Ken Padgett

Oceania has always been at war with East Asia and anyone who does not know this is contrary to the orthodox view and is subject to enforcement authority by the thought police, as a thought criminal. -- "1984" by George Orwell Are we a peaceful nation? Most Americans believe we only go to war when it is absolutely necessary. But is that really true? Let’s review our history of military conflicts: 1775–1783 – Revolutionary War 1776–1777 – Second Cherokee War 1776–1794 – Chickamauga Wars 1785–1795 – Northwest Indian War 1786–1787 – Shays' Rebellion 1791–1794 – Whiskey Rebellion 1812–1814 – War of 1812 1846–1848 – Mexican American War 1860–1890 – Indian Wars 1893 – Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom 1897–1898 – Spanish American War 1899–1902 – Philippine–American War 1917–1918 – World War I 1941–1945 – World War II 1951–1952 – Korean War 1945–1992 – Cold War 1962–1973 – Vietnam War 1983 – Operation Urgent Fury (Grenada) 1989 – Operation ...

Here's an email I received recently: Trump Explains Dumbo Care No  one can sum it up better than Trump Let me get this straight . . .  We're going to be  "gifted" with a health care plan we are  forced  to purchase  and fined  if we don't,  Which purportedly  covers at least ten  million more people, without  adding a  single new doctor, but  provides for 16,000  new IRS agents,  written by a  committee whose chairman says he doesn't  understand it,  passed  by a Congress that  didn't read  it but exempted  themselves from it,  and signed by a Dumbo President  who  smokes, with funding  administered by a treasury chief who didn't  pay his taxes,  for which we'll be  taxed  for four years before any benefits take  effect,  by a government  which has already  bankrupted Social Security and Medicare...

1. Higher taxes for poor and working people 2. Lower taxes for the rich 3. A "race to the bottom" for wages and benefits 4. Destroy public and private unions 5. Pass laws that make it easy for companies to send jobs overseas 6. Replace employer-provided health insurance with a tax deduction for individual "Health Savings Accounts" paid for by employees 7. "Free Market" healthcare with no regulation 8. Replace public education with private schools and home schooling 9. No investment in crumbling public infrastructure such as highways, bridges, and sewer systems 10. Pass laws and weaken regulations that enable companies to further pollute the environment 11. No research or investment in alternative energy sources 12. Increase "welfare for corporations" via defense spending 13. Suppress likely Democrat voters via photo ID laws, voter intimidation, and "scrubbing" voter lists 14. Divide the American people on cultural issues 15. Instill and...

Organ transplants save thousands of lives every year, but many more people die because there aren't enough organs available. In the US, about 100,000 adults and children are waiting for organ transplants, and over 6,500 people die each year while waiting on a transplant list. Recent polls indicate that as many as 85% of Americans support organ donation, but only about 30% have formally expressed their willingness to donate. Most states have opt-in programs via driver's license or state ID card applications. But with the continuing shortage of transplantable organs, some are suggesting a switch to an opt-out system (also called implied consent). With implied consent if people don't specifically opt-out, they will be considered potential organ donors upon their death. Opt-out systems are unnecessarily coercive in that they force people to make a choice or have that choice taken away from them and they don't take into account the wishes of the family. Another variation o...

Why is support for Republican ideas so strong among many of the people who are suffering the most because of those same ideas? It’s because of how skilled Republicans are at framing issues in ways that are beneficial to them and because their messaging is more effective due to the fact that it is much better organized and better financed than Democrats. Republicans would have you believe that Obama is solely responsible for the bad economy, as if everything was going fine till he took office.  However, the facts are otherwise: Obama didn't create the economic crisis. Obama didn't start the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama has never had a free hand to do what he wanted to do. Republicans have openly bragged about doing everything they could to make Obama a one-term President. Republicans have sabotaged every legislative attempt to promote job growth so as to improve their chances in the next election. Of course Obama and the Democrats deserve plenty of blame for the ...

SARAH PALIN: "He who warned, uh, the British that they weren't going to be taking away our arms uh by ringing those bells and making sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be secure and we were going to be free and we were going to be armed." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oS4C7bvHv2w What is even more laughable than this latest Palin word salad is the lengths that Palin apologists have been going to claim her comments are somehow factual: "Clanging church-bells in the middle of the night probably did warn British spies & double-agents that something was afoot. Sarah was referring to the Revolutionary spirit of resistance to British rule as a "warning" to the British that the colonists were fed up, and not gonna take it any more. And, can any Sarah-bashing know-it-all provide video or links to news reports of Paul Revere's Ride? Sarah Palin's history lesson is as goo...

Creation of a no-fly zone is not the easy solution that saber-rattling right-wingers seem to think it is. The first step in creating a no-fly zone is to destroy all radar and missile sites and airfields. That's an act of war that requires a substantial commitment of US forces at a time when we are already involved in two wars we can't pay for or staff now. Our military is also exhausted and their equipment is worn out. And what happens when the no-fly zone doesn't stop Gaddafi from destroying the rebels, which he is in the process of doing right now with mostly ground forces? Once we've made a military committment, do we just walk away when that doesn't work, as it surely won't, or do we then send in the Marines? And why do right-wingers seem to think it is our responsibility to insure Gaddafi's defeat? He is no threat to us and we are not the world's policemen. If the Europeans want to take him on let them do all the heavy lifting for a change. The...