Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Mitchell’s laws:
●The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes.
●Austerity is the government’s method for widening the gap between rich and poor, which ultimately leads to civil disorder.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
●To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
●The penalty for ignorance is slavery.
●Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the gap.
======================================================================================================================================================================================

Recently I wrote to my Democratic, formerly liberal Senator, Dick Durbin, and received the following response:

July 7,2004

Dear Mr. Mitchell:

Thank you for contacting me about Michael P. Boggs’ nomination to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. I appreciate hearing from you.

Judge Boggs received his B.A from Georgia Southern College and his J.D. at Mercer University’s Walter F. George School of Law. Boggs has been a judge on the Court of Appeals of Georgia since January 2012.

Previously, Boggs served as a Superior Court Judge in the Waycross Judicial Circuit of the First Judicial Administrative District of Georgia from 2004 to 2012. While serving as a Superior Court Judge, he established and presided over the court’s felony drug court program.

On January 6, 2014, Michael Boggs’ nomination was received by the Senate and was referred to the Judiciary committee, of which I am a member. As a member of this committee, I will be considering this nomination carefully and will keep your views in mind.

Thank you again for contacting me. Please feel free to keep in touch.

Sincerely,
Richard J. Durbin
United States Senator

That Boggs sounds like a heck of a guy, doesn’t he? This was my response to Durbin’s note:

You forgot to mention that he voted to retain the Confederate insignia in the state flag of Georgia; he voted to restrict access to abortion; and he voted to ban same-sex marriage.

The problem with most so-called Democrats is very simple: They lack spines. The Republicans have all the passion. The Democrats (with the exception of Senator Elizabeth Warren) are about as firm as overcooked noodles.

Consider this:

Embattled Nominee Michael Boggs Held Up As Other Judicial Candidates Moving Forward

President Barack Obama agreed to nominate Boggs as part of an all-or-nothing package of seven nominees he negotiated with Georgia’s two senators.

Obama made some notable concessions — four of the nominees are GOP picks and only two are black, in a state with a large black population — but the upside for the White House was that long-empty seats in Georgia would be filled.

Durbin and Senator Frankin previously had claimed they will vote against Boggs. But in this latest note he is waffling, as usual.

Anyway, here is a so-called “Democrat” President, who also controls the so-called “Democrat” majority in the Senate (which advises and consents to judges), and the majority of his nominations are Republicans!

And the 51 year-young Boggs, the right-wing, Southern bigot, is up for a lifetime post on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia! He could be a judge, rendering anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-black decisions for another 30 years! Does Obama care?

Can you imagine a Republican President nominating a Democrat majority to lifetime judgeships?

I believe the right wing secretly loves Obama. They need him.

More than a valuable stalking horse for right-wing politics, this anti-Social Security, pro-FICA-increase on the middle-class, pro-sequester, pro-austerity, pretend “liberal” actually is one of them.

Bought and paid for.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

====================================================================================================================================================
Ten Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Provide an Economic Bonus to every man, woman and child in America, and/or every state a per capita Economic Bonus. (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually
8. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here)
10. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)

—–

10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
Two key equations in economics:
1. Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
2. Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption – Net Imports

THE RECESSION CLOCK

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the lines rise. Federal deficit growth is absolutely, positively necessary for economic growth. Period.

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Mitchell’s laws:
●The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes.
●Austerity is the government’s method for widening the gap between rich and poor, which ultimately leads to civil disorder.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
●To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
●The penalty for ignorance is slavery.
●Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the gap.
======================================================================================================================================================================================

I know you’ll be shocked to learn this, but there was a rape in Philadelphia.

According to the National Crime Victimization Survey by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 39,590 men and 164,240 women were victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault in 2008.

So why should you be shocked by one rape in Philadelphia? Because this one rape made headlines in the Washington Times.

Why?

Because the Washington Times is not a real newspaper. It is a bought and paid for (by Reverend Moon’s Unification Church) propaganda machine, the sole purpose of which is to foment anger at anything not adhering to the “religious” right-wing agenda.

Here is the “shocking news” about the accused rape:

Two-time illegal immigrant charged with rape

Milton Mateo Garcia, 28, was caught one year ago entering the U.S. illegally across the Mexican border and was deported back to his native Honduras.

Living and working in sanctuary, Mr. Garcia last month, according to police, approached a 26-year-old Philadelphia doctor. He is accused of forcing the woman into her apartment and raping her repeatedly.

