Senator Booker is moving foward with his ambitious agenda.

US Senator Thad Cochran is on the Senate Floor with Senator Booker to recall past injustices of African Americans. He states today African Americans are important to most walks of life and contribute to the country to make it greater than it ever has been.

Senate Resolution 84 "Celebrating Black History Month."

Other cosponsors include (click here): Sens. Kelly Ayotte R-N.H., Richard Burr R-N.C., Ben Cardin D-Md., Chris Coons D-Del., Richard Durbin D-Ill., Dianne Feinstein D-Calif., Johnny Isakson R-Ga., Jeff Merkley D-Ore., Lisa Murkowski R-Alaska, Chris Murphy D-Conn., Patty Murray D-Wash., Rand Paul R-Ky., Rob Portman R-Ohio, Debbie Stabenow D-Mich., and Thom Tillis R-N.C.

February 25, 2015
 

Washington, DC – U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., (click here) released the following statement after traveling to the White House this afternoon to participate in a bipartisan meeting on criminal justice reform efforts with Members of Congress, the President, and the Vice President:

“This afternoon, I met with President Obama, Vice President Biden, and several members of Congress to discuss the urgent need to reform our broken criminal justice system. I was encouraged to hear the President call for significant criminal justice reform legislation in our meeting. There is growing momentum from both the left and the right for enacting common sense reforms that would save taxpayer money and make our communities safer, and I am encouraged that President Obama brought together a bipartisan group of leaders to discuss this important cause."
“If we are truly going to fix our broken criminal justice system, end the over-incarceration of people who commit non-violent offenses, and bring justice back to our justice system, we must be bold and enact comprehensive reforms that address all aspects of this problem. I’m optimistic about the prospects of reform in the weeks and months ahead.”

President Obama said a great deal about Executive Orders vs Legislation, but...

...it was to make clearer the fact no matter what occurs in his office it is best to get legislation passed to make all his directives permanent.  President Obama's words aren't going to wash in court either. The law is the law. Nice try though, eloquent or not.

He stated, "Constitutionally I cannot change the law on my own." 

Correct. But, that doesn't mean he can't write an Executive Order for deferred action. 

What it does mean is that Congress needs to get off their duffs and pass immigration reform before the Executive Order expires. 

The President then went on to say, "I just changed the law." Amazing, an Executive Order will do that. 

The Republicans are cherry picking statements to serve their own purpose. Evidently, they haven't bothered to listen to his statements yesterday evening where it stated the same thing. The Executive Order changes the law now, but, it takes Congress to write legislation to permanently change the law.

Oil is in a death spiral.

February 26, 2015

By Reuters

 

Ample global supply (click here) and increasing U.S. commercial inventories weighed on U.S. crude prices on Thursday after expectations for better demand going forward lifted prices a day earlier, traders and analysts said.
U.S. crude settled 5.5 percent lower, or $2.82, at $48.17 a barrel, following a more than 3 percent gain in the previous session.
Brent losses were tempered by expectations for improving global demand and geopolitical concerns about energy supplies from Libya and Russia.
Benchmark Brent crude fell $1.60 to $60 a barrel, after hitting a session peak of $62.63. On Wednesday, Brent surged 5 percent....

There was speculation with the first drop in oil prices that in order to keep their heads above water, struggling oil suppliers would sell more and more in order to remain in business. Well, here it is. When oil is suppose to be rebounding because the major suppliers, such as ExxonMobile, have cut back production, the glut persists coming from the USA. 

Eventually, these marginal suppliers will be unable to stay viable, so this is all a money grab by management before they are able to sustain their operations. 

There is Ad Hoc rule making in the US House to pass illegitimate legislation.

The problem is abortion among those under 18 and can find counseling for high risk young people in their schools. The rule with self executing abortion language removes any presentation of alternatives, even adoption from any student.

Having a rule in the government at any level that REMOVES LANGUAGE is unconstitutional. 

This rule would covetly work within legislation to remove language AFTER THE FACT when it is passed. So, Congresspersons would be reading a bill and voting on it without knowing what it would say after it was passed. 

The House Rule undercuts the US Constitution and places any and all legislative processes are compromised. I told ya, this is a bloodless coup. It can't be denied now. The was entered at the last minute to the rules committee and passed without debate.

The word abortion currently attached to the House Rule simply sets a precedent for expansion of that scope. 

The rule also crosses all boundaries of federal government. It is carried from the House to the Senate into the Executive Branch.

It is a coup. I'm convinced with this.

Let's get a few thing straight about mental health.

- Twenty percent of the adults age 0-64 in Texas are in poverty. 

