The Republican primary has come down to a simple, titanic struggle between Mitt Romney and the conservative party base looking for someone, anyone, to be the anti-Romney. The GOP contest has become a shocking race to the right, a battle to see how many times Romney can flip and flop on important issues to please the Tea Party, and how many social conservatives flock to the tone deaf messaging of Rick Santorum. Americans are getting a real eyeful of the GOP, and they are utterly disgusted by what they see. http://www.sunstateactivist.org

I can't imagine voting for any of the GOP candidates over Obama. But Santorum is literally the last candidate I would vote for of the remaining field.

That said, it's refreshing to see his campaign do well. Not because of his ideology, but because it's a triumph of ideology over money in politics. I may not agree with what Santorum stands for, but he stands for something. And to see someone do well based on that gives me hope that there can be debate in our political system.

Santorum gives me nothing but really bad gas. He stands for all that I oppose and which our electorate has struggled against for so very long. He stands for prejudice, racism, sexism, ageism, self-absorbed self-righteous stupidity. I'm ashamed to share the same country with him.

Having seen the polls that seem to show a majority of Ameericans, especially women, support health insurance covering birth control for everyone, I find it hard to see how they could vote for a man who thinks states should be allowed to ban birth control. He and his fellow Christianists (yes, like Islamists) preach freedom of religion while attempting to force their religious beliefs on the whole country, like it or not.

Having seen polls about the birth control rules seeming to say a majority of Americans favor easy access to birth control, I find it hard to believe those same people would vote for someone who believes that 1. states should be allowed to ban birth control and 2. that there is no Constitutional right to privacy.

I find it hard to believe that the same people who polls seem to show favoring easy access to birth control will vote for a guy who things states should be allowed to ban it.

Although I am an atheist, I PRAY for a Santorum nomination! Not only will this ensure an Obama second term, but will also kick start the Feminist Movement.

Re the voter rolls inaccuracies thing:

A decade ago, a friend of mine had some sort of secretarial position in the local Green Party. As part of that, he got the list of registered Greens in the county. (Dutchess, NY)

I forget all the particular data the list included, but there were names, addresses and whether they had voted in each of the last ten or so elections.

And even in this list of a few dozen names, there were at least two instances of people being registered both at an old address and a current one. In these cases, you could see them voting at the old address up until a date, and then the record for the new address would have them voting after that date.

So nobody here was voting twice in any election, but the old duplicate records remained.

Voter registration rolls have been in disarray since they were created. I remember my dad complaining about them in the 1950's, I remember the dozens of dead of folks still on the rolls years after they died when I was working in the 1968 Kennedy campaign, the same in every election I worked since. Until there is actual coordination among public data bases, and an annual audit of them, this kind of thing is going to continue. I have always found it amazing that the foundation of democratic governance, the vote, is vulnerable to being stolen, restricted, miscounted, not counted, denied, and yet we don't seem to be all that upset about our elections being so dysfunctional. Wonder what that says about our society?

No sharia law in SC? Another boogey man? Of course Christian laws and biblical mandates would be fine.

Paranoia his hit the right hard!

Holy crap, truth is awesome!

I knew Kentucky for what she really was. Kentucky was, and still is, a whore. For sale to any who has her price, and her price has always been low. Well within the reach of all who could meet the demands of her pimps, and my little hometown of Inez was and still is the lowest of the low.

Kentucky's pimps have always been the police (state and local), the sheriffs (who change in name and face only), and the judges who sat, and still sit, on her money-padded benches. Benches plush and overstuffed from deals made behind closed doors, handshakes in chambers, election favors, and the blood of the innocents.

Kentucky's largest customers have always been the coal companies that dominated the region in the east. They used and discarded the land and the people, and their sign was the dollar sign. Their heaven is a large beach house in some faraway place, paid for with blood money, dope money, and favors given them by their bought and paid for judges and politicians.

You may like this book, you may hate this book. However, if you read it I can promise you one thing. You will never look at a police officer of any type, or a judge, or any other elected official in the same light again.

If you are a person who can't stand to hear bad things about your government (yours, not mine), stop reading now. If you're one of those who turns a blind eye and a deaf ear to the "real" world around them, then please, put this book down now. You will not like what you read.

