, which may not allow for the alteration of "ultimate realities - which are latent and absolute, this "knowing" does allow for conscious-competent participation 

in the creation of "realities," leading to "ultimate universal realities."  

The net sum of the following "samples" of bona fide is what I am made of:

1. Principles: I live by the codes of morality, ethics, and integrity. I have the patience of a saint, and am always willing to give others the benefit of the doubt, and treat all with respect. I am trusting, honest, kind and generous to a fault, and will go to any extent to help others, including perfect strangers. But I have strong convictions and zero tolerance for injustice and unfairness,and will fearlessly challenge anyone who engages in these behaviors toward me or toward someone else in my presence, regardless of who the perpetrator may be. In that sense, yes, I will “fight City Hall,” (meaning the power base). Millions of people have died fighting for justice and fairness. There are some things worth dying for. That is a part of perfection. One can be perfectly imperfect, imperfectly perfect, or even perfectly depraved on the continuing of perfection.

2. Family: I do come from a line of near geniuses and unusual people, Catholic and very conservative. My father was a school inspector who spent some of his time defending poor people Pro Bono in court, and could fix any kind of electronics. My uncle who would have been over 90 years old now built a special machine after 2 years in mechanical engineering, and then used the machine to build motorcycles from scrap and rebuild car engines when he was in his twenties. My half-brother graduated college and entered medical school at 16 years old.

3. Personal: Beginning in the first grade, I can remember how I would finish my classroom assignments within 5 or 10 minutes even though the teacher would give the class up to 30 minutes to complete an assignment – I drove my teachers crazy. At around 8 and 9 years old, I used to enjoy observing the other children play during recess more than I enjoyed playing. Visiting family friends, who to a 9 year old seemed old, would spend hours carrying on conversations with me and calling me “an old soul.” I had no idea what that meant then, and I sure don’t remember what those conversations were about. By the time I was a sophomore in high school, my algebra and geometry teacher handed me the chalk and sent me to the chalkboard just about every day to teach the class until he had to introduce a new chapter; he did that so I would not sit there bored. I graduated first of my class from 8th grade to graduate school, and first in the national assessment test. I can read a 300 page book and remember what page to go back to find a single sentence or a paragraph. I can compose a document of any length in my head before I sit down to write it.

4. Education: Bachelor of education - Minor in Psychology – Master’s in Linguistics – half-way through a Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology - Certified in Audio-Visual Technology & Videography. I possessed the first voicemail system, the first cell phone, the first personal computer that ever came on the commercial market. For example, I was in Saratoga, CA in the Apple computer headquarters training in their hardware and software prior to the launch of the company's first PC. It just so happened that Saratoga is located in the proximity of nearby San Jose where the Rosicrucian Museum (AMORC) is. Oh - how everything is inter-connected!

5. Career: Taught for many years, including pre-school – Grade school – High School – College and Graduate school on 2 continents; Worked on radio for 9 years starting at age 20 on 2 continents; Studied on three continents; Worked for Departments of Education on 2 continents; Ran a non-profit organization; Worked in health care; Owned a small business; Given speeches before groups of hundreds of people college students and professionals in various fields; Traveled the 3 Americas, Europe, and the U.S. from Coast to Coast.

6. Languages: I spoke Latin fluently before I lost it to practice and can still read it, and speak several other languages.

7. Meta-Knowledge: I have been a Meta-physician since I was 19 years old. The word Meta is a Greek prefix, which is used to indicate something that contains the properties to explain other things. The main works of Aristotle (Greek philosopher and student of Plato [384-322 B.C.]) were named Metaphysics: Books VII, VIII, and IX (by  (by Andronicus of Rhodes)because they followed Aristotle's books of physics and phylosophy - numbers I through VI. Other examples of of how the property of the prefix "Meta" is used before other words include Metadata, Metagalactic, Metalanguage, and Meta-analysis. The simplest definition is the Arabic one: “the science of the divine.” The Chinese definition of the word is very consistent with its ancient and modern interpretation from Europe to Asia. Metaphysics is concerned with the study of life through and beyond the intricacies of the relativity of time, spheres, and various planes. Metaphysics can more completely be defined as an all-encompassing science that uses branches of philosophy, ethics, physics, epistemology (the study of knowledge and justified belief [Plato-Sanford.edu]), and ontology, to explain the absolute fundamental nature of the being and the dynamics between the being and the world around it and ultimate realities (beyond - "all is well"). 

