January 21, 2016

How to buy my vote. (Rant warning)

My vote is indeed for sale but my vote is not cheap or easy. The rules apply whether you are running for a position that is local, state or federal.

All you have to do in convince me of 4 things.

* That you will keep your fingers off things in my life that are not government business.
* That your ideas are the ones that will solve problems at my kitchen table that can only be solved by government.
* That you are capable of getting those ideas implemented or at least move us considerably closer to achieving them.
* That you will actually get it done instead of bait as switch.


This isn't rocket science and should not even need to be said. Unfortunately every election cycle it seems every candidate and their assorted minions think it necessary to beat me over the head with death panels, scary brown people, how other candidates had a pimple on their butt in 1974 or how THEY are the only candidate that can save me from a killer asteroid that is right now barreling down on my house at 4 zillion miles an hour.

Instead why don't you spend you time on telling me what's in my food and water and how you'll keep it safe for me to eat and drink? (Flint MI anyone) Why don't you tell me the truth about the last financial crisis and the truth about the next one coming up and how you are going to keep the predators from screwing us all over again. Why don't you tell me how you are going to get the blood sucking vermin out of the health care industry. Why don't you tell me how you are going to convince the economic predators to lighten up and send a little of that wealth back to the bottom and middle for their own good and ours. Why don't you tell me how you'll keep the rapists and drug dealers out of the local park so I can go over there for an evening stroll without worrying about beating off shitheads. And while you are at it, tell me how you plan to make sure the local police don't shoot everything in a hoodie that moves.

Close rant.

January 20, 2016

So what would happen if the US quit exporting arms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry

US and Russia are the biggest arms exporters but the US sales are nearly twice those of Russia. This doesn't even take into account weapons exported by Smith & Wesson or Colt.


Yes humans are a violent bunch and will remain so even if we stop fueling violence around the world for the sake of a quick buck.
These sales enshrine both the dollars from the sale and the fact these weapons are used to create the chaos necessary for economic predators to swoop in and control money and resources. Not to mention the contractors who are hired to go in after the wars and rebuild.

The US can do better when it comes to making money on manufacturing. We don't need to fill our pockets upon the deaths of people on the other side of the globe.


EDIT.... to provide clarity and correct typos. UGH.

January 20, 2016

What, you expected personal responsibility from a Republican?

ain't gonna happen...... no way.... no how....not ever.

The Republican party has spent decades telling people their problems are all someone else's fault. They blame unions. They blame minorities. They blame women. They blame the sick. They blame the poor. They blame people who don't even live in this country. They blame children. They even blame each other.

The only entity that ever escapes blame is whoever is shoving money into their pockets.

Part of the beast. Don't bother using up perfectly good anger on these folks. Just roll your eyes and move on. Save your energy for something more productive.

My humble advice.......

January 18, 2016

Attention span of the American people - a perspective

In 2007 / 2008 Obama kicked Kardashian, McCain and Palin all in search trends.

https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=donald%20trump%2C%20bernie%20sanders%2C%20hillary%20clinton%2C%20kardashian%2C%20obama&geo=US&cmpt=q&tz=Etc%2FGMT%2B5

For the last 12 months Trump is the only one breaking through the Kardashians. The goal on our side is to get the attention of the American people generally.

https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=obama%2C%20trump%2C%20hillary%20clinton%2C%20bernie%20sanders%2C%20kardashian&geo=US&date=today%2012-m&cmpt=q&tz=Etc%2FGMT%2B5


Hillary and Bernie have different paths to get the job done and have some fundamental differences on what can really be achieved. I would peg Hillary for being a little more on the side of serving her own interests over mine and peg Bernie for being a little more concerned with my interests than his. A lot of people disagree with me on Hillary and I'm cool with that. But the bottom line is either candidate WILL serve the American people on some level. You can bet your last dime that no one in the RNC gives a tinker's damn about anyone but themselves.

January 17, 2016

The cost of single payer .... the math at my house.

