While I agree with Chris that violence brutalizes us all, I don't buy that ISIS killed Foley without a lot more proof.

Why would ISIS kill Foley? To give Obama the justification to send in the air force and slaughter them like sheep?

It makes no sense. On the other hand, the US has shown no qualms about killing American citizens and Obama has bragged about it to the NYT. It made a lot of sense for the US to brutally kill one of its own people to justify more war.

Sure, ISIS may have killed Foley, but I cannot believe anything the US government says without strong proof.

"Never believe anything until it has been officially denied". The lies, disinformation and propaganda are indeed beweildering. Someone described the CIA as a "wilderness of mirrors" and so it is wise to believe nothing but instead apply the historian's test: who is saying this and why? ISIS/IS/IL whatever acronym is still the creation of the CIA, as was the Mujahideen,as was al Qaeda. The CIA wishes only for Hell on Earth, and then plausibly denies that they were responsible. The Hell of War is good for business. Capitalism has started to devour itself, us and the planet. There must be a better way to do 'business'.

Yeah like 911. Your right!!!

I agree. I read something right after this happened (and I can't remember the site) that there was an investigation to determine if the killer was in fact a British operative. Black Ops involvement would make more sense to me too. The U.S. wants a good excuse to go in full guns!

Good point moo...Yes, it seems that as citizens, our voices are raised, but not heard. Maybe we can effect change locally, by writing letters to Representatives, Senators, etc......but "Nationally?" No. The Executive Branch and the military, have joined forces with Multi-national elites. Our Congress has been left in the dirt. The Citizens have been silenced. We watch as a tragi-comedy is played out--in our names!

Well, let's see - who elects the "executive branch" ....

I don't believe we actually elect the Executive Branch any longer. I think they are "appointed" by the elite multi-nationals. They are sock puppets.

So there are no good choices on the ballot? Like Stein, e.g. ....

Yes, there are good choices---Dennis Kucinich was one. Did you not see how he was negated during the 2 elections in which he ran for President? I voted for Jill Stein. What was the percentage of votes she got? Not much. I am not saying....don't vote. I am simply disillusioned by the whole process.

I was a Kucinich fan - 'til he did his 180 on healthcare ....
The system indeed militates against alternatives - all the more reason to support them and give the lie to the memes like "can't win" that eat away that support .....

I'd really like to hear it from Dennis's own mouth...why he did that 180...From what I understand it was a belief that whatever small gains were made now....would pave the way for eventual single payor. But the only one who really knows, is Dennis.

As I've said before, I think with the Electoral College in play, even popular majority vote will not necessarily win an election.

Dennis gave his own explanation - it was for the sake of his party and his Pres. ..... He had been a critic of the ACA on principled grounds until his little trip on AF1 ..... I think he got read the riot act and sacrificed principle for party ....

As for the EC - Stein was on enough state ballots to get enough EC votes to win - one of only 4 candidates, including the D/Rs, who were ...

Hm, what do you think went wrong?

I think what went "wrong" is that he refused to abandon a party that had clearly abandoned all or most of the principles he claimed to stand for - he was useful to the party insofar as his presence and his rhetoric suggested to folks like myself, at that point, that there was "hope" for the party, but when he was in a position to actually threaten a corp agenda item, such as the ACA - he got dressed down and caved ....

For all the hype about Warren, etc. I think the same thing will happen to her if she steps too far out of line .... As Molly would say - ya gotta dance with the one that brung ya, and running as a Dem is dancing to the devil's tune ..

I think it was more the president than the party, Aquifer, but you're right on both counts. I, too, was a Kucinich supporter and remember when he bowed out of the 2008 race and recommended that his delegates support Obama. He was as taken in as a lot of people by Obama's rhetoric and the symbolism of race. Remember, many people, perhaps especially the young, were influenced by Obama's speech as an Illinois senator against the "stupid" (not immoral) war in Iraq. If they had merely read the msm (the NYT and the WaPo), they would have seen that he did not want to make that speech but that his handlers urged it, saying it would advance his prospects of being elected to the U.S. Senate from one of the most liberal enclaves in the country. And once in the Senate, Obama of course voted consistently to fund the war, even voting against the bill introduced by Kerry (and someone else I can't remember) to stop the funding. Obama also wanted to vote in support of Roberts' nomination to the Court, but again, his handlers discouraged it, warning him that it wouldn't play well in his run for president. You may recall that he chastised those who wanted to fillibuster the nomination. I called the Kucinich campaign when he urged his supporters to go with Obama and asked why he would throw his support to a candidate whose views differed from his own on so many critical issues. Again, they were taken in by the spin.
Maybe we, including Kucinich, will learn to look at candidates' actual records (and inconsistent rhetoric) BEFORE we throw away our votes on them.

