Today, retired General Michael Flynn plead guilty to the charge of lying to the FBI.  A charge that could potentially land him behind bars for five years.  But instead he has agreed to cooperate with the special council.

The fact that Michael Flynn has agreed to cooperate he so far only faces the minor count of lying to the FBI. He potentially faces a violation of the Logan Act, operating as a foreign agent without being registered, and intentionally leaving off information on his security clearance.

In updated news from this morning, after Flynn was contacted with the Russian ambassador, he made a call to Mara-Largo to inform the Trump transition team of his meeting.  It is now said that the senior official that took the call was President Trumps son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Whether your a Republican or a Democrat, the events of today should be enough to bring your blood to a boil.  The lives of the American people is being pushed to the brink, but in Congress, the Republicans can't play with the Democrats because the Tea Party has thrown a tantrum.  

This is pathetic.  What should be the most powerful nation in the world, The world leader of leaders, and yet they refuse to show leadership and put an end to this Shutdown.  This could end if Speaker of the House, Rep. John Boehner would bring a clean Continuing Resolution(CR) to the floor for a vote.  Behind closed doors there has been reports that there is enough votes for a clean (CR) to pass.  The problem is, for fear of losing his job, Rep. John Boehner will not bring a clean (CR) to the floor to appease the 40 to 80 so called Tea Party Republicans.  While they continue with the Shana-gins,  Hundreds of thousands of Americans are out of work while another million Federal employees are working without pay.

You may think you are not touched by this game of politics.  But ask yourself, do you have family members on Social Security?  Is someone in your family a retired service member?  Do you know anyone in a nursing home that is on Medicare?  Or how about this question, how safe do you feel with our CIA, FBI, NSA, and Homeland Security are working at bare minimums while possible sleeper cell terrorist walk among us, looking for a lax in security to make their move?

This Shutdown was stupid and is not in favor of the American people, but in favor of big business, the pocket liners of the politician.  Please tell us what you think.

This match up is possibly the most interesting for the 2014 elections.  Keyword here is possibly, since Ashley Judd has not stated whether or not she is running, and the fact that she would need to lock down the Democratic nomination for the party.

What makes this battle most interesting, is the fact that Republicans have already went on the offensive against Judd in the assumption that she will be the candidate.  To us, this is like talking trash to someone you know can whip your butt.

Ashley Judd may have wanted to just continue working as an political activist and humanitarian as she has over the years.  But to call her out in commercial ads as Republicans have been doing, just may be the straw that breaks the camels back.  It is suicidal, to us, to try to wage war against a potential candidate that could possibly win the election on star power alone.

In recent study, when celebrities take interest in public office and run, they start off with several key advantages.  One, star power alone is an easy access to potential fund raising.  True, the incumbent, should already have a substantial bit in their campaign fund already, but it is most of the time easier for the celeb to catch up and surpass the incumbent in that field.

Media exposure, for a celeb, it is very easy to get the attention of the media, as long as their star power is running strong.  For politicians, it is mostly when they are involved in a situation of public interest, they did something stupid, or the most sought scandal.

Also, celebs are often given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the issues.  The politician on the other hand, will be looked at with more scrutiny.  However, as people become more politically aware, this advantage will soon shift towards the politician than the celeb.

Likeability is also a favorable attribute towards the celeb depending on who is running for office.  With the increase of reality shows on television, this is almost becoming a neutral statistic.  Ashley Judd will favor much better against Mitch McConnell than Snooki would.  Likeability is starting to coincide with the belief that the celebrity could actually do the job.  Which undoubtedly, we tend to decipher that by the roles in which one has starred.

With all this being said, why would Mitch McConnell want to put his opposition in the position of choosing the person best suited to beat him.  Why hand the Democrats the Senate seat on a silver platter.  That strategy may have worked out well for Claire McCaskill going up against Todd Akin, whom she baited to stay in the race.  He had the detriment of saying something ridiculous(legitimate rape) in an interview that caused his political downfall.   Is Mitch McConnell hoping for such a thing to work in his favor?

The Issues in 2014 will not be something to laugh at.  Americans will have interest in the economy, our unemployment status, and immigration.  There will not be an advantage to neither when it comes to the issues.  Both will have to debate their stances on several key positions during the election.  Both will have key strategist coaching them on what to say when the time comes.  However, Mitch McConnell has a voting record in the Senate that could come into play.  We'll see how well this record is attacked and defended, but this is also depending on whether she will run for Senate in 2014.

-Terrill-

The Daily Brew is looking to increase traffic in our political section of our site.  To do this we are looking at fellow Americans to help us fill a couple of key positions.  Each week we plan to put out an important issue to Americans and have each position defended by a strategist, and hopefully they can shed some light on why our elected officials are doing what they do. 

Articles should be anywhere from 400 to 700 words and can be on a position of their interest or a rebuttal to what the other strategist has posted.  Political Science Students are encouraged to apply.  Articles will be screened by The Daily Brew's head editor for approval.  If approved, will pay $25 per article via Paypal.  This is for a position that will start mid May. 


Interested applicants should send a resume to dailybrew@rocketmail.com.  In the subject line put whether it is for the Republican or Democratic Strategist.  Highly recommend you apply for the position of a party you actually support and believe in.


-Terrill-

Many people take the second amendment out of context from what the originating "Forefathers" had in mind. The Second Amendment states the following; "A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

 Let’s take the first part of it, “A well-regulated Militia.”  A well-regulated militia is equivalent to the National Guard.  The National Guard is the states army commanded by its governor (“being  necessary to the security of a free State,” the next part of the  amendment.)

 Finally we get to the most controversial part of the amendment and it’s mainly due to the impact of these words, “shall not be
infringed."  The banning of certain weapons could be taken into context as an  infringement.

