$300k for a Barista Career? 😆

From the comments section of this post (read and replied to using a mobile android device):

Mark Twain Joke [I was educated once. It took me years to get over it.]

Comment from Chuck Wolfe:

...I have absolutely no problem with someone who can afford to spend $200-300k to get a BA degree, in the process, learning how to make coffee in anticipation of a Barista career. I just don't think it's wise for that person to expect taxpayer bailout of their student loan debt.

My response:

How would a barista pay off $300K?

Chuck:

Working 12 hour days, 7 days a week, at $15/hour, 1.5X for OT, living in parents basement for less than 4 years!

Me:

What employer would ever allow those kind[sic] of hours and that much overtime? That's not even saying anything about being paid that kind of hourly wage or the likelihood of that much in student loans for a BA. And the parents? Four years of having their college-graduate son sponge off of them? What world are you living in where you think this is realistic? And heaven help him if he falls in love or gets married. 

...or if the son falls ill, has an injury, and has high medical bills for the not-covered expenses. Insurance premiums, co-pays, limits, deductibles... Have preexisting conditions? Vision, hearing, or dental expenses? How about if you lose your cushy barista job and have to work two or three jobs? McDonald's paychecks, logistics of juggling three jobs. All while you have those massive student loan debt payments to make? Welcome to America, where the wealthy think people are lazy and their problems are because of poor lifestyle choices. Where medical insurance is available only after a probationary period and only for full-time workers 

The rich don't want their "hard-won" income going to little people (you know, the people who do the actual work). Pay poverty wages and claim it's poor people's fault. Make employees desperate enough to have to get assistance. The employer thinks those people are mooche3rs[sic] when he is the one getting the benefrits[sic] of low pay. That is corporate welfare. 

Got the picture yet?

Mark Twain Joke

Thoughts for Doubters of Trump's Crimes

You make it sound as if there were no other people listening to the call. Or reports they made to their superiors. Or the White House's own (doctored) transcripts. Or the repeated actions of the Chief Moron doing everything by the seat of his pants because he does not listen to advisors and is ignorant by choice and does not even understand the Constitution or his role as president. Or the obviously blatant lies told repeatedly by Trump and his enablers. Or all of the scrambling done by aides to block or coverup or explain away the inexplicable.  If Pence becomes president there will be a revolution!

Don't people realize it's a coup? By definition, a coup designed to put the opposition in power! Beware! There will be a revolution if Pence takes power! Giving Pence the presidency is what Democrats have been fighting for all these years! It's a witch hunt! No witches have been found! Just lots of indictments and convictions of the people surrounding Trump. But no witches!

Don't like the major crime? How about the thousands of misdemeanors? How about tons of evidence and lots of indictments and convictions of his campaign staff? But keep using the "Hillary Card." No, look over there! There's Biden doing something! There's Hillary or Obama or other nasty people doing something! There's a deep state coverup involving every single intelligence agency in the US federal government! It's a coup and a witch hunt! Oh, please. Get a life.

Verbose Reply to Trump Lover

Comment about Trump:
Chet Veatch:  We. Know. Hes. Not. Perfect. But. Hes. Better. Than. The. Rest. Of. You. Hes. Making. A. Difference.

Reply:
Yeah, he's making a difference. Trashing treaties, breaking alliances, saying incredibly stupid things, and lying his ass off. He does not listen to his advisors unless it's to get and repeat classified info to Russians in an effort to brag to them that he is in the know. It will take another generation to try and fix what this clown has destroyed.

He belittles and insults anybody who does not agree with him. How many newspapers and networks are failing according to him? His speeches always devolve into self-praise.

He has shown time and time again that he has no clue what he is doing. He doesn't even know what he does not know. He learns two facts about a subject and boasts that he is the world's foremost authority. If he realizes he does not understand something, he makes excuses such as, "Nobody knew it was so complicated." He charges tariffs and thinks that China, not U.S. consumers, will pay them, as if China would not just raise prices to offset the cost of the tariffs.

How's that better, cheaper, covers-everyone healthcare plan of his coming along? Or the better deal he promised when he trashed the treaty with Iran (you don't cancel a treaty before you get a better deal)? Or Jared's Middle East peace plan. And the nothing-burger witch-hunt? All of his top campaign officials have been charged or convicted. 30+ indictments. The coup? A coup is designed to put the opposition in power. I don't think President Pence would view himself as a Democrat.

He says stupid crap such as (from just one interview on 7/27/17):

"So pre-existing conditions are a tough deal. Because you are basically saying from the moment the insurance, you’re 21 years old, you start working and you’re paying $12 a year for insurance, and by the time you’re 70, you get a nice plan. [Seems to think health insurance is the same as life insurance.]

"I said it from the beginning. No. 1, you know, a lot of the papers were saying — actually, these guys couldn’t believe it, how much I know about it. I know a lot about health care."

The infamous email: "I didn’t look into it very closely, to be honest with you...I just heard there was an email requesting a meeting or something — yeah, requesting a meeting. That they have information on Hillary Clinton, and I said — I mean, this was standard political stuff...I didn’t know anything about the meeting...It must have been a very important — must have been a very unimportant meeting, because I never even heard about it...nobody told me. I didn’t know noth—— It’s a very unimportant — sounded like a very unimportant meeting."

Trump thinks that only one news source, Fox News, tells the truth. That's right, every one of the hundreds of other media outlets tells the same lies. It's a vast conspiracy because people want to install Pence as president.

Keep telling yourself that Trump is doing a good job. He is coasting on the economic recovery that occurred under Obama despite Republican efforts. Obama cut deficits in half. The tax cut that was passed under Trump is causing massive deficit increases.

Just keep drinking that kool-aid and thinking the clown in the White House is a stable genius. Mr. Ed was a stable genius. Trump is a delusional narcissistic moron.

Renowned Psychologist : Like Hitler, Trump suffers from Sadism, Malignant Narcissism & Paranoia

A Facebook post by Dave Kruse

Work Like My Rich Neighbor?

Work like your neighbor? At what, stealing from poor people? Making sure employees don't have purchasing power? Trashing companies by relentless cost-cutting while ruining companies' manufacturing standards? Paying a minuscule percentage of income for Social Security compared to employees? Convincing rich congresspeople to cut taxes on the rich (who don't need tax cuts) even more? I know, let us poor people send our non-existent money to work so it too can be taxed at a lesser rate than a working man's sweat.

So if I don't want to or can't be a CEO/CFO/Manager/Owner, then I should just work three jobs, all part-time, so that I cannot get company benefits including health insurance? And why are we forcing companies to pay for health insurance while competing with foreign companies in countries with universal health care? (What an incentive to screw employees on coverage.)

Why do we have the most expensive and unaffordable health care system (hint: for-profit)? BTW, tell me how many hospitals, clinics, labs, etc., will be nationalized by universal health care coverage? That is what a takeover of health care is. Universal health care means single-payer, not single-owner.

Can I get a government servant between myself and my doctor rather than a private company insurance executive who is looking for ways to not pay claims?

