CNN: Crossfire- Paul Begala Takes on Rick Perry's Conspiracies

Source: CNN-U.S. Representative Bill Flores, R, Texas-

Source:The New Democrat

Paul Begala makes a god point that Governor Rick Perry could call up the Texas National Guard himself and then the Federal Government would reimburse him. Unless the Tea Party is able to prevent that funding in the House by not voting for it. Or their allies in the Senate are able to block it and prevent it from coming up for a vote. I would hope that wouldn't happen, but the Tea Party mindset doesn't seem to want to allow the Federal Government to do anything that requires more money.

As far as the Southern border crisis. Well this is one of the reasons why Democrats and responsible Republicans in Congress want to pass immigration reform to prevent these crisis's from happening in the future. The Democratic Senate passed a bipartisan bill last year and are still waiting on the Republican Leadership in the House to do anything as it relates to immigration. And if that is not good enough for Governor Perry, well again he can all up the Texas National Guard to help deal with the crisis. 

Source:CNN

The Young Turks: Neil Cavuto: 'Michele Bachmann's Latest Insanity Turns Neil Cavuto Reasonable'

Source:The New Democrat

You know you are in trouble as a Republican (well smart Republicans know, not Michelle Bachmann) when someone on FOX News freaking Neil Cavuto of all people who is generally loyal to the Tea Party goes against you and tells you "that you are simply wrong. Stop talking so I can explain to you why you are wrong. Would you just shut the hell up for a minute so I can show you how wrong you are! You are not even a senator you can't filibuster on my show!"

It is really the first part that I'm interested in. As far as what Representative Bachmann (who will no longer be a Representative in six months) was proposing. Defunding the Executive Branch, how would that work? Isn't she pro-military and pro-national security and against terrorists and everyone who would wreck America as we know it? Well that is Republicans like her claim they are. Their voting records in Congress tends to suggest something else though. What part of the Federal Government does Representative Bachmann think these key functions of government are part of?

I have a great reform proposal for Congress. That everyone who serves on the intelligence committees has to be intelligent. That should go without saying, but Representative Bachmann just happens to be a member of the House Intelligence Committee. (And you wonder why Americans tend to get stereotyped as stupid) The House and Senate intelligence committees are about intelligence right, again that should go without saying. Well to understand intelligence you first have to be intelligent yourself so you know what the hell you are supposed to be learning.

My new reform for the House and Senate would say in order to serve on the intelligence committees you first have to show some certain degree of intelligence. Have and IQ north of one-hundred at least and a professional and congressional record that shows you are not only intelligent, but responsible and do not have a record of saying completely false things. Or simply making them up. And under this policy Michelle Bachmann would've never been eligible to serve on the House Intelligence Committee. And instead had an army of teachers trying to teach her how to be a U.S. Representative instead. Before she was eligible to serve on important House committees

Politico: Dylan Byers: No Mas Sarah Palin

Source:The New Democrat

Take Sarah Palin completely out of the American political scene and you would see riots from hundreds of thousands of political comedians and satirists. Because she pays their bills and is always supplying people information to write about her to show the rest of the world how dumb Americans can truly be. She wants to talk about all sorts of abuses by President Obama and why now he needs to be impeached. Yet she couldn't name any on her own and would need an earpiece in her ear giving things to say about the President during an interview.

Crisis on the Mexican-American border? She's an expert on that because she can see Mexico from her backyard? Oh wait my bad she's an expert on foreign policy because she can see Russia from her backyard. Yeah I know that line is six years old now and just one example why John McCain isn't President right now. But again she is the gift that keeps on giving for comedians and satirists and why the older ones never seem to retire.

Besides this is about immigration policy not foreign policy and what makes Sarah Palin and expert on immigration policy three-thousand miles or so from the American-Mexican border. I know she knows about Russians immigrating to Alaska from Siberia, Russia. Or Canadians immigrating illegally to Alaska from British Columbia, Canada. Because she can see them from her backyard because she can see both Russia and Canada from there.

The fastest ticket to a united Democratic Congress next year both the Senate and House is for House Republicans to go off on an impeachment rant following Sarah Palin's lead. The next fastest ticket to a united Democratic Congress next year is for House Republicans to focus on what they call 'illegal Mexicans' on the Southern border invading America. Because either one of them would get Democrats and Independents behind President Obama similar to impeachment 1998 with President Clinton. So as a Democrat I hope they do this, but as an American I hope they would just shut up, or grow up whatever comes first.

The Centrist Review: Solomon Kleinsmith- The Centrist/Moderate False Equivalence Deception

Source:The Centrist Review-

Source:The New Democrat

The problem that I believe that Centrists have and my question would be what is a Centrist, but the problem that I believe they have is exactly that. What is a Centrist? I believe that is a question that American voters tend to ask as well. And you can give you all you want about forty-percent of the country that are political Independents. Fine, but that doesn't mean they are all Centrists. It just means they don't like the Republican Party, or Democratic Party and perhaps the two-party system as a whole.

Americans as much as we get stereotyped as being divided politically tend to believe in similar things. We tend to believe in free and unregulated free speech at least in most cases. We tend to believe in the Right to Privacy and personal freedom as long as we aren't hurting innocent people. We believe in the Right to Self-Defense as long as it is regulated. We tend to believe in the Freedom of Assembly and being able to associate with whom we please. We believe in property rights and the ability to make a good honest living and live independently. We tend to support the Freedom of Religion. And I could go further.

These aren't centrist values at least in the sense they came from some centrist philosophy. These are bedrock classical conservative or classical liberal values that the United States was founded on. And I could add another one which would be Americans tend to believe in equal rights for all Americans. These are the liberal and conservative values that made America great. They didn't come from Centrists, but Liberals and Conservatives who wrote the Constitution.

