Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Steve Bannon repeatedly endorses extreme racism...again


This is like talking about gun violence; no one seems to care anymore, or something would be done. The "this" I am talking about is Donald Trump's top White House adviser Steve Bannon, who continues to espouse white nationalism and racist beliefs. He is now joined by Steve King, House representative from Iowa, who makes me sorry I ever called the state full of common sense. If he is any example, it has just become feudal. The two of them have recently endorsed the highly racist book, The Camp of the Saints, the "favorite racist fantasy of the anti-immigrant movement."

That's what the Southern Poverty Law Center says, a non-profit that tracks hate organizations across the country. Steve King probably can't do much harm, his Iowa district is losing population anyway...understandable. But Steve Bannon? Everyday he remains in office is a threat to what the United States of America stands for.

Bernie Sanders nails it in this video...


Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Remarkable Kellyanne speaks again...about microwaves



What is remarkable is the fact that Kellyanne Conway is still a spokesperson for Donald Trump. Although his statements parallel hers in stupidity, Conway just manages to come off more as a simpleton. Her latest is to suggest, when asked specifically about surveillance and wiretapping of Trump Tower, there are all sorts of ways to surveil...like through microwaves. This was her answer when being interviewed by the Bergen Record...


Monday, March 13, 2017

Is Donald Trump's presidency biggest scam since Bernie Madoff?


Newt Gingrich, early Trump backer
I spent 35 years in the junk mail industry where a new scam was born almost every day. There was even a selection of mailing lists of names from those who responded to those offers that looked...well, almost too good to be true. We called them the GULLIBLES. That's pretty bad for the consumer when you can target individuals with a product you want to sell, and they don't really need it, but will want it just because of the sales letter you sent them. This, of course, is not as bad as the famous one, The Nigerian Scam, also known as 419.

The 419 was from some Nigerian family to move a lot of money from their country to the U.S. in your name, from which you will benefit in ridiculously large amounts of cash, all for helping in the transaction. As the experts put it...
"They will use your emotions and willingness to help against you. They will promise you a large cut of their business or family fortune. All you are asked to do is cover the endless 'legal' and other “fees” that must be paid to the people that can release the scammer’s money."
Does "using your emotion" sound familiar? There are nine more scams can see here, but that isn't what this post is all about. It asks the question, "Is Donald Trump's presidency biggest scam since Bernie Madoff? The Washington Post thinks so and, after highlighting all the issues promised by Donald Trump in his candidacy, says...
"...little by little, as Trump seeks to make good on his promises, Trumpism — as sold by the man himself — is being revealed as fraudulent to its core."
"Fraudulent to its core," is not like, well, you're falling a bit short of the public's expectations. When you go to the core, you have arrived, described in Dictionary.com: "the central, innermost, or most essential part of anything." So, Donald John has missed the boat on the main issues that affect America. WP continues as an example, the health-care bill that Trump promised the people has been short-circuited by his endorsement of the new House GOP health-care plan...
"The bill, experts said, falls far short of the goals President Donald Trump laid out: Affordable coverage for everyone; lower deductibles and health care costs; better care; and zero cuts to Medicaid. Instead, the bill is almost certain to reduce overall coverage, result in deductibles increasing, and will phase out Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion."
There's more about additional issues you can read in the WP article, above. And there are more signs that Donald Trump is bad for this country. The Associated Press (AP) announced, "...the Trump administration's immigration policies are hurting tourism."
"The nonprofit industry organization said in a statement that there are 'mounting signs' of 'a broad chilling effect on demand for international travel to the United States.'"
Don't watch this on an empty stomach...