Why don't you start in with lies about Social Security while you are at it? In the red? Going broke? Needing reform? Trust Fund stolen by Congress? (Yeah, those interest-bearing Treasury Bonds are legal theft, right? Tell that to Grandma and the Chinese.) What happened to tweaking payroll taxes or tweaking salary caps or routine retirement/disability allocation adjustments? Raising retirement ages or cutting benefits will only change the date that the Trust Fund zeroes out (2034); there is absolutely no effect on the federal budget deficits and the National Debt. If you disagree with this, explain it to me.

Just trying to trash Social Security, the most successful government program ever, eh? Cause it's not for-profit? Let's go back to Poorhouses and 50% senior poverty, because retirement/disability insurance is just socialism, right?

Medicare-For-All? With its 20% copays and no coverage for Vision/Hearing/Dental (which most elderly need)? No thanks.

Radical conservatism is a sick, selfish, toxic ideology. Freedom for companies? To pollute, discriminate, cheat, steal, lie, maim and kill? Meanwhile, our freedoms are being eroded. Since when did sexuality become binary? Only one gene difference? I don't think so.

BTW, we are not a Christian nation. We are a freedom-of-religion nation. Or we were. Don't like gay marriage? Then don't marry someone of the opposite sex. Don't like Latinos or blacks or Asians or Buddhists or atheists? Don't become one. But keep your pretend morality out of commerce and away from our nation's laws.

Keep your laws out of my bedroom. Take the rich man's hands out of the pockets of the poor. Keep your discriminatory, racist, ageist, elitist, fascist, sexist, anti-health, for-pollution, anti-integrity, anti-environmentalist, anti-gun safety, anti-religious freedom, anti-fairness amoral convictions away from those of us who actually care about our fellow human beings.

Concerning the Second Amendment

The Second Amendment is an individual right intimately tied to the natural right of self-defense.

District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), in the majority opinion written by Justice Antonin Scalia:

"Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons." 

Also,

"The handgun ban and the trigger-lock requirement (as applied to self-defense) violate the Second Amendment. The District’s total ban on handgun possession in the home amounts to a prohibition on an entire class of “arms” that Americans overwhelmingly choose for the lawful purpose of self-defense. Under any of the standards of scrutiny the Court has applied to enumerated constitutional rights, this prohibition – in the place where the importance of the lawful defense of self, family, and property is most acute – would fail constitutional muster. Similarly, the requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional."

And,

"[T]he conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home."

 Thus, the Second Amendment was found to not apply to machine guns.

This is basically what rational liberals argue. They do not argue for the confiscation of all firearms. That would not only be silly, but unworkable. Visions of federal or U.N. soldiers going around collecting everyone's arms are pure fantasy and scaremongering. What they ask for is reasonable protections to keep guns out of the hands of those people who should not have them, protections which would include licensing and background checks (no gun show loophole), and restrictions on the owning of weapons of mass murder. The Second Amendment certainly does not give the right to own missiles or bioweapons. States are also given leeway to levy laws such as those concerning the carrying of concealed weapons and concerning the commercial sale of weapons.

To a Climate Change Skeptic and Greta Thunberg Doubter

Does this mean you haven't followed the science regarding CO2 and other greenhouse gases? We "think" it may be because of CO2? How about, "It's just a theory." Just like the theory of gravity; go ahead and jump off a building to test it.

Or that maybe you agree with the less than 1% of climatologists who think we probably don't have to worry about Climate Change? And do you think science hasn't made any progress in 50 years?

Do you remember when LA used to have warnings about when smog was at dangerous levels? Do you remember rivers catching on fire? The Ozone Hole? Toxic waste sites? Lead contamination? The wholesale dumping of manufacturing waste into our waterways? How about dangerous levels of contamination in our food products? Or the Pacific Gyre? Or the hundreds of oil pipeline leaks? We have science deniers and people who call regulations "job-killing" in our government. Go ahead and piss on environmental regulations; your children will thank you. Go ahead and allow the screwing of customers and consumers by repealing laws concerning responsibility and fairness. Hell, let's go with discrimination against gays and transgenders and blacks and browns and short people and the handicapped and the sick and vulnerable; it's just business.

Do you realize that it was not the scientific community that was worried about an ice age? They were worried about global warming due to greenhouse gases. The ice age predictions in the '70s were mostly media hype over one scientific paper. Look it up.

As for the Electoral College: There is a certain dark irony to the fact that a system designed to prevent the people from choosing an unqualified demagogue has resulted in the election of an unqualified demagogue not chosen by the people. But it is not about the past election. It is about future elections. Bush v. Gore - Gore won the popular vote. And at least three other prior elections were also lost by the popular vote winners. At least 10 states have enacted procedures that give their state's electoral votes to the winner of the popular election. So it is not a useless discussion.

As for impeachment, we are well aware that the Senate will probably not hold the impeachment trial and would certainly not convict Trump if they did have the trial. But impeachment proceedings give additional investigatory powers and the ability to provide clarity and transparency to the many crimes and lies of the president.

If you haven't noticed, the imPOTUS is a pathological liar and a narcissist and a despot admirer, and he clearly has anger issues and no filter. He constantly makes things up and tries to make everything about him, and he has expressed open admiration for many of today's tyrants and dictators. He enables and encourages the worst in people and nominates those who would destroy the departments they would head.

Most of the time Trump just sounds like the kid giving a book report on something he never read. He does not know what he does not know. If he finds something complex, he will lament that nobody knew how complex it was. He likes to do the unexpected just to try and show how smart he is, assuming he even knows what the expected action is. He took responsibility for the government shutdown and then blamed it on the Democrats. He promises everything and delivers nothing. Tax cuts for the rich? Gutting health care coverage? Eliminating requirements for fiduciary responsibilities? His passion is trashing anything Obama accomplished as if that would be a good thing.

We are sorry you don't get just why Greta resonates with liberals who care for our planet and our future. Her words and her attitude express what many of us feel in the face of hypocrisy and denial and greed. The left is mostly not using her (the media certainly is); they are applauding her. As for her reaction to President Trump, her expression seems to be her usual one. I don't think it was a response to the presence of Trump, though many would like to think so.

How Does That Kool-aid Taste?

A response to the Facebook posting of the following image:

  Does this mean you believe the 10,000+ lies of Our Glorious Leader? How's that new covers-everyone, cheaper, better, health care plan working for you? You know, the one Trump said that you pay $12 a year for, and by the time you are 70 you have a nice plan?
  Enjoying the trade war that consumers are footing the bill for (not the Chinese, just us)? Do you think that the cost of tariffs is not passed on in the form of higher prices?

