He also referred to the President as a “fake President”, and months before the Newtown Massacre and the President’s call for meaningful gun safety legislation, Porter said “this fight has just started…. I get so sick and tired of all these people with this fake president that we got, who want to say ‘he hasn’t done anything bad for gun owners.’ I say, let me tell you something that he’s done. His entire administration is anti-gun, anti-freedom, anti-Second Amendment.”

Here are excerpts from his speech:

What is even more scary is the fact that Mr. Porter is far from being alone in his perverted thoughts. A recent Public Mind poll conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University found that 44% of republicans believe that “an armed revolution might be necessary in the next few years in order to protect liberties.”

By contrast in California, Gov. Jerry Brown this week signed into law a bill I wrote about twice a few weeks ago (“California’s Gun Lobby: Further Assault On Our Intelligence” and “Gun Nuts Want Felons, Mentally Ill to KEEP Their Guns!”) that funds state agents to confiscate the 40,000 guns that are currently in the hands of California residents who are not legally entitled to gun ownership due to serious criminal convictions, mental illness, or that have had restraining orders issued against them for threats of violence.

Across the country, those are the people whose “right” to own guns the NRA spends millions of dollars to protect. For future battles against the US government.

Bull crap.

“Those Guys” ARE the gop. Period.

When Richard Mourdock said that a baby born after a rape was a “gift from God … that God intended to happen” and that he opposed abortion even to save the life of the mother, he was saying that not only as the elected republican candidate for governor of Indiana, but as the elected state Treasurer of Indiana, a post he still holds today.

When Paul Broun said that “…embryology, evolution, and the Big Bang are “lies straight from the Pit of Hell…” and when he said that he did not know if President Obama was a citizen but that he did know that he was a socialist, he did so as a three-term United States Congressman, who is NOW running for the US Senate.

When Mark Sanford took a “sabbatical” to have an affair with his Argentine mistress, he was in his second term as the Governor of South Carolina. Today, he has garnered the gop nomination, again through a vote of the good people of South Carolina, for an open seat in the US House of Representatives. He has been in the news lately, not specifically due to the upcoming special election, but because his now “ex” wife has filed criminal trespassing charges against him.

Pundits and officials alike say “he is not the gop”. But how is he any different from Sen. David Vitter who withstood an infamous affair with a prostitute and remained a US Senator? How is he any different than former Nevada Senator John Ensign, who famously refused to resign from the Senate for three years until the FBI, the Federal Election Commission, and Senate Ethics panels were about to come down on him for not his extra-marital affair, but for the criminal cover-up and bribery scandal that he perpetrated, with the help of other members of the Senate? How is he any different than other gop officeholders and office seekers such as Arizona Governor Jan Brewer who told us of hundreds of headless bodies in the Arizona desert, or former gop candidate for the US Senate from Nevada Sue Lowden, who famously stated, in all seriousness, that poor, uninsured people should offer to trade chickens for medical care?

The gop, thanks to the tea party movement, the fixed noise propaganda network, right wing radio celebrities and their fanatical followers, and billions of dollars funned from and through the likes of the Koch Brothers, Harold Simmons, Karl Rove, and the rest, ARE these guys. And they are guys like anti-Semitic Oklahoma State House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Johnson, who has made the cable tv and youtube rounds this week for this presentation on the floor of his state’s House of Representatives:

This IS today’s republican party.

It was not that long ago that the President told the American people, in his Second Inaugural Address, that

“Together we resolve that a great nation must care for the vulnerable and protect its people from life’s worst hazards and misfortune. … For we remember the lessons of our past, when twilight years were spent in poverty and parents of a child with a disability had nowhere to turn. We do not believe that in this country freedom is reserved for the lucky or happiness for the few. We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, any one of us at any time may face a job loss or a sudden illness or a home swept away in a terrible storm. The commitments we make to each other through Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, these things do not sap our initiative. They strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers. They free us to take the risks that make this country great.”

