Notice his little hands?

Catch 22 Naional Security Protection

Catch 22 National Security

       The Obama administration has made an interesting argument in its attempt to force Apple to create a permanent “back door” access to the last vestige of our constitutional rights of privacy which are protected by current encryption code technology. The FBI wants Apple to write a “workaround” to the existing code that would give them extended authority to circumvent all the known security features of today.

      The government assures us that it would only use the backdoor on this particular I-phone belonging to the two San Bernardino terrorists killed in that shootout.  It is a caveat that becomes laughable when laid alongside the government’s  40 year record of abuse and illegality in exercising such authority.  The reality is that once the “workaround” is out there it would work on any phone and the cliché of “no putting the genie back in the bottle”, would haunt us!

       Rather than asking for legislative action through Congress, the FBI is proposing an unprecedented use of the All Writs Act of 1789 to justify an expansion of its authority. The FBI logic is that even though the “1789”authors could not have imagined I-phones or encryption (any more than the 2nd Amendment forefathers could have foreseen the automatic fire arms of today) --- the “All Writs Law” reaches out to the future and compels Apple to force open the door.

       Therefore, Apple must create a program so the government can breach our national security program in order to protect our national security program.

        Ah, the almost perfect Catch 22. Thank you, Joseph Heller

u2d2 the loser nominee to be??

A lie about the lie!

Back to the future!

85 year old granddaddy and oldest daughter at the Mucky Duck

Granddaughter Cheryl being hit on at the mall!

Back at last---after a year and three surgeries! Yahoo!!

80 year old Granny "Flash" with air line pilot grandson,Nathan.

Democracy stops here!!

A demagogue's job is never done!

Staw Wars election candidate

Marco Rubio outside---Ricard Nixon inside!

Marco Rubio outside---Richard Nixon inside!

"God told me to do this!"

For anyone who might be interested, I am going to start a tweet series under the tweet “History through political cartoons—for political junkies.” Each tweet will contain a cartoon about an event or issue that was in the national conversation somewhere in the time frame from 1959 to today. They will not necessarily be in chronological order. I am curious to see if there is of any interest in the project. I think you might find some truth in the old adage “The more things change----the more they stay the same!” 

--Bill Sanders

  Inkslinger01@comcast.net

Anyone who questions history repeats its demagogues both in form and fashion, take a look at these photos of Senator Joe McCarthy and Senator Ted Cruiz!!

Fastest brush in the East!

 

 

 

Slippery slope phase two!

Food for election year thoughts!

Things have changed??

Rand Paul weighs in on gun control

Unintended confession...

The Republicans reveal their new plan

This is an open letter to George W. Bush. It is written by an Iraq veteran who is terminally ill as a result of his service and sacrifice for Mr. Bush. I post it on my blog to honor this veteran---and because no one...and I do mean no one--- has said it better!!  Bill Sanders

 I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

 And as a soldier in Iraq I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbageback at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens.

 I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion.

I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

 

It is hard to hear over the sounds of gunshots!

         On the matter of gun control:

         First, for the sake of argument, let us concede the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling-- that overturned  a hundred years of precedent and runs counter to the opinion of most Constitutional scholars-- and set aside that debate!

        There are some flat-out realities that should find traction outside the looney-tune world of the NRA, its “John Wayne” followers and firearms manufacturers.

      Reality one: There is no threat to our second amendment rights, period!  And there never has been.  Any “law abiding” citizen can become a gun owner.

      Reality two: President Barack Obama does not have an agenda to confiscate guns from “law abiding” citizens.

       Reality three: America is the greatest democracy on earth and the idea of a tyrannical government coming to power is absurd!

       Subscribing to the flip side of those realities is an exercise in paranoid delusions and should have no standing in a serious discussion about the sea of weapons that have flooded our nation and facilitates the epidemic of killing within our shores

       The essential point is that we as a nation should hold ourselves accountable with safeguards if we are to own machines that are designed for the sole purpose of killing. We concede necessary safeguards as the price for the privilege of owning other machines and technology of our times---automobiles, motorcycles, airplanes, boats, computers, cell phones, drugs, pesticides and credit cards---to mention a few.

      When the founding fathers crafted the “right to bear arms”, I doubt that they could conceive of the firearms power and technology of today---anymore than they could have foreseen automobiles capable of 100 mile-an-hour speeds over trails of concrete that reach across the nation.

      Why should it be easier to buy a killing machine than it is to buy a cough medicine with codeine?

      At the very least, owing a gun should meet the same requirements as owning an automobile. There should be a minimum age. It should require a license and registration. The buyer should be required to pass a written on the use, safety and laws governing the weapon. The buyer should be required to demonstrate the ability to appropriately use the weapon.

     The argument that such laws will not prevent any given deranged individual or criminal action---is a non-sequitur. However, strictly enforced national gun control laws and accountability would most certainly put a dent in the extemporaneous behavior that costs thousands and live every month in this country.

       Anyone privately selling a gun should require the same paperwork as selling a car and universal national background checks should be a no-brainer!

        Apparently, it is hard to hear over the sounds of gunshots!

 

Deb ceiling logic

Eulogy at Newtown

Wing-nut explanation

Drawn May 14, 2012

Drawn January 3, 1991

Drawn September30, 1990

Drawn November 4, 1990

Drawn November 1, 1990

Drawn March 16,1989

Drawn March 17,1988

Drawn October 11, 1984

Drawn 1982

Drawn March 15,1991

Florida, here we go again!

Next day in the Pumpkin patch

What you get with Romney

This is Mitt.See Mitt run...

Shotgun Wedding

OOPS!!

The Debate That Never Was

That’s showbiz! The challenger found his mo-jo! The incumbent lost his!

Mitt Romney launched his political salvos with a  confidence borne of a CEO lecturing a board of submissive underlings. His verbal missiles, energetically launched from a visually benign, often plaintiff countenance rained down on their target without hesitation and were consistent in the rhythm of their delivery.

President Obama, constantly studied his navel in face of his opponent’s onslaught, looking alternately bored and irritated—as if he inwardly wished not to be wasting his time by being there. Responding faster than a speeding snail, he employed the intermittent syntax of an absent minded professor searching for an  intellectual shield of substance that would appeal to a game show audience---- but one that would carefully avoid any relevance to the mendacity of Romney

Cosmetics carried the day and reality was blinded by the studio lights. It is an unfortunate truth that words off the tongue from a verbally prolific and sometimes facile source are more often than not empty vessels, characterized by conveying an illusion of tangibility. In that sense, Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin have a great deal in common.

They both profusely speak words that fill the audio space of our environment and, as the poet said, “Signify nothing.” If one wants to confirm this fact, simply take what they  say out of the air and put it in cold hard print. Then read it and see if it makes sense.

 Romney effectively lied about and obfuscated his positions  with his barrage of verbiage.

He denied his tax plan would add $5 trillion to the deficit. He obfuscated by saying there were six “studies”  that refuted that figure. However, he did not mention that those “studies” included 2 Wall Street Journal editorials, an  article in the same paper by one of his own economic advisors–and two right wing think tank articles. (Nor did Obama).

He rambled on with energy and verve about revenue neutrality resulting from cuts in non-essential programs. When pressed (not by Obama) to name the programs, Romney comically laid the burden on Sesame Street and Big Bird.

He lied again about the so-called $716 billion “cut” in Medicare and about covering pre-existing conditions—but then, that’s old news.

In the end Romney won the Oscar for best actor and Obama won for the best supporting role.









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Irony, thy name is GOP