  Are you cheering on the Racist-In-Chief as he goads his white nationalist base to attack minorities?
  Do you still think the 30+ indictments and guilty pleas resulting from the Mueller investigation are a nothing burger and a Witch Hunt? How many charges resulted from the numerous Congressional investigations into Benghazi and Hillary's private e-mail server? None? Is that why Hillary is not locked up?
  How many of Trump's top campaign officials were charged with crimes? All of them?
  Do you think that the fact that Trump's golfing trips total more than three times the whole cost of the Mueller investigation is meaningless?
  Or that Trump profiting from foreign nationals staying at his properties is not a violation of the emoluments clause?
  Remind me of the scandals that occurred involving the Obamas?

  Do you still believe the lie that Democrats want to take all guns away? Or that Social Security is the biggest federal expense (even though it is by law separate from the national budget and has its own revenue stream)? Are you okay with Medicare being banned from negotiating drug prices, the result of which is Medicare and seniors being forced to pay whatever the drug companies want to charge?
  Are you okay with gerrymandering being legal and political parties getting a 2/3 majority in state legislatures with less than 50% of the vote?
  Unlimited campaign spending and the ability of foreign governments to invisibly contribute to campaigns?

  What is it going to take for you to see what a disaster Trump's administration is? More mass murders? More outrageous lies? Prevention of election security measures? More consumer protections being stripped away? Rivers once again catching on fire? The continuation of the denigration of poor and working-class and disabled and LGBTQIA Americans? More racist tweets about minority members of Congress? More ignoring of and failures to enforce the Bill of Rights? More dead and injured journalists? More insults and accusations using official White House correspondence (as the President's tweets have been declared to be)? More insults to allies and praise for dictators? More calling out "Fake News" whenever unfavorable stories about the president are aired? More deaths and human rights violations in Trump's concentration camps? What is it going to finally take?

  How does that kool-aid taste?


All Americans have a constitutional right to criticize President Donald Trump

Bleeding Heart Liberals - My Facebook Response

Oh. My. God. You're so right. Liberals are bleeding-heart tax-and-spend spineless proponents of a welfare state. The sick and the poor have only themselves to blame with their unhealthy lifestyles and poor career choices. Minimum wages and pensions and safety regulations are for pussies. Corporations should be able to take whatever resources they want and not have to worry about rivers catching on fire or smog or contaminated soil or complaining neighbors or products that kill people. Caveat emptor! No more regulations! Corporations should be able to impose their religious beliefs on heathen lazy workers. Deviant lifestyles should be punished. Sex is binary!

The healthcare insurance industry should stand between a patient and doctor, and be able to pick and choose healthy people to insure. Insurers should be allowed to charge unlimited premiums, co-pays, deductibles, limits. Why should insurers have to pay for people's stupidity and sinful ways? Monopolies make good business sense. Trickle down will work this time! The pay raises and benefits and new jobs will rain down on workers. Jobs will be created because corporations have more money, not because of increased demands for their products.

Gerrymandering will ensure that only the worthy will govern us. Who cares if brown people have to stand in line for five hours to vote. It's the American Way. The financial sector should be able to play with Social Security Trust Fund's $2.89 trillion in US Treasury Bonds. Teachers should be armed. Sure, some kids might get accidentally shot. That's the price of a free state.

Liberals only want health care for all, justice to be not just for the wealthy, minorities and disabled and the sick and elders to not be discriminated against, regulations for health and safety, air and water and soil protection, higher wages for workers (and more purchasing power), consumer protections, pension protections and safe retirements, fair elections, bans on weapons of mass murder, police who don't murder 911 callers, no more corporate welfare (including indirect welfare by having to provide government assistance to their employees), worker VISAs so migrants can go back home, a non-religious government, healthcare that corporations don't have to fund aside from equal taxes.

The Founding Fathers loved the Church of England and wanted to make America safe for Church rule. They wanted freedom from the tyranny of atheists and agnostics. They were not fans of the religions of Hinduism, Sikhism, Judaism (Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform), Daoism, Muism, Cao Dai, Shintoism, Buddhism, and Islam (including Sunni, Shia, Ibadi, Ahmadi). They believed in The Church of England (Anglican), not in those other Christian pretenders such as Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Protestant, Episcopalian, Mennonite, and Quaker. They would not have liked modern Christianity with its strange new sects such as Pentecostal, Mormon, Jehovah's Witness, Apostolic, and Christian Science.

Liberals. What are people thinking? Snowflakes and libtards and namby-pamby crybabies. Give us conservatism!

Remind me when the Obama girls were adults working in government with their father. I don't remember that.

---

Note: This blog posting was written in response to a comment on a post comparing Chelsea Clinton with Ivanka (Trump) Kushner.

Facebook photo posting: Chelsea vs. Ivanka

Commenter: [Name withheld to shield people from further spelling and grammar errors.] You people have become worse than conservatives. They were the bullies now you folks have taken it to their leval. I hope you know you're no different from a conservative when it comes to ignorance and being brainwashed. I remember when they were clowning on the Obama girls. Your doing the same thing hypocrit.

Supreme Court Throws Out Conviction in Sixth Trial

I'm reading the Supreme Court decision for Flowers v. Mississippi, and it is as if everyone is trying their damnedest to rule out blatant racism. But it is clear that District Attorney Doug Evans should be disbarred for that alone. How many cases were settled by guilty plea agreements simply because defendants knew there was no way to get a fair trial? How many innocent defendants were railroaded by Evans?

Additionally, there was considerable prosecutorial misconduct not related to jury selection. It's as if Evans was daring a higher court to overturn his convictions and did not care whether a trial was fair. But if he was trying to put a murderer in prison, clearly his methods were not in the public interest. The prosecutor's victories were tainted beyond redemption.

Two hung juries and four overturned verdicts. 20 years in prison for Flowers without a valid conviction of guilt. If Evans is the prosecutor for a seventh trial(!), how can a defense attorney look himself in the mirror if he does not demand a change of venue? How could a judge refuse? 

Since Evans has been allowed without restriction to continue his practice of prosecutorial misconduct as well as to continue his blatant racist behavior, clearly his nest of enablers also need to be dealt with. But it's Mississippi. That would be as likely as if the Supreme Court were to decide to reinstate the portions of the Voting Rights Act that they threw out because it was no longer needed in our "post-racial" society.

Background

Curtis Flowers was convicted primarily on the basis of one particle of gunshot residue on his right hand, along with "jailhouse confessions." One of Flowers' cellmates said he was placed with Flowers to get a confession. When he was unable to, he said that a statement was constructed by the Sheriff and by District Attorney Doug Evans. Testimonies from two of Flowers' cellmates about his confession were later recanted with claims that their testimonies in the first trial were coerced with promises of freedom and with threats. Their testimonies were not used in subsequent trials.
Other than that one particle, there was no direct evidence tying Flowers to the murders. One piece of indirect evidence was a bullet, found in a mattress, from a .380 caliber pistol. Flowers' uncle said his own .380 caliber gun was stolen the morning of the murders. The mattress bullet was visually identified (a subjective science) as being the same as bullets extracted from a post in Flowers' uncle's mother's back yard. The murder weapon was never found. There were also people claiming to have seen Flowers near the garment factory where the uncle's gun had been stolen. Some of those people were not interviewed until eight or nine months after the murders, and there were problems with other witness stories. Prosecutorial misconduct, blatant racism in jury select, two mistrials and four overturned verdicts. And one particle of gunshot residue.