O'Finioan, Duncan; Kelley, Miranda (2011-12-25). Innocence Turned Deadly (Kindle Locations 185-192). Grey Wanderer Publishing. Kindle Edition.

http://www.amazon.com/Innocence-Turned-Deadly-Robert-OFinioan/dp/0615582346/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329237008&sr=1-1

Holy crap, knowledge protects!

The only defense needed is knowledge. Knowledge defends you against every possible form of harm in existence. The more knowledge you have, the less fear you have, the less pain you have, the less stress you feel, the less anguish you feel, and the less danger you experience of any form or sort.

You can have glimpses of illumination and illumination comes from knowledge. If you strive perpetually to gain and gather knowledge, you provide yourself with protection from every possible negative occurrence that could ever happen. Do you know why this is? The more knowledge you have, the more awareness you have as to how to protect yourself. Eventually this awareness becomes so powerful and so all encompassing that you do not even have to perform tasks or rituals, if you prefer, to protect yourself. The protection simply comes naturally with the awareness.

And also, when you keep invoking the light, as you do, truly understand that the light is knowledge. That is the knowledge which is at the core of all existence. And being at the core of all existence it provides protection from every form of negativity in existence. Light is everything and everything is knowledge and knowledge is everything.

Knight-Jadczyk, Laura (2011-02-14). High Strangeness: Hyperdimensions and the Process of Alien Abduction (Kindle Locations 8627-8629). Red Pill Press. Kindle Edition.

And we all know how much religion loves to replace knowledge with ritual, now, don't we? And the dumbing down of America over the last couple of decades? Attempts to restrict govt. funding of higher education, making it so a select few can obtain a degree? Why do you think this is? And why all this religious GOP platform absolute nonsense shoved down your throats? Gee, dunno ... a diversion to keep you from seeing the real truth of what these c*ckf*ckers are doing to you, thus keeping you from gaining knowledge?

When will you and your team touch this critical issue? You have Richard Engel on your program all of the time. Why not have him on to discuss the issue he reported about. Link below.

Mark Perry..

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/01/13/false_flag

False Flag

A series of CIA memos describes how Israeli Mossad agents posed as American spies to recruit members of the terrorist organization Jundallah to fight their covert war against Iran.

BY MARK PERRY | JANUARY 13, 2012

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/02/israel-and-proxy-terrorism/252971/
Israel and Proxy Terrorism
By Robert Wright

Buried deep in the archives of America's intelligence services are a series of memos, written during the last years of President George W. Bush's administration, that describe how Israeli Mossad officers recruited operatives belonging to the terrorist group Jundallah by passing themselves off as American agents. According to two U.S. intelligence officials, the Israelis, flush with American dollars and toting U.S. passports, posed as CIA officers in recruiting Jundallah operatives -- what is commonly referred to as a "false flag" operation

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http://rockcenter.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/09/10354553-israel-teams-with-terror-group-to-kill-irans-nuclear-scientists-us-officials-tell-nbc-news?pc=25&sp=850

Israel teams with terror group to kill Iran's nuclear scientists, U.S. officials tell NBC News

http://rockcenter.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/09/10354553-israel-teams-with-terror-group-to-kill-irans-nuclear-scientists-us-officials-tell-nbc-news?pc=25&sp=850

Thu Feb 9, 2012 5:16 AM CST

By Richard Engel and Robert Windrem
NBC News

Updated: 11:14 a.m. ET -- Deadly attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists are being carried out by an Iranian dissident group that is financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service, U.S. officials tell NBC News, confirming charges leveled by Iran’s leaders.

ROCK CENTER EXCLUSIVE

The group, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, has long been designated as a terrorist group by the United States, accused of killing American servicemen and contractors in the 1970s and supporting the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran before breaking with the Iranian mullahs in 1980.

The attacks, which have killed five Iranian nuclear scientists since 2007 and may have destroyed a missile research and development site, have been carried out in dramatic fashion, with motorcycle-borne assailants often attaching small magnetic bombs to the exterior of the victims’ cars.

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Obama administration is aware of the assassination campaign but has no direct involvement.

The Iranians have no doubt who is responsible – Israel and the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, known by various acronyms, including MEK, MKO and PMI.

Feb 13 2012, 8:43 AM ET 83

Should Israel be classified as a state sponsor of terrorism? That question is being debated in the wake of a story that NBC News broke late last week.

