I agree that Obama’s pro nuclear and fossil fuel people influenced this as much as the solar panel manufacturers. Aren’t there plenty of other things we could put tariffs on that aren’t as desirable as solar energy capture?

Please do everything you can to cause the $1.5 trillion the Defense Depart proposes spending on F-35 warplanes be spent instead on solar power and electric vehicles.

I am in the process of having an $11,000 solar system installed on the roof of my home office. It will generate enough electricity to meet all my household and office needs and will also have enough surplus capacity to charge a 24 kwh electric car battery daily, which is the size battery in the Leaf or Focus or Volt.

$1.5 trillion (the F-35 budget)is enough to purchase 75 million such solar systems, installed and grid tied. There are about 75 million single family homes in the United States. After purchasing and installing 75 million rooftop solar systems, there will be enough money left over from the $1.5 trillion proposed to be spent purchasing 2,400 F-35 warplanes to offer 25 million $27,000 electric car rebates.

We can get energy independence and fight a real threat, climate change, with this money. Let’s do it. Do what you can to make it happen!

The First Amendment of the Bill of Rights
of the U.S. Constitution, in its entirety, reads:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. ”

Either we have a Constitution or we don’t. If the courts don’t support the Constitution by striking down local laws which conflict with the Constitution then the Constitution ceases to exist.

The oceans are still huge. All you have to do is fly across one to realize that. The Long Dong proved impotent, and any country which actually has missiles which could cross the ocean is unlikely to commit suicide by firing them at the United States.

But accidents can occur, so we shouldn’t remain complacent about the destruction of the missiles and the nuclear arsenals that could spell Armageddon any moment.

I read recently that the F-35 fighter plane costs $661 million for each airplane and that the Defense Department has ordered over 2,400 of these planes. That comes to about $1.5 TRILLION!!!!

Those planes cannot fly across the oceans, it’s too far. Yes, another country could possible launch missiles that could nuke us, but it would be complete suicide. Other than attack by missiles, there is no way, really, for any country except Mexico and Canada to attack us. I think we are safe from Mexico and Canada.

So there is no threat. We will hear the argument that we need to protect shipping lanes and keep the world safe for our commerce. Globalization and the movement of investment for production in machine tools and other manufacturing equipment has moved all that to China. There are no products to speak of to move from the United States, and no country outside the United States which would want to cut off our markets from their production centers.

The world has changed to such a vast degree that continued emphasis on military has become even greater folly that it ever was.

Instead of 2,400 just think what we could do with all that money! $661 million for each of our largest 2,400 cities to build streetcar systems to save the global climate, for example. The Defense Department is proposing to spend roughly three times as much money on F-35 fighter planes than was spent to construct the entire Interstate Highway System in today’s dollars.

We clearly can in no way afford such folly. There certainly are threats we need to confront, but the military is of no use in those struggles. We must avoid putting any more carbon in the atmosphere, which means a radical reconfiguring of our transportation system. Something has to be done about overpopulation, to mention just two of the most serious threats to our survival here on Planet Earth.

People so often talk about Medicare for All. It would be a lot better than the for profit mess we have now, but costs and outcomes argue favorably for what I support – an expansion of the VA system to cover everyone. All doctors would be salaried. If we need more primary caregivers, raise their pay. Keep specialist compensation under control. All health care would be universally available and free, much like it is in Great Britain.

Because of the blinding and silencing of the media that day in Chicago in 1968, to this day, unless you were there, people have no idea of the brutality and murderous thuggery of the Chicago police against unarmed peaceful protesters that day who were just trying to exercise our Constitutional rights to protest the criminal, mass murdering war against the people of Viet Nam.

I was one of the demonstrators, 3000 in number, arrayed against 12,000 Chicago Police and 12,000 National Guard troops in Grant Park in August of 1968. We intended to march peacefully to the site of the Democratic National Convention, which was taking place at the time. Mayor Daley, father of William Daley, Obama’s chosen Chief of Staff today, railroaded an ordinance through the Chicago City Council which required a permit to have a peace march and, of course, Daley refused to issue a permit. But we peaceniks argued that the 1st Amendment trumped a Chicago city ordinance and tried to march anyway. The Chicago Police first smashed all the TV network cameras and beat all the network reporters and workers to a pulp. Then a fairly large contingent of a few hundred pigs waded into the crowd and beat anyone with a camera or notebook to a pulp and smashed all the cameras. That was easier to do then because there were few cameras and mobile phones.

Then someone blew a police whistle, tear gas canisters filled the air and riot equipped thuggish pigs in the thousands attacked in force and beat the hell out of everyone they could get their hands on.

Attacking the press first is not a new tactic. What is new is the plethora of cameras so that no matter how hard they try, the video gets out now of the brutality.

