Recently, the new head of the Department of Veterans Affairs told the Senate he needs $17.6 billion dollars over three years to hire enough doctors and nurses to fix the waiting delay problems at VA hospitals.  The president has asked for $3.7 billion to address the crisis of South American children crossing the Mexican border to take refuge in America.  In the same news cycle, 21st Century Fox offered $80 billion to buy Time Warner, Comcast wants to take over Time Warner Cable for $45 billion and AT&T is offering $48.5 billion for DirectTV.  Just about every one of our national problems requires money to solve, yet Republican dogma says cut taxes, reduce spending and block anything and everything the current administration tries to do.  Why don’t we just let corporations make a takeover bid and buy the American government?  Oh, how silly of me, that’s already happened.

For the past couple weeks the crisis du jour has been the large number of unaccompanied children from Honduras,  El Salvador and Ecuador crossing the border into Texas.  There is a very simple and effective solution to this:  drone strikes.

They would not only instantly, efficiently and definitely solve the problem of the unwanted, illegal children; this solution should satisfy both the political left and right.

Since the day he was elected, Republicans have accused the president of doing nothing to correct all of America’s and the world’s problems.  By ordering drone strikes in the Rio Grande Valley,  Democrats can claim it proves the President is capable of taking decisive action and the Republicans would be able to complain that he did not do it soon enough.

Drone strikes are also cost effective.  We already have the drones and experienced pilots who can kill people half way around the world so strafing and rocket attacks on the Texas border would be a piece of cake.

Drone strikes are also cost effective.  There is no need to invest in new equipment or personnel and instantly eliminating these young, unwanted intruders would obviate the need to shelter and feed them and avoid the lengthy legal procedures required by the 2008 law which Congress approved and President Bush signed.  By supporting this solution, the Republicans can say they saved the taxpayers money.  On the other hand, the Democrats can claim they are open to holding down government expenditures in certain instances.

This offers endless opportunities for training exercises that would appeal to the Republican factions that insist military operations can solve everything.  For example, Army Special Forces might construct scenarios where the illegal’s are simulated terrorists and perform realistic night anti-infiltration exercises using live ammunition.  John McCain said,  “The only thing that’s going to stop these children from coming is if their parents see planeloads of them coming back to the country of origin,”  The Senator would certainly agree that parents seeing nightly news videos of their children being mowed down by drone gunfire would be an even more effective deterrent.

Even the NRA would be on board and could triumphantly run an advertising campaign that assault weapons don’t create problems, they solve them.

And here is one of the most elegant aspects of this plan; there would be no cost for clean up operations.  That would be left to carrion eating wildlife and what remains of the corpses and clothing would be bio-degradable and therefore environmentally friendly.

This is an absolute win-win situation regardless of your political affiliation so write your congressman and tell him you support drone strikes to keep those illegal, unwanted children from coming to the United States.  God bless America.

 

 

 

  

There is a terrible epidemic sweeping the United States today.  It is called TMRSPD (Too Many Really Stupid Polls Disorder).  Symptoms are grinding teeth, rapid jumps in blood pressure, a tendency to obscene expletives (all depending on your political leanings) and a horrible realization that the American public may actually be composed of unbelievably gullible morons.  One if the latest RSPs (Really Stupid Polls) conducted by Quinnipiac University concludes that President Obama is the “worst president” in American history.  You must be aware of this because the right wing has been treating it as the greatest revelation since the Ten Commandments.  The left has been giving it a lot of play as well.  Here’s how the University introduced the polls results: "President Barack Obama is the worst president since World War II, 33 percent of American voters say."  Now this generated an explosion of headlines, commentary and talk show vitriol lambasting Obama and the “Aha, we told you so” gloating from the right.  Jonathan Topaz of Politico pontificated, “A plurality of voters think Barack Obama is the worst president since World War II, a new poll says.”  Wait a minute.  The University says “33 percent of American voters” think he’s the worst.  Topaz says a “plurality” of voters think so.  Let’s see, there are 146,311,000 registered voters in America according to the 2012 census.  The University polled 1,446 people which is .000988 percent of American voters.  Now, 33 percent of 1,446 is 447. So, according to the sensational finding of the Quinnipiac poll, .000305 of the American electorate has determined Obama is the worst president since World War II. Now whether you are Republican or Democrat, I hope you get the point. Whether you think Obama is or is not the worst president since WW II is irrelevant.  It is your opinion.  But to conclude that this opinion is shared by a “plurality” of Americans based on 447 people is absurd. The media, both left and right, abets this absurdity by giving it sensational exposure without questioning its validity. In addition to all the other corruption, dishonesty and cheating that pervades our political system, polling has degenerated into a fine art of deception. (Or perhaps is always has been.)  Unfortunately, American voters have come to accept polls without questioning how they are being manipulated as long as the poll reinforces what they already believe.  Sophocles was right when he said, "What people believe, prevails over the truth."  If polls had existed in his day he might have said “What people are conned into believing, prevails over the truth.”

Well, once again, the so-called Supreme Court of the United States of America has shown it is the judicial arm of the Republican Party.  In its latest ruling, Hobby Lobby, a for-profit corporation can deny women certain contraception coverage in its employer-provided health plan on “religious grounds.”  Let’s not even get into the discussion of separation of church and state which Republicans ignore when it suits their purpose, nor the hypocrisy of Republicans’ ranting about government encroaching on citizens’ private lives (conception would seem to me to be something really private in peoples’ lives).  Let’s just consider a hypothetical new case brought before the Supreme Court.  Let’s say a Muslim family is the single owner of a privately owned, for-profit manufacturing company that makes toys.  It is such a prosperous company that it runs three shifts round the clock.  It employs 15,000 Americans.  However, It expects all employees on all shifts to report for work on December 25 and the employees, predominantly Christian, file a law suit saying that it is their most important holiday and they should get the day off.  By requiring work on that day, the plaintiffs contend, their religious freedom is being curtailed. The Muslim family retorts that based on their “religious grounds” it is not a holiday and they have no obligation to give Christian employees the day off.  Oh, this toy company also prohibits employees’ bringing ham sandwiches into the building also on “religious grounds.” Silly isn’t it, but that’s essentially what the Supreme Court did. Assume an exceptionally good female employee of Hobby Lobby wants to use contraceptives, specifically one the Hobby Lobby family objects to.  She does not share her employer’s religious beliefs.  However, in this instance she is subjected to the employers beliefs and denied something included in a United States law (yes, the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act as law) because of “religious belief.” You can see where I am going.  What’s the next thing for-profit corporations will use “religious grounds” to avoid complying with a law they don’t like.  This, once again, is not a question of “Democrats waging a war against religion,” as the Republicans are wont to say.  It is a question of the political right in collaboration with a conservative-loaded Supreme Court endorsing and imposing Christian religious beliefs on others who not share them.