January 27, 2019

White nationalist Max Misch forces resignation of

Vermont's only black state legislator, Ruqaiyah “Kiah” Morris. Because of this asshole, she resigned from office in September 2018.

The Daily Beast article linked below is well worth reading, because it asks some very good, very pointed questions about why other Democrats (and Sanders) didn't focus on this with a more single-minded intensity.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/a-white-supremacist-hounded-a-black-lawmaker-out-of-office?ref=wrap

This Misch jerk trolled Morris repeatedly to the point she felt threatened. The Vermont cops couldn't prove Misch broke into her car or did other damage that happened on her property.

This link is a twitter feed that exposes the racist asshole Misch's twitter account 'hammer of kek' and shows photos of the scumbag.

https://twitter.com/search?q=max%20misch&src=tyah

So...the question here is what to do about these nationalist assholes. When does their First Amendment right to free speech end?

This isn't the America I want to live in, that's for sure. When some asshole like this is allowed to so badly harass a lawmaker that she's forced to resign. No.

January 21, 2019

I'm getting pretty worried here.

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/01/politics/shutdown-effects/

This link shows the shutdown calendar and the millions and millions of Americans that will be hurt in the worst possible ways - no paychecks, not enough food, losing affordable housing.

I'm so angry that it has come to this. An emotional five-year-old shuts down part of a $4.4 trillion government over $5.7 billion in US taxpayer funding for a wall he said Mexico would pay for.

The coast guard isn't getting paid.

TSA isn't getting paid and 10% of that workforce called in sick yesterday.

This shutdown is a criminal action that to my mind is designed to pull down the US, put us in a state of revolution. Just what Putin wants. It is nothing more or less than TREASON.

I'd like to urge all of you who read this post to:
1. call your US representative
2. call both your US Senators
3. call your governor's office (yeah, I know it is indirect, but it could add pressure on these lizards in the Senate, and NO governor wants chaos in his/her state, which is exactly what we will be seeing).

Because here's the thing - when 40 million Americans don't have enough food next month, air traffic stops, 800,000 federal workers and over a million federal contractors can't fill their tanks, pay their mortgages, buy groceries or even have a life, we will be in a state of revolution.

I mean, this is surreal. It reminds me of Rocko in the Boondock Saints saying, "See you on the flip side!"

Problem is, I think all of us want the 'flip side' to consist of the institutions we count on functioning properly. I sure do.

Last thought: Let's not EVER forget this. When we take power, we must hold these criminals accountable for their treason, crimes against humanity, and utter corruption.

January 12, 2019

Trees, fruit and the Democratic party - musings on Joe Lieberman's recent comment.

I'm going to have to say that I think AOC, or at least her ideas and her platform ARE the future of the Democratic party.

What I have found is that, with judging any politician (or anyone else), you are on much more solid ground with looking at what they DO first, and then comparing that with what they SAY. I’ve gotten tired, over the six decades I’ve lived, of politicians who come and tell me whatever it takes to get my vote.

Truth is, my grandchildren NEED AOC’s Green New Deal. NOW. The environment has become so fouled that species are going extinct at a rapid, human-caused rate, and the planet may become uninhabitable for humankind. This is an existential crisis and we must address it right away - not soon, not in a couple decades, not with 'all deliberate speed' (remember that?), but NOW. We need to address it NOW.

Our country needs to reverse the giant tax cut for billionaires and corporations passed in 2017 and adopt AOC’s graduated rates. We need our government to provide public services, and to my mind we need to expand the concept of 'public good' to include health care, and de-privatize a bunch of things where the profit motive creates conflicts, such as prisons. We have far too many infrastructure needs to waste public monies on things like a space force (I mean, how is THAT better for us than healthcare?), and we certainly cannot afford to route yet more money to these billionaires through unnecessary tax cuts.