What the hell is wrong with Obama and the Democratic Party, who not only rabidly supported the “free” trade with Korea, were brazen enough to brag that it would “bring jobs to American workers,” a complete 180 degree twisting of the truth.

Well, the union busting, “free trade” corporatists may well be selling the rope for their own hanging and may it come soon.

Until the military industrial complex which dominates our government and society is brought under control or collapses under the weight of its own criminality anyone who is President is going to be presented with crazy options like using drone aircraft to summarily execute people with no habeas corpus or any sort of right to trial, i.e. murder. Presidents are always going to be presented with crazy ideas like bailing out criminal banksters while allowing millions of people to lose their homes. Presidents are always going to be presented with crazy ideas like turning the tar sands of Alberta into the dirtiest source of oil imaginable resulting in catastrophic climate change. Presidents are always going to be presented with crazy ideas like provoking war with Pakistan, a nuclear power with 180 million citizens 12 time zones away.

What is needed in that office is someone with the sort of vision and will Steve Jobs possessed. A strong person. Someone with the courage to say NO to crazy ideas and enough sense to fire people who come to them with crazy ideas like the ones Obama keeps acquiescing in. Obama has proved that he is not man enough for the job.

How do we get rid of him? I don’t think we can afford another four years of this mess, and none of the Republicans, obviously, have even a remote clue.

Do you think that the same drug cartels that the Obama FBI provided thousands of automatic weapons have provided cash in return and requested that competition in the marijuana market be stopped?

I listened to the statement on MSNBC by the California based federal prosecutor and the contradictions in her statement are as glaring as the provision of automatic weapons to the drug cartels facilitated by the FBI.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44820367/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/#.To_9y12ZA3A

As far as dispensaries located near schools or playgrounds the law in California is that medical marijuana dispensaries cannot be located within 1000 feet of any such facility, which makes it difficult to place one in small towns. Even in big cities it’s difficult to get more than 1000 feet from a school or child care center.

The Wall Street banksters go free, and safe provision of medicine is being prosecuted. Obama is the weakest person to ever hold the office of President. He himself ordered the summary execution of an American citizen which was carried out. That constitutes the crime of murder.

And the bombings and other actions against brown people throughout the Arab world and elsewhere are mass murder.

workingclass probably does not live in California. If you did, you would probably have experience with how easy it is to get really potent bud via the MM route. There are storefront offices down on the beach with doctors who specialize in MM prescriptions. There are price wars and you can get a script for around $40 and then you can go to the excellent dispensaries where you can get a good supply of really good bud for about $50 or $100.

“I had a headache once” I put on my application.

The bottom picture of the people in front of the government building looks a lot like the vigil we had 24-7 for several months in the spring of 1970 in Kalamazoo, Michigan in front of the Federal Building there. That April the Ohio National Guard was ordered to fire live ammunition on some anti war demonstrators at Kent State University and 4 innocent young people were killed. I don’t think anyone was ever held responsible for the killings or ordering the shooting of unarmed, peaceful college kids. Many of the dead and wounded were not even part of the protest, but were just kids going to class.

“We have a two party system.” This is not correct. There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that limits our politics to two parties. We have a corrupt FCC that is in the grip of the Democrats and Republicans. But there are no legal or constitutional barriers to opening up the airways to candidates from a plethora of political parties.

The result of such lack luster candidates from both the Republican and Democratic parties may result in citizen demand for wider choices. I am not sure if the threshold has been passed yet, but at some point the more open communication made possible by new media such as the internet will overcome the gate keeper power of the corporate control of TV, radio and newspapers.

Our democracy has been hijacked by the pay to play two party system. It is corrupt to the core. I would like to believe that we can fix things by something as simple as rule changes at the FCC which would take money out of politics and open the public arena to candidates from outside the two corporate parties we have now. The FCC has it within its power to rule that a requirement of license renewal is the granting of free time on the airways for all registered candidates to present their positions to the public as a part of the requirement for educating the public which is a condition of license renewal.

And then another rule change would ban the selling of political advertising because it corrupts the education function required for license renewal.

John Kennedy once said, “Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent revolution inevitable.” He was right, and if we don’t get reforms in our democratic system to allow real representatives of the people to take office through elections we will have a cataclysmic eruption of violence with uncertain outcomes and chaos that none of us wants to see.

Rule changes at the FCC could go a long way to fixing the problems with our democracy. Educating the public, required for license renewal, could be defined as requiring free time for every legitimately registered candidate for office, regardless of party. And, under the same rule, charging for political advertising could be prohibited as an undemocratic limitation of education of the public.

Once all the candidates had equal access to media it would remove the influence of money from our elections and level the playing field.