As a discipline, Metaphysics contains branches, such as Hatha Yoga (physical yoga), Mantra Yoga (mental exercise), and Transcendental Meditation, which integrate physiology and neuroscience in their practices. Mantra Yoga is used in transcendental mediation. To further illustrate, in the metaphysical world, the being (essence) which exists in its own right is substantive and markedly different from matter, which exists in forms (the physical). See Metaphysician Peter van Inwagen’s (1998a) attempt to define metaphysics as the science of “ultimate reality…” [Source].  Metaphysics is neither an occult nor an esoteric science. It is rather abstract and complex, and is not easily explained or understood, except by initiation and through studies. Rosicrucianity, on the other hand, is the study of ancient and guarded knowledge, and and the actual practice of breaching the physical spheres and ethereal planes. It is esoteric. Therefore, both meta-physicians and Rosicrucians live more for the ethereal than they do for the material. Both disciplines require life-long study. However, since we must all start somewhere, better late than never, in that eternity ["ultimate realities"] could last a long time.

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This week, we have seen headlines in various online and off-line publications such as the following: Greg Sargent: The Plum Line in The Washington Post, “Business groups aren’t too happy about Tea Party mania they helped unleash;” The New Times,“A Federal Budget Crisis Months in the Planning” by Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Mike McIntire; But it is this sentence appearing to defend multi-million dollar financing and the rise of the Tea Party in Slate that tells the real story, “It really was a groundswell,” [he said] that changed Washington from the outside in.” No, it was not a groundswell, and it was not a grassroots movement. And anyone with a half of a brain could tell from the beginning that rather than being a grassroots movement, the Tea Party was the Frankenstein’s monster created and highly organized by shadow billionaires who have always been behind the conservative movement to divert government resources away from the needs of the people and into their foreign bank accounts. Even a distracted observer could clearly see the coming together of those ill-motivated financiers with the ever-fading social conservatives who were losing the “family value war,” and the former abortion- clinic-bombing and gay-bashing evangelical Christians, also known as Religious conservatives who joined under the Tea Party Patriots umbrella, hoping to speed up their goal of banning abortion. These various factions formed the perfect toxic mix to house Federalists, survivalists, and various racist and hate groups. This was all very obvious from the beginning, following the election of President Obama. Like any good lawyer, every good journalist knows that the facts do not always amount to the truth. Repeating the facts like a parrot, or implicating both parties in wrongdoing, is not a substitute for investigating and reporting the truth. The media knew the whole time what the government really represents and the value of a well-functioning government to the well-being of the nation. They also knew what those groups implied when they talked about “big government,” or “entitlement.” Yet, members of the press and highly paid political hacks continuously echoed these slogans and buzz words. In reality, social security, Medicare, and Medicaid are not “entitlements.” Those are important social programs that were set up by a country on the march toward civilization; they were established to support people who were not, or would no longer be in positions to support themselves. People in the press also knew that those words were being used as epithets to demonize these programs, in lieu of saying as Tea Party Republican, U.S. Representative of Wisconsin and former vice presidential candidate, Paul Ryan, previously declared that social security was a Ponzi scheme.

For newspapers, network broadcasting, and 24-hour cable stations that were losing ground, readership, and viewership at record number to reality TV and the internet, this poisonous movement became a gold-mine. Good and solid investigative journalism and reporting was shelved to make way for three-ring circus. Serious shows competed for “fair and balance,” as if every story had three or four sides to it. The more venom anybody could spew the more often and likely they were called to be a guest on various TV programming, the bigger and more microphones they were afforded, and the more they were quoted in newspaper articles. Racist comments became just another person’s opinion. This trend fed onto itself, as fringe show hosts, such as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and the most outrageous right-wing fringe who had been in the business of fomenting conspiracy theory, and enticing hate, division, and disharmony, see their clips replayed on TV and their vicious diatribes quoted in newspaper unchallenged.