He followed that up a month later, in his Feb. 12, 2013 State of the Union Address:

In 2011, Congress passed a law saying that if both parties couldn’t agree on a plan to reach our deficit goal, about a trillion dollars’ worth of budget cuts would automatically go into effect this year. These sudden, harsh, arbitrary cuts would jeopardize our military readiness, they’d devastate priorities like education and energy and medical research. They would certainly slow our recovery and cost us hundreds of thousands of jobs. And that’s why Democrats, Republicans, business leaders, and economists have already said that

“…these cuts — known here in Washington as “the sequester” — are a really bad idea. … Now, some in this Congress have proposed preventing only the defense cuts by making even bigger cuts to things like education and job training, Medicare and Social Security benefits. That idea is even worse. …And I am open to additional reforms from both parties, so long as they don’t violate the guarantee of a secure retirement. Our government shouldn’t make promises we cannot keep, but we must keep the promises we’ve already made. … Why is it that deficit reduction is a big emergency, justifying making cuts in Social Security benefits, but not closing some loopholes? How does that promote growth?”

But now, in a misguided effort to gain republican support for a budget proposal (seemingly, “any” budget proposal”), the President is giving in to gop positions, ignoring not just his promises to the American people, but to ingrained, dearly held beliefs that are at the base of the Democratic party, including the majority of its liberals and devout progressives, and even those few, nasty socialists.

With traditional CPI, when the cost of necessary goods rises, Social Security payments are in turn raised by commensurate cost-of-living increases. However, “Chain” CPI provides that if the cost of a needed item rises, but a “reasonable facsimile” is available, such as chicken instead of beef, “Hamburger Helper” instead of beef or chicken, a cain instead of cataract surgery, or at its worst level, cat food instead of chicken, then the cost-of-living increase only needs to cover the cost of the “reasonable facsimile”. Over a few years, the buying power of Social Security payments would drastically decrease.

This is one item that the President’s budget proposes to change. Others items are as bad.

Much has been discussed about student loans over the past couple of years, and significant improvements in the system have been enacted. However, one budget proposal would reverse much of the benefit of recent changes: The President’s budget includes a proposal that ties the interest rate on future student loans to 10-year US Treasury rates, which would have the effect of ending Congress’ current options to undertake actions such as subsidizing Stafford Loans, which have lowered student rates from 6.8% to 3.4%. The budget proposal would raise this rate back to 6.8% by 2016, and to a projected 8% by 2018, with additional raises through 2023 (according to the Congressional Budget Office).

While many other elements of the President’s budget proposal constitute noxious, hard-to-fathom rejections of basic tenants of Democratic Party principles, one more specific needs to be mentioned. This involves the bloated military budget, that eats away at the basic fabric of our economic well being every second of every day. The United States spends as much on its military as the next 11 world countries, including China, Russia, the UK, Japan, France, and more. The US military spends $2,141 per year for every US citizen. Russian, on the other hand, spends $428 per year per citizen. The only part of the ill-conceived and ill-advised “Sequester” cut package that was actually of benefit to the country was the part about cutting military spending. Well, the President’s proposed budget not only returns sequester cuts, but gives the military an additional $51 Billion. Also of interest is the fact that the military aspect of the budget proposal also uses a trick perfected by g w bush: It leaves OUT the anticipated $80 Billion cost during the current fiscal year of the still ongoing war in Afghanistan.

On July 19, 2011, I wrote “Prosperity COULD Be Around the Corner” wherein I described a few ways both to cut the federal budget and increase revenues. A couple of the ideas described there relate directly to specifics described above:

Item 1: Social Security and Medicare would pay for themselves for the next 200 years if we remove the $106,800 maximum earnings cap on payments into the system. The President wants seniors struggling to get buy to accept decreasing buying power year after year, while people making from $106,900 to one, two, twenty, or one hundred million dollars a year do not pay the 4.2% social security tax on that income.

Item 2: We can cut the military budget by 1/3 by doing two things: a) Fire the 100,000 private contractors we pay to lie, cheat and steal on our dime, in Iraq, and fire the 50,000-75,000 or whatever number there also are in Afghanistan, and in particular fire the private contractors who have been found guilty of defrauding the US Government but who, incredibly, still continue to be awarded military contracts (many of them no-bid), and b) Close military bases on foreign soil and bring home the 100,000 to 125,000 US troops that have been stationed in Europe and Japan since the end of World War II. Why do we spend a fortune still to this day, to protect the people of Germany, England, Japan, and so many other countries?

