President Clinton speaks to "Clinton Democrats."

July 15, 2015
By Greg Adomaistis

..."President Clinton (click here) comes to the NAACP's 106th annual convention as not merely a humanitarian or a former president but as a friend," NAACP President and CEO Cornell Brooks said in a statement. "Whether advancing civil rights nationally or combating human rights challenges globally, President Clinton has demonstrated the values of the NAACP over an arc of public service that is both long and wide."...

President Clinton is still dearly loved in the Democratic Party. It is important he address issues of the day when he believes Democrats may be confused by evolution over a decade or two. 

This is not the first time he has spoken about how laws he signed were wrong. He stated the same about "Don't ask, Don't tell" and the "Defense of Marriage Act." 

The country has evolved over time and there are better understandings of issues then before. There are also Democrats that consider themselves "Clinton Democrats." They hold loyalty to President Clinton. 

He also wants to clarify the understanding he was wrong to Republicans. They will seek to further their position by confusing a Democratic candidate's statements with past law of a Democratic president. Former President Clinton has no problem setting the record straight and the Democratic Party has no problem in him stating his new position.

Issues evolve over time. He states "Three Strikes and Your In" was the wrong law. He sees the position of President Obama, examines the facts and realizes the law didn't produce the best outcomes he had hoped for when he signed it. 

It's all good.

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders met in the US Senate recently. Why not Cruz and Trump?

I think Ted Cruz wants to get into a solid political issue that will sustain through the presidential elections. The Immigration Reform debate is taking shape and I think both the Republicans and Democrats should be happy Donald Trump was politically unafraid.

This is finally moving. I am happy about it. Donald Trump has been ostracized and for no good reason by his own party. Ted Cruz is a Tea Party member and Donald Trump has said supportive things regarding the Tea Party, too. 

Could it be Americans are finally finding solid ground under their feet?

'TERRIFIC': (click here) Texas Sen. and tea party darling Ted Cruz (shown entering Trump Tower on Wednesday in New York) has been full of praise for Trump, but may be the only Republican presidential candidate to play that role

July 15, 2015
By David Martosko

Trump (click here) has responded with mutual admiration, telling The Washington Post: 'I really respect him for saying what he did.'

An informal Cruz-Trump alliance could prove to be an important moving piece in the GOP primary season if one endorses the other when he drops out of the race....

The majority of Americans believe their vote has become empty. The election of President Obama turned the Republicans into obstructive treason that have caused a change in the credit rating of the USA. That is not what Americans want. They want a government that functions.

Americans want immigration reform, but, they are realists. They know immigration of people from Mexico can come with people that are dangerous. The fact illegals have been released to Mexico is not our problem. We want Iran to release our citizens from their prison system and in proving we return people to their homelands, we do so with Mexicans. 

Gitmo is just a national shame. 

But, the American people can't build prisons on US soil to detain illegal immigrants. That is crazy. These people need to be released to Mexico. I find some of Senator Cruz comments about releasing murderers into the USA interior as outrageous. There are illegals in our prisons and 77 percent are Mexicans. Mexicans are 16 percent of our entire prison population, so Senator Cruz needs to prove his point. Donald Trump has validated his statements with solid and real examples. The recent death of an innocent and loved American woman is a real example. 

The debate will center on all sorts of information, but, there are Undocumented that sincerely belong here. They work and live within the laws most Americans live within. They are more American than they ever could be Mexican, hence, the return time and again to the USA. 

The way to end the Undocumented from coming to the USA is to support Mexico in law enforcement. Mexico all the way to the reaches of South America have problems with drug cartels. The more civilized a country becomes the more citizens will want to stay within their homelands. I firmly believe that. 

But, immigration needs to be addressed. Demonizing these people serves no one's best interest. There are problems. The American people don't buy the idea life for the Undocumented is perfect if all were citizens. That is true for the majority and those facts need to be part of the understanding of the electorate. 

But, there are problems and while we are addressing immigration reform we may as well address everything. We won't get this chance again. Sanctuary cities are a part of that as well. Why are they viewed as anti-federal government? There is no need for it. Sanctuary cities have a reason for their laws and they are valid reasons, but, there is a limit when someone like Mr. Sanchez continues to return over and over again. 