This disintegration of the national press was disheartening. But it was even more frightening to watch as the media followed headlong behind a group of people half of which was heading toward the open ocean, and the other half toward the abyss. To think that the job of a real press was to get ahead and in the middle of events in order to investigate and discover the truth, and to in turn inform the people, the American press and the media at large have betrayed the American people and let the America down. To their discredit, Fox News, which invented “fair and balance” was not fooling anyone, as even the lowest information voters, meaning any fool – except for the delusional,  could tell that Fox News is a branch of the Republican Party. However, it was more than a disappointment when CNN Candy Crowley in her State-of-the-Union, and every other Sunday show, including ABC with George Stephanopoulos, CBS with Bob Schieffer, jumped into the “fair and balance” game; “both parties do this;” “they’re all guilty of that.” Nothing life has two different truths to it. This is not a game. Everyone has the right to their own opinion, however idiotic, insidious, or malevolent, but no one has the right to their own made-up facts and distortion of the truth. David Gregory of NBC Meet the Press is the biggest offender and a true disappointment, having taken over for Tim Russert, a true journalist who would challenge untrue and dangerous statements made by any guests on his show. Russert, with his charming half mischievous smile, used to handle and confront misstatements made on his show in the most professional, ethical, and classy manner. By his conduct on the set, David Gregory disgraces Tim Russert’s legacy. Sandy Crowley who just started her new show on CNN has fallen into the “fair and balance” pits. Fair and balance has become the modus operandi for lazy and unethical journalists, and is used as a cover to schedule outrageous and destructive guests in an effort to boost ratings. Why not create controversy, entertain invective, and encourage conflicts and mayhem, if that can get more people to watch? Ted Cruz of Texas and Marc Lee of Utah want to take down the U.S. President at the risk of crashing the U.S. economy, please book them for our Sunday show. This is not just bad journalism; it is media malpractice and unpatriotic.   

                                 

Photos Speak for themselveshit_suveymonkey.com-ecanalogy.com - myfiveb.com

Ironically, you have to go to Chris Wallace and Shepard Smith on Fox Fake News, Comedy Central John Steward and Stephen Colbert, the late night comedians and Saturday Night Live, to get information dissected and presented in ways that are informative and present the truth. Fox News Shepard Smith gives straight news and does not typically entertain guests, but he does not engage in distorting the news or try to mislead his viewers. Surprisingly, Chris Wallace, also of Fox Fake News, occasionally taps into the ethics of journalism to challenge guests who come onto his shows to spread non-sense or propaganda. Perhaps, he cannot shed the great journalism ethics of his father, Mike Wallace. The fact is, any good journalist knows that propaganda has been the weapon of choice for mal-intended politicians from the beginning of time, and propaganda never precedes anything good or constructive. For anyone looking for intelligent analysis of the news, good journalism, and reporting on the truth, the only resources left are the MSNBC line up with hosts, such as Weekend’s Up with Steve Kornacki and Melissa Harris-Perry. During the day, one has to admire the wit, sharpness, and the promising future awaiting host, Alex Wagner at 12:00. Thomas Roberts at 11:00 is an excellent and outstanding journalist. Tamron Hall shows journalistic grit in the NewsNation at 2:00. Beginnig at 4:00 with Martin Bashir, a series of real news explosion, and unique views and analysis begin, which go from the Ed Show with Ed Shultz at 5:00, Politics Nation with the Reverend Al Sharpton of the Civil Right Group, the National Action Network ,at 6:00, Hardball with Chris Matthews at 7:00, Chis Hayes’ new show All In at 8:00, the absolutely brilliant Rachel Maddow in the Rachel Maddow show at 9:00, to the very cerebral Lawrence O’Donnell in the Last Word at 10:00. Therefore, for anyone looking to dive into the issues, and for those who enjoy intellectual and vigorous analytic exercise with the ability to consume and digest well dissected information and facts that is the place to be during those hours. Watching those shows is like sitting by a fireplace and having someone reading a book to you, while the story is being re-enacted and dramatized right before your eyes. For a good example of this type of exceptional  journalism—although these are considered to be opinion shows, watch Rachel Maddow on YouTube dealing with statements made on a previous show by Pat Buchanan about how 100 percent of everything in this country was built by 100 percent of White people. Not much can be said for self-professed conservatives Joe Scarborough gathers groups of individuals many of whom seem afraid to speak their mind or have not the courage or any conviction. Since CNN has fallen into disrepute with their fair and balance competition with Faux News on fox, Morning Joe remains the show to watch, with the hope that once in a while the cast of characters will include people like Washington Political Director Chuck Todd who seems to have figured out that good journalism is not about spreading blame evenly and that this country and its people depend on the media to protect their interests through the dissemination of reliable information rather than fiction, speculation, lies, and fantasies. 