- Twenty-four percent of all Texans are uninsured.

When a high school teacher says anyone is a killer and their was nothing wrong with their mind, that is not expert opinion.

It is difficult to be an adult with an undiagnosed mental health problem, but, they persist anyway because they have a life to live.

It is not unusual for young adults who have undiagnosed mental health problems to enter the military. They are usually found out there and placed on disability.

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) (click here) is the most common co-occurring disorder in people with schizophrenia. Both biological factors and psychosocial factors are thought to contribute to this co-occurrence. Schizophrenia patients with AUD are more likely to have social, legal, and
medical problems, compared with other people with schizophrenia. AUD also complicates the course and treatment of schizophrenia. 

By Robert E. Drake, Ph.D., and Kim T. Mueser, Ph.D. 

It is NOT unusual for an undiagnosed adult with schizophrenia to SELF - MEDICATE with alcohol, drugs or both and develop a dependency that sustains past diagnosis.

When the media has no idea of what they are talking about they provide misinformation to the public.

All of this should have come out in the Texas murder trial whereby one soldier killed two others for no apparent reason, but, it didn't and it speaks to the lack of a complete defense of the Defendant. 

Schizophrenics are not allowed to own or operate a gun in the USA. That is by law. I suppose background checks weren't done before entering the firing range, huh? 

It is a mistake to republish Hitler's words.

Europe has a sincere problem with right wing groups. I realize this is based in freedom of speech, but, there is a limit. There are published editions of these text, however, this is flying in the face of civilization. Publishing a text that is already available is symbolic. It is not necessary. It reaches as a symbol extends to every right wing hate group on the planet, including the KKK in the USA. No one needs such an event.

There will be a great deal of propaganda surrounding such an event. One of the propaganda statements about Ukraine the current government proves a rise of a right wing extremists. The simple act of publishing a text such as this when there is no need for it, carries with it real life implications hate groups will use as elevation of their ideology. 

On the other hand if governments maintain their position stating this is hate speech and intended to cause harm to others it will prove these groups have no standing. 

The text caused a war. A global war. I think hate speech such as Hitler's words needs to be contained. 

I want to know how US Representative Steve Scalise feels about the publication of this words. Is it Freedom of Speech or hate speech that should be suppressed?

February 24,2015
By Anthony Faiola
MUNICH — Old copies of the offending tome (click here) are kept in a secure “poison cabinet,” a literary danger zone in the dark recesses of the vast Bavarian State Library. A team of experts vets every request to see one, keeping the toxic text away from the prying eyes of the idly curious or those who might seek to exalt it.
“This book is too dangerous for the general public,” library historian Florian Sepp warned as he carefully laid a first edition of “Mein Kampf” — Adolf Hitler’s autobiographical manifesto of hate — on a table in a restricted reading room.
Nevertheless, the book that once served as a kind of Nazi bible, banned from domestic reprints since the end of World War II, will soon be returning to German bookstores from the Alps to the Baltic Sea....

Reagan's amnest policy was realistic and expedient.

The Amnesty Policy of Ronald Reagan regarding the Undocumented did not fail. What failed were the border problems AND employers that hired and paid the Undocumented. That needs to be clear.

The USA has limited resources unless the people want a 50% income tax. Those resources have to be applied across all aspects of governance. When the Undocumented under Reagan were provided amnesty, it relieved the resources being taped to enforce deportations. 

There is a profound problem with the USA immigration policy as it stands today. It is necessary to tackle all the problems including any border issues. The USA borders will never be 100% patrolled and maintained in it's integrity. It is not realistic and still have a country based in freedom. The burden to any docks of the USA if such a paradigm existed would shut down a significant piece of the USA economy, not to mention the global economy.

The immigration system of the USA is causing it's own problems. There are not enough court rooms to process all the legal documents currently in the system. While the immigrants wait for their hearings they loss their status as LEGALLY within the country and therefore become Undocumented.  

The more than 11 million Undocumented INCLUDES those that legally entered the USA and entered the immigration process. It's gotten to be ridiculous. The entire immigration system of the USA is over burdened with it's current infrastructure. The entire system is hideous. This is the USA and we don't even have control of the legal system that processes legal immigrants.

I think the question among the immigrants in the USA is, "When we enter the status of Undocumented do we go to the end of the line or keep the one we have now?" Maybe the Republicans can answer that question first. 

When realizing how completely perverted the immigration system has become since Reagan it is increasingly obvious the political right wing of the USA simply hate immigrants, legal or otherwise.

Wall Street and Small Businesses have a lot on the line with this mess. They need to act and demand movement on Immigration Reform. A simple letter stating free standing immigration reform needs to be addressed now for the sake of the employees bringing viability to their company.