Citing unnamed US officials, NBC reported that Israel has used an Iranian opposition group to carry out those much-publicized assassinations of Iranian scientists. The group in question is the M.E.K. (Mojahedin-e Khalq, or People’s Mujahedin of Iran), which since 1997 has been designated a terrorist group by the United States because of its alleged assassinations of US citizens.

The argument for considering Israel a supporter of terrorism comes in two varieties:

1) According to NBC, Israel gives the M.E.K. the funding, training, and weapons to carry out the assassinations–and that would seem to constitute support for a terrorist group.

2) Leaving aside the M.E.K. involvement, there’s the argument that the assassinations inherently constitute terrorism. Andrew Sullivan and Kevin Drum had previously suggested that whoever is behind the assassinations is committing terrorism, but this NBC story is the first mainstream media corroboration of the widespread suspicion that Israel is behind them.

After the NBC story broke, Paul Pillar, a former CIA official who teaches at Georgetown, dusted off the definition of terrorism used by the US government for purposes of keeping statistics: “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.” That, says Pillar, is what these assassinations are.

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Israel, MEK and state sponsor of Terror groups

The link
http://www.salon.com/writer/glenn_greenwald/

“One of the most under-reported political stories of the last year is the devoted advocacy of numerous prominent American political figures on behalf of an Iranian group long formally designated as a Terrorist organization under U.S. law. A large bipartisan cast has received substantial fees from that group, the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), and has then become their passionate defenders. The group of MEK shills includes former top Bush officials and other Republicans (Michael Mukasey, Fran Townsend, Andy Card, Tom Ridge, Rudy Giuliani) as well as prominent Democrats (Howard Dean, Ed Rendell, Bill Richardson, Wesley Clark). As The Christian Science Monitor reported last August, those individuals “have been paid tens of thousands of dollars to speak in support of the MEK.” No matter what one thinks of this group – here is a summary of its activities – it is formally designated as a Terrorist group and it is thus a felony under U.S. law to provide it with any “material support.”

No need to wonder why so many of our congress folks,Dean and others were pushing several months to get MEK off of the US terrorist list. Wonder why Greenwald refers to MEK as being “formally designated” as a terrorist group?

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http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/02/israel-and-proxy-terrorism/252971/

Israel and Proxy Terrorism

By Robert Wright

Feb 13 2012, 8:43 AM ET171

Should Israel be classified as a state sponsor of terrorism? That question is being debated in the wake of a story that NBC News broke late last week.

Citing unnamed US officials, NBC reported that Israel has used an Iranian opposition group to carry out those much-publicized assassinations of Iranian scientists. The group in question is the M.E.K. (Mojahedin-e Khalq, or People's Mujahedin of Iran), which since 1997 has been designated a terrorist group by the United States because of its alleged assassinations of US citizens.

The argument for considering Israel a supporter of terrorism comes in two varieties:

1) According to NBC, Israel gives the M.E.K. the funding, training, and weapons to carry out the assassinations--and that would seem to constitute support for a terrorist group.

2) Leaving aside the M.E.K. involvement, there's the argument that the assassinations inherently constitute terrorism. Andrew Sullivan and Kevin Drum had previously suggested that whoever is behind the assassinations is committing terrorism, but this NBC story is the first mainstream media corroboration of the widespread suspicion that Israel is behind them.

After the NBC story broke, Paul Pillar, a former CIA official who teaches at Georgetown, dusted off the definition of terrorism used by the US government for purposes of keeping statistics: "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents." That, says Pillar, is what these assassinations are.

The counter-arguments have tended not to be big on legalisms. There is the "Look who's talking" argument. "Isn't Iran itself the leading exporter of terrorism in the world?" asks The New York Post. And there's the argument that Iran is an existential threat to Israel and therefore all is fair. "Israel is entirely justified in using whatever means it has to prevent Khameini's government from achieving its genocidal ends," writes Jonathan Tobin in Commentary.

Daniel Larison, writing in The American Conservative, was aghast at Tobin's argument: "In other words, Israeli state sponsorship of a terrorist group is acceptable because it's in a good cause."

This whole issue is in one sense moot. Adding a country to the list of states that sponsor terrorism requires executive branch initiative. And unless I'm misreading the political winds, placing Israel alongside Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism isn't high on President Obama's list of election-year priorities.What's more, strict and consistent enforcement of America's anti-terrorism laws could raise uncomfortable questions about some of America's drone strikes.