This failing by the media is the reason why, while the press was feeding voters hot air during the 2012 presidential election campaign, and projecting how close and unpredictable the election was going to be, voters were actually getting their news from real sources on Comedy Central, Jay Leno, David Letterman,  Jimmy Fallon, Bill Maher, and the opinion shows. People in the media and journalism business can belong to, and sympathize with, whatever party they like, but they have no right to mislead the public, contribute to the demise or the destruction of the country, or be complicit in any venture to lead the American people into an abyss. Tea Party Republicans have been threatening to destroy the U.S. government for years. And it is curious that all of the groups that make up the Tea Party Patriots have some sort of Americana words attached to their name, Heritage Foundation, Heritage Action, Freedom Partners, Freedom Works, American Commitment, Club for Growth, Americans  for Prosperity, just to name a few. The names alone suggest that somehow people who do not belong to that circle are not a part of the American heritage. This was in plain display in the Republican presidential primary of 2012, with statements, such as Mitt Romney’s self-deportation and 47 percent of the people… are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims. … These are people who pay no income tax. … and so my job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.” Until then, the media had been applauding Mitt Romney for how well he could lie and deceive the voters; the media referred to Romney’s attempts to cheat and deceive as a “pivot.” It was only thanks to a hard-working caterer, Former President Carter’s grandson, and David Cone of Mother Jones that Americans finally got to know who Mitt Romney really was. Even then, some in the so-called mainstream media tried to call his 47 percent statement a “gaff,” when in fact it was the only time that Mitt Romney came across as his real self, on that tape.

Now that the country is on the verge of default, whether or not Congress comes up with some monkey solution, another prelude to the next crisis, at the last minute before midnight on October 17, all the shameful media has to say is oops! The media never made any effort to explain to the people that the government is them. They never informed the people that the government is the engine behind individual needs, individual liberty, business development, and economic prosperity, not to mention that the U.S. economy is tightly linked to the global economy. The media was around when the Tea Party bit on the President’s health care law like scavengers. The media was there when the President run on passing a health care law and got elected based on that platform, and the media was well aware that the President literally took a Republican heath care plan, and in doing so went against the will of the majority of his base. But when the Tea Party sank its teeth into the healthcare law and mounted a malignant campaign of disinformation against the law, what did David Gregory do? Did the New York Times study what was going and inform the public of what was really at stake? Who could be against providing health care to society? The media knew or should have known that the health care train wreck propaganda was just a proxy to fight the President, and attack the Federal government. The media also knew that the Federal government was the military, the families made up women and children who are being left behind in this corporations-are-people-too economy; the people who are being pushed off the ladder by millionaires racing to become billionaires.

We now have two blatant examples of how the media let the American people down. First, the media sat on the sideline cheer-leading, while President George W. Bush took the country to war in Iraq on false pretense, and approved the indefinite detention and torture of prisoners on foreign soil. Then the national press, not only sat on the sideline, but egged on a mixed groups of people who clearly were not who they claimed they were, and frankly represented a threat to this country in more ways than one. People in the media knew or should have that the role they decided to play in each of these instances would be destructive to the country they were supposed to be safeguarding, if they were doing their jobs as the independent press they were supposed to represent. The media failed the country and the people who count on them for transparency, truth, and information. Instead, the greater portion of the press engaged in playing games, discounting those Americans who can figure out events and information for themselves, and referring to the rest of the people as “low information” audiences. If given the truth, even the so-called “low-information” Americans would not choose to vote against their own best interests.