Mr. President, we gave you a decisive victory in November. Please stand by the principles of your party and of your people. Do not give in!

Such is the case with Margaret Thatcher. True, a friend of the United States, and a popular figure among large numbers of Brits, but yet a politician who above all else followed a strict partisan political position, which, in the minds of many, forged a path for the UK that has led them to the extreme economic and social mess that their society has struggled with for several years.

We wrote about this in early 2012, and it is extremely relevant today: “A HoundDawg Political Quiz – Which Former World Leader …. ?”

Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan – two birds of a feather.

1. By virtue of Cal. Welfare and Inst. Code §§ 8100 – 8108: A person is barred from possessing, purchasing, receiving, attempting to purchase or receive, or having control or custody of any firearms if the person:

A. Has been admitted to a facility and is receiving in-patient treatment for a mental illness and the attending mental health professional opines that the patient is a danger to self or others. This prohibition applies even if the person has consented to the treatment, although the prohibition ends as soon as the patient is discharged from the facility;
B. Has been adjudicated to be a danger to others as a result of a mental disorder or mental illness or has been adjudicated to be a mentally disordered sex offender. This prohibition does not apply, however, if the court of adjudication issues, upon the individual’s release from treatment or at a later date, a certificate stating that the person may possess a firearm without endangering others;
C. Has been found not guilty by reason of insanity of enumerated violent felonies. A person who is found not guilty by reason of insanity of other crimes is barred from possessing firearms unless a court finds that the person has recovered his or her sanity;
D. Has been found mentally incompetent to stand trial, unless there is a subsequent finding that the person has become competent;
E. Is currently under a court-ordered conservatorship because he or she is gravely disabled as a result of a mental disorder or impaired by chronic alcoholism.

2. Being convicted of a felony or of a violent misdemeanor such as assault, battery, or stalking.

3. Becoming subject to one of the following types of restraining orders:

A. A temporary restraining order or injunction issued to a victim of harassment;
B. A temporary restraining order or injunction issued to an employer on behalf of an employee;
C. A temporary restraining order or injunction issued to a postsecondary educational institution on behalf of a student;
D. A domestic violence protective order whether issued ex parte, after notice and hearing, or in a judgment;
E. A protective order for an elderly or dependent adult who has suffered abuse, whether the order was issued ex parte, after notice and hearing, or in a judgment, provided that the case does not involve solely financial abuse;
F. An emergency protective order related to stalking; or
G. A protective order relating to a crime of domestic violence or the intimidation or dissuasion of victim or witness

Just read the responses in the LA Times Blog and below.

These people WANT felons, violent misdemeanants, the mentally ill, and people who have threatened harm to others to have guns. As our last line of protection against against OTHERS with guns? As against the Government?

Unbelievable.

First, it so happens that people frequently make legal gun purchases in California, but sometime later, something happens that makes their continued gun ownership illegal. Frequently this happens because that gun owner has committed a serious crime, or they become mentally ill. It appears that the California State Department of Justice has determined that in our great state, as of March 1, 2013, 20,000 people now illegally posses 40,790 firearms, including 1,600 assault weapons. And, who they are is no mystery. These guns were all originally legally registered, and the Dept. of Justices has the names and addresses of every one of these gun owners. The problem is, the Dept. of Justice has no money available to go out and nicely ask that these now illegal weapons be turned in.

HOWEVER, it also turns out that the state has a little fund that currently contains the sum of $24 Million, money that is not being used for anything. And where did this tidy sum come from? It came from the $19.00 fee that each gun buyer has to pay for a background check in order to make his or her weapons’ purchase. Yea, all that loot is just sitting there.

So, Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) proposed SB 140, requiring that this money be used to, guess what, pay for authorities to go around and confiscate these illegal weapons. Now, enter all the gun lobbyists, who, surprising, all say that this is a bad idea. Really. A BAD idea. At state Senate hearings on the bill, representatives of all of these pro-gun lobbyist groups demonstrated their commonality of opposition to the bill. Their arguments amounted to the following:

1. The $19 fee is too high and should be reduced (What is that, maybe 5% of the price of an average gun? Probably much less).
2. Use the money instead to speed up the time it takes to complete a background check.
3. Use the money to reduce the 10-day waiting period to obtain possession of a new firearm.
4. That using the background-check funds for confiscation of illegally owned guns was “an attack on honest citizens”, and that it “places an undue burden on those people who are exercising their 2nd Amendment rights”.

As an aside, California’s program is the only one in the US that tracks known handgun and assault weapons owners, ensuring that their continued ownership remains legal.

The Senate Budget Committee passed the bill 14-0, and today the full state Senate approved the bill 31-0, and it’s on to the Assembly.

First, thanks to the LA Times, we now know that he DID NOT contribute around $20 M to 2012 gop election efforts. We now know that the sum of money he contributed to the likes of Karl Rove’s American Crossroads Super PAC exceeded $31 Million. We also know the following:

1. When Simmons was paving the way to begin construction of the first new nuclear waste dump to be built in the USA in three decades, he started donating to Texas Governor Rick Perry, and lo and behold, over the objections of Texas’ environmentalists who warned of the danger to aquifers over which Simmons planned to pile tons of nuclear waste, Perry appointees approved the license for the West Texas site.

2. Remember the despicable PAC campaign of 2004 where millions of dollars were spent to paint Democratic Presidential nominee and decorated Vietnam war hero (and now Secretary of State) John Kerry as a traitor and felon? That was the infamous “Swift Boat” campaign, and Simmons contributed $3 M of those funds.

3. During the 2008 Presidential race, Simmons was the sole founder of the American Issues Project, which ran TV ads tying President Obama to William Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground, an infamous Vietnam-ear group suspected of numerous bombings during the 1960s and 1970s, but who later became a University of Chicago Professor and a leader and activist in education reform and social justice with whom Obama had brief contact while serving on a single foundation board.

And so, in 2013, where thanks to the US Supreme Court and its Citizens United decision, unlimited funds can pour into any political campaign, obfuscating issues and promoting outright lies, a Texas hazardous waste billionaire wants to control the election of the next mayor of Los Angeles, and he can.

What kind of crap is this?

For decades, the San Bernardino Freeway (Interstate 10) through much of the San Gabriel Valley, has consisted of four regular traffic lanes and a high occupancy vehicle lane (HOV), in both eastbound and westbound directions. Use of the HOV was clearly marked and the rules followed by millions of drivers over decades: Passenger vehicles could travel in that lane if three people were in the vehicle between the hours of 5:00 am and 9:00 am and 4:00 pm and 7:00 pm, and vehicles with two people could use the lanes at all other times.

So now the geniuses who run the “Metro” and the California Department of Transportation, in their effort to expand state coffers, have come up with the idea that they would let ANY vehicle use the HOV lanes at any time, for a price. Fine. But, the devil is in the details, and these details more than stink, they are despicable and discriminatory.

What the state now requires – for ANYONE to use the San Bernardino Freeway HOV at any time – is this: You must purchase a Transponder and then register it. When you register it, you must pay a $40.00 deposit ($75.00 to pay by means other than a credit card) and agree to a monthly fee of $3.00 WHETHER OR NOT YOU EVER USE THE TRANSPONDER, and if you want to receive month account statements, you are charged an additional $2.00 per month. There is a category of low-income citizens who only have to advance $15.00 rather than the $40.00 everyone else has to put out.

So, if I continue as I have for the past 30 years that I have lived in the east San Gabriel Valley, and NEVER use the HOV during the proscribed “Rush Hour” times, but only use the HOV during off-hours, about two or three times per month, I have to BUY A TRANSPONDER, GIVE THE STATE $40.00 and agree to $3.00 to $5.00 MONTHLY FEES, all to be able to continue to use the FREE off-hour HOV lanes.

Bull crap. They can kiss my dawg ass.

Anyone who would like to tell “Metro” what they think can post comments on their website here.

Alternet.org has provided statements of SB Sheriff’s personnel made over police scanners at the time of the “standoff”, conclusively demonstrating the specific intent of the Sheriffs to execute Dorner by fire. After the fire was set and numerous deputies had been heard discussing the plan to burn him alive, the Sheriff’s spokesperson, San Bernatdino Country Sheriff’s Department Public Information Officer Cindy Bachman, lied to reporters and the public, by telling them that she had no idea why the cabin was on fire, or who started the fire.

Also, the news media was told to back off, to stop tweeting about what was happening, and specifically to remove helicopters from the area. Lies were told that it was for the safety of the officers, but it was actually so the media would not be able to further monitor Sheriff’s activities.

Read all the facts on Alternet.org: “How Law Enforcement and Media Covered Up the Plan to Burn Christopher Dorner Alive”. As I write this, the SB Sheriffs are holding a press conference. The first questions asked were about this, and their responses were clearly lies. They quickly stopped answering questions and ended the press conference.

The council meeting held last Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2013, was easily the greatest embarrassment to the city and its residents in my 30 years here.

A little less that a year ago, following the resignation of a council member, the remaining council voted to bypass a special election, ostensibly due to cost, and appoint a replacement. Interested persons were asked to submit letters to the city, and several dozen replied. Thereafter, at a council meeting reminiscent of a Three Stooges comedy, a series of names were bandied about, and vote after vote was taken, until yet another soldier for the conservative army was selected. When 17-year council member Mike Touhey was recently elected to the Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District, another vacancy was created, and again the council voted to appoint a successor.

This time, only a few more than a dozen applicants responded, and last Tuesday was the time for a selection to be made. But first a bit of West Covina history. There are a few businesses who have been long-time contributors to West Covina politics, in particular to the conservatives who have controlled the council for years and years. At the top of the list has been Athens Services, which was soundly rewarded for its generosity with an evergreen contract, giving them exclusive rights to the city’s trash collection virtually in perpetuity, and at a cost to residents far in excess of what similar communities pay. Second only to Athens has been the continued “support” of certain politicians provided by The McIntyre Company, a real estate business that has substantial property holdings in the city, most of which are bejeweled with shopping centers and mini-malls. They own and operate even more property, including office buildings and sub-divisions, in neighboring Covina. The McIntyre Company is now in its third generation of family leadership, and a member of that latest group, one Andrew McIntyre, decided that monetary contributions just were not enough, and he threw his wallet into the political ring, and the competition for the vacant West Covina City Council seat .

Little Andy McIntyre. West Covina’s Newest City Council Member

Believe it or not, that was NOT the most embarrassing and despicable event that occurred at the meeting. After the vote, Council member Fred Sykes, the only member NOT part of the conservative majority, and in this instance important to the events, also the only African American member, took the microphone to condemn the process, speaking of conflict of interest, contributions to sitting council members, the awful process that bypassed the will of the people, and the belief that residents will be lacking representation when the new council member is forced to recuse himself when issues involving his family business are considered. Then it happened. 22-year council member Steve Herfert, the de facto leader of the majority now that Touhey is gone, spoke to the council and to the citizens attending, and stated that Mr. Sykes’ statement was to him confusing, and asked whether he was upset with the selection because they had chosen “a white man”? All hell broke loose, and a recess was called.

The citizens were angry. Herfert has been condemned for a lot of reasons by a lot of people over the years, but that has all been based on his politics, and never before now due to blatant racism. In talking to many others who attended the meeting, the utter contempt now felt for Herfert will not soon dissipate. This will be long remembered, and while he will almost certainly remain on the council for a long time yet to come (he was re-elected in 2011) two of the seats occupied by members of his cadre are up for election later this year, and this time, there will be a change in the composition of the council majority and to the direction that a new council will lead the city.

One final note. The area’s local newspaper, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, mentioned the upcoming vote in an issue prior to Feb. 6, and while they did post an online article describing the Feb. 6 meeting, they did have not included an article about the meeting and the appointment in the print edition.