"I Voted for the Black Guy and Got the White Guy"

Today a military judge sentenced Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison for whistleblowing.  Manley turned over thousands of documents to the journalism website Wikileaks.  One of the revelations was of a U.S. helicopter attack slaughtering over a dozen innocent people, including an attack upon first responders and children.  At the end of the video, one of the pilots says to the other after seeing children were shot "that's what you get for bringing children to a firefight."  These were the children of a man taking his kids to school and stopped his van to help the injured get a ride to the emergency room.

We live in a fucked up world when the Nobel Peace Prize winning president is a war criminal who has killed almost one thousand people in drone strikes.  A man who oversees a vast spying apparatus that records the communications of all Americans, a man who uses the resources of the government to crush whisteblowers and bully foreign governments into grounding the planes of foreign presidents in violation of international law.

Manning should be the one with the Nobel Peace Prize.  Obama should be impeached and sentenced for war crimes.  Most people are too brain dead to even care.  They are too busy pressing buttons on their smartphones and twittering about Kanye and Kim Kardashian's baby.

Manning's lawyers now report that he plans on asking Obama for a pardon.  The chances of this being successful is about 0%.  At the end of the day, the government monolith has crushed a man of incredible conscience and destroyed his life to make an example out of him.  The message is "We are the U.S. government.  We do whatever we want.  If you question us, we will crush you, so don't even think about it."

But people of good conscience like Edward Snowden flip their fingers at such fascism.  They refuse to bow down before the self-appointed masters of the universe.  The smug arrogance of the Obama administration and his pack of minions is disgusting.  In his earlier days, Obama was a community organizer who attempted to help the poor and downtrodden.  Now he uses his power to kiss rich white ass and outdo those who formerly looked down upon him.  He grovels before Mitch McConnell and John Boehner while cowardly playing videogame wars, ordering strikes to those whom he can't see and won't confront.  He's no man.  He's a coward.  If he had one hundredth the character of Bradley Manning, he would pardon him.  But he never will.  

These days, any intrusion by the government against our civil liberties is justified in the name of "security."  All our rights can be taken away so long as they try to scare us into becoming a police state.  These are not the values that America was founded upon.  These are not the values embodied in the Bill of Rights. 

As a liberal, in my ideal world Bernie Sanders would be president or Elizabeth Warren.  But in the next election it will likely be Hillary Clinton vs Chris Christie or Rand Paul.  Hillary has already shown that she approves of spying, foreign wars, drone strikes, and coddling Wall Street.  Christie is the same.  As much as I disagree with Rand Paul about social welfare programs (I fully support them) and healthcare reform, I will probably vote for Rand Paul anyway.  Why?  Because he believes in maintaining civil liberties.  He is opposed to drone strikes despite the huge force of the military-industrial complex being behind it.  He is against the unhealthy marriage of large corporations with the government.  And he is opposed to foreign wars which only cost huge amounts of money and American blood.  Most of all, Rand Paul is less full of shit than others.  Unlike the liar Obama, you at least know what you are getting. 

This is a sad day in America.  Look at the actions of a country to decide whether it is righteous or not.  We can talk all we want about liberty, freedom, and free speech.  But when this government crushes whistleblowers, harasses journalists and members of their families, and bullies other governments to chase down whistleblowers, we are no better than Stalinist Russia or Syria.  We must expect and demand more from our leaders and our government.  

The entire Bradley Manning trial was a farce.  It was a show trial reminiscent of Stalin's purges, right up to the part where Manning gave his "confession" for hurting the United States.  Total bullshit.

Edward Snowden was smart to leave the U.S.  He would never get a fair trial here.  Never.  Snowden would be well advised to never return to the U.S. or one of its colonies, aka Britain.

Today the Constitution was used as toilet paper and it fucking stinks.

Fix It Yourself

In an age of economic insecurity, one has to develop self-reliance to survive.  Food costs going up at the supermarket?  Time to start planting your own garden.  Mechanic asking too much for that tune up?  Time to go to the library and find yourself a copy of the technical repair manual and get yourself some basic tools.

