peggysue2
peggysue2's JournalReady for Some Good News?
"Nationwide, whites over the age of 60 with college degrees now favor Democrats over Republicans for Congress by a 2-point margin, according to Reuters/Ipsos opinion polling during the first three months of the year. During the same period in 2016, that same group favored Republicans for Congress by 10 percentage points."
These are the voters--be they Dems, Republicans, Indies--that we should welcome with open arms because they have seen the light and are willing to boot the crooks and traitors out of office, out of the body politic.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-healthcare-poll/exclusive-as-elections-near-many-older-educated-white-voters-shift-away-from-trumps-party-idUSKBN1HG1I6
Just When You Thought It Couldn't Get Worse
It does!
https://twitter.com/Buckleup36/status/981959618917224453
These people need a good frog march. Like yesterday!!!
Elections, Billionaires and Data Analytics
An important feature piece from The Observer has resurfaced recently. The story is written by Carole Cadwalladr, a Welsh feature writer. It was written nearly a year ago, May 2017, and was attempting at that point to connect the dots between what at first seemed disparate names and companies and events, yet all weirdly linked to: Brexit, the Trumpster’s election, Steve Bannon, the Mercers, Cambridge Analytica, Alexander Nix, Peter Thiel, Aggregate IQ, Chris Wylie, SCL, Murdock, Facebook and, of course, Russia. The listing continues to grow. For instance, we just found out that McMaster will be replaced by John Bolton who has been running several SuperPacs that donated/paid no other than . . . Cambridge Analytica.
It’s a small, small world!
Just to give you a taste of the article:
There are three strands to this story. How the foundations of an authoritarian surveillance state are being laid in the US. How British democracy was subverted through a covert, far-reaching plan of coordination enabled by a US billionaire. And how we are in the midst of a massive land grab for power by billionaires via our data. Data which is being silently amassed, harvested and stored. Whoever owns this data owns the future.
Even now, many of us are overwhelmed by the intricate network of nebulous names and connections; seemingly incongruent facts and an ever-increasing information overspill.
That was the design of the enterprise, not a bug, btw. Because what better way to evade awareness and/or detection?
The astounding thing is Cadwalladr’s article and detail was gathered, organized and written nearly a year ago and only now is the U.S. public slowly seeing the shape and character of the plot line: one of the most incredible, sophisticated assaults on the notion of democratic governance.
Personally, I have a sneaky suspicion that this whole messy assault was hatched by a bunch of plutocrats who thought they had the best idea on how we should be governed and they were quite willing to throw our Constitutional Republic overboard for their own selfish reasons, basically money and power. If they had to dirty their hands with mobsters or Russian-styled tyrants or Putin himself that was okay. Because the end justifies the means. As for the rest of us? Well, we’re the inferior rabble anyway, lucky to get what we scramble for, the crumbs off the royal table.
It’s pretty depressing to think people can be this arrogant and greedy, even treasonous. Then I think of the Trumpster and/or Steve Bannon and I just get angry and disgusted.
May they all rot in jail!
Btw, this article is on the lengthy side. May be something to invest in over the weekend. But I think the article is pretty informative and a year ago—when people were poo-poohing the idea of wrong-doing and yelling Sour Grapes—it was extraordinarily prescient in nature. As was another Brit writer whose name I won’t mention.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy
Coal Country Appears to Reconsider It's Political Futures
After being fed a steady diet of fairytales from the Trumpster--how he was going to bring back King Coal to tis glory days--the US Miners' Union is throwing its support and endorsement to two Dems for the 2018 election. Joe Manchin and Richard Ojeda get the nod for WVa's Senate and House spots respectively because the Union feels the two men will fight for those issues important to the coal mining community, as in protecting pensions and (I've read elsewhere) healthcare. There's been an uptick in Back Lung disease. So yeah, healthcare and decent benefits are important, life and death matters.The Union decided the Democrats are more likely to protect those benefits.
Plus, the GOP not immediately batting down a possible run by Blankenship, former Murray Mining CEO, a man who served a year in Federal Prison for gross negligence (willfully violated mining safety regulations) that led to the deaths of 29 miners is beyond disgusting.
People remember.
Ojeda has an interesting position on coal, well said and reasonable. He said he is for increased coal mining particularly for feeding steel furnaces but he also supports biofuels, wind and solar, energy sources of the future. The position reminds me of how Lamb thread the needle in PA and won.
