Rational Nation USA

Rational Nation USA Purveyor of Truth Is this what the party of Lincoln has turned into? WASHINGTON — Speaker John A. Boehner on Tuesday expressed “full confidence” in Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 3 Republican leader in the House, as he sought to quell a racially charged controversy shaking the party after Mr. Scalise confirmed that he had addressed a white supremacist group a dozen years ago. Mr. Boehner’s statement of support was his first public comment since the news broke on Monday night, a period filled with calls from some Republican and conservative commentators, as well as Democrats, for Republican leaders to shove Mr. Scalise from the leadership post. The flap roiled Republicans just as they were poised for a celebratory takeover of Congress when the new session opens next week. “More than a decade ago, Representative Scalise made an error in judgment, and he was right to acknowledge it was wrong and inappropriate,” Mr. Boehner said. “Like many...

Rational Nation USA Purveyor of Truth 2015 is going to be a very busy year for the Supreme Court of the United States and one that will result in defining moments on several fronts or issues. In just the first six months the SCOTUS will hear issues major that have divided political and social spectrum for some time. Topping the list are: 1) Obama care 2) Same-sex marriage equality 3) Religious freedom 4) Freedom of speech For details on the above short list and more GO HERE . Via: Memeorandum

Rational Nation USA Purveyor of Truth As an advocate of equal opportunity for all; rather than the equai results for all that some prograssives and socialists hold out as the ultimate end, it is hard to imagine ever supporting a candidate for president such as Senator Bernie Sanders. With income disparity between the very rich and the middle to lower economic strata continuing to increase it is likely the appeal for progressive/socialist politicians like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders will grow as well. Conservative republican and libertarian thinkers and politicians would be well served revisiting the social and economic conditions of the country's populace each time a progressive candidate has won the White House and liberal thinking grew in congress. Senator Sanders likely sees the times as being ripe for a socialist president in America. Candidates advocating capitalism really need to step back and begin viewing things long range and with respect to the contry...

Rational Nation USA Purveyor of Truth In our concern for a "perfect system" and our desire for a "perfect equality" we often fail to recognize the immense sacrifices those who protect our communities make daily. Often the sacrifice is their own lives. The following Time article by Howard Safir points out what many seem to be leaving out of our national dialogue and the result is painting law enforcement officers into a collective box. We have seen nothing but police bashing from some of the highest offices in the land. Police lives matter. Let’s demonstrate it nationally. Michael Brown and Eric Garner died resisting arrest. Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu died doing their job. It is a very important distinction. Michael Brown and Eric Garner were committing crimes. Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu were protecting all the citizens of New York City. The national dialogue on proper and effective policing has been totally distorted. Activists purporting to...

BBC - The Sheffield-born singer had a career lasting more than 40 years, with hits including You Are So Beautiful and Up Where We Belong. His agent Barrie Marshall said Cocker, who died after battling lung cancer, was "simply unique". Sir Paul McCartney said he was a lovely guy who "brought so much to the world". Cocker's friend Rick Wakeman, keyboard player for the rock band Yes, called his rendition of With a Little Help From My Friends "sensational" and said: "He had a voice that was just unique." Wakeman told BBC Radio 2: "The great thing is with someone like Joe is what they leave behind, and that will be with us for years and years." MORE ...

Rtional Nation USA Purveyor of Truth Nothing else need be said...

Rational Nation USA Purveyor of Truth Even some of the most virulent anti Castro communist regime Cubans recognize the value and validity of President Obama's initiative to relax restrictions and normalize relations with our neighbor 90 from the Florida cost. Perhaps Rubio, Cruz, Melendez, and the FOX News talking heads, as well as the rest of the bobbleheaded naysayers with be struck by a bolt of reason and get on board. But we're npt goona hold our breaths. MIAMI (AP) — Hours before President Barack Obama announced an end to a half-century of U.S. efforts to isolate Cuba's communist government, the Cuban American National Foundation opened the doors to its inviting new headquarters, with a modern glass and concrete lobby in the heart of Miami's Cuban exile community The symbolism is hard to ignore: The lobbying group was founded in 1981 by veterans of covert U.S.-supported missions to overthrow Fidel and Raul Castro, and for many years it worked to undermine t...