Twenty years is a very long time for an illegal immigrant to live between the USA and Mexico. During that 20 years of Mr. Sanchez, the courts never found reasons to end his deportations. He was deported and returned five times. I don't think Mexico actively sends people into the USA. We witnessed children coming across the Mexican border after they risked their lives on trains. There was no escort from Mexico or anywhere else. They walked and they sustained danger to their lives, but, they came anyway. That is exactly the definition of the Undocumented in the USA. They place their lives in danger to come to the USA.  

The debate going forward has to have real solutions. There are real problems and we have some magnificent young people we cannot afford to send anywhere, except into the USA work force to earn and buy homes and set down roots. The USA is their home. It is the only home they have known. It is morally wrong to think they belong anywhere but here. 

With those young people are their families. If these young people can be this wonderful, they were raised by someone and it wasn't an American born here because they would have been adopted already. Families that are Undocumented and have brought their children and raised them in the USA have a right to stay and make their children's reality complete. Breaking up families serves no one.

President Obama saw 5 million of the Undocumented as unnecessary to process in deportation. He had something in mind when he wrote that Executive Order regardless of the political activism of the appeals court. If he has a clear understanding of those that would be left alone to carry out their lives because they are an asset to the USA that is a special class of people. There is no reason to move away from that understanding and instead protect them and the Dreamers. 

So, the debate begins and those that make extremist statements better have real information to back up their statements otherwise it will be dismissed as election rhetoric and discriminatory to the Undocumented.

Even the police can't demand drug screening.

Drug testing is a function of the medical community, be it urinalysis or blood draws. There is no percent of welfare recipients or food stamp recipients that have proven these are programs used illegitimacy. 

The testing has legal implications and will result in fear and will keep people away even if not taking drugs illegally. There are issues as well with medications ordered by a physician. Will that require additional time to validate the American's answers? Food stamps can't be delayed. It is a need that is immediate. 

The only way I see any type of testing being conducted is when a person or family receives Medicaid and has options for treatment if there is a problem with KNOWN drug addiction. There are all kinds of problems, including false positives. Otherwise it is pure victimization and serves no purpose to society except additional costs. Once again, the only people qualified to collect such specimens are certified labs and licensed personnel. The only place the specimens are evaluated are also certified labs. 

Costs (click here) start at $30 for a simple urinalysis, but, for a drug screen it is more like $165.00. Drug screens are a special request and need more analysis than a simple chemistry test. 

For as often as positives would show up, the request is a burden for society. The subject is just politics. It is amazing the money the political right wing spends on lawsuits that fail. 

The costs to such testing redirects monies from food stamps and welfare programs in the pockets of the private sector. It reduces the benefits available.

July 15, 2015
Arthur Delaney

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, (click here) one of many Republicans seeking their party's presidential nomination, is suing the federal government over his plan to make some food stamp recipients pee in cups to prove they're not on drugs. 
Federal law doesn't give states much room to impose new conditions on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits. The program is known informally by its former name, food stamps, and in Wisconsin it's called FoodShare. 
“This lawsuit seeks to provide clarity that the State of Wisconsin has the authority to require drug testing for FoodShare recipients,” Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel said in a press release on Tuesday.  
While federal law doesn't allow states to impose drug tests on SNAP recipients, it does allow states to drug test and in general make up their own rules for the much smaller Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, which serves about 4 million Americans. Roughly 46 million Americans receive SNAP benefits....

Oslar Groening will be 98 years old when he finishes his sentence as accessory to murder as the Auschwitz bookkeeper, if he is required to serve his sentence.

There are not many people who do not look for justice to war crimes. The people committing them are required to stand trial and face sentencing. It is a form justice.

There have been other genocides in our world and Rwanda is just one. There were genocides committed in Cambodia as well. 

The world continues to try to bring modern day values of tolerance and brotherhood to most countries. We recognize human rights abuses as well.

We are conscience of disparities in a changing world. Some modern day injustices can be traced to Western consumerism that deprives countries and nations of people of water.

But, genocide never goes unanswered. That is the case ever since the atrocities that lead to WWII.