Huffington Post Article: Supreme Court Overturns Murder Conviction In Curtis Flowers Case

Clarion-Ledger (Jackson Mississippi) article: Recanted testimony, subjective science helps put Curtis Flowers on death row Link to IMDB summary of an episode of Wrong Man series: "Curtis Flowers: Trial and Error"

Yet Another Rant About Social Security Reform (and AARP)

I refused to join AARP because they supported Social Security "reform". Social Security is separate from the federal budget and has its own revenue stream. (Politicians lump their budgets with Social Security figures because those decades of surpluses made their numbers look better.)

Changes to retirement ages or benefits will only change the date that the Trust Fund zeros out in 2035, after which without changes only 80% of benefits could be paid through 2094. Simple adjustments to the payroll tax rate, which used to be routine, would have ensured 75-year solvency.

The Trust Fund has $2.89 trillion in interest-bearing US Treasury Bonds--those pesky paper IOUs backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. (Grandma and the Chinese trust those bonds. Are we stealing from them?) The Trust Fund is so large because--guess what?--baby-boomer retirements were planned for! Shocking, I know.

The GOP does not make money on Social Security - that is why they are ideologically opposed and why they tell all those lies about SocSec (going broke, running deficits, in the red, insolvent, federal budget's biggest expense, etc.). The financial sector wants our retirement money to play with and to get their 20% overhead. That is what privatization is all about. But it's our money! Nope. Social Security is retirement and disability insurance; it is not a savings plan.

Sure, let's raise retirement ages and cut benefits. It won't change the federal budget or the National Debt by one dime. Self-funded. Separate by law. Reform? Oh, gosh, yes, we will start to see the effects of reform in 16 years.

Note also that a decrease in benefits would result in more senior poverty and a concomitant increase in assistance by taxpayers. And it would reduce beneficiaries' consumer spending, so our economy takes a hit. The wealthy don't care if they have to pay into Social Security; their contribution in payroll taxes for Social Security is capped at $15,921.60. Only the first $128,400 in income is subject to payroll taxes. Payroll taxes on the wealthy are not why they don't like Social Security. It's because it is non-profit.

Social Security will always be there. Unless politicians take it away from us.

Of course, people are still free to buy stocks, etc. Just beware of the Bernie Madoffs stealing your retirement savings. Or stock market crashes. Or your broker buying and selling stocks to get sales commissions until there is no money left (churning). Or your financial advisor or manager taking all your money and going to live in the Bahamas. Trump even signed an Executive Order that canceled the requirement that financial advisors act in your best interests. Enron imploded because of fraud, and employee stocks (part of their pay) suddenly became worthless.

And how about if your monthly pension benefits are cut to less than half because Romney bought the company you worked for and sold off the pension for cash. Romney also took most of the cash from companies, sold some assets, and then saddled those companies with the cost of their own purchase. All nice and legal if the company can last another two years. That is how the 2012 Republican presidential candidate made his money.

Being A Conservative

Principles of Conservatism

You don't like government regulations or taxes? You call yourself a conservative. So you want to eliminate worker protections, discrimination protections, environmental protections, and free K-12 education. You want bigger banks, bigger tax cuts for the rich (including dropping capital gains taxes to zero), no financial or consumer safeguards, no Pell grants or free college for students. You want there to be no minimum wage, even though a worker getting assistance is essentially a company on welfare.

You are okay with no heating assistance for the poor, no Head Start for preschoolers, no community block grants, no infrastructure spending bills, no healthcare insurance assistance, no insurance protections, but yes to a budget increase for our ridiculously massive military. No libraries or public roads or bridges or dams or well-funded public schools. You have no problem with companies stiffing contractors and employees and defrauding students. Let the buyer beware.

Your Second Amendment

No one is advocating the seizure of all guns. But background checks, restrictions on weapons of mass murder, gun safety features, closing gun sale loopholes, mandatory safety training--these all equate in your mind to jack-booted thugs invading your home and taking away all of your weapons. To you, the Second Amendment is truncated, with that pesky militia clause removed. Never mind states' National Guards; to you, one drunk with a machine gun is a militia.

Conservatives and Business

No penalties or restrictions on unsavory business practices because somehow in a nation of over 300 million people the free market will do the job of regulating business and weeding out predatory companies (the sophomoric philosophy of Ayn Rand). Even though consumers have next to no information on companies' practices and operations and financial shenanigans. Basically, you want freedom from ethics, oversight, responsibility, justice, fairness, and equality.

Conservatives on Justice

You are okay with collection agencies taking people to court where a judge can legally charge a debtor with Contempt of Court and throw their butt into jail. That's not a debtor's prison, right? You are okay with one set of rules for the wealthy and another for poorer people; that's okay where justice is concerned, right? Oh, and an even less favorable standard of justice for people of color. Assuming, of course, that they even survive to see a courtroom.

Conservatives and Elections

You see no problem with removing 329 voting machines in a minority district, leaving just one. Gerrymandering so that a 49% Republican constituency results in a two-thirds majority in state legislative houses; that's just protecting against socialism and communism, right? Paid your debt to society? Great! Just don't try to vote. Got a Hispanic name? Step right up and cast a provisional ballot, cause your name has been removed from voter registration rolls; just come back during business hours to a courthouse near (or not so near) you to prove your vote should count. After the election, of course. Your opponent had 3 million more votes than you? Just claim that there were 3 million instances of in-person voter fraud, an occurrence so rare that, in 10 previous years out of one billion votes cast in recent elections, there were only a handful of cases.

Conservatives and Social Security

You think we should unleash the free market on Social Security? You are okay with financial advisors no longer (by executive order) having a fiduciary responsibility for people's retirements. You're okay with retirements being vulnerable to stock market crashes, theft, bankruptcies, and fraud (hint: Bernie Madoff, Enron).

You think you can balance the federal budget by cutting Social Security benefits and increasing the retirement age, even though Social Security is self-funded and is separate by law? Even though the only effect cutting benefits or raising the retirement age would have is to slightly alter the date that the Trust Fund zeroes out (currently 15 years from now).

Social Security is not the Federal government's biggest expense. It is not an expense at all. Social Security is not going broke. There is almost $3 trillion in the Trust Fund in the form of interest-bearing U.S. Treasury Bonds. The Trust Fund was designed to handle baby boomer retirements, and deficits in revenues were planned, just as the surpluses were.

You think that Social Security is massive wealth redistribution and a socialist scheme even if only $28,000 is taken out of someone's $1 million in income. After all, it's their money.

You want Social Security Disability? Well, first you will have to get coverage through your state's disability program with its $203 cash per month and $200 food benefit per month (Minnesota figures), for a grand total of $403 per month to live on until in 18 to 24 months your Social Security Disability application is approved. Yeah, people say it's really easy to do that. Oh, and the Republican Congress keeps cutting the payments for administrative expenses (an overhead of less than 2%), so your Social Security offices are understaffed and under-equipped.