Rational Nation USA Pureyor of Truth Summing it up for those who follow the insanity rule, which is, if it isn't working keep doing the same thing for as long as it takes until it does Senator Rubio declares Senator Paul "clueless" for his support of Presidemt Obama's move to ease restrictions and normalize diplomatic relations with Cuba. “ The 50-year embargo just hasn’t worked, if the goal was regime change, it sure doesn’t seem to be working,” Paul, Kentucky’s junior senator, said during an interview this week. “Probably, it punishes the people more than the regime because the regime can blame the embargo for hardship .” - Senator Rand Paul “ I would expect that people would understand that if they just took a moment to analyze that, they would realize that the embargo is not what’s hurting the Cuban people, it’s the lack of freedom and the lack of competent leaders. ” - Senator Marco Rubio From this corner of reality we would expect most people, after an...

Rational Nation USA Purveyor of Truth President Obama's announcement that the United States of America and Cuba will begin normalizing relations is good news and long overdue. The Cuban embargo , expanded during the Kennedy administration on February 7, 1962 in response to the Soviet/Cuban missile threat to include almost all imports has, for all intent purposes, been a failure. It has failed to move the communist regime to lessen it's oppresion and democtatize the government. What it has done is closed Cuban markets to American businesses, restricted travel to and from the island, and denied the Cuban people the opportunity to benefit from trade between our two countries. As the saying goes... 'insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results'. While a majority of likely republican presidental canditates have walked the conservative line highly critized President Obama's decision to work with Pesident Raul Castro to nomar...

Rational Nation USA  Purveyor of Truth We'll start with the thing that will catch your attention, as is the way: Democrats who voted for the giant spending bill on Thursday night received, on average, twice the campaign contributions from the finance/insurance/real estate industry as their colleagues who voted against it. Yes folks, it's true. Money talks, regardless of party affiliation. And so we continue witnessing the purchase of influence by the wealthy and powerful. Does this register? Does it tell us anything? Should it tell us anything? Or do we simply go along to get along and be thankful things are as they are? It seems worth questioning what we view as our biggest national domestic problems. READ THE FULL WASHINGTON POST ARTICLE . Via: Memeoandum UPDATE : JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon made calls to lawmakers on Thursday urging them to support the “cromnibus” spending bill... Dimon's involvement came amid progressive outrage that the House cromnib...

What has thrown the plan into chaos is that numerous House Democrats are defecting over extraneous policy provisions that would weaken derivative trading rules on big banks and loosen campaign finance laws. The bill likely will need significant Democratic support to pass. If ever there was or is a reason to oppose a federal spending bill to fund the government the above is it. We absolutly do not need looser campaign finance laws and a relaxation on derivative trading rules. Risky bank behavoir and loose campaign finance laws is a dandy recipe for disaster. TPM - House Republican leaders are skating on thin ice with the government funding bill, facing stiff opposition from the left and the right that threatens passage just hours before a midnight deadline to avert a shutdown. GOP leaders temporarily recessed the House and postponed a final vote scheduled for the afternoon, while informing members to be ready to vote. "Leadership teams are still talking to their respective...

Rational Nation USA Purveyor of Trith It's going to get heated over the report on Bush era CIA torture post 911. As the rest of the world undoubtedly verbalize its condemnation. As people work their way through the passel of documents that is the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on post-9/11, Bush-era CIA torture, Fox News is ready to weigh in: The long-planned doc dump is all political subterfuge. The reactions of some of the hosts of the network's Outnumbered, though, was Fox News at their most stridently jingoistic . Skip to about 2:15 video clip embedded above where it gets really interesting. Read the REST OF THE STORY . Via: Memeorandum

by: Les Carpenter Rational Nation USA Purveyor of Truth America has a race problem. As with any problem of consequence there are many sides, or slants to the narrative. With a problem rooted as far back in history as the race problem in the Untied States of America the issues are complex and the solution, if it is to be found, will require shedding old paradigms and beliefs held by many white folks. Like it or not this is the simple truth. Environment has a lot to do with ones views and beliefs. If a child is raised in an environment that teaches respect for all people regardless of color or ethnicity, combined with parental examples that one should extend respect to all regardless of color or ethnicity the likelihood is that the child will grow into adulthood carrying these belief with them. One of the biggest reasons racial tensions continue to persist in America in the 21st century is because the foregoing simple truths are not universally understood and practiced by a...