It’s Philadelphia’s official policy (not) to deport illegal immigrants unless the person has been convicted of a violent felony.

Philadelphia thinks it’s stupid, a waste of human resources and inhumane to try to deport every single undocumented immigrant in America — especially considering there are estimated to be more than 12 million of them.

So Philadelphia limits its efforts to real criminals — those convicted of a violent felony. Mr. Garcia never even had been charged of anything, much less convicted.

Not good enough for “religious” right-wingers, who want to ship all 12 million souls out — men, women and children — no matter how many years they may have established a life here, and no matter whether or not they have been good, hard-working assets to America.

Just ship ’em out, like garbage, those men, women and children. Send them into drug war zones. Destroy their lives, just because they don’t have that piece of paper our government has made so difficult to obtain.

And here is the kicker from the Washington Times:

(Garcia) could become the Willie Horton of the immigration crisis.

As with the case in the 1980s of Horton, a convicted felon whose additional crimes while on prison furlough provoked a political furor, Mr. Garcia’s situation highlights many of the criticisms of the administration’s handling of immigration — from encouraging illegal immigrants to make the journey to the U.S. to failing to secure the border and allowing a patchwork of sanctuary cities and counties where immigrants need not fear deportation.

To add emotion to its nonsense, the Washington Times uses the false comparison with, “Willie Horton,” the notorious black (!) convicted felon, an American citizen, who though having already been convicted of murder, was given a weekend furlough program. He later he committed assault, armed robbery and rape.

By contrast, Mr. Garcia was convicted of nothing.

So why the comparison by the Washington Times? Two reasons:

1. Both men were not white, clearly a crime in of itself, in the eyes of the Washington Times.
2. The name “Willie Horton” as been used by the “religious right-wing, for the past 25 years, as a fear/hate word, to frighten the weak-minded about imminent danger from blacks and browns.

Mr. Garcia’s crime: He sneaked into the United States. Mr. Horton’s crime. He was a convicted murderer, robber and rapist. To the Washington Times, this is equivalence.

(As an aside, Willie Horton was captured by Corporal Yusuf Muhammad of the Prince George’s County Police Department.)

Yes, there remain some liberal media, though not as many as in the past. Even the formerly liberal Washington Post has moved way to the right. (The rich own the media and the rich place the advertising — and the rich tend to be conservative).

But I know of no liberal medium that slants the news and spreads vicious propaganda to the extent of the “religious” right media. I know of no “news” medium that will, shall I say, “muddies the facts” as do, for instance, the Washington Times or FOX News.

There is a reason why the most self-proclaimed “religious” speakers seem most likely to bend the truth, but that’s a story for another article.

The bottom line: One person in Philadelphia was physically raped, and subsequently, thousands of Washington Times readers were mentally raped.

But as “religious” right-wing, Texas, gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams said about rape, “If it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it”

To readers of the Washington Times: Don’t be so frightened by those fake “Willie Horton” stories. Just relax and enjoy your daily rape.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

====================================================================================================================================================
Ten Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Provide an Economic Bonus to every man, woman and child in America, and/or every state a per capita Economic Bonus. (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually
8. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here)
10. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)

—–

10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
Two key equations in economics:
1. Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
2. Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption – Net Imports

THE RECESSION CLOCK

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the lines rise. Federal deficit growth is absolutely, positively necessary for economic growth. Period.

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Mitchell’s laws:
●The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes.
●Austerity is the government’s method for widening the gap between rich and poor, which ultimately leads to civil disorder.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
●To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
●The penalty for ignorance is slavery.
●Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the gap.
======================================================================================================================================================================================

On July 3, I wrote a comment to my own post, It’s official. America is a right-wing, male, Christian country, and “freedom” means captivity. The comment was:

The monster has begun to grow. America now is a plutocratic theocracy:

The Supreme Court has already expanded Hobby Lobby decision

The court either ordered appeals courts to reconsider their rejection of the employers’ claims in light of the Hobby Lobby decision, or let stand lower courts’ endorsement of those claims.

Translation: All contraceptive services — not just the four mentioned in the Hobby Lobby case — now may be rejected by “sincere” religious objections.

The Becket Fund lists 49 pending federal cases in which for-profit companies have brought purportedly religious objections to the ACA.

An additional 51 cases involve nonprofit organizations. The floodgates aren’t about to open–they’re already open.

An Indiana construction company refuses to pay for or support not only “contraceptives, sterilization, abortion, (or) abortion-inducing drugs,” but “related education and counseling.”