My husband is currently on chemo. He's on a medicare advantage plan. I am too young for medicare. I have recently had to stop working but was self employed. I still have some income from my store (run by hired staff). I buy medical care insurance through Kynect, which is targeted to be closed.

We have spent enough on medical care the last 8 years to be able to itemize it on our taxes and get a deduction. Prior to 2013 that means anything over 7.5 % and thereafter anything over 10%.

With single payer, if I had to pay a 10% tax on every penny we have coming in as income, including social security benefits, in order to pay for singer payer, we'd be ahead in 2015 by about $2400. If the math holds up as expected in 2016 it will be closer to $3300 we'd be ahead by buying single payer with the rest of America.

*********

My brother and sister in law work for the same medium sized company, who pays 75% of the medical care insurance premiums. They have family coverage including them both and 2 working college age kids. The premium they pay is $688 a month. This means the employer is paying $2064 a month. With deductables and copayments my brother's family spent $11691 on medical care for the 4 of them. The combined income for all 4 of them is $77844 in 2015. Their employer paid an additional $24768.

At a 10% tax for single payer on their income they would have paid $7784 and been ahead $3907. This doesn't even take into account the money their employer spent on premiums instead of wages. Give the employees an extra $12000 each in in come, tax it at 10% for single payer plus whatever regular tax rate they would have and they still come out $1000's ahead every year.

******

Every time someone tells you WE can't afford single payer ask yourself WHO IS "WE". Just follow the money. Predators are everywhere in medical care at at every level. It's one thing to make a good living being a medical care professional, or manufacturing medical devices and treatments, or running a medical care facility. It's quite another to be swimming in gravy while the hungry starve. When the doctor owns the testing machines and constantly sends people for testing on it, or has a relative working at XYZ medical device manufacturer making commission on all the knee replacements, or stents or whatever that are used... which is more common that you think.... it's a recipe for using the sick as cash cows and even making marginal people actually sick.

We've got to chop the the absolutely predatory nature of sick care in this country out of the equation. Whatever it takes.

January 2, 2016

There is no mystery to the "Trump Phenomenon".

So up until a month ago most everyone but Fox News and Rushbo were treating Trump as the buffoon. Now we are all talking about the "Trump Phenomenon". They act like they are collectively scratching their heads on why he's still at the top of the leaderboard.


Bull effing shit.

We all know EXACTLY why Trump ran and why he's so popular.

RACISTS.

They want the guy that convinced them all we put a Kenyan in the White House to make the establishment and the brown people of this country PAY for what they did...... including any Republican who attempted to work with him or failed to scream about impeachment every 5 minutes.

They are sick of spending tax dollars on locking up the hoodie wearing black "thugs" who they think are making life miserable for "real Americans" like them. Sick of hearing Black Lives Matter people whine and moan about black people randomly getting shot. Sick of having to share jobs with black people. Sick of those brown people that own all the gas stations taking their hard earned money and sending it to the terrorists. Sick of those brown people with their anchor babies coming over to take those good American lettuce picking or chicken plucking jobs that pay $2 an hour if they are lucky to get paid at all.

They want Trump to buy plane and boat tickets for the whole lot of them and send them all back where they came from, ESPECIALLY THE KENYAN, so this country can go back to being a nice white CHRISTIAN country where Bible reading in school is mandatory, the 10 Commandments are plastered on every corner and men can beat their wives and molest their kids without consequence and everyone speaks American (not English because that shit sounds too gay as per a member of my family).

I am a white woman born and raised in Kentucky and when it comes to blue collar working class people I am surrounded. I can tell you Trump has managed to turn merely prejudiced people into racists and racists into rabid dogs. Not all of them but more than I would ever expect. It's breaking up families all over the country. It is surprising to me only 30% of them will openly admit to backing Trump.

The danger in Trump is not any policies or initiatives he may or may not back if elected - though that can't be good either. The worse danger is the mere fact he emboldens the racists. His mere existence in the race escalates the violence against brown people of all sorts. His longevity in this race shows all of us how deep goes the racism in this country and how critical it is to beat it or breed it out of this society once and for all.