We're sorry that the politicians liked lumping together budgets and Social Security figures, even though they are completely separate. But those surpluses sure made things look good, didn't they? No, Congress did not steal from Social Security. Not unless you think that the bonds sold to grandmothers and the Chinese government also constituted theft.

Conservatives and Healthcare

You think that the ACA was a socialist takeover of health care. Even though it is a Republican free-market insurance plan with 170 changes that Republicans demanded including the elimination of a public option. Even though not one hospital, clinic, pharmacy, lab, drug manufacturer, or medical equipment company has been taken over by the government (nationalized).

You want to go back to insuring only healthy people. You are okay with a pharmaceutical drug that was developed with government funds having its price raised by 5000%. You are okay with Medicare being unable to negotiate drug prices. You have no problem with high premiums, co-pays, deductibles, limits,  and restrictions. No problem with unaffordable health care. It's no problem that access to health care at the cost of financial catastrophe is not realistic access.

People should not have to fight insurance companies for coverage that they were promised? Too bad, that's experimental. No, we don't cover those procedures. Sorry, we routinely deny expensive medical care and will not pay until and unless you go through our appeals process. No, you are no longer insured because you lied on your health history when you did not reveal that you had acne as a teenager, even though it was outside of the 10-year history we asked for.

Sorry, your income is too low to qualify for coverage through the ACA. We're sorry (not really) that you don't qualify for your state's Medicaid because your income is too high.

Do you also think that poor people are lazy and that their circumstances are the result of poor choices? Just like sick people have only themselves to blame? So you think that the poor and sick are moochers and are less worthy and the wealthy should not have to shell out their hard-earned money to help them. And why are you opposed to assistance? Because it would encourage dependency and deprive people of the opportunity to have self-esteem that working (even if you can't or are retired) provides.

Conservatives and Wealth

Does your notion of fairness encompass the ever-increasing flow of wealth to the top .1% at the expense of the people who actually do the work that enables profits and investment returns? The same people who may not want to or are unable to be company executives or financial managers or investors. People who are not more interested in wealth than in pursuing work that they find fulfilling. People who don't want their job overshadowing or interfering with family life. And you think that people who send their money to work should be taxed less than people who work. That a rich man's money is worth more than the sweat of a worker. How conservative.

Conservatives and Morality

You don't want corporations being regulated but you're fine with policing people's behavior and enforcing your notions of morality on others. If you don't like gay marriage, here's a tip. Don't marry someone who is the same sex as you.

You think the GOP is the party of fiscal conservatism even though they want to drown the federal government in a bathtub and are starving it to have an excuse for cutting programs. You think the rich need tax relief. And you think greed is a virtue.

Conservatives and Religion

You think we are a Christian nation even though the founding fathers specifically kept religion out of The Constitution. They were familiar with the Church of England and the perils of a state religion. The founding fathers did not even practice the same religions. Yet, with historical revisionism, conservatives are fine with making laws concerning religion. But if you want a church to be tax-exempt, shouldn't it be based on its status as a charitable organization, not because of the approval of politicians and tax officials for a religion they decided is legitimate?

Conclusions

So, you are a conservative? Feels intellectually satisfying, doesn't it? No namby-pamby feel-good bleeding-heart sympathy from you. Just an honest philosophy with no legislating based on feeling sorry for people. No, ours is a merit-based society with no consideration given for family wealth or connections or educational opportunities or good health or fine neighborhoods, or political influence or money to lobby for laws favoring successful capitalists. Work hard and you will be successful. A just society with the freedom to be your own master.

Unless, of course, you are sick or prefer manual labor or can't afford good schools or are a person of color or a victim of a natural disaster or can't afford health care or are scammed out of your savings with promises of a good job. But that's just business, right? Not your fault that you don't pay a living wage, or that you don't support a health care system that does not depend on an employer having to pay for your full-time-work-only insurance, or that jobs are sent overseas where the standards are lax and labor is cheap. Sure, you believe Climate Change is a hoax that scientists are banned from even mentioning, but don't worry because it won't affect you if it turns out to be real. And it snowed last week, so that proves it's not true because there is no difference between weather and climate, right?

Isn't conservatism wonderful?

Harriet Tubman and the Sabotaging of the New $20 Bill

Maybe arguments condoning the delays of the new $20 bill would have a shred of validity if Mnuchin's claims had any truth. What he is saying is that the security enhancements for the $20 will be different than those that will be used for the $10 and $50. Why would less counterfeited bills have a higher priority for security upgrades? Practice?

The introduction of the new $20 bill was planned for the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment which gave women the right to vote. Hint: That was one reason a woman was going to be featured on the new $20.

Mnuchin claimed that there was much more work to do on the artwork and design of the new $20, which turned out to be just BS. At one point he said that not even a portrait had been decided on. Yet everything was already planned, designed, and on track for the 2020 rollout.

Don't give us BS about political correctness and how Jackson was a war hero. To many, he was a genocidal racist and it is long past time to acknowledge our history. We know why Trump and Mnuchin are delaying the rollout, and their past and present words and actions speak loudly and clearly as to what those reasons are.

HuffPost: Harriet Tubman $20 Bill Leaked Weeks After Trump Administration Delayed Release

Welcome to America. Give Us Your Firstborn.

Ah, hah. You entered this country illegally. So, you were working and providing for your child. And immigration officers took your child away from you over your objections when they arrested you. You were not provided a translator. You objected to their efforts to put your child up for adoption.

Therefore our courts find that you abandoned your child; he will now be given away permanently. No, no-one cares that you cannot understand what the judge is saying in the closed-door hearing.

Illegal immigration must be punished by taking your first-born child and raising him to worship our government. As it was in the days of Moses and Egypt and the pharaohs, so shall it be in our enlightened democracy. Just be glad we are only killing some of the children of illegals.

Welcome to America. Now, go home.

ABC News Story (7/18/2012): Immigrant Mom Loses Effort to Regain Son Given to US Parents

Double Standards

Why is it okay for Trump and company to ignore laws regarding non-governmental phones and servers, backchannels, records of meetings, etc.? Why is it okay to lock up Democrats for doing any of those things?

Because liberals must be defeated at any cost. Because liberals are tax and spend socialists who hate capitalism and are evil do-gooders who are against law and order and whiteness.

Liberals who will abort fetuses up to the day before birth. Who think that hard-working billionaires should not be taxed at zero even though they are the job creators and innovators.

Who don't believe that health care is only for people with money who have not brought their illnesses on themselves with their self-indulgent poor lifestyles. Who think that the rich should pay more than $28,000 into Social Security per year and who advocate entitlements that guarantee dependency on the government tit.

Who think that it is right to make laws for businesses; laws that interfere with the freedom to make money on every aspect of life. Because liberals don't like the rich man's hand in the poor man's pocket.

Or at least this is why I think they think it is okay to have a separate set of standards for themselves versus others. I could be wrong, you know?