Still, there may be some consequential fallout.

There has been a movement afoot to "de-list" the M.E.K.--to remove it from America's list of terrorist groups on the grounds that it has renounced violence and, anyway, hasn't killed an American in a long time. This argument gets made mainly by Americans who support bombing Iran or even engineering regime change--a project the M.E.K. would love to abet. (A few other high-profile Americans have signed on to the de-list-the-M.E.K. cause, but as The Christian Science Monitor reported, they have shown a tendency to get paid tens of thousands of dollars for the speeches in which they express their newfound yet heartfelt sympathy for the M.E.K.)

As Glenn Greenwald wrote in Salon, the NBC report should, if nothing else, "completely gut the effort to remove the M.E.K. from the list of designated terrorist groups; after all, murdering Iran's scientists through the use of bombs and guns is a defining act of a terror group, at least as U.S. law attempts to define the term."

The story on the cashmobs is "awesome". What is not so awesome is the fact that this tactic has to be used. People should be going to the Mom and Pops on their own year round and not have a social media "hint" to make them go. Whenever I go on road trips I always take the secondary roads and make it a point to eat and shop in the small town diners and stores I pass on the way. You tend to get better service and much better food than the fast food joints with the 200 foot tall signs near the highway exits. And invariably we end up talking to the owner or waitress of the establishment about topics near and far.

Glenn Greenwald has a great one up
http://www.salon.com/writer/glenn_greenwald/

U.S. media takes the lead on Iran
“I used to find somewhat baffling this bizarre aspect of American public opinion: time and again, Americans support whatever new war of aggression their government proposes, then come to regret that support and decide the war was a “mistake,” only to demonstrate that they learned no lessons from their “mistake” by eagerly supporting whatever the next proposed war is. Thus did the widespread belief that Vietnam was a “mistake” have no impact on their support for the attack on Iraq, and now — with some polls showing Americans, before their government even proposes it, preliminarily willing to cheer on an attack on Iran — it is clear they have learned nothing from their acknowledged “mistake” in supporting the attack on Iraq. Most Americans continue with this strange mindset: we realize we were wrong to support those past wars you gave us, but we stand ready and eager to support this next one!”

Call your Reps…No war on Iran…

Private Prison Corporation Offers Cash In Exchange For State Prisons

The Huffington Post reports that the for-profit prisons giant sent letters to 48 states offering to buy up their prisons in exchange for a 20-year management contract and the guarantee that the facilities would be at least 90 percent full.

How disgustingly offensive is this? followed by:

The Pentagon and Slave Labor in U.S. Prisons

Prison labor — with no union protection, overtime pay, vacation days, pensions, benefits, health and safety protection, or Social Security withholding — also makes complex components for McDonnell Douglas/Boeing’s F-15 fighter aircraft, the General Dynamics/Lockheed Martin F-16, and Bell/Textron’s Cobra helicopter. Prison labor produces night-vision goggles, body armor, camouflage uniforms, radio and communication devices, and lighting systems and components for 30-mm to 300-mm battleship anti-aircraft guns, along with land mine sweepers and electro-optical equipment for the BAE Systems Bradley Fighting Vehicle’s laser rangefinder. Prisoners recycle toxic electronic equipment and overhaul military vehicles.

Labor in federal prisons is contracted out by UNICOR, previously known as Federal Prison Industries, a quasi-public, for-profit corporation run by the Bureau of Prisons. In 14 prison factories, more than 3,000 prisoners manufacture electronic equipment for land, sea and airborne communication. UNICOR is now the U.S. government’s 39th largest contractor, with 110 factories at 79 federal penitentiaries.

The majority of UNICOR’s products and services are on contract to orders from the Department of Defense. Giant multinational corporations purchase parts assembled at some of the lowest labor rates in the world, then resell the finished weapons components at the highest rates of profit. For example, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Corporation subcontract components, then assemble and sell advanced weapons systems to the Pentagon.

I live in a small suburb and our little 'main street' hung signs up to 'put your money where your home is' and it sounds inane, but actually, I do drive back into my suburb to shop within the city limits. They may as well get the business as one of the other suburbs of Phoenix. it really is a different way of viewing your local businesses.