You have a much more detailed critique of O in those days than I - i took his number when he backed out of Single Payer in the run-up to the '08 nomination, after his reputed support for it - he was a corp man and his subsequent votes re telecom immunity for spying and push for TARP, among others, simply confirmed and reinforced it ...

I agree and remember arguing at the time that we needed to pay attention not only to what the guy was actually doing, but to what he was actually saying, and I was continually flabbergasted by what folks would excuse, including, if not especially, prominent "prog" pundits, in the name of getting "the first black Pres."

Obama won the tested approval of Lester Crown before entering the Illinois Senate.

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Very well said. I hate to say anything negative about Dennis Kucinich, but I think you have this right.

You're nobody's fool.

Thanx - I think :)

You're welcome. Your analysis of Kucinich's situation was as good as I've seen. Your reservations about Warren are also appropriate. She pushes one collection of issues but ignores others such as the Obama-supported attack on the Gaza and the insane confrontation with Russia. If she were elected president, her choices of advisers could be as revealing as those of Obama.

I think Liz is a one note symphony - a good, respectable, basically conservative, Mid Westerner filled with righteous indignation over the miscreants of the financial industry who are screwing "good respectable hard working folk". But beyond that she will toe the party line, methinks ... I watched the Mass Dem candidates debate and it was rather clear she was basically "in line" with the party/Pres on just about everything

... I don't think she will challenge Hillary in '16, but i do think she has higher ambitions .... great debater :)

Yeah, when O picked Rubin as economic adviser, what a tell ....

Sad about Kucinich - he could have gone out with his integrity intact, but even after caving, his beloved party screwed him anyway ...

Liz wasn't born rich. She has had to work for a living. She's had to concentrate her attentions to build a remunerative competence in a particular area. She lacks an organization, at least one than is financially subservient to her. She is dependent on expertise outside her area from outside experts with loyalties developed elsewhere. An example of the consequence of this would be Carter taking the odious Rockefeller creature, Brzezinski, for his National Security Adviser.

You are right. When it comes time to deal with big boys, Liz will fall. She is already owned by the genocide pushing AIPAC.

I have a great deal of respect for Jill Stein - Green Party Pres candidate in '12. She, too, has her own area of expertise, medicine, the practice of which, according to her, has led her to enter the political arena because of her understanding that the external milieu that is making her patients sick cannot be adequately dealt with within the confines of a medical practice. Unlike Liz, however, she is developing an entire "cabinet" of advisers in all areas - the Green Shadow Cabinet - and, unlike Kucinich, she has chosen to stay clear of corporate dominated parties. This, of course, makes it quite difficult to advance politically for lack of money and media coverage, but unties her from the need to toe a corp line ..... quite literally a grass roots effort ...

I think she is quite capable of handling the "big boys" and do believe that until "we the people" unite behind and support someone of her caliber, smarts and determination we are bound to continue being sucked under by the duopoly whirlpool, or cesspool, of American "politics" ....

Jill Stein's development of a shadow cabinet is a very encouraging sign.

Maybe after a careful vetting of her shadow cabinet, she could use them explaining how they would operate their intended positions to establish her policies before the electorate, instead of the rhetoric that was used by The Barf. Such or similar policy would be risky because the more opportunities it would provide to outside attack, but over time it would help gather strength in playing the game.

Agree .... As the saying goes, first they ignore, then they ridicule, then they attack, then you win .... So having to face attacks, it would seem to me, would be an indicator that one is making progress :) but, as you say, would up the ante - if handled well, such attacks would indeed prove useful tempering agents ....

The Barf? Sorry, not familiar with that descriptor, though I could guess ...

The guy Harry Belafonte described about three years ago as lacking a moral compass. I agree, since if The Barf ever had one, he sold it along with his soul to Penny Pritzker, now his new Secretary of Commerce.