Newsweek: Jared Kushner, Donald Trump Broke The Law By Meeting Saudis, Putin, Kim Off The Record: Watchdogs

The Perils of Farm Subsidies

If farm subsidies were not present, supply and demand would raise prices. Farmers would not suddenly go broke or be unable to sell their formerly subsidized crops. Subsidies are supposed to be temporary, not a perpetual taxpayer expense.

• "Without the farm subsidies, the Soybean farmers would have to eat the losses the OVERSUPPLY of soybeans creates devastating their bottom line because China is no longer buying soybeans from American farmers. In other words, without the subsidies, the price of soybeans would plummet instead of going up."

If there is an oversupply, that means taxpayers are handing over money to pay farmers to overproduce. If you stop the subsidies, fewer soybeans are produced and prices rise accordingly. Or the same amount is produced and farmers have to raise prices to cover expenses.

Are you saying that markets cannot handle price fluctuations? You are saying that American taxpayers should be subsidizing Chinese purchases? That our products can't compete on the world markets without crutches? Just how much are taxpayers shelling out in corporate welfare?

It's like oil subsidies. Artificially skew the market so oil companies can either make more money, make it more difficult for alternative fuels to compete, or force global producers to distort their prices. And American consumers pay taxes on the final product, so we are getting screwed on both ends of oil markets.

Do you like US companies competing against foreign producers whose governments subsidize products coming out of their countries? Flooding the market with cheap goods that displace American products?

Difference between Democrats and Republicans

Pro or con Trump is more whether someone is Republican or Democrat and how many lies they believe. The Dems are not the tax and spend party, they are not socialists (they are capitalists with socialism only where needed), and they think abortion is a last resort. Democrats don't want a for-profit insurance person between them and their doctor nor do they want government in their bedrooms or in their pants.

The 4000 terrorists were stopped at airports, 0 stopped at the southern border. Immigrants have lower crime rates. Dictators are not our allies and should not be praised by our president. Social Security is self-funded and is not part of the federal budget or the National Debt and is not going broke. Sure, if you say something often enough, then people will believe it; that doesn't make it true.

Climate Change is not some Chinese conspiracy. Weather is not the same thing as climate (you cannot look out the window and see snow and declare that Global Warming does not exist, not unless you are an idiot). 99.9+% of climatologists agree that there is Climate Change. Even the military agrees. Syria is the only other non-signatory to the Paris Climate Accord.

Over 30 indictments and convictions do not a Witch Hunt make, especially when that includes all of Trump's top campaign officials and many Russians. Hillary's emails and Benghazi have nothing to do with any wrongdoing by others; how many convictions after how many investigations for just those two events? (Hint: Zero.) Give it up already. Hillary Clinton is not a government employee nor is she running for election. Hillary is not a Get Out Of Responsibility card. Stop it with the "But those emails..." Even if she had been convicted of crimes, that does not excuse other abuses. And enough with the false equivalences.

The Republicans have proven over and over that they are not fiscally conservative. The GOP thinks it is the Party Of God (POG). That a family is a mother and a father and their children; anything else is anathema. Look at politicians and tell me that they are the guardians and exemplars of morality.

Republicans have this delusion that health care should only be for people with lots of money (sorry we didn't all get manager or owner or CEO positions). They also believe that corporations have the same rights as people instead of just the economic rights companies used to have. Free markets are not necessarily fair. The Free Market is not inherently moral, and an absence of regulations only works with small groups where everyone has 100% information. The protection of our air, water, soil, workers, and consumers does not fit into a for-profit regulation-free model in our society of 300+ million people.

The White Supremacists have found their home in the GOP. Women, minorities, the disabled, the sick, the elderly, LGBTQIA (sexuality is not binary; it involves more than one gene), the poor, and people of other faiths are not second-class citizens no matter how much or how little money they may have.

The 2012 election decided that Obama would be the one to choose a Supreme Court justice during his term, not the future 2016 election. Don't bother denying that the nomination and confirmation of a Supreme Court justice were stolen. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell even vowed to continue the block through four years of a Hillary Clinton presidency. SCOTUS confirmations used to require 60 votes (to avoid radical or unqualified jurists in the highest court in the country), but the GOP changed that to 51 so that they could put whoever they wanted on the Supreme Court.

Fox News is not and cannot be the only mainstream media to get the story right while each and every other news organization is supposedly biased and wrong. From what I have seen, Fox News is a propaganda organization and its journalists are not real reporters (they are editorialists). Fox News viewers consistently rate as the least informed.

You cannot drastically cut corporate taxes and taxes on the wealthy and then claim that "entitlements" are the reason for deficits. As for job creation, it is not the wealthy who create jobs, and jobs are not created out of thin air. Companies create jobs because someone has the money in their pockets to buy the things that they sell. Without middle-class consumers to buy the products and services of businesses, there would be few new jobs created. Trickle-down economics has been proven false over and over.

Workers need health care that does not depend on single-employer full-time jobs at large corporations. Almost all other western industrialized nations have universal health care with a combined population greater than the US. Our health care is third-world when it comes to affordability; expensive healthcare limits availability. Expensive healthcare is also the leading cause of bankruptcies. Try having a heart attack while you are living paycheck to paycheck and are working two or three part-time jobs without benefits.

Nobody is threatening to take away guns other than outlawing weapons of mass murder and fixing background checks. The Second Amendment has a conditional clause in it. That is why there are so many gun laws in this country. One drunk untrained person does not constitute a militia. You want a militia? Try any state's National Guard.

I don't object to guns that are handled safely by trained, responsible people. That does not mean I want to be one of 50 casualties by one person with essentially a machine gun, and it certainly does not mean that I want to be accidentally shot by a teacher or to be shot in the back in a theatre by an idiot behind me.

We are not a Christian Nation. Our Founding Fathers had enough of the abuses of the Church of England, and they had differing religious backgrounds. That is why the First Amendment includes the words, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" to ensure the separation of Church and State. There is both an “establishment clause” and a “free exercise clause.” The first is to keep religion out of government and the second is to protect our individual religious beliefs and practices.

Trump is not the world's foremost authority (self-professed) on borders, campaign contributions, courts, debt, drones, Facebook, infrastructure, the political left, money, Osama Bin Laden, politicians, renewables, taxes, technology, and trade. He has not done more than any president in history in his first two years; that is just one of the 8000 plus lies by him. George Washington oversaw the enactment of the Bill of Rights; Trump has done his best to violate each of the amendments in the Bill of Rights. And there were not 3 million illegal votes in the 2016 election. In-person voter fraud is very rare. Voter suppression by the GOP, though, is alive and well.