With the help of a Red Cross worker, former SS guard Oskar Groening leaves the court after the verdict of his trial in Lueneburg, Germany, Wednesday, July 15, 2015. Groening, 94, who served at the Auschwitz death camp was convicted on 300,000 counts of accessory to murder and given a four-year sentence. | Markus Schreiber A

July 15, 2015 
By Matthew Schofeld

 BERLIN

In what was certainly (click here) among the last verdicts for Nazi crimes against humanity, the 94-year-old “Accountant of Auschwitz” on Wednesday was sentenced to four years in German prison for his role in the deaths of 300,000 Hungarian Jews.
The sentence – about seven minutes for each of the victims – handed to Oskar Groening raised the difficult question of whether justice can ever be done for the mass murders of the Holocaust, whose victims numbered 6 million Jews and millions of other “undesirables,” including Gypsies, gays and political dissidents.
German historian Michael Wolffsohn, a professor at the Bundeswehr University in Munich, suggested that nothing short of the biblical “mark of Cain” was a sufficient punishment....

"It was hard to watch them...." That is a statement of conscience from a foot soldier. A statement that acknowledges the fact the average soldier could recognize atrocity when he saw it. Is it too much to ask that everyone walk in the shadow of Lieutenant Martynushkin and stop the crime before it starts?

January 27, 2015
By Ishaan Tharoor

When the Soviet Army's 322nd Rifle Division entered the concentration camp at Auschwitz on Jan. 27, 1945, they found a desolation. Mounted on shaggy ponies, they had proceeded with caution as they entered the camp, fearful of a Nazi ambush. But there was no trace of the German enemy....
 
..."It was hard to watch them. (click here) I remember their faces, especially their eyes which betrayed their ordeal," Martynushkin told Agence France Presse this week, ahead of the 70th anniversary of Auschwitz's liberation. Martynushkin is one of the few surviving Soviet soldiers from that day, and has spoken on numerous occasions about his experience then....

..."At first there was wariness, on both our part and theirs," he said in an interview with Radio Free Europe. "But then they apparently figured out who we were and began to welcome us, to signal that they knew who we were and that we shouldn't be afraid of them — that there were no guards or Germans behind the barbed wire. Only prisoners."...

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/article27284962.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/article27284962.html#storylink=cpy

President Netanyahu has hurt himself in the global community because his politics are so very vicious.

He has been condescending and denouncing all the efforts to bring Iran into a state of controlled nuclear program PROVIDED under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, that he has caused judgement of his motives. 

This is Israeli politics. This is not a global community sincerely concerned about the peace that can disturbed by angry and irrational politics. Interestingly, the Israeli Arabs TODAY have little reservation about the Iran agreement. These are the very Israeli Arabs that only a short time ago, Netanyahu and his political allies tried to remove from Israeli ELECTED government and even cast them into exile.

This article is from Haaretz. The people of Israel are not blind to other opinions within the country.

July 14, 2015
By Jack Khoury

Survey by Coalition Against Racism (click here) also shows increase in racist comments by elected officials.

The summer Gaza war and winter election campaign increased the incidence of racism in Israel, including anti-Arab acts, the group the Coalition Against Racism said Tuesday. 

This racism in Israel is being used to divide politics into pro and anti Israel. A joint session of US Congress was even used for the divisive purpose of the Netanyahu politics in Israel AND the USA.

Israel is in a very dangerous place if it exhibits hate of any of it's own citizens or hate toward other countries in the region. Israel has to provide for a peaceful path in the region and today that is completely absent. 

Netanhayu was more comfortable with silence between the USA and Iran because they are Neocons. They value control through war and killing. This is was the same paradigm of the Bush/Cheney administration. Hatred is an asset and not a plague. 

The fact that President Obama within the P5+1 framework has worked, the political paradigms are reeling with deceit and lies. 

There is an agreement today after years of talking and fits and starts. This has been a very long road whereby all parties, including The West's political parties were respected. President Obama and Secretary Kerry took all the apprehensions seriously and asked the process to accept Dr. Moniz to consult to provide expert assessment of the agreement.

The right wing extremists, including Netanyahu, need to shut up because they know nothing of THE TRUTH! 

The global community, including the USA, will be watching for further human rights violations because Israeli political vapors want to institutionalize racism.

Enough!

Saudi Arabia is far ahead of any American politician.

This August 21, 2010 file photo shows the reactor building of the Bushehr nuclear power plant outside Iran’s southern city of Bushehr.(AP Photo)

15 July 2015
By The Arab News

JEDDAH: Saudi Arabia (click here) said it supported an agreement to stop Tehran gaining nuclear weapons but emphasized the importance of a strict inspections regime and the ability to reimpose sanctions.