I thought that was who you meant - a similar thought occurred to me, when he was being lauded as a "cool" character - as in "no drama Obama" - I thought, this guy isn't cool, he's cold .... a very calculating fellow, indeed ...

Technically, we never elected the executive branch. Electors chosen by the states (in a constitutional sense) make the final votes but if they don't want to follow the popular vote at all, they don't have to.

This-and a lot of related issues-I think gets closer to the heart of the problem.

Yes. The Electoral College needs to be done away with! Run-off voting would be best IMO.

I agree with you about the electoral college, but in only two instances in the country's history did the electoral vote diverge from the popular vote -- one was the Bush-Gore election. I don't remember the other, but I'm sure you could find it easily enough on the web.

I qualfied the "two instances" remark in my comment below.

According to FactCheck.org, it has happened 4 times.

1824...John Quincy Adams
1876...Rutherford B. Hayes
1888...Benjamin Harrison
2000...George W. Bush

Thanks for the correction. (I should have double-checked my source myself). Again, I think the electoral college needs to be changed. But I'm also concerned that we let, for example, the Bill of Rights languish. We need to be working on several fronts simultaneously. I would guess you agree with that.

Yes I do!

Paula,
I went back to my source (a constitutional scholar) about the electoral college/popular vote discrepancy, and here is what he wrote back:

"The 1872 election was the first in which every competing state used a popular vote to determine its electors; since 1832, South Carolina had been the lone state to decide electors by the state legislature." So in 1824 apparently there was more than one state that still appointed electors, making any national "popular vote" irrelevant to the election of JQA even aside from the 12th amendment provision for Congress to resolve an election where there is no majority. Since there was no majority in the popular vote, abolishing the electoral college would have produced the same result, unless the majority vote requirement was also scrapped.

The 1888 election was won by Harrison without a majority of the popular vote. But again, starting in 1876 the solid south had by
then reached the height of its terrorist and trickery suppression of
the Black vote. In 1890 it started to systematically
disenfranchise by law, with the support of the Supreme Court. Mississippi v Williams, 170 U.S. 213 (1898) (discriminatory voter
registration rolls), and Giles v Harris, 189 U.S. 475 (1903) (grandfather clause).

The Republicans also stole a lot votes in 1888. But the solid south was an artificial construct of white supremacists, which included a lot of ballot stuffing in addition to vote suppression. I would argue that 1888
was an example of electoral college protection against a corrupt popular vote total. Since at least 2000 we have entered a new era of corrupt popular vote totals. But the 2000 type of election theft was arguably different than 1888, because election machine-based election theft allows targeting of the specific swing states necessary to tilt the
electoral college irrespective of popular vote. It would be more
effective to focus energy on passing a paper ballot law and empowering an anti--election fraud commission than changing the electoral college. From US experience one could argue that it has been election fraud that leads to the electoral college and popular vote disparity, when it has happened. In the first two cases the electoral college likely frustrated the fraud (solid south disenfranchisement) and in one it facilitated the fraud (Cheney voting machine hacking)."

So . . . I failed to provide my friend's nuance in my earlier post, and I thought you might find the above interesting. I myself know very little history of the electoral college and my interest has been aroused by that of you and other posters like Iconoclast. As is apparent from the quote above, my friend thinks that doing away with the electoral college will be insufficient without also addressing corruption, like the voting machine hacking and gerrymandering. As I recall, you have expressed concerns about these issues, as well.

The above is a sound argument for a Constitutional Monarchy.

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Thank you for this excellent information!

You're welcome, Paula. Thanks for raising this important topic. I learned something, too!

Some commenters say “no mass voting”

Voting is one of the few rights you have left.

- powerless

Powerless - nope ....

Your family is much more open-minded than mine. I would not dare ask that question at any family gathering of mine, save for one brother and his partner who quit the USA for what that had hoped would be slightly greener pastures.

About 3,000 dead and many more injured in Pearl Harbour, and 911 of course. Both started a very deadly and savage war, particularly in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on hundreds of thousands of civilians... Hard for the US to give moral lessons to the rest of the world considering how many wars it has conducted since the end of WWII. A UN report totalled them to 170 + not too long ago.

I agree with you.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour did not start a war.The Japanese had been at war with various parts of Asia snce 1894 and by 1941 had devastated China. Europe had been at war since 1939. Pearl Harbour was merely the event that decided the USA to join in.Unfortuneately the USA hasn't stopped since then.