In other words, if a woman asks her doctor for advice on reproductive options, the consultation may not be covered.

Expect every nut with a political cause to come out of the woodwork, and claim a “sincere religious objection.”

Eden Foods’ Catholic owner said, “I don’t care if the federal government is telling me to buy my employees Jack Daniel’s or birth control. What gives them the right to tell me that I have to do that? That’s my issue, that’s what I object to, and that’s the beginning and end of the story.”

This hint that Potter had merely swaddled an anti-government rant within a “religious” blanket illustrates the main problem with Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion in Hobby Lobby: it takes claims of religious scruples for granted.

My opinion: The Citizens United and Hobby Lobby cases will define the Roberts court and its extreme right-wing justices, as among the worst of the past century. The former establishes a plutocracy; the latter establishes a theocracy.

Despite your other leanings, the future makeup of the Court may be the one reason to vote Democratic in the coming elections.

I’ve now come across an article so good, I don’t want to cheat you with an excerpted version: The Senate will soon vote on an amendment to overturn Citizens United. History is calling!

I strongly suggest you click the link and read the article.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

====================================================================================================================================================
Ten Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Provide an Economic Bonus to every man, woman and child in America, and/or every state a per capita Economic Bonus. (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually
8. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here)
10. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)

—–

10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
Two key equations in economics:
1. Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
2. Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption – Net Imports

THE RECESSION CLOCK

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the lines rise. Federal deficit growth is absolutely, positively necessary for economic growth. Period.

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Twitter: @rodgermitchell; Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Mitchell’s laws:
●The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes.
●Austerity is the government’s method for widening the gap between rich and poor, which ultimately leads to civil disorder.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
●To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
●The penalty for ignorance is slavery.
●Everything in economics devolves to motive, and the motive is the gap.
======================================================================================================================================================================================

This was going to be titled, “The hardening of then American heart,” but after reading it, you may understand the change.

The human species has two attributes that have separated us from all other species. The first is our problem solving ability, which begins at our natural use of metaphors and similes.

What other species can see faces in clouds and birds in a Rorschach test? If I say Secretary of State John Kerry has a “horse face,” you understand the analogy.

We can group unlike things and give the attributes of one thing to another. For humans, this is basic. Children do it. Watch a small child at play, and see how easily he or she gives characteristics to inanimate objects. It requires almost no thinking effort at all.

The second attribute is social. We live in groups and rely on groups. We have immediate families and extended families. We have neighborhoods, towns, cities, nations. Even our whole species can be a group.

As a species, we intentionally wiped out another species, the smallpox virus, because we considered it a threat to our group, the human species. Our species beat that species in the war of evolution.

Being part of a group also requires no thinking effort for humans. It comes naturally to root for the home team and to hate the other guys.

Wrongly assemble those two, normally beneficial, non-thinking attributes together — the natural ability at analogy and group life — and you can create the Frankenstein monster: Bigotry.

The basic statement, “All [group] are [attribute]” is fundamental to bigotry. All Jews are cheap. All Mexicans are lazy. All Germans are warlike. All Italians are criminals. All blacks are gangsters. All Poles are stupid. (Or is it, all Jews are lazy; all Mexicans are criminals; all Poles are warlike? I never can get the bigotries straight).

Because bigotry requires no thought, it is practiced most by those who think the least. How very simple it is to dismiss an entire group as worthless in some way, without having to undergo the pain and effort of actual contemplation.

One needn’t even work up the mental energy to find an appropriate demeaning adjective to describe the group. Those adjectives already are supplied by other members of the group. All you need do is parrot them.

This all came to mind as I read just the latest in a long line of shameful articles, this one titled, Immigration rallies clash in California: ‘Go back to Europe!’, in the Washington Times.

MURRIETA, Calif. — Rumors had swirled among anti-immigration activists near a U.S. Border Patrol station in Southern California that the agency would try again to bus in some immigrants.

The crowd of 200 outside the station in Murrieta waved signs and sometimes shouted at each other. One banner read: “Proud LEGAL American. It doesn’t work any other way.” Another countered: “Against illegal immigration? Great! Go back to Europe!”

Earlier this week, the city became the latest flashpoint in the intensifying immigration debate when a crowd of protesters waving American flags blocked buses carrying women and children who were flown from overwhelmed Texas facilities.

“This is a way of making our voices heard,” said Steve Prime, a resident of nearby Lake Elsinore. “The government’s main job is to secure our borders and protect us — and they’re doing neither.”

