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by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Purveyor of Truth

As the United States and the World watch and react (or not react, sometimes the best response) we are witnessing geopolitical posturing (and hyperbole) kicking into high gear. The management of this site has stocked up on healthy snacks (and not so healthy beverages :-) ) to watch the irrationality place itself out.

As much as it is tempting to pontificate on the current political idiocy unfolding before our eyes a sense of calm prevails here at Rational Nation USA. Knee jerk reactions, something our rather intellectually challenged officials and politicians in both parties seem to suffer from, are never advisable and usually always turn out badly.

Thinking Vietnam, Iraq, and the whole host of costly nation building endeavors that failed to produce the desired results the government of the United States had told the populace it would this site ain't gonna say too much. Other than provide links to several articles readership an click on for the most recent idiocy.

Putin's Press Conference Proved Merkel Right: He's Lost His Mind

Rubio, Cotton: Congress must act quickly to punish Putin, support Ukraine

"We Are Speaking Very Loudly. We Are Carrying a Small Stick."

In the Ukraine crisis, the U.S. has a credibility problem

Lindsey Graham Blames Benghazi For Ukraine Crisis


Putin's claim of no Russian troops in Crimea stuns Kerry

Obama, the feckless tyrant

Yep, I'm ready for a good stiff Scotch, straight up please.

Enjoy...

Via: Memeorandum

The Los Angeles Police Department continues to deny media access to mugshots of suspects charged with felonies, unless they are looking for more victims.

Commentary by James Shott

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) gave a speech on the Senate floor last week where he said this about the disastrous implementation of the Affordable Care Act: "Despite all that good news, there’s plenty of horror stories being told. All of them are untrue."

This abjectly stupid remark ignores the problems millions of the people Harry Reid serves as Majority Leader have encountered at the hands of this Democrat-created nightmare, some of them with life-threatening consequences.

Some say he really was alluding to claims made in ads paid for by the Koch brothers, about which he specifically commented shortly after that major gaffe, claiming the Kochs are trying to “buy America” through Americans for Prosperity, a 501(c)(4) started by David Koch and Richard Fink.

He believes that the Koch brothers are the single greatest threat to liberty, “spending hundreds of millions of dollars telling Americans that Obamacare is bad for them.”

However, Koch Industries donated less than $3 million in the 2012 election cycle, earning 77th place on the Top Donor List of OpenSecrets.org. Americans for Prosperity is reported to have spent $40 million, but does not appear on the Top Donor List.

Top Donor organizations ahead of Koch Industries include: the National Education Association, #5 at $14.7 million; the United Auto Workers, #8 at $13.3 million; the American Federation of State/County/Municipal Employees, #10 at $11.4 million; the AFL-CIO, #14 at $9 million; and the Service Employees International Union, #18 at $6.6 million. Ten more labor unions beat Koch Industries in spending. Organized labor is “buying America” to a much larger extent than Koch Industries and Americans for Prosperity combined.

Harry Reid misleads us on political spending, and lied to us during the 2012 campaign about Mitt Romney having paid no taxes for 10 years. He epitomizes the sordid aspects of partisan politics, and simply cannot be believed.

*****

On May 5, 2010 Latino students at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, California turned out to celebrate their Mexican heritage on Cinco de Mayo.

When some American students showed up at school wearing American-flag shirts, school officials ordered the American students to turn their shirts inside-out or go home, to avoid a repeat of the unrest that had occurred during past observances of this date.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week upheld the action of school officials.

So, when students from Mexico attending American schools want to flaunt their Mexican-ness in the face of the American students by waving Mexican flags on a Mexican holiday, and some American students decide to show their patriotism by wearing American flag shirts, the school authorities believe that the American students are wrong, and the Mexican students are right, and a federal court agrees with them.

Disgusting!

Whacky, radical rulings like this one have earned the Court the nickname, “The 9th Circus.” The Mexican students should not be allowed to stir up sentiments by waving a foreign flag around to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. If they prefer Mexico to the U.S., perhaps they should just go back.


*****

Congressman Dave Camp (R-Mich.), Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, has produced a tax reform plan based upon three years of hearings and discussions with bi-partisan groups.

Hardly anyone who pays taxes will argue against reforming this overly complex system. The last round was in 1986, and at that time the tax code was more than 26,000 pages. Thirty years later, the tax system is a incoherent mess that negatively affects prosperity, job creation and investment, and is regulated by a tax code that has nearly tripled in size to roughly 75,000 pages.

Each year the tax code gets further complicated with more special interest loopholes, credits, and carve-outs.

Rep. Camp would make several changes to the code, like eliminating loopholes, reducing tax rates, whittling down the current seven tax brackets to three, and lowering the corporate tax rate from 35 percent, the highest in the industrialized world, to 25 percent.

In those 75,000 pages are goodies for numerous interests, and they will scream bloody murder if their special goody is on the chopping block. The Heritage Foundation’s Stephen Moore notes that we can “expect the White House to lambast this plan as a ‘tax cut for the rich,’ but the evidence from history shows that lower tax rates are usually associated with higher overall tax receipts and more taxes paid by the rich. In the 1980s after two rounds of Reagan tax rate reductions, income tax receipts doubled, and the share of taxes paid by the top 1 percent, 5 percent, and 10 percent rose as the economy expanded.”

This plan simplifies the tax code by allowing millions of tax filers a larger standard deduction, meaning they don’t need to itemize and can use the EZ form. For those who do itemize, the mortgage and charity deductions remain.

While the Camp plan isn’t perfect, and produced quite a few knee-jerk criticisms, it has many advantages, and is certainly a good start toward finally transforming the current tax code into something that is sensible and easy to understand. Let’s hope Congress has the courage to follow through.