When my computer stops working, I have no problem troubleshooting and solving both hardware and software problems.  This is mostly because I've always been interested in computers.  I don't mind fixing my broken computer.  When some problem confounds me, I look up the answers on the Internet.  Google is the greatest repair tool ever made.  Somehow, somewhere, someone else has encountered the same problem as you, and more likely than not there is a solution somewhere.  For me, perseverance is key.  Don't give up and eventually you will solve the problem.

I've always been intimidated by cars.  Opening the hood, I see a tangle of tubes, wires and blobs that make no sense to me.  I've tried to repair my car in the past to no avail.  I don't have a car lift and painful arthritis limits my physical abilities.  Unfortunately, however, my vehicles don't seem to be considerate of my mechanical limitations.  Both my Ford Escape and my Toyota Avalon are currently experiencing issues.  After looking up the repair costs for both vehicles, it become apparent that without a little self-help and yankee ingenuity, I wasn't going to be driving them anytime soon.

"Necessity is the mother of invention," or so goes the saying.  I found myself stuck without answers.  So I decided to tackle the repairs as I would a computer problem--using Google and Youtube, along with using the Haynes Repair Manuals for my vehicles as a guide.  What do you know, the amount of information available to DIYers is amazing in the information age!  My Escape needed a tune up but half the spark plugs are buried underneath a labyrinth of tubes and components.  Youtube rescued me.  There turned out to be a video which showed me exactly how to change the spark plugs.  After watching the video two or three times, I was able to take on the job myself and complete it successfully.  What a tremendous sense of relief I had when it was completed and everything seemed to work fine.  And unlike my previous experiences, there weren't several "bonus" pieces left after I put everything back together.

With my new found confidence, I decided to tackle my electric dryer.  It sounded like a cat was being drowned whenever it would run.  After watching a Youtube video in which a repairman takes apart the same model dryer and replaces the blower wheel and the belt, I decided to give it a shot.  Judging by the sounds my dryer was making and consistent with the video, I was able to diagnose the problem, order new parts for $50, and put the thing back together again.  Now, instead of wanting to put it out of its misery, it quietly hums along as my clothes dry.  I just saved myself about $450.  Now that is a payday.

I'm not coordinated--dare I say "geeky."  If I can make some basic repairs on my own, I know you can too.  And who knows, you might save yourself a fortune and build your confidence in the process.  Half the time the broken thing is worthless in its current state so you have nothing to lose.  A broken dryer remains a broken dryer.

Good luck!

Making Sense of the Trayvon Martin Murder Case

One thing we can all agree on is that this case was a tragedy.  At the end of the day, a young man is dead and another man's life is ruined as he will live as a social outcast for the rest of his life.  The lives of the victim's family has been torn apart forever.  None of this should have happened.  If George Zimmerman hadn't been a wannabe cop, racial profiler and busy body, all of this could have been avoided.  It's telling how people who knew Zimmerman said he would call the police up to 20-30 times per day.  He's the kind of white (or at least half white) guy you would absolutely hate to live near--uptight as fuck, never minding his own business, and likely giving you shit about the state of your lawn.  If I were Trayvon Martin and this guy was giving me shit for no reason, I would have wanted to give him a good throttling, too.  Zimmerman had it coming to him.

The problem is that while Zimmerman deserved a beating, he didn't deserve to die, and Martin didn't have the right to kill him. A witness at trial and the pathologist both testified that based on eyewitness testimony and the nature of the bullet entry wounds to Trayvon Martin, he was on top of Zimmerman and pounding him in the head and wouldn't stop.  The injuries to the back of Zimmerman's head confirm this.  Getting your head slammed against concrete will kill you.  Based on Florida's "stand your ground" law, you can defend yourself with lethal force if you believe your life is threatened.  The facts of this case are clear here that Zimmerman could have reasonably believed this given the circumstances.

Initially, this case wasn't even going to be filed.  Prosecutors are charged with only bringing cases when the facts warrant them.  They have discretion to decide when something is worth pursuing or not.  Given how weak the case was against Zimmerman, the prosecutor wasn't going to bring this case.  It was only after the Obama administration weighed in on the matter publicly and political pressure was brought to bear that the case was brought against Zimmerman.  The problem with this is that the rule of law is inconsistent with playing political games.  As Obama has little respect for the rule of law given his disregard for the Fourth Amendment with respect to privacy rights and surveillance, this isn't surprising.

