Repeal the Second Amendment: Part One

Almost everybody in the U.S. [including the Gang of Five Republicans on the Supreme Court--Roberts, Alito, Kennedy, Scalia and Thomas] is misinterpreting the Second Amdenment.
 
The sole and unique purpose of the Second Amendment (adopted in 1791 when "semiautomatic assault weapons did not exixt) was to assure that a citizen mililtia was armed (with single-shot, muzzle-loading muskets), so that they could defend the country against the British if they tried to invade us (as they did in 1812).   

There was absolutely nothing whatsoever in the Second Amendment about possessing arms for "personal protection" despite distorted views of trhe Gang of Five.

The Second Amendment is now obsolete--and has been for two hundred years because we don't have a militia any more and, the last time I checked, the redcoats were not coming after us.

The Second Amendment should be repealed.  

How can We the People repeal the Second Amendment?  It takes is a vote of 2/3 of the House and the Senate and the approval of 3/4 of the state legislatures. Sounds hard, but there is a precedent: the 18th Amendment prohibiting alcohol was repealed by the 21st Amendment.

All it takes is the political courage to stand up to the bullies in the NRA and the gun lobby.  Do American politicans have that courage?  If not, We the People should throw the cowards in the trashcan and elect men and women who have the guts to repeal the Second Amendment.

Jagor

Best News in the Last 50 Years

From the Guardian:

UN tells Israel to let in nuclear inspectors

The UN general assembly has overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling on Israel to open its nuclear programme for inspection.

The resolution, approved by a vote of 174 to six with six abstentions, calls on Israel to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) "without further delay" and open its nuclear facilities to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Those voting against were Israel, the US, Canada, Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau.

 Note: a total of 190 countries have joined the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

What are the Israelis waiting for?  Why do the Israelis want inspections in Iran but refuse inspections in in their own nuclear facilities?  It has been estimated that Israel possesses from 75 to as many as 400 nuclear weapons, which are reported to include thermonuclear weapons in the megaton range

View a map showing all the known Israeli nuclear sites.

Jagor

Little-known Facts about Jill Kelley née Khawam

Although most of the media coverage of the General Petraeus resignation has focused on the general and his erstwhile paramour Paula Broadwell, less attention has been paid to the "other woman," who launched the whole affair.

Here are some facts about Jill Kelley that most of the mainstream media have chosen to ignore:

1. Jill Kelley and her husband Scott ran a  phony "cancer charity" that went bankrupt after not spending a single penny on cancer research or cancer patients
Based out of the couple's mansion, the Doctor Kelley Cancer Foundation claimed on its tax forms that it "shall be operated exclusively to conduct cancer research and to grant wishes to terminally ill adult cancer patients."

From the records, it appears that the charity fell far short of its mission...[F]inancial records reviewed by  the Huffington Post reveal that the group spent all of its money on parties, entertainment, travel and attorney fees.

By the end of 2007, the charity had gone bankrupt, having conveniently spent exactly the same amount of money, $157,284, as it started with -- not a dollar more.

2. Jill Kelley tried to claim "diplomatic protection"to which she is not entitled.
When she disliked the reporters congrating near her home she called 911. "You know, I don't know if by any chance, because I'm an honorary consul general, so I have inviolability, so they should not be able to cross my property. I don't know if you want to get diplomatic protection involved as well," she told the 911 dispatcher.

Jill Kelley is nothing more than one of ten "honorary consuls" of South Korea in the United States [and not an "honorary consul general" either] and doesn't qualify for any diplomatic protection whatsoever.  Kelley's honorary title--granted last August--has no value, no legal protection, no legal authority of any kind. Furthermore, the South Korean government is considering revoking the honorary consult status  it awarded Jill Kelley.

3. Jill Kelley's maiden name is Khawam and she is from a Maronite Christian family that emigrated to Philadelphia from Lebanon in the mid-1970s.  Acording to the Washington Post,"A military officer who is a former member of Petraeus’s staff said [the Arabic-speaking] Kelley was a “self-appointed” go-between for Central Command officers with Lebanese and other Middle Eastern officials."

Jagor's Comment:

Jill Kelley appears to be an overly-ambitious, status-seeking megalomanic with questionable ethics who wormed her way into the good graces of a lot of powerful military officers and civilians in the Tampa Bay area and then flaunted and capitalized on the access to those VIP's that she had acquired.

Most Dangerous Man in Washington in Danger

President Barack Obama may arguably be the most powerful man in Washington, but the most dangerous man in the Nation's Capital is a publicity-shy lobbyist named Grover Norquist, whose name most Americans ignore.

Norquist is a conservative activist, a lobbyist and the founder and president of Amerians for Tax Reform. 

Why is Grover Norquist the most dangerous man in Washington?  

Because he virtually blackmailed 95% of all Republican Congressmen and all but one of the 2012 Republican presidential candidates to sign his "Taxpayer Protection Pledge."

And what is the "Taxpayer Protection Pledge?"  

It opposes increases in marginal income tax rates for individuals and businesses, as well as net reductions or eliminations of deductions and credits without a matching reduced tax rate.