An official source, quoted by the SPA, said the Kingdom has always stood by the importance of an agreement that prevents Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons at all costs, and includes on-going and specific monitoring mechanism of all sites, especially military sites, as well as the mechanism to reintroduce sanctions immediately in the case of any violation of the agreement by Iran. The official also stressed that sanctions relating to terrorism and violation of international arms treaties would remain intact. 

“In light of this agreement, Iran must take advantage of its resources to promote domestic development and improve the situation of Iranian youth, rather than using it to create chaos in the region — an act that will be faced with determination by countries in the region,” the official said....

June 2015 

The USA (click here) is the world's largest producer of nuclear power, accounting for more than 30% of worldwide nuclear generation of electricity. 

The country's 100 nuclear reactors produced 798 billion kWh in 2014, over 19% of total electrical output. There are now 99 units operable (98.7 GWe) and five under construction....

Those in opposition to a historic and negotiated verifiable agreement should have specific arguments and not theoretical. 

Updated 2015

Iran (click here) produced 254 billion kWh gross in 2012, with consumption of about 200 TWh, per capita about 2600 kWh/yr. Its 2012 electricity production comprised 170 TWh from gas, 69 TWh from oil, both of which it has in abundance, 12.5 TWh from hydro which is less reliably available, and 2 TWh from nuclear power. Demand is growing about 4% per year, and Iran trades electricity with Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Turkmenistan and Turkey. Net export is about 7 TWh/yr....

...In 2013 and 2014 senior officials were talking of a target of 20 GWe nuclear by 2020. AEOI cites parliamentary approval for this capacity target (if not deadline) as being binding on it....

Is Iran's economy complimented by nuclear power plants. If so, how. 

Pope Francis should construct his speeches well, because, the US Republicans use language and words to justify all their immoral laws and the politics that precedes them.

Perhaps, Pope Francis also has a view and guidance regarding the Middle East as well.  

US policy frequently acts as a stone dropped in still water. It ripples across the world. Pope Francis should use that understanding to address those with the stone. 

I am hoping the Pope will remove the faux morality of American politics in stating procreation is best left to God and the choices that lead to his favor and not the legislation of supposed moral content that lends to illegitimate policy and economic oppression.

Pope Francis has returned to Rome.

13 July 2015

...Coca leaves, (click here) which are the raw ingredient for cocaine, are used legally for medical and religious purposes in Bolivia.
The leaves are chewed or brewed in teas and work as a mild stimulant, helping also to alleviate nausea caused by high altitudes.
Bolivia's left-wing President Evo Morales began his political life as the leader of the cocaleros, traditional coca leaf producers.
The pontiff, who had part of a lung removed when he was young, only stayed in the La Paz area - which lies 3,650m (12,000ft) above sea level - for about four hours....

Pope Francis has been available to the people in interviews throughout his trip.

...Aboard the papal plane, (click here) Jul 13, 2015 / 11:43 am (CNA).- In the course of his 64 minute in-flight press conference while en route to Rome, Pope Francis answered questions ranging from politics, his upcoming trip to the Unites States, and his feelings about taking selfies.
The Pope responded in Italian to 14 questions posed by journalists during his July 12 overnight flight from Asuncion to Rome.
Paraguay was the last of the three stops on the Pope's trip to South America. He visited Ecuador July 5-8 and spent a few days in Bolivia before heading to Paraguay on July 10 to finish his visit....

Pope Francis was presented with a communist cross during his travels. He stated it was protest art and was not offended in any way by the gift.

July 13, 2015
By Cindy Wooden

Before arriving (click here) in the United States in September, Pope Francis said, he will study American criticisms of his critiques of the global economy and finance.
“I have heard that some criticisms were made in the United States — I’ve heard that — but I have not read them and have not had time to study them well,” the Pope told reporters traveling with him from Paraguay back to Rome on July 12.
“If I have not dialogued with the person who made the criticism,” he said, “I don’t have the right” to comment on what the person’s saying.
Pope Francis said his assertion in Bolivia on July 9 that “this economy kills” is something he believes and has explained in his exhortation “The Joy of the Gospel” and more recently in his encyclical on the environment....

We are all looking forward to his September visit and the words that accompany that visit. I doubt he'll be holding special dispensation for Wall Street.

This article is very graphic. Don't read with a weak stomach.

La Familia Michoacán was the focus of a country wide drug sweep a few years ago in the USA. They have plans of repopulating it's network.