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The media knew that the government was veterans who fought for this country, are disabled, and depend on the government for their livelihood. The media knew that the government was frail elderly men and women, widows living near or below poverty who need the government to finish their days off the streets, under bridges, or in the cold. The media knew that the federal government was not just Washington DC, and that harming or shutting down the government would have repercussion from here to Afghanistan, to China and Russia, Iran, and Syria. This is where the focus of the media should have been: on the well-being of this country, and not on self-promoting politicians who will do and say anything, including the most outrageous statements in order to get press attention and self-promote some more. The media knew that the President has been comprising with the Republicans and continues to be opened to comprise. They media understand that the Republicans have in effect taken this country hostage and demanded ransom for doing their job to protect the fiscal stability of this country. The media know that the Republicans have been obstructing and trying to derail this Presidency, and therefore there mantra about compromise is a lie. All of this is wrong. The president has bent over backwards to accommodate those people no matter how unreasonable they are. He has invited them to dinner and got them all to the White House for talks. At this point, the President owes these people nothing; they should get zip, zero for putting the country through this hardship, and the President should not negotiate with terrorists foreign  or domestic. In addition, President Obama should resist further attempts by Tea Party Republicans to open the government piece by piece. This will lead to those people keeping certain parts of the government shut down permanently. After all, they are same people who promised to get rid of the department of education, and every single regulatory department, as if big businesses are not running wild enough. Crashes of the U.S. economy will necessary trigger a domino effect that will be felt in markets around the world. Now, that the United States is nearing default for the second time in two years, perhaps the national press, and the media in general, will soon shed their Tea Party glow, after they lose half of their pensions and wealth in the stock market. But that will be no consolations to the Americans who have already lost so much.

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The Tea Party has been running a high fever since the election of President Obama in 2008. The President and the American people have been more than forgiving and willing to leave behind the inventive and vicious name-calling. But their recent attempts in the past weeks to send the recovering U.S. economy into a tail spin by shutting down the government and threatening to default on the good faith and credit of the United States, after they have tried for the first four years to throw all sorts of money ranches to prevent growth, in order to derail the presidency of President Obama presidency, are unacceptable, and must be denounced and rejected. All of the tape recordings of these people vowing to make President Obama “a one-term president” as they stated time and time in public and on camera were no accidents.  They are both dumb and brazen. The one thing that is very curious about the toxic GOP and Tea Party mix is how indecent and uncivil they can be in their public behavior, for a party who seem so nostalgic about traditional values, religion, and morality. Apparently, the fever was too high, and having already reached the level of delirium, there was nothing anyone could possibly have done, and certainly not President Obama, to save that group of people against themselves. It would have been fine if those suicidal maniacs had limited their cannibalism to their ranks, but they have turned their jaws on the country, and they must be stopped.

The Republican Party, today, is broken beyond repair. The party has been poisoned when it joined in drinking the toxic tea that the rabid group of people who changed their names from religious fundamentalists and evangelical Christians to Tea Party mounted a hostile take-over of the GOP establishment. Unfortunately, the GOP had no choice; the party had been lying to the country for so long in lieu of any decent governing policy agenda, that its members turned to selling their souls to the devils in a their bids to return to the White House. This alliance is proving to be a fatal affiliation for moderate and reasonable statesmen in the Republican Party. The irony is that there was no secret in the fact that the so-called Tea Party was made of loosely tied factions of former abortion bombers, Southern Federalists, and anarchists with various agendas, including skinheads and racists. The goal of these parasites was to use the GOP as a host to allow that crowd to pursue more or less nefarious political agenda items, with the hope that they could never underestimate the stupidity of the electorate. Fortunately, while they were plotting, the American electorate grew younger, wiser, and more diverse. And when they failed to fool the people one more time in the past two elections, they literally lost the figment of a neuron that they had left, and went berserk.