It wasn't right for Zimmerman to racially profile Martin.  It wasn't right for him to engage him, which led to a fight.  But under Florida law, this doesn't make Zimmerman a murderer.  A certified dickhead?  Definitely, but not a murderer.

There are folks like Al Sharpton who are saying that this verdict is an "atrocity" and that this case is reminiscent of the type of racial injustice served up by the Old South.  This inflammatory rhetoric doesn't apply to the circumstances of this case.  If people are unhappy with the expansive "stand your ground" legislation, they need to work on getting the law changed, but using the court system to punish Zimmerman for being racist is inconsistent with the rule of law.  When we violate that, then eventually we all lose because eventually every one of us is on the wrong side of politics.

Fighting For Our Freedom: It is in Our Hands

The greatness of America is not rooted in our current presidency.  It is not rooted in the vast military-industrial complex that has taken hold of our government since the 1950's and that was warned about by former top general and president Dwight Eisenhower.  It is not rooted in our economic strength, nor in our ability to kick ass using brute force.

The greatness of America is instead that conceived of by our founding fathers and written into the Constitution.  The notion that we would be a country run not by the whims and egos of politicians, but by a rule of law.  The notion that all people are treated equally under the law and that favoritism, nepotism, and other forms of tyranny would not rule.

The founding fathers through the Bill of Rights asserted that citizens have some rights the government may not take away.  These include the rights to free speech, religion, and peaceable assembly, among others.

Freedom isn't something we win so then can go rest on our laurels.  Men and women who run for political office tend to be narcissistic and selfish.  Power tends to corrupt.  When one has been in office long enough, power can go to one's head and lead to a sense of entitlement and arrogance.  The desire to control the people and subjugate them is an old story.  That is precisely why the founding fathers designed a system of checks and balances into our government.  The presidency is limited by Congress.  Tradition has led to the Supreme Court checking the power of Congress when it passes unconstitutional laws.  It is our job as citizens to remain aware of what is going on and hold our politicians accountable when they attempt to seize too much power for themselves and violate the Constitution.  If we fail to do so, we will eventually lose all of our freedoms.

Ever since 2000, the power of the presidency has grown totally out of control.  From illegal torture to drone strikes to mass surveillance, Bush started the abuses and Obama doubled down on them.  Instead of rolling back the abuses, Obama enhanced them.  As it stands now, he is far worse than Bush with respect to violating the rule of law and overstepping his bounds.  He has punished journalists and whistleblowers more aggressively than any other president under the Espionage Act.  He has violated international law by enhancing the drone strike program, and has even taken to killing American citizens without a trial. Hundreds of innocent men, women and children have been murdered by these strikes.  Each of them is nothing more than an American terror campaign which terrifies the locals in Yemen and Pakistan and leads to the creation of more terrorists, not less.

What is so reprehensible about Obama is how dishonest he is.  Bush was more or less honest about his Constitutional abuses.  Obama said he was going to reduce the power of the imperial presidency and Bush's abuses.  Instead he expanded them.

It is unfortunate that now in Washington, we have two parties which serve the same masters--corporate America, the rich, and the military-industrial complex.  So called liberals like Diane Feinstein team up with right wing politicians like Lindsey Graham to support mass spying and surveillance in violation of the Fourth Amendment.  Ironically, the only people still supporting the Constitution are strange bedfellows--right wing Rand Paul and left wing Bernie Sanders both oppose the drone strike program and mass surveillance.  Believing in the Constitution is not a Democrat or Republican issue anymore.  It is something we must all do.

It was just the fourth of July.  As usual, there is talk about how free we are and how special America is.  This won't be true forever.  Elites like Obama and Diane Feinstein are hell-bent on crushing whisteblowers and those who expose government abuses of power.  We must remember that it is America who has violated international law by putting pressure on countries throughout the world to extradite Edward Snowden, even though he has the right under the U.N. to apply and receive political asylum.  It is America that pressured France, Spain, and other countries to nearly cause the presidential plane of Evo Morales of Bolivia to crash by denying his flight over these countries on the mere suspicion that Snowden was aboard his plane.

