A New Foreign Policy

This country needs a new foreign policy…..the old Cold War mentality does not translate well in the 21st century…..this country should be the prime cheerleader of a peaceful world….instead we spend more on our endless wars that about 15 countries combined.

But most people ask…how can negotiations bring about peace?

How Can Negotiations Bring Wars to an End?

There are attempts….and all should be pursued as doggedly as we pursue war.

Global Peacebuilding Act: Authorizes a transfer of $5 billion from the Pentagon’s Overseas Contingency Operations budget to the State Department to create a new, multi-lateral Global Peacebuilding Fund.

Stop Arming Human Rights Abusers Act: Establishes red lines based on internationally recognized gross violations of international human rights and international humanitarian law. Once a country crosses those lines, it automatically triggers a prohibition on security aid of any kind, arms sales including those controlled by the Commerce Dept. (tear gas, etc.), and exchanges with U.S. law enforcement. Read the billhere.

Global Migration Agreement Act: Instructs the State Department and U.S. Ambassador to the UN to take the lead on creating a binding international agreement on global migration. Read the billhere.

Congressional Oversight of Sanctions Act: Requires a joint resolution of Congress to approve sanctions issued under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) within 60 days of being back in session after the sanctions are announced, and requires Congressional approval to renew existing sanctions. Read the bill here.

YouthBuild International Act: Replicates the highly successful domestic YouthBuild program – which helps disadvantaged youth obtain the education and employment skills they need to achieve economic self-sufficiency. Read the billhere.

Resolution on the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child: The United States is the only country in the world not to have ratified the UNCRC. Protecting the rights of children is fundamental, and we should be a world leader on this issue, which we can’t be unless we’re a state party to the Convention. Read the bill here.

Resolution on the Rome Statute, and the International Criminal Court: The United States has been a leader on international criminal justice since Nuremberg, and our hostility towards the ICC has always been at odds with our commitment to the rule of law, accountability, and to the principle that no one is above the law. we need to send a strong message in support of international criminal justice. Read the billhere.

You can read more on the Pathway to PEACEhere.

Yes I am an antiwar wonk and would do all I can to bring the topic to the forefront….

It is probably too late to search for peace……why?  Profits!

Peace will be possible when peace is as profit making as armed conflict……and those days are a ways off sadly.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

This Impeachment Thing

We are in the middle of a gut wrenching process of trying to impeach the president of the United States…..that is all the the news echoes day after day……

I need to let my readers know how I feel about this process.

I have been writing about the process in my other blog, In Saner Thought, but I have not been straight forward with my opinion on this process.

First do I think the president should be impeached?  Yes I do!  Why?  Because I feel that he is gaming the system for his benefit and not that of the country.

After all that said….

I kinda hope he comes out of this okay.

Why would I wish that?

That sometime down the road a Democrat will take office and he can do whatever he likes to the system….insult politicians, investigate political opponents, force corruption with foreign countries, etc.

If Trump walks on this then it will come back a bite the GOP sycophants in the ass…a position that many of them may favor these days.

I want to hear the whining by the sycophants like Gaetz, Jordan and Meadows….their performances ought to be Emmy worthy….just listen to their words….they have nothing to say about the evidence they only bitch about the process.

We can blame the rise of the Tea Party as the start of this breakdown in civility and order……nope….we can blame Newt and his band of radicals in 1994  as the beginning….the hatred for one party for the other began in word and deed with Newt.

In rolling out his proposal for a progressive agenda, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has repeatedly referenced Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America.” On one level that makes sense, since the “Contract with America” is arguably the only example most people can think of where a national political platform of sorts did not come from a presidential campaign. It also played a significant—though sometimes poorly understood—role in altering the trajectory of American politics, and thus it makes sense to reference it when setting out to alter that trajectory again.

A lot of what people remember about the Contract just isn’t so, and a lot of what was so is forgotten. It was not a conservative document so much as it was a targeted GOP play for the support of Ross Perot voters (as described in the book “Three’s a Crowd: The Dynamic of Third Parties, Ross Perot, and the Republican Resurgence” by Ronald Rapoport and Walter Stone), and despite its poll-driven nature (touted by Gingrich at the time), its late release indicated it was less a play for broad political support than it was for shaping elite political discourse after an election Republicans knew they would win. At its core, it was the very essence of political gamesmanship, even as it paraded itself as a populist attack on the establishment.

https://www.salon.com/2015/05/23/the_power_grab_that_destroyed_american_politics_how_newt_gingrich_created_our_modern_dysfunction/

Since those days it is hate for one party or the other and the people within those parties……

Our government is dysfunctional….and to blame it all on the Dems is disingenuous……Repubs have been equally to blame for this disunity…..and we can thank the Tea Pargty for making the sore of dysfunction spread like an all consuming rash on the skin of our nation.

Make no  mistake…it is HATRED for the other party…matters not the issues but rather the membership in one or the other.

It all began with the “Watergate Babies”….