Immigration supporters said the immigrants need to be treated as humans and that migrating to survive is not a crime.

“We’re celebrating the 4th of July and what a melting pot America is,” said Raquel Alvarado, a high school history teacher and Murrieta resident who chalked up the fear of migrants in the city of roughly 106,000 to discrimination. “They don’t want to have their kids share the same classroom,” she said.

A July 3 statement by City Manager Rick Dudley, suggesting that protesters had come from elsewhere in Southern California, expressed regret that the busloads of women and children had been forced to turn around.

What is this mindless hatred of brown women and children? What is this total lack of compassion and empathy for humans who merely want the same things we all want: To survive in a better world, for themselves and for their children. How can we not sympathize with that?

In recent months, thousands of children and families have fled violence, murders and extortion from criminal gangs in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. Since October, more than 52,000 unaccompanied children have been detained.

Think of it: More than 52,000 children alone and frightened. And what do we do? Stop their buses. Scream at them. Terrorize them. That is America’s response.

Yes, there are “reasons.”

Some local leaders said the outrage among some area residents was justified, given the already stressed social services infrastructure and the stagnant regional economy.

Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Stone said they weren’t concerned about the people on the buses. “It’s the thousands more that will follow that will strain our resources and take away the resources we need to care for our own citizens,” he said.

Hasn’t that always been the case? Millions of immigrants came through Ellis Island. It has been estimated that close to 40 percent of all current U.S. citizens can trace at least one of their ancestors to Ellis Island.

New York did not reject them. Some stayed in New York. Most disbursed and built America. We are a much better land for their coming.

And then there is the “jobs” excuse. All immigrants take jobs. All immigrants create jobs. This is true, regardless of whether the law says they are “legal” or not.

Ultimately, there are nothing but excuses, nothing but rationalizations for the true reason: Bigotry.

In the border town of El Centro, California, a flight arrived Wednesday without protest.

In Nogales, Arizona, the mayor has said he welcomes the hundreds of children who are being dropped off daily at a large Border Patrol warehouse. Residents have donated clothing and other items for them.

(But) at a town hall meeting this week, residents in Artesia (NM) spoke out against a detention center that recently started housing immigrants. They said they were afraid the immigrants would take jobs and resources from U.S. citizens.

They were afraid. That summarizes it all: Fear and loathing. Because all brown-skinned people are — what? Lazy? Criminal? Uncivilized? What are all these women and children?

Bigotry cloaks itself in rationalizations, but at its core, bigotry, like fear itself, is thoughtless. Literally thoughtless, as in “no thinking.”

Like a herd of stampeding cattle, bigots can be moved and turned by a word here, a sound there. There is no thinking in those cattle. They just charge headlong, often running over their own calves, mindless, senseless, thoughtless. That is the bigot.

It requires a much higher level of human intelligence to offer compassion and empathy, especially to those who are not part of your group. In short, bigotry is for the stupid.

As I said at the start, this post was going to be titled, “The hardening of the American heart.” I feel the current title is more accurate.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

====================================================================================================================================================
Ten Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D plus long term nursing care — for everyone (Click here)
3. Provide an Economic Bonus to every man, woman and child in America, and/or every state a per capita Economic Bonus. (Click here) Or institute a reverse income tax.
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone. Click here
5. Salary for attending school (Click here)
6. Eliminate corporate taxes (Click here)
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually
8. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99% (Click here)
9. Federal ownership of all banks (Click here)
10. Tax the very rich (.1%) more, with higher, progressive tax rates on all forms of income. (Click here)

—–

10 Steps to Economic Misery: (Click here:)
1. Maintain or increase the FICA tax..
2. Spread the myth Social Security, Medicare and the U.S. government are insolvent.
3. Cut federal employment in the military, post office, other federal agencies.
4. Broaden the income tax base so more lower income people will pay.
5. Cut financial assistance to the states.
6. Spread the myth federal taxes pay for federal spending.
7. Allow banks to trade for their own accounts; save them when their investments go sour.
8. Never prosecute any banker for criminal activity.
9. Nominate arch conservatives to the Supreme Court.
10. Reduce the federal deficit and debt

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia.
Two key equations in economics:
1. Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
2. Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption – Net Imports

THE RECESSION CLOCK

Vertical gray bars mark recessions.

As the federal deficit growth lines drop, we approach recession, which will be cured only when the lines rise. Federal deficit growth is absolutely, positively necessary for economic growth. Period.

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY