Let’s just take a moment to reflect that since Obama determined to run for office, he has been guided, funded and prodded by these media giants.  He approached Facebook about how they organized information about users when he was busy setting up the database on voters that helped win the election for him. This database is still in operation for election 2012.

With their ability to control information gathering on my Android, they have me covered coming and going.

But for this writer, the most insidious thing Google does is so-called tailoring searches on their search engine based on my user information.  It has long got in the way of through, meaningful search results causing me to use other browsers.

And now, speaking of control, a woman at the White House is stepping up to the microphone for an interview. She has the title “Director for Domestic Policy.”  Is this a Czarina?  Will she be the one to deal with the social and search media?  Will she have ultimate control over information about us or will her roll be co-mingled with that of another Czar. Herein lies the difficulty: Only Obama knows for sure and he does not seem to want to cut staff anytime soon.

Obama has sought to legislate increased Presidential power over the internet via a request for a “kill switch” to take down the internet in times of uncertainty such as civil unrest, etc.

Now all of these social and search engine media giants will say that everything they do is to enhance your on-line experience.  Google has said today:

“If you’re signed in, we may combine information you’ve provided from one service with information from other services,” Whitten said. “In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.” [Aljazeera]

So now if you are a protestor anywhere in the world, that government can know ALL about your anti-government activities.  And in possible cooperation with applications that provide information on individuals sought after by potential employers, you can be prevented from getting a job.

So Obama’s cozy relationship with the media is beginning to give him the tools he will need to maintain his grip on this country.

The worst part of the nightmare is that it is now very real to us that it takes a lot of money to become President and either you use yor own hard won millions or someone else’s.   If you are using your own millions, then it is important to learn just how legally they were garnered (eg. Romney).  If  you use someone else’s money, be aware you will be queried about from whom you got them and if that person or enterprise was legal (eg. Obama).  Either way, time and energy is spent on what is behind what we are electing and not that person we will be electing.

This is clearly a system that needs to be changed but how, short of revolution, will the power brokers give over their power and let Americans raise up and vote for people who are truly honest and deserving who are financed on an equal footing with other candidates?  Not bloody likely.  But in order for us to have true democracy, that is what it will take.

This should be the central issue to this and every other election until this unholy nightmare is ended. But is there danger in a system in which literally anyone could become President?  Of course. It could bring into high office someone with ideas that are completely undemocratic, not based on Constitutional law, and otherwise unrecognizable beliefs to those of us who hold ourselves to be the true inheritors of the American tradition.   It is this fact and not the fact that there might be criminals behind candidates that is the real road block to true freedom of choice in our election.

The trouble with democracy is that it is not a guarantee of anything and it can usher in something completely popular but truly oppressive.  We have been skirting this issue as we watch Europe being overcome by the Muslim millions who have immigrated there by taking advantage of the vote and other tools of the republic.  It is something we don’t mention since we have had to sit back and watch Libya and other countries we have helped turn to Sharia law.

No, democracy is no longer our great advantage.  Protection of the status quo by less than democratic means seems to be the method du jour to protect the American way.  Welcome to the end of the road.  Our founders never fully realized a multicultural society in which what they might abhor could be easily voted into being.  No wonder few bother to go out to vote.

Similarly, Multiple Sclerosis from which Marianne Gingrich, the second Mrs.Newt Gingrich,  suffers is also a chronic disease.  It also affects personality:

Multiple Sclerosis is a chronic illness that can affect people in many different ways. MS usually changes how a person feels and functions physically. It can also affect an individual’s personality.

Changes in Emotions, Behaviors, and Information Processing (Cognitive) abilities are often subtle and barely apparent to others. But for people with MS, these changes can be just as challenging – if not more so – than the physical symptoms of the disease.

…………………………………………………………

The first way that MS can affect Personality is by changing a person’s self-concept and sense of Emotional well-being.

MS often presents a very different physical and emotional experience that can be extremely difficult and painfully slow to integrate.

The second way MS can affect Personality is by altering Cognitive abilities and skills. Sometimes the disease impacts the ability to Organize, Integrate and Understand our experiences. [Source here]

Several sources on the internet have confirmed the above including an article in the New York Times.

To not research the viability of the source for information about the Gingrich marriage up to and including the second wife who has suffered from MS is reckless.  It also does not contribute to her well-being. Her family would not want to her to go on national TV when she is no longer fully herself.

In consideration of the above, ABC’s airing of the interview with the second Mrs. Gingrich was medically and politically incorrect and inappropriate.  It was manipulative and self-serving to a TV enterprise long lowest in the ratings of the three major commercial networks.

Anyone who takes the word of someone with a personality difficulty as the result of illness is not doing that person a favor nor anyone whose behavior his/her words may affect.

A cooperation agreement signed Sunday in Riyadh by China and Saudi Arabia.

According to the Saudi Jidda News, the agreement will seek joint development of “atomic energy for peaceful purposes, which will help to meet the kingdom’s rising demand for energy and cut its growing dependence on depleting resources.”

The agreement was signed by King Abdullah and Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and followed earlier public remarks by a senior Saudi prince who said the country should develop nuclear weapons to counter rival Iran’s nuclear arms.

Former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal said Dec. 5 that “our efforts and those of the world have failed to convince Israel to abandon its weapons of mass destruction, as well as Iran. … Therefore it is our duty toward our nation and people to consider all possible options, including the possession of these weapons.” [Washington Times]

And guess which country’s ships are at risk protecting the free flow of oil in the Straits of Hormuz?

And as previously cited, NATO led by the US provided cover for China’s removal of its 30,000 oil workers during the civil war in Libya.

Let’s all boycott the Nightline interview of this second wife this evening.  Like a jury, let’s take our charge not from newspapers, TV stations and other media outlets.  Let’s try to take a charge similar to those given to juries by the attorneys or a judge in a criminal trial.  Let’s employ common sense before determining if you even want to view this show never mind let Gingrich’s second wife’s words influence your vote for him.  Many do  hold moral temperament paramount in their leaders while others hold that personal lives are not our business unless they said lives become criminalized.

Are the sensationalized details of a marriage even pertinent to a political campaign?  Should a news outlet manipulate votes through timing of the release of information they feel the public need to know? Personal lives of leaders is important but does not drive the governing process.  If it did, such programs would  have a basis for being respected sources for accurate and balanced information that is useful.  Governor of New York Cuomo divorced a Kennedy with small children and he seems to be governing well with his “companion” at his side in lieu of a first lady.  Surely this is more interesting?

There are degrees in everything.  New Gingrich has not flaunted an immoral temperament and conducted himself like a rake or a roue  in public.  This is not a movie.  This is real life.  We need to consider balance in all things. We are looking of leadership not lechery.  Newt may be self-serving and less than commendable in the conduct of his private life, but it has not impaired his intellect nor his ability to lead.  He’s a rat in terms of  at least one woman in his life but she was not his mistress, she was his wife.  Most of us know two things:  It is difficult to know what went on in a marriage and that it is intensely personal “stuff.”  For this reason, the documents in a divorce case are usually closed.

Then there is Rick Perry. He is bowing out of the race before losing in South Carolina.  He and Gingrich have both been out for the Conservative vote.  Will he endorse Romney or Newt?  Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, watch the debate this evening.  This is Gingrich ground.  This is where he is truly a hands down winner – in a debate. It’s the issues, stupid. Let’s listen.

[T]hanks to holes in our disclosure law that neither Congress nor the Federal Election Commission will fix, this kind of foreign spending could easily be hidden from public scrutiny by clever campaign finance lawyers. We might not even know what nation the money has come from.

The recent Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance does not improve matters:

As a result of a US Supreme Court judgement, known as the “citizens united” ruling, outside groups such as corporations and unions can now raise and spend unlimited money as long as they do not coordinate with the candidate.

The ruling is being challenged in a number of cities. Critics of it say it empowers corporations with their vast treasure chests over individual donors. The Supreme Court says money is a form of free speech, but critics argue that corporations are not people and therefore do not have the same right to free speech.

Another criticism is that candidates are less likely to be held accountable when negative advertisements are funded by outside interest groups on their behalf. [alJazeera.org]

Would that  this is an argument had been better known nationally and forcefully made before the Court’s decision:

The Constitution is not a suicide pact, and the First Amendment does not require the U.S. and its citizens to entertain threats to its sovereignty in the name of free speech. The Supreme Court should not hear the Bluman case. It should affirm the district court and not compound the error that the justices made in Citizens United. [NY Times]

The next 2-term President will have to handle the transition of power and leadership in the world from the US to China.

China’s rising global role, increasing assertiveness and upcoming leadership transition may pose significant challenges for the next U.S. president, says Elizabeth C. Economy, CFR’s C.V. Starr Senior Fellow and Director for Asia Studies. “China is increasingly shaping the world in which we live,” Economy says. As a result, U.S.-China relations will no longer be focused exclusively on trade, Taiwan, and human rights. The next president will have to work with China on “virtually every global challenge,” she says, including Iran, North Korea, global financial regulation, and climate change.

U.S. officials will have to take account of China’s newly assertive posture, regionally and globally, she says. “China’s leaders no longer simply want to export their goods and services; they want to export their culture, their values, and ideals,” Economy says. “And the next president of the United States is going to have to think about how to deal with not an emerging power, but a global power.” [CFR.org]

The bottom line here is our elections are decided long before we  get involved.  True there are wealthy individuals around but it is the big corporations and other countries that really make the difference.  We need to change our campaign financing laws.  We need to get real about what free speech was originally intended to encompass.  Our freedoms and free speech are being slowly eroded on the internet yet super pacs are selecting Presidents and Congressmen for us.  This not the democracy the founding fathers envisioned.  They would be horrified as are we who cherish the Constitution.

Please treat yourself to a read about this remarkable woman in her equally outstanding obituary that takes this kind of writing to the level of art form.

Her sense of humour was always irreverent. In the 1970s, when Runcie was Bishop of St Albans and the homosexual Labour MP Tom Driberg was employed by Private Eye as a compiler of obscene crosswords, it was noted that on one occasion the prize was won by a Mrs Rosalind Runcie of St Albans.

read more here

The first winds hit at about 8:00 PM with such force, it sounded as if there were a tornado moving down the street complete with freight train sound. It could very well have been a little something that twirled and whirled itself down my street.  I called to my student boarders to move their car to a place of fewer trees in the driveway my car was garaged).  They immediately sprung into action.

I was all settled in my warm bed with the Jack Russell Terrier bed warmer when the door bell rang.  There stood a diminutive woman with an even more diminutive dog (Boston Terrier), buffeted by winds and excitedly telling me that my wonderful wicker porch furniture was spread over two yards and some was in the street.  She had dragged on piece from the road and I could never see her ability to do that obvious to the viewer anywhere.

Happily my student boarders  got into the spirit of the “crisis” and helped me recover my property.  Thank goodness the rain had stopped.

We have battened down the hatches and await further investigations into what wonders the wind in the wicker brought to this property.

But in times of turmoil and distress, these very populations are the first overboard.  With people losing jobs and money, we have been reading for months of dogs, cats, horses and other pets being abandoned – many left in cages in their yards to die.  Now last week came stories out of Greece of children being abandoned by parents who could no longer afford care for them.

And the elderly?  They have listened for months about how cuts to Medicare must be the saving grace for socialized medicine.  After all, we again live in the real world of the survival of the fittest.  In this country – in the west in fact – the period from 1920 until now was a kind of fantasy we all passed through. So many thought it would last forever and generations of people forgot what life on this planet really entailed.

You still have to work hard if you want anything.  You may not be cared for unless you prepare for it yourself. The wolf will always be at the door; the Indians will always be circling the wagons.  We have been very fortunate up until now.  The “Indians”  of today are the more militant Arabs and Europeans and others now living through social, economic and political upheaval.  How could we have forgot so quickly (in terms of the long road of human time) about the true nature of life here? And now that we have been abruptly reminded, many are carrying on as if they have been unfairly deprived of  a lifestyle they think they deserve.

Crowds gather and rail at mother government for not protecting them better. They deserve to be fed and clothed and housed and educated.  Days have been spent in tents demonstrating in front of  Wall Street financial institutions and in cities across the US.  But who among them even thought to volunteer to better not only their own lives independently but to benefit that of  others as well?

No, it is always someone else’s fault. And if you don’t get paid for something, well, you won’t do it.  Then, when you can no longer care for your own, you give what you have – kids, dogs, cats, grandparents – to the care of others.  No trying to band with others to try to pool resources to help keep families together is something so many in this generation just cannot do.  They lack basic social skills and a sensitivity to the need of others that marked earlier decades of the 1900s.  After all even BEFORE taxes, the wealthy of this country endowed libraries, hospitals, concert halls, research clinics and  hospitals – the list is endless.

Daily we are creating chaos within chaos and it appears endless.  In the 1930s, were there the abandoned animals and children as  there are now?  If we remembered history, should be have been better prepared to go into a period like the one we are in?

The Depression had a powerful impact on family life. It forced couples to delay marriage and drove the birthrate below the replacement level for the first time in American history. The divorce rate fell, for the simple reason that many couples could not afford to maintain separate households or pay legal fees. But rates of desertion soared. By 1940, 1.5 million married women were living apart from their husbands. More than 200,000 vagrant children wandered the country as a result of the breakup of their families.[digitalhistory.uh.edu]

So, as we discovered after WWII, Germans were not unique in creating a holocaust, now we see that what happened in Greece last week, happened here early last century.

The sad fact is that with the dissolution of a decent education system in this country, no one has even the faintest grasp of history anymore nor do they think things through in a way that may lead to a solution to something.  It is a globe of screaming, demanding disappointed adults acting like criminal children deprived of doing anything they want.  This is not to undercut the citizens of Syria or now of Romania once again in the streets but the disease taking down many governments is self-interest.  Few are the stories we hear today of a good Samaritan. Why bother?  It’s someone else’s problem – no doubt the government’s.

Friendships in this country have been adulterated by “networking” – using people essentially to get somewhere.  We are a “user” society and now there is nothing to use and nowhere to go. What will we do?  Will we again learn about, say, growing vegetables to eat?  Helping someone with less – sharing without having something taken from you through taxation or force?

The thing at risk today is not THE Constitution but our constitution.  We have lost our freedom because we stopped working hard for it.  No one came here deposed royalty. Our pioneer forefathers; the native peoples so well adapted to their world both had hard lives.  Middle class Americans have not yet begun to know what living a hard life is.  It is creeping upon us slowly.

People are still forced from their homes.  But where are the VOLUNTEERS that will help them to keep together as a family and find food.  We have not yet begun to suffer; we have not yet begun to learn that sharing and caring are the only things that will save us from losing everything and keep us civilized people of constitution.

1. What Republican nominee would benefit corporate America the most?

2. What Republican nominee could best ensure re-election for Barack Obama?

3. What foreign interests would best be served with a particular Republican nominee?

Corporate America is not that displeased with the Obama Administration.  After all, some of the largest companies like GM got a bail out.  Others such as Bank of America and a handful of brokerage  houses got a slap on the wrist and no one went to jail for defrauding the American  public in mortgages, credit cards and investments.

Many look to the way Obama has opened up to new markets and interest such as Brazil and more of South East Asia.  They still view China and liaisons with the Chinese as a money-making proposition.  It is particularly useful if the West wants to unload a sinking company.  China likes to snap up luxury car brands about to sink and remake them into success stories they could not become without their infusion of capital.  And in the end, health care legislation benefited the health care industry and its insurers as well a reducing corporate responsibility in this increasingly expensive area.

If Romney has only been able to maintain 25-28% of the Republicans behind him for months (and 4 years ago), why would he be able to keep voters in his own party from bolting to Obama or to not vote at all?  Democrats have been strategizing their campaign for months with Romney plugged in as the adversary.  It is not that they think him formidable. On the contrary, they think they have the best chance for re-election if Romney were the Republican candidate.

Foreign interests on the rise such as India and Brazil have to-date benefited from Obama’s policies that support weapon sales to India and economic windfalls to Brazil such as oil exploration for them (that would mainly benefit the Chinese).  China herself  has given little to Obama.  His trips there have netted exactly zero concessions.  Yet the Obama Administration has militarily “covered” Chinese economic operations in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Libya.  Under the NATO umbrella and led by the US, 30,000 Chinese workers evacuated that country during its recent civil war. [FT]  And Russia?  Under Barack Obama, Putin has risen again to the top of the heap there and the return of the Soviet style of leadership seems assured.

But you say, Romney is heavily supported by corporate money.  Yes he is.  But corporations would consider it money well lost if Romney as a candidate would ensure Obama’s re-election.  The MSM is pushing for Romney to the point of the ridiculous.  And they have relied solely on polls – not always a sure reading of a populace – to support Romney as he “surges.”

SamHenry predicts that if Romney is the Republican nominee, then count on a stampede of Liberal Republicans and independents to either a third party candidate or to the Obama camp candidate.  After all, in a brilliant campaign move, this week President Obama announced a plan to streamline government and save money.  Now what could be more Republican?

“Hissy Fit” comes to mind as we listen to them all take off after the leader of the pack du jour.  These are not statesmen; these are salesmen on the hustings.

Has anyone actually taken the pulse of America in terms of what kind of personality, look and point of view would pass muster? Not really. Nowhere is an article on the ideal candidate. It has probably been censored.  Then again, with the dumbing down of America, it may not have made it out of the mind of the erstwhile scribe.

Women candidates are tolerated but will never rise above the status of something closely akin to being an adjunct professor.  McCain threw Sarah Palin to the lions and she turned around, stood her ground and shot a few.

Michele Bachmann ran a campaign reminiscent of a dreamer caught in a burning house – yelling the message and never really being heard.  She actually became a better candidate but too late in the game.

Republicans love repetition.  If a soup recipe calls for one onion, why not put in two.  Similarly, if  a primary season calls for a slick middle of the road Mormon, why aren’t two better than just one?  Ditto Texans.  Gotta have two of ‘em.  Santorum did well because he wasn’t like anyone else in the field.  Sadly, for him, Republicans hate surprises.

Old age seems to be popular with Republicans. Pshaw. There’s strength in numbers after all and face it; most of the old gray guard are in physical therapy when the rest of the population is  sitting around mesmerized by the likes of Anderson Cooper. Yep. If you have gray hair, a limp wrist, a rich mother and two shows on TV, you have to be America’s ideal. That’s who should be president.

But this was officially revealed as a hoax by the National Association of Neurological Surgeons.  See the pdf of the letter they released regarding the radio show interview of the so-called neurosurgeon.  http://www.aans.org/pdf/AANS_News/Mark_Levin_Statement_FINAL.PDF.

But as in wartime, the above could also have been planted by the Obama team to ridicule the Conservative right.  It is, well to read the legitimate latest researches into the aging of the brain issued by the Centre for Research in Epidemiology and Population Health in France and University College London in the UK

With an ageing population – one in four Britons will be older than 65 by the year 2035 – doctors claim ‘cognitive ageing will be one of the challenges of this century’.

Researchers from the Centre for Research in Epidemiology and Population Health in France and University College London in the UK studied more than 7,000 people over a 10-year period.

……………………………………………………

Memory and other brain skills begin to decline at the age of 45 – much earlier than previously thought, say researchers.

A major study shows the brain’s capacity for memory, reasoning and comprehension starts waning in middle age rather than in the 60s.

Experts say the finding is important because younger people should be encouraged to boost their brain power with healthier living, while some may benefit from medicines to stave off further decline.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2082923/Mental-decline-Brain-starts-going-downhill-45.html#ixzz1ii6HzaPI

If everyone doesn’t get in the Republican wagon headed for DC, we will have only 3 wheels on our wagon:

Ron Paul, man of God and preacher to the choir,  takes on Gingrich.

Michele Bachmann – people have changed their view of her forcing her to go off on her own:

A splintered GOP is just a mix of disparate songs that are comic and not inspiring:

Newt Gingrich’s campaign song:

Instead of compromise, there is leap frogging from candidate to candidate. Now Rick Santorum is “surging” as Republicans and others desert Newt Gingrich’s sinking ship.

It has been a listless contest between Mitt Romney and whatever other candidate was on top of the rest of the pack. 

With Romney unloved by the majority of those who still think of themselves as Republicans,  His approval ratings have remained until recently in the high 20s in the percentage game.

He simply cannot run successfully against Barack Obama. The numbers are not there and a telling sign is that Democrats really want to run against him.

Sadly, voters with more liberal Republican views Libertarians, independents and disillusioned Democrats have been flocking to some independent movements. And article in the NY Times talked to the stage being set for a third party.

Inasmuch as there has been more straightforward expression of diverse views within the GOP.  This may prove to be healthier than we know for those who remain in the party for 2012.  The “remaindermen” will inherit methods of “outing” issues that bring division rather than cater to them. And as they are unable to attract a significant number of new people to their cause, the end result of  an inability to compromise might just become clearer to them.

There is a mixed bag of voters disenchanted with any/all of the people running at this time.  Democrats also count among those leaving the fold. However, 3rd party candidates and the rubble of the GOP may further dilute the possibility of unseating Barack Obama.

If the GOP is to survive, it will still have to accomplish what it has not been able to do from the beginning of the 2012 primary campaign:  Compromise. 

If Republicans cannot compromise among themselves or as members of Congress with the Democrats, then the Republican party will remain permanently shattered and become a third party itself.  It cannot continue in this condition and win national elections.

The sight of a multi-millionaire political wife holidaying in a luxury gated villa is exactly what gives Arab countries a bad name,’ said Jamal Dhabi, a Moroccan political analyst.

There is widespread anger at our countries being viewed as playgrounds for the super rich, while the vast majority of the population has nothing.

There is widespread anger at our countries being viewed as playgrounds for the super rich, while the vast majority of the population has nothing.’

It is unclear who is funding the latest holiday, though King Mohammed has a long history of offering free hospitality to French politicians, including former president Jacques Chirac, who retains a villa near Marrakesh.

It was Mr Sarkozy who, a year ago, instructed colleagues to ‘spend their holidays in France’ because of the embarrassment they were causing by accepting hospitality from Arab dictators.

Attractive holiday: France’s First Lady today celebrated her 44th birthday in Marrakesh along with her two-month-old daughter, Giulia, and at least 10 security guards

At the time, Prime Minister Francois Fillon and his family had enjoyed a luxury free holiday in Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt, while Foreign Secretary Michele Alliot-Marie had done the same thing in Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali’s Egypt.

Both Mubarak and Ben Ali were later deposed during the Arab Spring revolutions, but many people accused France’s political class of having legitimised their despotic regimes.

The ruling monarchy in Morocco, a former French protectorate, is frequently criticised for keeping the vast majority of the population in poverty, and for human rights abuses.

King Mohammed VI survived the Arab Spring demonstrations, but only by promising constitutional reforms, and there are still many who want him to step down.

Despite this, he considers himself a ‘close friend’ of the Sarkozys, and had them to stay during last year’s Christmas holidays.

Such lavish trips were thought to have become a thing of the past since the Arab Spring, however, but Ms Bruni is clearly intent on enjoying Morocco’s winter sun.

Also in Marrakesh at the same time as Ms Bruni is Jean-Francois Cope, general secretary of the UMP.

‘Carla should be ashamed of herself,’ said pro-democracy activist Laila Mansouri. ‘Morocco is an Arab country with huge social problems – all she does is legitimise them.

‘Carla even tried to keep her trip to Morocco a secret. That might work for a country like France where there are strict privacy laws to protect the rich, but it won’t over here.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2078097/Carla-Bruni-jets-multimillion-pound-Moroccan-pad-angering-Arab-pro-democracy-campaigners.html#ixzz1hgqIT5BM