It is America that sends flying robot drones to murder people in foreign countries, violating their sovereign status.  It is America that sends trained killers to murder people, not Bolivia or Venezuela.  Freedom is more than words.  It is more than Obama's lies and bullshit.  He can say whatever he wants, but what he does it what matters, and his record is horrendous.

As citizens we are called to apply pressure to our politicians.  If we say nothing, we are culpable.  Each day our freedoms are being rolled back.  If we fail to do anything because we don't want to be bothered.  Then under the name of "security" from terrorism we will become slaves.  We have already lost our privacy.

I believe in America.  I believe that this nation can be what our founding fathers intended.  And I refuse to lie back and say nothing while egomaniacs like Obama shred the Constitution.

The answer is not violence.  The answer is not terrorism against our government.  When enough Americans peacefully protest and raise their voices, change can happen.  It is a struggle that is long and hard.  Think of the civil rights struggle.  It took many years.  It is one of continuing to struggle and not giving up.  Grassroots efforts are important.

Freedom is in our hands.  If we lean back and focus on updating our Facebook statuses and texting while our rights are stripped away, then once we are reduced to the state of quasi-slaves we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Why Obama is Out of Control

Who is this man in the White House?  He certainly doesn't appear to be the same person who talked about transparency, hope, and change in 2008.  The shape shifter we have for a president now has turned out to be the reincarnated spirit of Woodrow Wilson.  Like Wilson, this man is drunk on power, hates transparency and governmental accountability, and is hell bent on smashing any political opposition he may face.  The Constitution, which he has sworn to uphold, has become his toilet paper.

Who would have known that he would invoke the Espionage Act more than any other president combined?  Who could have guessed that instead of apologizing after his administration was found to be spying on average American citizens and destroying their privacy rights, instead he defends such behavior under the guise of "protecting us from terrorism?"  Is this the same man who grew up to become a community organizer, church going Christian, and civil servant?

Ed Snowden, the whistleblower who exposed the lies and corruption is now being charged by the Obama administration with espionage.  Snowden should be receiving a medal for his heroism, not facing up to 10 years in prison and extradition.  The Obama administration is also behind the cruel and unusual punishment and prosecution of Bradley Manning, the whistleblower who exposed thousands of instances of government lies, corruption, and murder.  While Nixon was known for his hatred of whistleblowers, he is nothing compared to this administration.  In fact, Nixon is a raging liberal compared to Obama.

Anyone who still believes the nonsense about allowing the government to impose itself into every aspect of our lives in the name of "protecting us from terrorism" need only look to the Boston bombings.  The spy state didn't prevent that, now did it?  Hell, the Russians directly called the U.S. government and warned them about Tamerlin Tsarnaev and nothing was done.  It appears that the use of spying and information collection by this administration is being used to control, cover up, and smash its political opposition.  It views the enemy of the state to be the actual citizens of the U.S.

It is also interesting how this administration has no second term agenda.  The first term at least had the goal of reforming health care.  This term is all about playing political games and increasing the powers of the government.  It is about waging terror strikes using drones and ordering cyber attacks on other nations while hypocritically condemning other countries from doing the same types of cyber attacks.

The sad thing is that Obama is the president because our system put him there.  Romney would have been worse.  The system only promotes those who unquestioningly accept corporate power and elite control.  Around election time we get some well rehearsed propaganda to make us believe we are in control.  After the election, the real business of America happens--this means free giveaways to Monsanto, big banks, and other deep pockets.  The rich and elite of America ensure that their power remains strong.  We are fools to believe that if we simply elect the right man or woman, things will get better.  The system, with its corrupt campaign finance system, prevents that from happening.  True change can only come from widespread political organization by the masses and an involved and engaged citizenry.

Rethinking Texting: Taking a Second Glance

"Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief..."

Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2

In an earlier post, I mentioned why I wasn't into texting.  Since that time, however, I have changed my mind.  In law school, we had a professor who required us to answer a single question for a law exam.  We had 24 hours to produce an answer to the legal question.  The rub was that we had to be concise and precise.  He gave a strict word limit that meant no bullshitting.  One had to know what one was talking about in order to properly analyze the problem and answer the question.  At the time I didn't understand why he required this.  His explanation was that judges, when reading briefs, want to read legal pleadings which are short and to the point.  They don't have time for trivialities.