Cross-posted from Observations

Several U.S. cities, Hazleton, PA and Farmers Branch, TX lost an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, when it decided not to hear their discriminatory anti-immigrant city ordinances forbidding businesses and rental house/apartment owners to rent to undocumented immigrants within city limits.

Grady O'Brien,  Jesus Delgado and Andron Gazarov

(Gazarov's photo courtesy of Wirednixon dot com)

Once in a while I like to " lose myself" in big, baggy clothes, not to mention that in my 20s I used to wear these kinds of outfits so often, they were almost like a uniform. I don't do that anymore but sometimes it feels good to pretend that I am the "cool" kid in town.
Have a wonderful week!




                                                                                    Coat: Lie Sang Bong/ another great neoprene coat/ Here
                                                                                    Sweater: Lands'end/ similar Here and Here 
                                                                                    Pants: J.Crew/ similar Here  
                                                                                    Clutch: vintage/ option Here and Here 
                                                                                    Sneakers: Adidas/ Here
                                                                                    Cuff bracelets: c/o Cooee/ Here

by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Purveyor of Truth

The internet is a wonderful place. A world of almost unlimited information and knowledge is available at a mere click of the mouse. If one has a computer, a smart phone, a notebook, or other such equipment access to a a wealth of information and facts are available in seconds. A person only need to take the time to do a bit of searching.

Unfortunately the internet has a dark side as well. Individuals with a bit of knowledge and limited computer expertise can set up a site, or multiple sites and generate a lot of misinformation, total fabrications, outright lies, engage in defamation of someones character, and do it anonymously. In fact in the world of blogging it is fast becoming commonplace for unethical bloggers to set up a site, steal the avatar of another blogger, slightly change the original bloggers site names, and then go after the blogger whose positions they don't agree with. The unethical blogger's (imposter) MO is to amply present false information or representations of the authentic blogger they are impersonating or attempting to defame.

This has happened to me, as well as other bloggers I have association with. The fakes as I call them are basically the scum of the blogoshere. They operate anonymously and without scruples, lacking the character to represent who they really are.

Some bloggers go to a great deal of effort to identify the fake bloggers and expose them for what they are. While I do not have the time, nor the inclination to go to that extent the following are just a few examples of thise type of blogger;

"Frieda Van Wiener" (exposed by Progressive Eruptions As pointed out by this blog owner Frieda has also went by the names of; "Just Joanna," "Right Klik," and "Hildegard Hammerasshat"

Shaw Keewee

Rational Nation USSR This was a new imposter that commented on FreeThinke, another libertarian/conservative blog on a post that was up early this morning. Rational Nation USA was the first commenter, followed by the imposter Rational Nation USSR with a off topic disparaging comment, followed by a short comment by FreeThinke, followed by another comment by RN USA. Interesting enough the post was taken down shortly thereafter. Odd methinks. At the link to Rational Nation USSR disappeared with the post.

While it is likely this phenomenon of imposters and fake bloggers exists on both the conservative and liberal side of the political equation it appears that it is much more prevalent with conservative and libertarian bloggers. Here's why in my estimation.

This site is a fiscal conservative social libertarian website. It has a Conservative Manifesto page which fairly identifies the sites core principles. However, it does not have as one of it's tenets that all liberal thought is incorrect and should be discarded out of hand. Nor does it say that liberals by definition are either fascists or communists and therefore enemies of our representative form of government. Unfortunately however many seem to believe that is so. It was not until this site began to engage in dialogue and give and take with liberal and moderate sites that Rational Nation USA started experiencing constant attacks and ultimately imposters setting up sites with my picture in order to misrepresent this blog and it's positions. While there were a couple liberal bloggers who attacked this site the majority were conservative and the only one to steal my picture was a conservative. At least to my knowledge anyway.

So, the point being made here is fakes operate in the shadows and no legitimate blogger who has been around awhile is immune from the depravity of the imposter blogger. Particularly those with strong opinions and ESPECIALLY those who refuse to conform to the GROUPTHINK of party politics.

For all you ethical bloggers out there, regardless of political, governmental, social, environmental, or religious views keep on blogging and don't let the asshats get to you.

The Huntington Park Police confirmed no permit had been approved to have a march in support for the Sinaloa Cartel druglord El Chapo.

Grady O'Brien, Jesus Delgado and Andron Gazarov

(Gazarov's photo courtesy of Wirednixon dot com)

At least 34 Chinese nationals were fatally stabbed and 130 people reported injured at Kunming Train Station in China.

Various fire and police departments respond to a fire at a complex building in Greenfield.

by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Purveyor of Truth



Kudos once again to the First Lady for her efforts in keeping healthy eating in the spotlight and championing new and improved nutritional labeling om prepared foods products.

As a NASM CPT (Certified Personal Trainer) I understand and can relate to exactly what the First Lady is saying.

There will likely be those who will make fun of Michelle Obama's video, and expresses the argument that the eating choices of children are best left to the discretion of their parents. They are technically right. But there is nothing like easily assessable and easily understandable accurate information when making those choices that effect the health and well being of your children.

Full article BELOW THE FOLD.

Via: Memeorandum

At least 28 Chinese nationals were fatally stabbed, but dead toll could rise and 162 people reported injured at Kunming at train station in China.

Unidentified Ugandan men believed to be homosexual were brutally beaten to death and one was burned alive in December as children, men and women including police just watched.

                                                                                 Coat: c/o Mikkat Market/ Here
                                                                                 Top: Zara
                                                                                 Pants: Zara/ I also love this pair Here 
                                                                                 Boots: Mango/ option Here 
                                                                                 Necklace: DIY, made by Bogdan and I
                                                                                 Clutch: Proenza Schouler/ on red color Here