Merry Christmas?

In a world where liberal democracy is eroded and threatened daily, where fanatics are still striving to murder innocent people, where pointless, lucrative wars just go on and on and on, and where even genocide apparently remains an acceptable solution, it is hard to be merry this Christmas without suffering massive cognitive dissonance.

The only way to get through it may just to be thankful for the end of another shitty year, and to look forward in hope and optimism to the future. Here’s to 2018 sucking less.

The Cruel Reign of Donald the Wicked

The theme that unites all of Trump’s initiatives so far is their unnecessary cruelty.

1.) His new budget comes down especially hard on the poor – imposing unprecedented cuts in low-income housing, job training, food assistance, legal services, help to distressed rural communities, nutrition for new mothers and their infants, funds to keep poor families warm, even “meals on wheels.”

These cuts come at a time when more American families are in poverty than ever before, including 1 in 5 children.

Why is Trump doing this? To pay for the biggest hike in military spending since the 1980s. Yet the U.S. already spends more on its military than the next 7 biggest military budgets put together.

2.) His plan to repeal and “replace” the Affordable Care Act will cause 14 million Americans to lose their health insurance next year, and 24 million by 2026.

Why is Trump doing this? To bestow $600 billion in tax breaks over the decade to wealthy Americans. This windfall comes at a time when the rich have accumulated more wealth than at any time in the nation’s history.

The plan reduces the federal budget deficit by only $337 billion over the next ten years – a small fraction of the national debt, in exchange for an enormous amount of human hardship.

3.) His ban on Syrian refugees and reduction by half in the total number of refugees admitted to the United States comes just when the world is experiencing the worst refugee crisis since World War II.

Why is Trump doing this? The ban does little or nothing to protect Americans from terrorism. No terrorist act in the United States has been perpetrated by a Syrian or by anyone from the six nations whose citizens are now banned from traveling to the United States. You have higher odds of being struck by lightning than dying from an immigrant terrorist attack.

4.) His dragnet roundup of undocumented immigrants is helter-skelter – including people who have been productive members of our society for decades, and young people who have been here since they were toddlers.

Why is Trump doing this? He has no compelling justification. Unemployment is down, crime is down, and we have fewer undocumented workers in the U.S. today than we did five years ago.

Trump is embarking on an orgy of cruelty for absolutely no reason. This is morally repugnant. It violates every ideal this nation has ever cherished. We have a moral responsibility to stop it.

Excerpt from: Robert Reich: 4 Reasons the Trump Administration Is Unspeakably Cruel, March 17, 2017

Robert B. Reich has served in three national administrations, most recently as Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton. His latest book is “Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few.” His website is http://www.robertreich.org.

Photo courtesy https://twitter.com/kingdonaldtrum1

 

Psychopath TEST Politicians

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The American Pathocracy Kept 6 Secrets About 9/11

On the 15th anniversary of one of the most tragic days in recent American history, U.S. citizens are bombarded with patriotic imagery, messages, and the oft-repeated 9/11 slogan of “Never Forget.”

Over the course of the day, mainstream media and the like will show the horrific images of planes crashing into towers and the disturbing scene of ground zero in the aftermath.

In the midst of all the grieving, the flag waving, and the speeches from opportunistic presidential hopefuls, there will be an uncomfortable moment of silence. This silence, however, will not be in remembrance of the victims that day, but rather the complete lack of coverage given to the unanswered questions and suspicious facts surrounding that fateful morning.

A slew of unprovable conspiracy theories is associated with the events leading up to and occurring on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. However, the Free Thought Project does not delve into such speculation. We only deal in facts.

The list below contains six hard-hitting facts that the mainstream media and the political powers have relentlessly attempted to keep hidden from the public.

Fact 1:

Coming in at number 1 is perhaps one of the most perplexing of all the facts. Amazingly enough, some folks still believe that only two towers fell that day. The fact that Tower 7, a 47-story building, collapsed, was but a small blip in the media. Since 9/11, World Trade Center Tower 7 is rarely, if at all mentioned in the mainstream media.

Insanely enough, when Tower 7 is mentioned to some people, they think that it’s a conspiracy theory that it fell.

However, Tower 7, which was not hit by a plane, in fact, collapsed into its own footprint at free-fall speed.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology, (the government agency assigned to investigate the building collapse in the video above) attributes the collapse to the failure of a single column, in a complex scenario involving thermal expansion of beams supporting the column, caused by office furniture burning; a theory that is largely disputed by many experts.

Fact 2:

BBC, CNN, FOX, and MSNBC reported the collapse of WTC 7 — well before it happened.

Fact 3:

The 9/11 Commission was railroaded. Not only were the commissioners given extremely limited funds to conduct their investigation, but they were also met with dead ends in almost every direction.

For starters, only $15 million was given to investigate 9/11. Compare that to the over $60 million that was spent investigating Clinton’s affairs with Monica and the travesty becomes greater. This was the largest act of murder in recent US history, and more money was spent investigating a philandering president!

Fact 4:

Staying on the topic of the 9/11 commission, in 2004, President George Bush and VP Dick Cheney told the Commission that they would not be formally interviewed in relation to the attacks on September 11.

On April 27, 2004 the White House released a statement saying there would be no recording or formal transcription of the interview. The duo also demanded to be interviewed together, against the wishes of the commissioners.

Fact 5:

After the myriad of holes began to form in the official narrative, several dedicated engineers and architects took to their own investigation. Today, there are over 2,300 architects and engineers who’ve signed on to the initiative, all declaring the official story to be false.

Fact 6:

The US government admitted they covered up the fact that the Saudi Arabian government supported the hijackers.

“I had to stop every couple pages and…try to rearrange my understanding of history. It challenges you to rethink everything.” – Congressman Thomas Massie describing his experience reading the 28 pages in March 2014.

“The 28 Pages” – part of an 838-page Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 – have been kept almost entirely classified since 2002.

Former Sen. Bob Graham, a co-chairman of the investigation committee and strong advocate of declassifying the information, said, “The 28 pages primarily relate to who financed 9/11 and they point a very strong finger at Saudi Arabia as being the principal financier.”

In July, the 28 pages were finally released, although many parts are still redacted. They show that Graham was right—several figures in the Saudi Arabian government provided assistance to the 9-11 hijackers from within the U.S.

“There is information, primarily from FBI sources, that at least two of those individuals were alleged by some to be Saudi intelligence officers,” reads the first of 28 pages. “The Joint Inquiry’s review confirmed that the Intelligence Community also has information, much of which has yet to be independently verified, indicating that individuals associated with the Saudi Government in the United States may have other ties to al-Qa’ida and other terrorist groups.”

 

Excerpt from “Six Hard Facts Americans Forgot About 9/11 After Being Reminded Every Year to “Never Forget”” by Matt Agorist, September 11, 2016

 

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