Rick Snyder wants to bring million/billionaires to Michigan in some kind of obscure economic reform, but, it doesn't matter. It is all lip service because the immigration process is stalled. How is a person considering the possibility of investing in the Michigan economy as an immigrant going to actually receive that goal? They won't. The 'offer' by Snyder is mute. It is an empty promise. The immigration system is broken. Congress needs to be reminded a free standing immigration reform is absolutely necessary.

Is Great Britain's Muslim population an aggreived class. This was not a poor family, yet the culture spawned a radical.

Could some of the sympathy in the Muslim community in Great Britain be caused by coercion from Syria? Regardless of the lack of affiliation to Daesh, these former citizens, such as Mohammed Emwazi, know others within the sovereign borders. I hope if any Brit receiving threats from Syria or otherwise report their problems to the authorities. I am confident it can be done anonymously.

February 26, 2015
By Souad Merhennet and Adam Goldman

...US officials declined (click here) to comment for this report. Emwazi's family declined a request for an interview, citing legal advice.
The Kuwaiti-born Emwazi, in his mid-20s, appears to have left little trail on social media or elsewhere online. Those who knew him say he was polite and had a penchant for wearing stylish clothes while adhering to the tenets of his Islamic faith. He had a beard and was mindful of making eye contact with women, friends said.
He was raised in a middle-class neighbourhood in London and on occasion prayed at a mosque in Greenwich....

He was challenged as a devout Muslim in Great Britain which is obvious in the immediacy of his trip to Tanzania after his graduation from the university. There is something within the culture of Muslims in Great Britain creating discomfort within the identity of their young men. Are there extremists at the university?

I understand how a university has to function, but, there are limits. Treason is not a curriculum.

How many Muslims are in office in Great Britain?

18 June 2014

By Martin Robinson
Britain's first elected Muslim mayor (click here) could face a High Court battle after he was accused of electoral fraud and calling his main rival a racist to sabotage his chances.

Documents challenging the result of last month's election in Tower Hamlets, east London, also claim Lutfur Rahman paid supporters to gather inside and outside polling stations to influence voters.

His Labour opponent John Biggs was also illegally smeared during last month's campaign, the election petition argues....

There needs to be minority inclusion in the country's parties with sincere victories. Are the fears of Islam so deep in Great Britain it permeates the lives of their citizens? If so, why?

There are social problems in the USA with right wing extremists and the USA's minorities and Muslim populations, but, President Obama and other elected Muslim officials speak out about the importance of our populations and the strides they have made in our country.

 

Not because of a job action, but, because of costs associated with work.

I am not convinced 20 to 30 thousand essential DHS workers will show up for work without a pay check. They have transportation costs and meal costs. Heck they have to buy detergent to wash their uniforms. It is that they are required to work regardless of funding, but, the possibility they won't have money for travel and childcare is very real.

February 24, 2015
By Esther Yu-Hsi Lee

The Department of Homeland Security (click here) (DHS) is due to “shut down” at midnight on Friday if Congress doesn’t find a way to pass a bill to fund the agency. But for the vast majority of the 243,000 agency workers deemed essential on the job, a “shutdown” would mean that they would have to continue to go back to work without paychecks. 

At least 50,000 of the more than 55,600 Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workforce, like airport passenger and baggage screener personnel, would be required to work without pay. Some TSA personnel are afraid that they might face the same financial and morale issues that they ran into during the October 2013 shutdown in which many federal employees went to work without pay, only to eventually receive their paychecks at a later date....

The TSA will have problems because of workers that are without enough monies to pay their work expenses. The airline industry will be out of luck because passengers aren't screened and/or flights have to be consolidated. This was the worst idea the Republican Congress ever came up with.

The concern about the President's Executive Order is in the courts, the Congress needs to move on. The President is appealing the activist decision in Texas. Appeals are real and state there are issues that are uncertain. The status quo is maintained in any case where there is an appeal. The Congress is taking the country hostage again and they don't believe in judicial order to fund DHS.

The President has already acted prudently while appealing the ruling. He has delayed the process of his Executive Order because of the Texas ruling. There is nothing standing in the way of funding DHS. If the President was insisting on the Order going forward there would be a legal debate, but, that is not the case. The Congress has no legal issue before them. This is all Republican politics and nothing short of it.

The average employee (click here) at United States Transportation Security Administration (TSA) takes home $45K per year....

Theses folks aren't going to have a lot of financial residual to their needs and they will be forced to make choices.

The Department of Homeland Security if vast and the impact could ultimately cause an economic slowdown from an economy not completely recovered.