In time I have come to recognize that brevity is indeed the soul of wit.  Being able to filter out extraneous information and distill information down to its bare essence is far from easy.  In fact, it is one of the more difficult analytical things we can do.

Just listen to the way most people tell stories.  A good storyteller won't waste time with irrelevant details.  He won't be overly descriptive, but will emphasize the right elements at the right time.  Having a sense of pace and proportion in storytelling is critical.  Most people, however, stink at telling stories because they ramble on and fail to get to the point.

In an age when cell phone calls and long distance are essentially free, the temptation to over talk is rampant.  Something that could be said in a few moments ends up taking much too much time.  Efficiency and productivity of the workday suffer.  At the end of the day, you wonder where your time went because you didn't get anything done.

A text message that limits you to a limited number of characters requires you to put some organization and thought into your message.  You are forced to distill things down to their bare essence.  For many types of communication, such as dinner plans, scheduling changes, etc., this is the perfect medium.

My phone is still old and not designed for texting.  It is slow and arcane.  Yet I am coming to appreciate the hidden beauty of texting.  It reminds me of my old law school professor and his brief exams.  Sometimes understanding comes slowly, but sometimes it finally does arrive.

The future involves texting, and I am finally okay with it.

Angelina Jolie Deserves Applause

Yesterday, Angelina Jolie announced that after learning through genetic testing that she was a carrier of the BRCA 1 "breast cancer" gene, she underwent preventative double mastectomy surgery to reduce her chances of suffering from breast cancer.  Jolie's mother died from the disease after a decade long battle at the age of 56.  Jolie wrote an op ed article in the New York Times describing why she underwent the surgery and why she decided to go public with her decision.

Angelina Jolie is regularly rated by magazines and media outlets to be considered one of the most beautiful and sexy actresses in Hollywood.  In an industry obsessed with physical perfection and body ideals, a woman revealing that she had this type of surgery could endanger her career.  Yet Jolie felt that it was important enough to break the stigma and raise awareness of BRCA 1 testing and preventative mastectomy procedures to help save lives.  Instead of keeping this private decision private, she risked her career to reach out to others.

The choice to have a mastectomy even when diagnosed with breast cancer is usually very difficult for women.  The removal of one's breasts can lead to a sense of reduced femininity, apart from losing an important part of one's body.  To have one's breasts removed for preventative purposes is no small act.  It requires enormous courage.  In this case, Jolie said that the doctors informed her that her chance of getting breast cancer was 89% and the loss of her mother and the fact that her children would never know her informed Jolie's decision to have the surgery because Jolie didn't want her children to lose her like they did their grandmother.  Now her chances of getting breast cancer are reduced to 5%.

In 2004, at the young age of 49, my mother died from breast cancer.  The disease ravaged her body.  Watching her die was hell.  Every day I miss her and wish she were still here with me.  It kills me that she will never know her grandchildren.  She never was able to meet my wife, Cynthia, whom I know she would have loved.  I don't believe my mother had the BRCA 1 gene mutation.  But if she did and preventative mastectomy were available to her, no doubt she would have opted in.  She loved life and was a warm and glowing light whose cast was snuffed out too soon.  I hope that all women whose mothers, sisters, or aunts have had breast cancer receive genetic testing and discuss their options with their doctors.  Angelina Jolie's bravery in revealing her decision will no doubt save thousands of lives.

Much like her charity work at the United Nations, Jolie's choice to have a large natural and adoptive family, and her other actions, Jolie has shown that with age comes maturity.  She is no longer the wild child making out with her brother or wearing viles of blood around her neck with Billy Bob Thornton--she has grown up and become an amazing human being.

In interviews, Jolie comes across as down to earth, approachable, and warm.  This is refreshing given she grew up a privileged child of Hollywood (her father is veteran actor Jon Voight).  Her life partner is Brad Pitt and she makes millions of dollars starring in films and directing films.  If that doesn't cause you to act like a stuck up, entitled bitch, then nothing will.

I applaud Angelina Jolie on her decision to put her children first and to share her decision about preventative mastectomy with the world.  God bless her.