If you read transcripts of Trump's interviews, it is blindingly clear that he is an idiot. Here are excerpts from just one interview on 7/19/2017:

•  "So pre-existing conditions are a tough deal. Because you are basically saying from the moment the insurance, you’re 21 years old, you start working and you’re paying $12 a year for insurance, and by the time you’re 70, you get a nice plan."
•  "So I go to Poland and make a speech. Enemies of mine in the media, enemies of mine are saying it was the greatest speech ever made on foreign soil by a president."
•  "...the Bastille Day parade was — now that was a super-duper — O.K. I mean, that was very much more than normal...You know, it was two hours, and the parade ended. It didn’t go a whole day. They didn’t go crazy. You don’t want to leave, but you have to. Or you want to leave, really."
•  On dinner with Vladimir Putin, "...everybody walked in to see the opera. Then the opera ended. Then we walked into a big room where they had dinner...quite a few people. I would say you have 20 times two, so you had 40, and then you probably had another 10 or 15 people...you had some others also."

Yes, I am a Democrat. I love my country, but I don't think it is perfect; just because I protest injustice does not mean I am a communist or anarchist. I don't hold a religion or a deity up as a shield or as justification for hatred. Republican radical conservative self-righteousness and ignorance should not be a part of our society.

Globalization Bad, America First Good

First, is globalization good? It depends. Free trade is not fair trade. Imports don't have to meet the same standards as domestic goods, and labor in many other nations have much poorer working conditions. Manufacturing here has largely been replaced by a service economy along with huge growth in the financial sector.

The massive increase in wealth has gone largely to the top 1%. Along with this has been an incredible rise in the national debt, largely because the party of the wealthy works hard to make sure that taxes on the rich and on large corporations are kept low. The last 40 years have seen productivity quadruple while wages, including the minimum wage, have lost ground. While the economy as a whole has grown significantly, income disparity has skyrocketed.

Are all Trump's lies based on his idea that globalization is bad? No, unless you think Trump is being truthful otherwise. That is, if you really believe Trump's claims that he is the world's foremost authority on borders, courts, debt, infrastructure, money, politicians, taxes, technology, and trade.

If you really believe that Trump knows more than all of the security and intelligence agencies. And that while Trump may not be the foremost authority on health care, you believe his claims that people cannot believe how much he knows about it. And that he gives the best speeches that even his enemies praise. And his claims that his pre-teen son Brandon knows more about hacking than anyone else, and that Jared Kushner would bring peace to the Middle East.

Trump probably claimed that his son-in-law would solve the Middle East crisis because Jared is Jewish, and so Trump would reason that not only is Jared stereotypically super-smart but also that he would be intimately familiar with Arab-Israeli politics and issues even though he has only worked in real estate.

And, of course, if you believe Trump's claim that he has never done anything that he had to ask forgiveness for.

If you believe all of the above is true, then what remains might indeed be lies based on Trump's belief that globalization is bad and America First is good.

Salon: Globalization is bad for America is the lie that all Trump's other lies are based on

The "Witch Hunt" Russia Investigation Nears Completion

CNN article: Acting AG Whitaker: Mueller investigation 'close to being completed'

A recap of the article. There are independent signs that the investigation may be nearing its end. Deputy AG Rosenstein will be leaving soon after AG nominee William Barr's confirmation; he has previously "signaled" that he would leave when the investigation was complete or close enough that it was protected. Some investigation prosecutors have moved to different jobs, and some of its cooperators have been moved toward sentencing. The special counsel's federal grand jury's work could continue; the grand jury was extended for another six months.

Trump associates, campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, and campaign adviser George Papadopoulos have been indicted or have pleaded guilty. Adviser Roger Stone (one of the last key campaign associates in Trump's orbit) has been arrested. Also indicted were Russian business associate Konstantin Kilimnik, 12 Russian military intelligence officers, along with 13 Russians and three companies that allegedly manipulated social media to sway US voters.

Quite the haul for a Witch Hunt. How much money spent and how many investigations, probes, and reports have there been concerning Hillary Clinton's emails and Benghazi? Too many. And how many indictments and arrests were made? Zero. Crooked who? Lock up who? 🤔

Jesus Is Not Santa

Do not ask for or expect miracles. Instead, ask for perseverance or for inspiration. Ask for the inner strength to learn and grow. Ask for the courage to do what is right and to become a force for good. Strive to become a better friend or lover or spouse or parent. Change the universe; do not ask the universe to change for you.

There is no invisible Santa Claus in the sky that grants wishes; spirituality is not materialistic. If praying for peace was enough, we would not have war. Thanking God for guiding a surgeon's hands dismisses his or hers lifetime of learning and effort.

Harming others is not being a God, it is being evil. Can you restore a life you have ended? Can you restore an eye that you have maimed? A predator is not superior; taking what is not yours is laziness. Destruction is easy; a child can set a fire.  Construction requires effort.

Take care of this world; Earth does not require our presence to survive. Take care of each other. If we don't care for each other, who will care for us?

A Sacrifice for Future Generations?

"Lara Trump, President Trump’s daughter-in-law, urged federal workers to view this furlough as a sacrifice for the benefit of future generations." A sacrifice?? Starve, lose your home, ruin your credit, stress out so much that it may be fatal (suicide). Might as well be chucking people into the flames of the statue's belly of the pagan god MAGAt. How about treating the oath of office as more than just sentences too long for this president to read, much less understand. Protect and defend against enemies? Who is the domestic enemy harming a million American citizens?

Huffington Post: The Shutdown Could Have Long-Term Mental Health Consequences For Workers

Class Warfare on the Poor

Are you worried about the proposed 70% tax on the rich? Consider what that really means.

First, know that it is not a Socialist proposing this. It is a Democrat Socialist. That is a vast difference. A Democrat Socialist believes in capitalism, but believes that some things must not be for-profit.

If you reach the 70% tax bracket, that does not mean that income under $10 million is taxed at 70%. Only income earned above $10 million (one year's income) is taxed at 70%. The rest is taxed at whatever bracket it falls in. The first $9,700 (for unmarried individuals) is still only taxed at 12%. Income from $9,701 to $39,475 is taxed at 22%. And so on. So if income is $10,000,001, only $1 is taxed at 70%. Don't worry, the super-rich have plenty of ways to reduce taxable income. If you are worried about some of your income being taxed at 70%, think about all the people who work for you and what their incomes are. It's like having 99 slices of pizza while 99 people have to split one piece. And those 99 people are the ones who are doing the work.

Every year the income disparity only grows. Minimum wage has remained the same since 2009. 2009's minimum wage of $7.25 (same as 2018) is only worth $6.19 today. With inflation, 1968's minimum wage of $1.60 should have risen to above $19.

Companies expect stocks to earn 15% each year to remain competitive in attracting industrial investors (such as pensions). With inflation so low, that means cutting costs to get that rate of return. Employee wages are one of those costs. Health care and other benefits are another source for cutting costs. Cheaper ingredients. Lack of safety equipment. Lack of pollution controls. Shipping jobs overseas. Imports not having to meet the same standards as U.S. products. Increasing employee portion of insurance costs. Exempting part-time workers from health coverage. With part-time (cheaper) work, companies save money. But people then have to have two or more jobs to get as much income as they did for one full-time job, and their multiple jobs have no benefits.