The escape is a guarantee to increased violence. The cartel is not interested in illegal immigration, that is simply part of the picture; they are interested in destroying governments. Governments and moral content of a country is the enemy of the cartels. They rather their own form of justice and corruption.

Understand when these cartels kill it is as much a personal gratification as instilling fear of it's power. They are dangerous. The former Mexican President Felipe Calderón found that out. President Calderon instituted the first military stance with the cartels. The domestic violence exploded. It hasn't stop since.

They go down hard. When President Calderon took on the cartels what manifested was a defense of the DRUG HIGHWAYS that begins in South America. He hit a vital capacity of the cartels. Fighting the cartels from as far north as the USA and Mexico is extremely difficult. The death of the snake really will be best ended at it's roots, not it's head. South American governments need to recognize a new power in establishing a sovereign peace based in removing the cartels influence.

Quite frankly, the influence of the cartels is hemispheric. There is no single government in the world that has control of a hemisphere.

July 14, 2015

By Walid Shoebat

“Neither the government nor priests (click here) can handle El Chapo” was a warning sent by Joaquin Guzman (El-Chapo) to what he considered his two biggest threats at the time: Christian priests and the government.

To ensure he was taken seriously, the note accompanied two corpses: soldiers that he arranged to be killed so everyone gets the message: you need to fear the drug cartel of Sinaloa, especially the infamous El Chapo.

The message was sent in response to Hector Gonzalez, the archbishop of the northern state of Durango, who raised fears of attacks on the clergy. Indeed, according to the Catholic Multimedia Center (CCM) Mexico is the most dangerous country in Latin America for priests.

The strange thing in America, is that so many act as if El-Chapo’s operation is a colorful background setting for popular American TV shows and movies. On Twitter, one comments “notice how much more love El Chapo gets compared to Trump”. Some tweets even offered to aid El-Chapo to kill Donald Trump. If one can use this as ‘the Twitter poll’ El-Chapo will be in the lead. Such are so many liberal democrats....

The housing market has been a focus of Chairwoman Yellen since the beginning of her leadership.

...“Looking forward, (click here) prospects are favorable for further improvement in the U.S. labor market and the economy more broadly,” she told the committee.

Ms. Yellen tipped her hat to problems in Greece and China but, like other Fed officials, she does not seem overly worried. “Although the recovery in the euro area appears to have gained a firmer footing, the situation in Greece remains difficult,” she said. “And China continues to grapple with the challenges posed by high debt, weak property markets and volatile financial conditions.”...

The ultra-rich are effecting the burgeoning middle class in China. It is really odd China is struggling with real estate markets in the same way it effects the USA.  It is no minor coincidence.

The China property market problem is a long time issue.

August 18, 2014
By Bonnie Cao

Aug. 18 (Bloomberg) -- China’s new-home prices (click here) fell in July in almost all cities that the government tracks as tight mortgage lending deterred buyers even as local governments eased property curbs.
Prices fell in 64 of the 70 cities last month from June, the National Bureau of Statistics said today, the most since January 2011 when the government changed the way it compiles the data. Beijing prices fell 1 percent from June, posting the first monthly decline since April 2012.
“The falling trend of China’s property market has no sign of improving,” Shen Jian-guang, Hong Kong-based chief Asia economist at Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd., said in a phone interview today. “The key issue is the mortgages, despite all types of local government easings. The high rate is damping sentiment of owner occupiers.”...

Chairwoman Yellen is stating more transparency between the Fed and Congress would be damaging to relationships with the financial sector. She states the US Central Bank is the most transparent bank in the world. She also called attention to the investigations of the Justice Department and the oversight practiced at that level.

"Ron Paul Lives" 

It is also Congress's role to be sure the oversight is appropriate and not one designed by the NSA.  

It is interesting to realize how late a Republican Congress is when reacting to Fed policy. In 2008 everything that occurred in the financial markets was a surprise. And then the Fed was suppose to 'do something, anything' to stop the catastrophic Republican policies over the previous decade. It wasn't completely the Fed that stopped the failing market, it was a Democratic lead Congress that acted to increase economic activity in one that was contracting daily. 

Now, over a decade of Republican economic polices of "W" the Republicans are having a rush of conscience. 

The Republicans should consult with a favorite son in Donald Trump regarding their financial policy. I am quite sure he knows quite well what zero percent interest means to the American markets.