Disputed by White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters, "...the non-profit, the U.S. Travel Association's statement added to a growing chorus of concern from the travel industry over the impact of Trump administration policies on tourism." New York city is forecasting 300,000 fewer visitors compared to 2016. Here's another fact...
"The Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau told the Philadelphia Inquirer this week that it had lost out on an international meeting with 3,000 attendees that decided to go to Canada or Mexico instead."
According to Statistics & Facts...
"The travel and tourism industry is one of the largest industries in the United States, making a total contribution of 1.47 trillion U.S. dollars to GDP in 2014."
Here's more...
"A Jan. 30 op-ed piece in the Toronto Star newspaper encouraged Canadians to "boycott vacations to the U.S." until Trump is no longer president."
With problems like this, the tourism industry could bring the country's economy to a screeching halt. The AP also reported that, "Last year, the U.S. Commerce Department predicted a record 78.6 million international visitors would come to the U.S. in 2017. That forecast is usually updated in May." CNN is saying there are...
"...people influential with the most powerful man in the world are publicly raising concerns that there is a cabal of entrenched bureaucrats hidden in the bowels of the nation's government who are intent on his political demise."
Sean Spicer said...
"I think that there's no question when you have eight years of one party in office, there are people who stay in government and continue to espouse the agenda of the previous administration. So I don't think it should come as any surprise there are people that burrowed into government during eight years of the last administration and may have believed in that agenda and may continue to seek it. I don't think that should come as a surprise."
Spicer dismissed the idea that the CIA is working to identify those people and remove them from government.
Translated..."Made in"
But one of Donald John's biggest problems could be our southern neighbor, since a primary campaignThe Huff Post says...
promise was to build the wall between the U.S. and Mexico...and make them pay for it.
"US President Donald Trump, who has relentlessly intimidated and humiliated Mexico since before he was sworn in, evidently enjoys playing the ogre. He has repeatedly demanded that Mexico treat the US “fairly and with respect” while blaming it for “taking advantage” of its northern neighbour."
It's actually the other way around because "President James Polk invaded Mexico in 1846 and stole 55% of its land, including Texas and California." There's more that makes Donald Trump look like a dimwit...
"As recently as July 2015, the US government was praising Mexico as a “critically important” partner in America’s well-being; 14 years prior, George W Bush acknowledged that the US has “no more important relationship in the world” than the one it has with Mexico."
If the Trump administration and its "Trumpism" isn't the biggest scam since Bernie Madoff, then the total White House staff should go to Hollywood. What was that other politically historical play that was one of the biggest hits ever on Broadway. Maybe Donald Trump is another "Hamilton." Nah...you could never put music to this man. Wait though, maybe Kellyanne Conway could fill in.

Sunday, March 12, 2017

The NRA part of Trump's Russian debacle


 Dmitry Rogozin
The National Rifle Assn. (NRA) in 2014 met with Dmitry Rogozin, one of Vlaimir Putin's top deputies and the head of Russia’s defense industry and longtime opponent of American power. This was eighteen months after he was sanctioned by the U.S. for the invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Rogozin is chairman of the Russian Shooting Federation, and obviously had significant influence on gun relations between the two countries. So why was the NRA, who was Donald Trump’s most powerful outside ally during the 2016 election, there...
"The NRA had previously objected to the parts of the U.S. sanctions regime that blocked Russian-made guns from import into the United States."
Tim Mak, author of the Daily Beast article says the meeting has not been previously covered by the American media. Why not? I ask. Mak says the meeting was "one strand in a web of connections" between Trump, his staff and Cabinet appointments. Mak explains it this way...
"Attorney General Jeff Sessions and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn both denied speaking with the Russian ambassador, which turned out to be untrue; former campaign manager Paul Manafort supported pro-Russian interests in Ukraine; Secretary of State Rex Tillerson won an “Order of Friendship” from Putin; and then, of course, there’s the hacking campaign that U.S. intelligence agencies say Russia launched to tilt the election in Trump’s favor."
Rogozin is prominent in many areas of the Russian government, as well as being a leader in gun rights; he is "particularly interested" in cyberwarfare and its ability to target with the speed of light. BINGO! But does Rogozin plus all these American connections from Donald Trump to the NRA add up to the hacking of the 2016 election to favor the candidacy of Trump? The million-dollar question.  Rep. Mike Quigley, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, which is investigating Russia’s attempts to influence the 2016 presidential elections...
“Due to the NRA’s opposition to sanctions, it defies credulity that they wouldn’t have discussed sanctions and their extraordinary support for Donald Trump’s campaign.”
 The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee panel that oversees the CIA, Rep. Eric Swalwell...
Russia is not America’s friend. And it’s stunning to hear that while they were attacking our democracy, one of the largest organizations supporting Trump [the NRA] was cozying up with a sanctioned Russian in Moscow.”
Conspiracy, killings and new President
It is true that National Rifle Assn. head, Wayne LaPierre and his minions will go to any length to getSeven children and teens (age 19 or under) are killed with guns in the U.S. on an average day. Rogozin having been sanctioned by the U.S. had apparently no effect on the NRA gang, which included David Keene, the former NRA president, board member Pete Brownell, top NRA donor Joe Gregory, and Trump supporter Sheriff David A. Clarke. Mak reports further...
guns on the streets of the United States, even when it results in the murder of our children:
"The National Rifle Association’s support for Trump was unprecedented—and it seems to have paid off. The organization backed Trump in May 2016—much earlier than they had endorsed other candidates in previous election cycles, and before he had even been officially named the Republican presidential nominee.
The NRA spent $30.3 million to elect Trump—more than even the top Trump super PAC, which spent just $20.3 million, according to OpenSecrets."
And it was right after the election that Donald John rescinded a move by Barack Obama in the last days of his election "that banned lead ammunition in various hunting and fishing areas." The NRA, of course, did a back flip.

Since the NRA nor its associates that attended these Russian meetings have ever mentioned it publicly, is there something to cover up? The fact that they were there to begin with, considering the sanctions, is bad enough, but if there was an ulterior motive, other than just gun business, someone should find out. But they won't, as long as Republicans are in charge of the government. Wayne LaPierre basks in this kind of glory while there still continues to be 12,000 gun homicides every year. Purely pathetic when you consider guns' rights are placed above people's lives.

Saturday, March 11, 2017

Gun nut finally gets just results


Former Police Captain Curtis Reeves
The sane population of this country is battling the gun nuts that have been given the right-of-way to do just about anything they want with their guns. In Arizona, they can even carry them into bars where fights, even brawls break out occasionally. Now, by sane, I don't mean just staunch gun control advocates like me, it also includes those innocent people without guns that just don't want to be shot and maimed, possibly killed. Here are some appalling figures from the gun advocacy organization, Everytown for Gun Safety...
  1. Data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that on an average day, 93 Americans are killed with guns.
  2. On average there are nearly 12,000 gun homicides a year in the U.S.
  3. For every one person killed with guns, two more are injured.
  4. Seven children and teens (age 19 or under) are killed with guns in the U.S. on an average day.
  5. In an average month, 50 women are shot to death by intimate partners in the U.S.
  6. America’s gun homicide rate is more than 25 times the average of other high-income countries.
There are more you can see on the Everytown for Gun Safety site. But I ask you gun nuts out there, which of the above figures do you want to argue with. They are confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), that organization your leader, Wayne LaPierre, who heads up the National Rifle Assn, (NRA), tried to keep quiet for years. LaPierre and the NRA backed legislation that has blocked gun violence research for 20 years. What you are seeing above are raw figures supplied to the CDC by hospitals, doctors, police departments and other groups. The NRA would stop this if they could.

Chad Oulsen's wife, Nicole speaks out...



The idea for this post came from a CNN article titled, "Judge denies 'stand your ground' defense in movie theater shooting," which covers the death of  Chad Oulson in a Florida movie theatre at the hands of retired police captain, Curtis Reeves. Here is the CNN version...
The case dates to January 14, when Reeves, then 71, confronted a man in a suburban Tampa movie theater about texting during the previews before a showing of "Lone Survivor." The two argued, and then Reeves walked out of the theater to complain to an employee. When Reeves returned, he and the man, Chad Oulson, began arguing again.
Oulson threw a bag of popcorn at Reeves, according to a criminal complaint, and Reeves then took out his handgun and fired at Oulson, killing him.
The Judge established through evidence that Oulson did not throw a cell phone at Reeves, charged by the complainant, and Oulson's actions were not considered aggressive enough to qualify under Florida's 'Stand Your Ground' law, which also figured in George Zimmerman's 2013 trial in the killing of Trayvon Martin. Prosecutors played audio of Reeves talking to detectives shortly after the shooting...
"As soon as I pulled the trigger I said, 'Oh shoot, that was stupid.' If I had to do it over again, it would have never happened," he said. "If I had to do it over again, it would never have happened. I wouldn't have moved. But you don't get do-overs."
Reeves' hearing has just started.

Enough said...just another gun nut.

It was learned later that Oulson was checking his phone to text his daughter's babysitter.

Friday, March 10, 2017

‘World’s Greatest Healthcare Plan of 2017’ stinks


While millions risk losing their health insurance, perhaps dying as a result, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), chairman of the powerful Rules Committee, thinks he has the perfect replacement for Obamacare in his POS ‘World’s Greatest Healthcare Plan of 2017.’ Sessions thought he would slip his legislation in as a model for what Speaker Paul Ryan  and the rest of the House plan to do. "Instead, Speaker Paul Ryan and his team modeled their initial bill on legislation authored by former
Rep. Tom Price." This is what Price had to say...
"...that that bill as currently written is a “work in progress,” and that future legislative and regulatory fixes will be necessary to address all of the health-care policies that Republicans hope to implement."
But the health care industry doesn't want anything to do with any of it. Seven groups speaking for hospitals, health systems and medical colleges collectively added their “significant concerns,..."
"...to the growing opposition, focusing on the prospect of sharply lower numbers of insured Americans if the GOP plan becomes law. Separately, the American Medical Association, a powerful lobbying group for physicians, rejected the bill for the same reason."
Based on health care specialists who have analyzed the Republican House bill, millions will lose coverage with Americans in their 50s and 60s as the most likely to not be able to afford the coverage. By 2020 the premium subsidies based on income would be gone, according to the New York Times. The current system would be replaced by tax credits of $2,000 to $4,000 per year, based on age. But this would leave a significant deficit from current coverage plans under Affordable Care Act requirements. Meaning, many would have to give up their health insurance.

Here's a statement from a major health care provider...
The central issue is the tax credits are not going to be sufficient, admits Dr. J. Mario Molina, chief executive of Molina Healthcare who offers coverage through Obamacare marketplaces in California, Florida and several other states. 
One unhappy Trump voter says she thought he would make her health insurance more affordable not more expensive. Under the House Plan, she would get $5,188 less each year than she did under the Affordable Care Act. "I'm scared," she says. Although there are no official figures yet, a report from Standard & Poor's claims that somewhere from 2 million to 4 million people will leave the insurance because, in their 50s and 60s, aren't old enough for Medicare but can't afford the new Republican House Plan. Brookings Institution estimates even higher losses.

With this new round of opposition nationwide, the GOP is finding new resistance at every corner. The health care groups also challenged the proposed changes to Medicaid...
"...warning that they would mean lost coverage and funding cuts for a program charged with caring for vulnerable children, elderly and disabled Americans."
"AMA chief executive James L. Madara, a doctor, wrote a letter to congressional leaders released Wednesday expressing the same sentiment: 'We cannot support the AHCA as drafted because of the expected decline in health insurance coverage and the potential harm it would cause to vulnerable patient populations.'”
How many more of you get the feeling, and this dates back for years, that Republicans don't give a shit about those in need of assistance from others? I'm betting plenty. Yes, there are those who take care of the welfare system but that is limited based on expenditures by welfare recipients. And here are 7 lies about welfare that many people believe are fact. AARP has come out against the GOP bill, and even some conservative advocacy groups like Heritage Action for America, FreedomWorks and the Club for Growth have also rejected it. It's proving a bummer, hands down.