I'll tell you as an economist that most of our problems — with wealth inequality, with environmental degradation, the human-caused climate change, huge and unsustainable national and consumer debt, comes to us as a direct result of the PRIMACY OF THE SHAREHOLDER. You've heard me talk about this before, and few of you comment, but it is the truth.

The CEO of a publicly held company has only one responsibility, and this has been tested to the Supreme Court:

- A CEO's ONLY responsibility is to increase earnings for shareholders. That’s it. So that CEO will bust unions, drive labor costs down, dilute benefits, gobble up pensions because on Wall Street, labor is considered a liability.

- That CEO will put consumer interests on the back burner too, and implement planned obsolescence in products - water them down, decrease the size of the package while at the same time raising the price. Or, if it is a financial service, will adopt predatory lending practices. This is all because the corporate charter says shareholders are more important than the consumer of the good or service.

- Finally, that CEO and his/her other C-Suite officers will foul the environment to whatever degree they can get away with (the capitalist euphemism for this is ‘externality’). In other words, as long as they don't have to pay for the damage to the environment or the people in that environment, the accountants and Wall Street consider this positive because it doesn't affect shareholder earnings. So guess who has to pay to mitigate environmental problems. That's right, us, the taxpayers.

To that end, Elizabeth Warren has introduced the Accountable Capitalism Act, which expands the fiduciary responsibility of CEOs to include the welfare of workers, consumers and the environment. WE NEED THAT.

In addition, across the USA, states are trying to pass the National Popular Vote Compact, which will force Electoral College members to vote the same way the national popular vote went, in effect replacing the elitist Electoral College with democracy. If enough states had passed this prior to 2016, Clinton would be in the White House actually acting like a president, instead of the petulant emotional five-year-old we have now.

We also must get rid of Citizens United because corporations are NOT people and dollars are NOT free speech. That is un-American.

The truth is that many politicians that have been voted into office over the last few decades would pay lip service to these things, but then, somehow, mysteriously, nothing would ever really happen. And the media won't EVER tell you what I just told you about the primacy of the shareholder. Why? Because nearly all our media outlets, including MSNBC, are corporate-owned and subject to that very same primacy of the shareholder. This is why they love Citizens United - the super pacs are cash cows for them and they gobble up billions in profits every time there's an election.

That’s the pabulum we’ve been fed for DECADES now, and I’m quite sick of it. So, yes, I’m a big AOC fan, and am not fond of the so-called Third Way Democrats because they don’t do much for me. To make my life better. To help me and my family and my grandchildren. To use our tax money for stuff that actually benefits us instead of corporate donors and the MIC. THAT should be the job of those we elect, should it not?

What? Wait? Slow down? Proceed with 'all deliberate speed?' Nope. As Obama said, there is a 'fierce urgency of NOW.'

I'll end with few words from the great Martin Luther King that echo to us through time from the Birmingham Jail:

Let us Democrats move forward now as the party of social, economic and environmental justice. THAT is the future.

January 5, 2019

Sometimes cats are SUCH jerks. I'm gonna talk litter-box here...

Don't get me wrong - we have three cats and love them very much. The oldest is 17 and the two youngest came from the same letter and are 6 years old.

Now, cats are really cool little animals. They are cute, fun and generally playful. My 17 year old will come and curl up on the desk beside me in my home office while I'm working. I love that cat. He's my cuddle-cat.

So, anyway, we have two large litter boxes and they are near my desk in my home office. Needless to say I clean as they go. Seriously, no one wants to be focusing on a spreadsheet surrounded by cat poop smell. So after the little guys go, I'm right there scooping it out.

Well, they've gotten spoiled. This morning, I didn't scoop the boxes out first thing.

Nope, I exercised, then sat down for a news review as I always do.

Well, I guess the male (neutered) six-year old didn't appreciate that. So this morning he goes into the box, poops and then proceeds to bury it VERY vigorously, which means he spewed litter all over the floor outside the boxes.

This is why I've given him the middle initial 'F.' I'll let you all surmise what that might stand for. First name starts with A. So A. F. Cat. Yep. That's his name...