What's so bad about the "Taxpayer Protection Pledge?"

• Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) blamed Norquist's influence for the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction's lack of progress, claiming that Congressional Republicans "are being led like puppets by Grover Norquist...He is their leader."

• Republican ex-Senator Alan Simpson, co-chairman of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, has been particularly critical of Grover Norquist, describing his position as "[n]o taxes, under any situation, even if your country goes to hell."

But why is Grover Norquist now in danger?

It all started when a few extremely courageous Republicans started to reject Grover Norquist's "no taxes" pledge. As reported back in May:

A small but increasingly vocal group of freshmen Republicans are publicly rejecting the idea they are beholden to Grover Norquist's pledge...One such member, Scott Rigell of Virginia, has openly rejected the pledge, explaining on his website that it would prevent Congress...from eliminating corporate loopholes or government subsidies...The math, he said, just doesn't make sense. 

Freshmen Reps. Kevin Yoder [R-KS], Richard Hanna [R-NY] and Rob Woodall [R-GA] never signed the pledge...making up half of the six House Republicans who refused to sign on.

And now, conservative commentator and Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, one of the biggest Republican guns in town, has dared to stand up to the most dangerous man in Washington!

On "Fox News Sunday" he stated that the Republican Party should accept new ideas, including the much-criticized suggestion by Democrats that taxes be allowed to go up on the wealthy.  "It won't kill the country if we raise taxes a little bit on millionaires," he said.

"[Is] the Republican Party is going to fall on its sword to defend a bunch of millionaires, half of whom voted Democratic and half of whom live in Hollywood and are hostile?" he asked.

Jagor's comment

Grover Norquist should read the handwriting on the wall: Republicans, after their humiliating defeat on Election Day, are finally coming to understand  that they no longer need to be blackmailed by Grover Norquist, and that it is no longer unpatriotic to compromise with the Democrats and raise taxes on the super-rich.

Maybe the time has finally come for the most dangerous man in Washington to go back to being a "boring white bread Methodist."

Jagor

Democrats Decimate GOP in California!

More bad news for the Republicans. [Boo-hoo, I feel your pain--yeah, sure!  What I do feel is schadenfreude.]

Michael R. Blood reports:

The nation's most populous state – home to 1 in 8 Americans – has entered a period of Democratic political control so far-reaching that the dwindling number of Republicans in the Legislature are in danger of becoming mere spectators at the statehouse.

Democrats hold the governorship and every other statewide office. They gained even more ground in Tuesday's elections, picking up at least three congressional seats while votes continue to be counted in two other tight races – in one upset, Democrat Raul Ruiz, a Harvard-educated physician who mobilized a district's growing swath of Hispanic voters, pushed out longtime Republican Rep. Mary Bono Mack.

The party also secured a supermajority in one, and possibly both, chambers in the Legislature.

"Republican leaders should look at California and shudder," says Steve Schmidt, who managed John McCain's 2008 campaign and anchored former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's re-election team in 2006. "The two-party system has collapsed."

The number of Hispanics, blacks and Asians combined has outnumbered whites since 1998 in California, and by 2020 the Hispanic population alone is expected to top that of whites. With Latinos, for example, voter surveys show they've overwhelmingly favored Democratic presidential candidates for decades. Similar shifts are taking place across the nation.

Jagor's Comment:

First of all, the 2012 election proved that the plutocrats' hundreds of millions of dollars couldn't buy the White House and the Senate for the Republicans as they had planned.  Additionlly, all the efforts of Republican governors and attorneys general in several states to disinfranchise Democrats [mostly minorities and the poor] through various illegal and/or unethical tactics and strategies failed miserably.

A "rainbow coalition," that was once a minority made up of minorities has now become a majority made up of minorities including young voters of all races and both sexes, especailly young, unmarried females [who do not want reactionary and ignorent men--and the Roman Catholic Church--to colonize their bodies and quash their reproductive rights], African-Americans [who voted 90% for Obama], Hispanics and Latinos [who--except for a few superannuated Cuban exiles nicknamed "gusanos" rotting away in Miami-- voted overwhelmingly for Democrats], and the increasingly powerful and vocal LGBT community [openly-declared lesbian Debbie Baldwin defeated erstwhile Republican dreamboat, former governor and putative presidential hopeful Tommy Thompson, to win a seat in the U.S. Senate from Wisconsin] taken together represented enough votes to swing the election for Obama nationwide and to effect an overwhelming take-over in California.

And speaking of women, five women, all but one of whom are Democrats, won first terms in the Senate this year--in Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Hawaii, Nebraska and North Dakota.  The results mean that when the new Congress convenes in January 20 senators out of 100 will be women.  For the first time in its history, the United States Senate is looking less and less like an exclusive club of old, white, male multi-millionaires.

The handwriting is on the wall: the Republican Party is destined to become as dead as a dodo--unless Republicans rapidly discard their medieval and reactionary ideology--and that means throwng the Tea Party into the trash compactor--and come into the 21st century with the rest of America.  Otherwise, the Republicans will go the way of the Whigs.  Remember the Whigs?

Jagor