Corporations do not pay taxes on income; they only pay taxes on profits. Yet their taxes were cut 50%. And almost none of the tax savings trickled down to employees. Remember Ryan gushing about a worker's rise in income of 50¢ per week and how she could now afford a Costco membership?

Yes, there is class warfare. The rich have been waging it on poor people.

Believe In Fear And Ignore Everything Else

Just stoke the fears of "conservatives" and all of this doesn't matter to them. Pretend the southern border is being overrun. Pretend immigrants have a much higher crime rate. Pretend there are drug dealers and murderers and rapists streaming across the border. Pretend a wall along one border would be effective. Pretend that almost 4000 potential terrorists were stopped at the border rather than at airports.

Then don't pay border patrol agents and airport security and the coast guard and the secret service and 800,000 other federal employees with a government shutdown, all to get funding for an ineffective wall that two years of a Republican House and a Republican Senate could not produce. Scuttle a bipartisan continuing resolution on the very last day of a congressional session just before the holiday recess and just before Democrats are due to take over the House. Then blame Democrats for a shutdown that Trump said he would "own."

Believe the lie that the GOP is the party of fiscal conservatives. Believe the lie that self-funded Social Security is part of the budget and that cutting benefits would affect the federal budget and the National Debt. Believe the lie that people are inherently lazy and lead immoral lifestyles and don't deserve health care. Believe the lie that Climate Change is a hoax. Believe that the founding fathers wanted a Christian nation. Believe that corporations have equal rights rather than just economic rights. Believe the lie that businesses will self-regulate and that workers and consumers and people who breath will not be hurt by trashing the EPA. Disregard science at every turn. Embrace Russia and other authoritarian regimes. Direct your anger at other citizens because of their differences from you. Pretend that the Second Amendment says nothing about militias. Believe that human sexuality is binary rather than a biological spectrum, and believe that gay marriage threatens heterosexual marriage. Believe that the GOP is the party of GOD and family values. Believe that only individual responsibility counts and social responsibility does not exist; I've got mine, too bad for you. Believe that women and minorities and the disabled are second class citizens not deserving of the same protections that white males have. Cheer on Nazi marchers and the KKK.

Keep believing all the lies. Believe nothing else but an ineffective wall is the solution and nothing else matters. Believe all of this as our democracy is being flushed down the toilet.

Trump Should Make Sacrifices

Trump should make sacrifices just as the federal employees and employees of federal contractors affected by his shutdown are doing. The shutdown of the federal government that he declared he would own. The shutdown that occurred when he decided, after Congress was beginning to go home for the holidays, to end 2018 with a veto of the bipartisan continuing resolution.

Because on the last day of Republicans controlling both houses of Congress, on the last day before Democrats take control of the House, one of the last days of two years of his presidency, that he wanted to hold people and government hostage for an ineffective wall on our southern border. The shutdown that he now blames the Democrats for.

Take away Trump's 24-hour Fox News with its radical conservative propaganda that guides his actions. Take away his golf clubs. Take away his ability to twitter. Take away his protection detail and his gourmet meals and his housekeeping staff and servers and butlers and health care and drivers and interpreters.

Freeze his assets. Suspend his pay, block his ability to cash in CDs or raid his retirement fund or get some cash from his off-shore accounts. Tell him to have Ivanka make up his bed and serve his take-out meals and clean up his garbage.

Tell him exactly what he is telling federal employees to do. Adjust. Ask parents for a loan. Send silly letters to people (and Russians) to accommodate newly found poverty. Get a part-time job with no health insurance (maybe work for the groundskeepers). Tell him to walk in the shoes of the people he is screwing. Let him feel the effects of the shutdown that he engineered. Let him find out what it is like for people who live one paycheck away from disaster.

Trump said he would own the shutdown. He should also live it.

Protect our Borders

To make a border wall truly effective, one would have to have two fences with a no-man's land between them, and enough guard towers with machine guns to cover the no-man's land. Nobody should be able to throw drugs or defective weapons across this moat. Then we must blockade both of our coasts, and build a wall along the northern border. That should keep everyone from entering or exiting from Mexico and Canada. We must stop the invasion of Canadians who are fleeing their socialist universal no-profit free healthcare. We must shoot down any unauthorized drones or planes or boats or submarines crossing those borders, and fully inspect planes and boats that are supposedly authorized. We must monitor the ground for any attempts to tunnel under the walls. We must have tamperproof national IDs that everyone must carry and that must be presented for inspection whenever an official asks to see it or whenever entering a government building. No-one should be exempt from stop-and-frisk laws. We must stop allowing uninspected diplomatic pouches through the borders. We must check more than the current 3% of incoming cargo containers. We need to weaponize space so that incoming missiles or planes can be hit from both the land and from the skies. We must detain suspected criminals and rapists and murderers and illegal immigrants and people who don't speak the national language and drug smugglers and homeless people and evil atheists in camps across America. We must coordinate with Russia to defend against threats from the EU and other socialist countries. Anyone with head coverings will be charged. Everyone must carry firearms to protect against domestic terrorists. Social media and mainstream media must be monitored and censored to stop the recruitment and planning and spreading of subversive ideas by enemies of the state. The president must declare martial law and must be unfettered in his authority to use whatever means are necessary to protect us from foreign immigrants, foreign laborers who are taking our agricultural jobs away from us, from nasty drugs smuggled inside people, and from other countries who are trying to make a profit from our weapons purchases.

We must have never-ending peace and safety and capitalism.

To Radical Conservatives Who Believe the Gov Shutdown is a Power Play by Dems.

A wall that does not do much. 4000 potential terrorists stopped at airports. Zero at our southern border. So let's not pay TSA workers while fighting for a wall. Brilliant. Both the Republican Senate and Republican House agreed on a bill to keep the government open. Trump vetoed it just as the congressional recess began. He said he would own the shutdown, then tried to blame others.

Impeachment and conviction of that incompetent ignorant idiot head of the Republican Party would only result in another Republican assuming the Presidency. And yet you think it is a power play? You think a wall would stop drugs and terrorists and rapists and murderers? Trump is pulling you by the nose hairs and you don't even know it. It's called fear-mongering. It is especially effective with conservatives. You have been played.

Why ERs Are Flooded With Mental Patients

State mental institutions were widely viewed as snake pits, and the increasing use of drug treatments was seen as a panacea. State institutions were supposed to be replaced in part by community facilities. Increasing numbers of people found to be mentally ill, along with problems in funding those institutions, were also drivers of change.

In 1967, California governor Ronald Reagan began instituting widely recommended policy changes, and some other states followed. The discharge of mental patients was accelerated in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a result of a series of court decisions that limited the commitment powers of state and local officials.

But community facilities were absent or poorly funded, and people were let out that should not have been. It was an overreaction followed by inaction, and now ER's are one of the few places for many to get the treatment they need.

CNN Article, ERs 'flooded' with mentally ill patients with no place else to turn

From a New York Times 1984 article, HOW RELEASE OF MENTAL PATIENTS BEGAN