For millions of Americans, from political analysts to readers confronting their morning newspapers, the dysfunction of today’s Congress is a disturbing mystery. The majority, which controls the agenda and schedule of the House, seems riven with division; the leadership seems bereft of methods or muscle for enforcing discipline; distrust pervades relations with Senate colleagues, and the relationship with the White House, controlled by the majority’s own party, is unpredictable and volatile. With the Republicans locked in seemingly intractable conflict with a minority focused on regaining power, the Congress has rarely been less productive or less well-regarded in the public’s perception.

It wasn’t always like this; in some ways, it was worse. For generations, the House was a secretive, hierarchical, tradition-bound institution that gave little regard or influence to newcomers. Power was concentrated so assiduously in the handful of committee chairs that even the elected leadership hesitated to challenge the old men with the gavel. From the dour Woodrow Wilson through the thundering Lyndon Johnson, the House lumbered along in its top-heavy, anachronistic style, incapable of competing with an executive branch that was increasingly agile and expansive, well-suited to modern mass communications, and aggregating power by virtue of its ability to act decisively.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/05/26/congress-broke-american-politics-218544

I admit that I have read and been called so many insulting names over the years that I went against my best interests and started using derogatory terms about others in the government.

I regret that I sank to that level of intolerance but I will refrain when the others also refrain.

I just want the Repubs to remember all this for of the Dems have any cajones at all they will use the GOP play book and play dirty for all common decency is gone from our political process.

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

When Will Mississippians Ever Learn?–Part 2

As the second part of my look at Mississippi’s representation in Washington—this post will be about my Rep in the House….Gene Taylor…….

In the past Rep. Taylor’s record has been pretty good as far as the middle class goes…..

2003-B, 2004–C, 2005–C, 2006–C, 2007–C, 2008–A and for 2009 he has gotten a 68% approval rating….let us look at where is NO votes have been inb the past year……

He has vote NO on these bills–

Wall Street Accountability & Consumer Protection

Affordable Health Care Act

Jobs For Main Street Act

Clean Energy & Security Act

Helping Families Save Their Homes Act

American Recovery & Reinvestment Act

There are the biggies for 2009……read the list again and read it carefully……(pause here for reflection)…..are you a Mississippian that has no job or is losing your house or cannot afford health care….if so, tell me just where is Taylor actually doing your bidding Washington?

Once again Mississippians have been lead by the Bible down a road of ruin….they have a LONG history of voting for the worst person to represent them….will they ever change?  Not a chance!

The Winds Of Change?

Remember Lieberman when he lost the Dem primary in his state…he went to being an independent….and then there was Specter who went from Dem to Repub and back to Dem and now we have a Rep from Alabama that has jumped from the Dems to the GOP……is this the winds of change for the political scene?

According to the WaPo the latest deserter is Rep. Griffith of Alabama:

Freshman Rep. Parker Griffith (D-Ala.) switched his affiliation to the Republican Party on Tuesday, saying he could “no longer align myself with a party that continues to pursue legislation that is bad for our country.”

Griffith had voiced his frustration with party leaders several times and had made it clear that he wouldn’t back Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) again as speaker of the House. “I would not vote for her,” Griffith told a constituent at a town hall meeting in August. “Someone that divisive and that polarizing cannot bring us together.”

How about that for the noblest of reasons?  He can NO longer support the Dem agenda in the House….Ha Ha Ha Ha …..what a crock of crap!

The atmosphere against Dems in the public now says that they will have a hard time holding all their seats in the House …and Griffith’s district will most likely go GOP in the next election….he is just hedging his chances of re-election.  There is NOTHING noble in what he did…it was not based on principles…..just the re-election of yet another demented little toad.

As elections grow closer I look for similar moves by other cowards who put their own self interests above those of the Americans they supposedly represent….

Wicker Confident Of State GOP

Former North Mississippi Congressman Roger Wicker, who had an iron grip on his old district but isn’t as well known south of Jackson, faces his former roommate in a nasty battle for the U.S. Senate seat vacated with Trent Lott’s retirement.

To keep the seat, Wicker faces Democrat Ronnie Musgrove, a former governor and veteran of three statewide races, two of them successful. Since Gov. Haley Barbour appointed Wicker to the interim seat, Wicker has been trying to become well known on Lott’s South Mississippi stomping grounds.

The 57-year-old has north Mississippi roots. He is the son of retired Circuit Judge Fred Wicker and the late Wordna Wicker, and a 1969 graduate of Pontotoc High School. At the University of Mississippi, Wicker was the Associated Student Body president and made the Hall of Fame. He earned his bachelor’s and law degrees there.

Wicker was elected to Washington in 1994 as part of the “Republican Revolution” when the GOP won control of the House while current Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour was chairman of the Republican National Committee. That was also the year of then-Republican U.S. Rep. Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America”- a plan for a more ethical and fiscally responsible Congress – that helped spur the Republican Revolution.