So let’s talk about the flaws or technicalities in this amendment.  In today’s society you could live next door to Warren Buffett or Bill Gates.  And in this scenario, we’ll say that Buffet and Gates, absolutely hate each other. Also in this scenario, we will say that China is going broke and they decide to sell a few of their Silkworm missiles (a nuclear inter-continental missile.). And we’ll say that both men acquired one of these missiles.  Now ask yourself, do you want to live near either one of these guys knowing that they could vaporize the entire city and possibly several nearby cities?

Impossible you say, well under the Second Amendment, it says“the right of the people to keep and bear Arms.”  These are Arms, nuclear arms and to say they can’t have them is an infringement. Under today’s laws, you can own a tank, a helicopter, forget a yacht, you can own an aircraft carrier.  But that makes no sense, well, neither does owning an assault rifle.

You don’t need an assault rifle to defend your home against two or three assailants.  A shotgun will be very effective in fending off these intruders as well as any handgun with ten round magazines.  
 
You’re not going to use it to hunt.  No one I know uses an assault rifle to hunt anything.  I know deer hunters, duck hunters, and some that hunt raccoon and squirrel, they don’t use assault rifles.  You will tear that animal to shreds.  It won’t make a good trophy and the meat will have a lot of bullets for you to dig out.  (I’d be surprised if you didn’t get lead poisoning from eating that meat.  Also have you seen the size of a .223 mil shell, you’re pretty much left with hamburger.  And in my opinion, if you need to hunt with an assault rifle, you’re a sorry shot and you need to give it up.)

So what other reasons would you need an assault rifle?  Could it be that you don’t want to be out gunned by the police?  Trust me, anyone who thinks this, you don’t want that person with a gun.  People with this complex, nine times out of ten, are the bad guys.  
 
Our nation has stood for 224 years and only once (The Civil War) has there been conflict in our nation that led to the formation of
militias and the citizens call to arms. The Second Amendment did nothing to neither prevent nor cause that war and neither will it do the same for any possible future war.  So the idea that you would need an assault rifle for defense against your government is irrelevant and in all honesty you are your government.  It begins with “We The People.”



T$

Our first political post was intentionally put out after the election.  The material in this post is actual facts combined with my personal opinion and it is somewhat saddening, that someone is falling from greatness, to lie in ignorance. It’s sad because I’ve always liked John McCain and respected him as a man that put integrity above partisanship, but it seems, I was wrong.

On November 14th 2012 Sen. John McCain(R-AZ) and Sen. Lindsey Graham(R-SC) has taken the stance of wanting a committee to review the Benghazi security meltdown to assign blame, point out the communication failures as well as the security failures, and put in place protocols to prevent another catastrophe such as this.  This is a good thing.  The bad however, is that they want to try and link the communication failures as a possible cover up and say that the communication mastermind was UN Ambassador
Susan Rice.

There is nothing to gain to ruin this woman’s career other than a possible senate seat for their former congressional buddy Fmr. Sen. Scott Brown(R-MA).  Susan Rice just read information that was provided to her and it just happened to be wrong.  It was no
different than the wrong information put out by several key Bush 43 administration personnel that said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.  In Susan Rice’s defense, she doesn’t have access to the information it had to be provided for her.  She doesn’t give orders on how to defend the complex nor is she responsible for staffing security in the consulate.  She also was not given nor is she in the chain of command that was given a request for more security.  

So why is she the scapegoat?  Why is a potential cabinet position going to be blocked for reading talking points?  Why is she being
held liable for the lives of four Americans when clearly she had no authority to send them there or send them additional security personnel?  Why would Lindsey Graham say he just don’t trust her for doing something she was asked to do when clearly she doesn’t have the means to fact check what was given to her?  She entrusted the information given to her no different than Condoleezza Rice entrusted the felonious information that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

 So why not go after Sec. Hillary Clinton?  She has privy to the information in real time. So why not go after Pres. Obama? After
all, he has said numerous times the he is ultimately responsible.  I’ll tell you why, because the whole argument is Partisan and there is nothing to gain as far as they know for going after either one of them.

Pres. Obama could have a fall guy like Oliver North and say he screwed up everything and they give him a slap on the wrist and Pres. Obama is once again given the go ahead by the American people to continue with his agenda.  He could come out right now and say “I messed up and I’m sorry it won’t happen again.” There will be some outrage but not to where they would impeach him and put Vice Pres. Biden in the position of president with the ability to run again in four years.  The American people will eventually forgive him going forward provided we have no more instances such as Benghazi.  
 
Going after Sec. Clinton is pretty much suicide since she is retiring in 2013, so she says.  Once again nothing to gain or is there?  If they were smart, which it’s hard to give them the nod for that, they would have went after Sec. Clinton for the whole debacle.  This would ensure in 2016 she would have stayed retired.  Her being retired is an important thing because honestly, in my opinion,
there is not a Republican in office to this date that could beat Hillary Clinton in a Presidential election.  

Versus cutting their losses and trying to do right by the American people, these senators want to play politics.  But they want to go after a woman they know they could easily back down and force Sen. John Kerry into the Secretary of State position and re-open a Massachusetts senate seat for their buddy Fmr. Sen. Scott Brown(R-MA). 



However, make no mistake; Hillary is not by any means an easy win.  This is why they intentionally are avoiding trying to battle her on it.  And going after her now would only re-enforce what I said about trying to ruin her chances in 2016.  You should have done it before I said it.  To save face they should just bite their tongues and let this story die down on its own.  Let Susan Rice  get her appointment and let Fmr. Sen. Scott Brown(R-MA), try his luck again in two to four years and maybe he will run a better campaign so he can get elected.   But they probably
won’t do that and they wonder why people say that the Republican Party is out of
touch with the American people and our
values.




-Terrill-