Let's talk the Republican Healthcare Plan...


The Republican Plan will have a huge effect on Alan Lipsky of Arden, N.C. Lipsky is 60, his wife in her 50s, and they would lose $13,664 annually under the new plan. He thinks that Obamacare could be improved on, as do most of the Act's supporters, but at least it's baseline. And the GOP bill is taking this away from him with what's left unaffordable, he says. Bu the healthcare wrecking crew are determined to do it their way...
"House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) expressed confidence the bill would eventually pass, even though some conservative House GOP members have railed against it, complaining it does not undo the ACA aggressively enough."
Also on the chopping block, he financial assistance available to low income people with out-of-pocket costs like deductibles and co-payments. There are some large deductibles under the Affordable Care Act but the cost-sharing reductions that are available are a big protection for low income people that end up with huge medical bills that would otherwise cause financial disaster. The insurance market itself could be in harm's way by the elimination of the individual mandate, hated from the beginning of the ACA, but evntually found to be practical.

In 2016, The Washington Post called Paul Ryan's health care plan, "flimsy." Here's their commentary...
"IT HAS been more than six years since the Affordable Care Act passed and nearly three years since its major provisions began phasing in. During that time, the rate of uninsured Americans has plummeted to a historic low. Also during that time, Republicans have blamed the law for practically every problem with the health-care system, the economy and more. But they have infamously not united behind a credible alternative."
Then Paul Ryan, who should just go back to Wisconsin and stick to making cheese, came out with his version which has ended up, along with Tom Price's version, as what Republicans are going with. But listen to this, two weak points that are pointed out by WP in the 2016 rendition...
The proposal does not say how valuable the credit would be, nor the rate at which it would increase.

The document also does not predict how many people it would cover, nor how much the plan would cost.
Whether these weaknesses were addressed in the latest bill that just cleared the first hurdle in the House and is now being debated in Committee, hasn't been revealed. Ryan, who is beginning to mirror Donald Trump in misinformation, stated "Because of Obamacare, Medicare is going broke." NPR says, "In fact, the opposite appears to be true — Obamacare may actually have extended the life of Medicare."
This year's Medicare Trustees Report says the program would now be able to pay all its bills through 2028, a full 11 years longer than a 2009 forecast — an improvement Medicare's trustees attribute, in part, to changes in Medicare called for in the Affordable Care Act and other economic factors.
What is occurring here, from the top down, is the use of lies and deception from the Republicans to
sell their programs, with healthcare just the latest issue. It rose to popularity in the days of George W. Bush and Karl Rove when prevarication was the norm. It hasn't changed. But apparently Paul Ryan hasn't differed as much as he thought in his bill with Obamacare. Here is what the experts are saying...
"And the irony of the Ryan Medicare plan, say some health policy analysts, is that it would turn the government program into something that looks very much like the structure created for insurance plans sold under the ACA."
"'The way it works is comparable to Obamacare,' says physician and conservative policy analyst Avik Roy, founder of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity." 
There is no way to predict just where and how far the Republicans will take their drive to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, or what they will come up with as a replacement, if they are successful. What we do know is that the American public will not be the beneficiary. It will be the wealthy and big business.

Thursday, March 9, 2017

Kellyanne Conway to star with Anderson Cooper New Year's Eve


Rumor has it that when the producers of the Anderson Cooper/Kathy Griffin CNN New Year's Eve show saw the video below, they decided to replace Kathy Griffin with Kellyanne Conway, because Conway could make Anderson laugh tons more than his current co-host. Kathy Griffin even agreed and said she might even decide to apply for a job with the Trump administration.. You have to see this video...


Donald Trump Says He Will Be Indicted On Tuesday

  THAT'S TODAY... Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has brought the case to this point, now looking at a possible indictment. Trum...