After sucking the bloody life out of the GOP, Tea Party Bolsheviks have left Republicans on their knees, unable to drag themselves out the coral where they have been jammed.  Now, they are moving to impose their delusional agenda on the rest of the whole of the country, after the lying and dishonorable presidential candidate Mitt Romney acted so dishonorably, during the presidential elections and was soundly repudiated by the voters. With the complete anarchy this group is creating in the United States Congress, and the sustained damage they have been inflicting on this country, the time has come for all to recognize that this fever is not going to break. If anything, their frenzied delusion is degenerating into dangerousness. With the advent of radical Tea Party militants in the United States government, Republicanism is looking more and more like a mental illness. The threat to blow up the U.S. economy and with it the global economy, by various means, such as government shutdown and default, the individuals in the tribal groups are terrorizing the country to its core and right down to its psyche. The idea that there is anyone involved in this despicable tactics or responsible for the resulting damage is ludicrous. Even a blind person can tell who is holding this country hostage and who has been trying to crash the already ailing economy. There is one group and one group alone that is responsible for the chaos and any ensuing damage, and that is the Tea Party Congress in Washington and their Speaker in name only, John Boehner of Ohio. They have high-jacked the House of Representatives, refusing to allow important legislation to move forward by keeping Democrats from voting to pass bills. And their mass lying about the Senate not passing the poisoned bills they have sent to take food out of the mouths of children and medical care from the elderly is despicable. They are a threat to this country. 

There are politics and ideology, and there is complete anarchy and chaos. We have long left the territories of politics and ideology and are now drowning in chaos and anarchy. Tea Party members in the House of Representatives have complained this weekend that the President of the United States have taken calls from the President of Iran and is talking with Syria, but yet will not negotiate with them. Could it be that the Presidents of Syria and Iran are now acting more reasonably than they are. Why should President Obama keep reaching out again and again to people who continue to stiff him and wants nothing better than one more occasion to burn him? They have mistaken the President’s good nature and class for imbecility. President Obama should deny these fools of any more opportunity to burn him again. The Republicans have shown themselves to be so irresponsible and derelict that they are even discouraging uninsured people, including young adults, from signing up for the Affordable Health Care plans. However, they are also so idiotic as to not realize that throwing IEDs at the White House and the Senate will not, and cannot, stop the 3 and a half year old health care law. The problem is, several provisions of this law have already been implemented around the country, and many Americans are already benefiting from it, including small businesses, people with pre-existing conditions, and young adults.

Finally, the Tea Party clan claims that one of the reasons why the law shall be abolished or delayed is because the President has issued various waivers to businesses. If that is the case, the President of the United States should in fact be applauded for showing flexibility and sensitivity to the need of businesses, as well as a willingness to comprise and to be reasonable. The President said in a speech this week that the Republicans are afraid that the law will work and are trying desperately to stop the beginning of its implementation beginning on October 1st. This is true. The Affordable Health Care Act will be implemented and it will succeed. This may take time, as the roll-out of any new program requires time and adjustments. The people will prevail and the Tea Party extremists will sink to the depth where they belong. Last Sunday, NBC Meet the Press David Gregory scheduled to entertaining Tea Party Radical Senator Ted Cruz as his featured guest. The country does not need anyone handing more fuel to people who are threatening to burn down the US House of Representatives or crash the US and world economy.

The media must stop acting as an accomplice to this destructive force in the life of the country. After the press abdicated its duty to serve as an independent arbiter at the beginning of the Iraq war, and instead acted as cheerleaders for the administration of George W. Bush, the least they can do now is to refrain from encouraging the absurd behaviors of these disgraceful Tea Party members on Capitol Hill. They owe this to the American people. The way the media tried to suggest to Americans how close the elections were right through election night, and the manner in which they refer to Americans as “low information voters,” show how little respect they have for Americans. If people in the media cannot conduct themselves more conscientiously, than they should make sure to at least do nothing to contribute to hardship and suffering among Americans. A person with a catastrophic illness, which no one can plan for, can end up with hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills, and this is not something young people would think about until it happens to them. With businesses not hiring or hiring part-time workers, thousands if not millions of people are working as freelancers and needs health insurance that they would not be able to afford in the open insurance market. The press must begin to act responsibly and in the interest of the country and the American people, rather than catering to forsaken Tea Party arsonists for the sake of ratings.