Where would a Centrist be on these key core issues? And if they believe in all of these things the way they are would they still qualify as Centrists? Since these are liberal and conservative values that come from the center-left and center-right in America. Not the dead-center or the mushy-middle. Or would they reform these key individual rights and make them less liberal or conservative and more moderate. Perhaps the Right to Privacy, but only on the first floor of your home and only inside of your home.

I wonder how the civil rights movement would've gone in the 1960s had there not of been a Progressive President in Lyndon Johnson who had served twenty-four years in Congress and eight in the leadership. And instead we had a Centrist Independent instead with no clear record when it came to civil rights because that person was perhaps stuck in the middle. Or if we had a Centrist President during the Civil War, or World War II. Maybe we respond to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but not respond to the Nazis in Europe murdering all of those Jews. Or perhaps just supply our allies with equipment and hope for the best. Or in the Civil War's case Africans can be free in America, but just not in the South.

These might be slight exaggerations and poking too much fun at centrism (or not enough) and I'm not saying that centrism doesn't have it's place. I believe divided government is where it is useful to take the best from the Democrats and Republicans. Throw out the garbage from both sides and take what is good from both sides and put it in a final package that can work. But my point is there are times when right is right and wrong is wrong. Meaning those things are clear and that you need to take a stand whether it is the liberal or conservative thing to do. Which was my point about those examples I laid out in the previous paragraph. And you need to take those stances for the good of the country. Which is where centrism doesn't seem very useful or evident.
Source:The Moderate Centrist

The Daily Conversation: President Obama at the 2014 White House Correspondents Dinner

Source:The New Democrat

I'm glad that President Obama can laugh at the year that he had in 2013 and perhaps the White House Correspondents Dinner might be the only platform where he can. Because it was really one of the worst years at least in my memory (all thirty-eight years) that a second-term president has had in his first year as a second-term president. I mean you have to go back to 2005 with President George W. Bush or even before I was born in 1973 with President Richard Nixon who was dealing with Watergate.

I like President Obama's line about CNN where he said "that now I have to go to Malaysia to get attention from CNN". Because CNN is too busy covering airplane crashes and missing passengers who probably drowned in the ocean. To actually cover real news. Like I don't know millions of Americans who didn't have health insurance now have it. Or the situation in Ukraine or the economy with the new jobs figures. "Wait we can't report those things because those issues are real news and Americans are only interested in what is not important but what is sexy".

The President also had a good line about MSNBC. "Glad to see MSNBC here which is probably seeing the biggest audience that they've ever had". MSNBC another so-called news network that doesn't have the resources to cover real news even though they are owned by NBC News one of the largest news divisions in the world. Which is why their ratings are south of the toilet because they do not report on things that a large percentage of the country is actually interested in and that is important.

Independent Political Report: Isa Infante: 'Hobby Lobby Should Spur Demand For Single Payer Health Care'

Source:Independent Political Report- Hobby Lobby explained. 

Source:The New Democrat 

I'm in favor of eliminating the middleman or middlewomen (for the political correctness police) when it comes to health insurance. But single payer in this country wouldn't be the way to do that because of all of the costs that would come from it. Like taking Americans right to decide where they get their health insurance from. And depending on the nationalized health care system that may include government only health insurance as well as even taking Americans right to decide who their doctor is and which hospital they go to. And you can give me all the cost reductions you want from how Sweden, Britain and Canada do it. But those people lose choice as their payment for those cost controls.

Hobby lobby doesn't deny anybody anything except for women who want contraceptions, but yet decide to work for employers that do not provide them. Hobby Lobby is about whether or not employers should be forced to provide their employees contraceptions even if it violates their religious beliefs, or not. It is not about getting rid of contraceptions or eliminating birth control. Just saying that employers shouldn't be forced to provide them if contraceptions violate their religious beliefs.

Again I'm in favor of eliminating the middleman (or middlewomen) when it comes to health insurance and getting employers out of it. As long as it doesn't lead to government run and only health insurance. But that would mean employees being their sole financiers when it comes to their health insurance. And for that to happen American workers broadly and not just the top need to either be making a lot more money. Or the cost of health insurance needs to come down.

Laurence Tribe: Uncertain Justice: A Review of the John Roberts Supreme Court

Source:The New Democrat

A lot of the Supreme Court's 5-4 rulings where the right-wing comes out on top 5-4 looks fishy to me. And looks like an example of where the Tea Party and their big money backers have bought those five right-wing justices. And those five justices are just there to protect the wishes of the partisan right-wing of the Republican Party. The hard libertarian-right and the far-right. The campaign finance decisions are a perfect example of that.

But as Laurence Tribe mentioned in his talk you'll see cases where Supreme Court rules 5-4 in favor of the Left, but where the so-called swing vote Anthony Kennedy who I believe is more of a Libertarian than anything else, at least a Conservative Libertarian will rule with the Right. And with Chief Justice Roberts or Justice Sam Alito ruling with the Left instead of Justice Kennedy. Or Justice Antonin Scalia perhaps the Tea Party's favorite Justice ruling with the Left when it comes with the privacy issues.

Actually if you look at most of the Supreme Court decisions they tend not to be 5-4 either way. And a lot of them are 6-3 or 7-2. The Justices agree on a lot more than they get credit for. It's really just the controversial decisions where there are clear differences between the Left and Right that makes the Supreme Court look a lot more partisan than it is. Like with campaign finance or corporate power, unions affirmative action to use as examples. So the Supreme Court is not as radical as it tends to get portrayed especially by the radical-left.