Rational Nation USA Purveyor of Truth Uh oh, overall good economic news, including the best increase in jobs for a single month in 15 years. What next, the Dow sprinting above 18,000? Can not help but thinking about whether the current administration gets any credit for the improved performance and if the Tea Boys and Girls are working on the next scandel yet. After more than five years of elusive gains, ordinary Americans may finally be about to see the benefits of the recovery where it really counts: in their pocketbooks and wallets. The Labor Department reported Friday that employers added 321,000 jobs in November — a much stronger number than expected — but perhaps even more significant was the biggest gain in average hourly earnings since June 2013. Hourly earnings rose by 0.4 percent in November, double what economists had been expecting. That gain in hourly pay was significantly above the measly 0.1 percent increase in October, let alone the unchanged number in Septemb...

Rational Nation USA Purveyor of Truth THE HILL - Influential Democrats who have strongly defended Obama-Care for years are now publicly questioning whether the law was worth the political fallout. Passage of the Affordable Care Act marked the start of a political unraveling for the Democratic Party, which lost huge majorities in Congress and control of a majority of state governorships in the last four and a half years. Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), the third-ranking member of the Senate Democratic leadership, said last week that ObamaCare was not worth the political cost. And he’s not alone. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), the chairman of the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee, told The Hill that Democrats should have enacted a single-payer healthcare system or a public option. In retrospect, Harkin said, Democrats should have not passed the bill they did. While he says the ACA enacted some good reforms, he bemoans its daunting complexity. Schumer’s and Harkin’s...

Rational Nation USA Purveyor of Truth More ABC US news | ABC World News Video transcript: Transcript for Obama After Eric Garner Decision: ‘This Is an American Problem’ Some of you may have heard there was a decision that came out today by a grand jury not to indict. Police officers who had. Interacted with the an individual named Eric Garner in New York City. All of which was caught on videotape. And speaks to the larger issues that. We've been talking about now for. The last week the last month but last year and sadly. For decades. And that is. The concern on the part of too many minority communities that law enforcement. Is not. Working with them and dealing with them. In a fair way. And there's going to be. I'm sure additional statements by law enforcement my tradition is not too. Remark on cases were there may still be an investigation. But I wanna read understand that this week. In the wake of Ferguson. We initiated. A task force. Whose job it is to come b...

Rational Nation USA Purveyor of Truth Can anybody tell us what separates this "Man of God" from the bigoted Clerics of the Faith of Islam? I'm really, really curious. RAW STORY - A Baptist pastor in Tempe, Arizona called for the mass extermination of LGBT people on Sunday in a sermon entitled “AIDS: The Judgement of God.” In the sermon, which was uploaded to YouTube on Monday from Faithful Word Baptist Church, Pastor Steven Anderson said that God has ordered in the scriptures that gays should be killed, and that if humanity wants to have an “AIDS-free world by Christmas,” he said, that’s what should be done. “Turn to Leviticus 20:13,” he says in the video, “because I actually discovered the cure for AIDS.” “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them,” Anderson read aloud. “And that, my friend, is the cure for AIDS,” he said. “It was ...

Rational Nation USA Purveyor of Truth By Joe Scarborough - There are times when symbolic gestures pack a powerful punch. Fifty-nine years ago yesterday, Rosa Parks refused to give her bus seat to a white passenger. Parks' action became an important symbol for the Civil Rights movement and an inspiration to those fighting to end segregation in America. Thirteen years later, Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists while lowering their heads during their medal ceremony at the Mexico City Summer Olympics in 1968. That symbolic act jarred America and shoved the topic of racial prejudice into the face of millions of TV viewers. Their protests were an act of defiance against a system that still treated black Americans different than white Americans. Forty-six years later, Barack Obama is president of the United States, Eric Holder is attorney general, and the CEOs of corporations like American Express, McDonald’s, and Xerox are African-Americans. Despite the remarkable progr...

Rational Nation USA Purveyor of Truth From the Wall Street Journal today. Is there a possibility of compromise and getting things done or will it be more of the same? America has indicated time and again it's displeasure with governmental gridlock and continual kicking the can done the road. Immediately after the results were in, the White House and GOP leaders called for cooperation on trade, tax and other major issues. But the sides have since clashed, most notably over Mr. Obama’s executive order shielding millions of illegal immigrants from deportation. The White House also has announced plans with China to curb greenhouse gas emissions and called for new regulations on broadband providers, all to the dismay of Mr. McConnell and other Republicans. Mr. McConnell said he has no objection to negotiating with the White House and gets along with Mr. Obama. “We don’t have any personal problems,” he said. “There is however a deep philosophical difference.” Full article ...

Rational Nation USA Purveyor of Truth Presidential hopeful Dr. Ben Carson expounds on the impact of the women' lib movement, the me generation, and their suspected link to Ferguson MO. Read the article BELOW THE FOLD . What say you?