Details can be read here:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-coal-endorsements-exclus/exclusive-u-s-miners-union-to-endorse-two-more-democrats-in-coal-country-idUSKBN1GY1YM
Good Overview Thread On What We're Witnessing in Real Time
Confused about all these different threads we're suddenly being exposed to--Cambridge Analytica, Facebook, Spectrum Health--and connecting the dots. I found this tweet thread pretty clear:
https://twitter.com/Tru7hS33kR/status/976079706549313536
We were attacked in 2016, even before that from the info coming in now. The attacks continue to this day. And the Trumpster et al are right in the middle of it.
Click on the tweet and drop down to the second entry, then show thread. It's all there in its gruesome glory.
And this is just the beginning of the revelations. Whoosh!
All Democrats Are Good for the Democratic Party
This isn't intended as a contentious reply to Ken's earlier thread, simply my take on the continuing squabble over who or what represents the Democratic Party. I took particular note of Conor Lamb's comments last night when he mentioned his grandfather, a FDR Dem who believed in the idea of a Government walking on the same side of the street as its people, helping to raise people up so that they could live out their lives with promise and dignity. Frankly, I don't give a shit where Lamb falls on the political spectrum. He won last night in a district that has been Red Hot for decades. He's a fellow Democrat and that's all that should matter. My thoughts on the matter below:
No one agrees on every issue because our candidates are not party zombies, anymore than we are. Democrats are known for our policy squabbles--the Party of Stray Cats.
But in November we need to put our cat yowling aside and support our fellow Democratic candidates. There's simply too much at stake, not simply for the Democratic Party but for the country at large. We'll win this thing by joining forces among ourselves, like-minded Independents and disgusted, Never-Trumper Republicans. We can see signs of the political shift everywhere.
Trumpism must be defeated at every corner, pulled out root and branch as McTurtle would say. The only way the GOP will wake up is if they're defeated soundly, massively, fiercely. We give them no quarter. The only way we preserve and protect the country is by a Blue Tsunami washing the rot away and neutering the Trumpster and his hateful sycophants. We do that with candidates tailored to the districts they'll be representing, in the manner that a Conor Lamb was able to speak and reach out to the people in his particular area. And by agreeing that any Democrat is better than any Republican.
I'd rather have someone who agrees with me 80% of the time as opposed to 0%. As Eliot said in an earlier thread: it's all about the Math, the number of rear ends we manage to seat so that Democrats have a real voice, the ability to vote in the interest of the country and the people they serve, to protect those principles we value: healthcare, reproductive issues, Medicare, Medicaid, climate change, energy, gun control, etc. Without a majority, we're severely limited, at best attempting to reduce the on-going damage.
The Trumpsters are a bunch of arsonists, burning down the House and putting us all in danger. Time to put out the damn fire. We can argue about the color of drapes once the fire is extinguished. Not now.
Dennis Kucinich Endorsed for Ohio Governor by Our Revolution
Sorry, but anyone in doubt that Nina Turner and the Our Revolution folks have gone off the rails need take a look at their fav Dennis Kucinich and his attitudes about the Trump/Russia investigation:
A Deep State Plot to Undermine the Trump Administration.
Sound familiar? As in Alt-right theory. Listen to Dennis and then think about the horseshoe theory of politics in the wild, in the flesh, in our faces. And in our elections.
This is how our efforts could become divided, once again.
Let's not let it happen! 2018 is the most important election of our lifetimes. This sort of nonsense cannot and will not stand.
http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/05/17/deep-state-government-destroying-donald-trump-kucinich-says-hannity
Not Healing Fast Enough? Coverage Denied.
Anyone acquainted with traumatic brain injury (TBI) knows how slow the path is to healing. The brain is a remarkable organ and will do its best to self-heal, rerouting neural pathways that have been broken during a head injury. But that repair requires patience, care and outside facilitation/rehab for best results.
Which is why the story of Caleb Freeman from Oklahoma caught my eye. Caleb was brain injured in a car accident on December 19, 2017. Blue Cross/Blue Shield have decided he hasn’t progressed fast enough in his treatment and will be cutting coverage as of 12 February. That’s less than 2 months coverage. For a brain injury!
This is personal for me because my younger son suffered a TBI a number of years ago, He spent 2 weeks in intensive care, 1 week in a step down unit, 3 months in an in-house rehab and nearly 3 months as an outpatient, It took him a good 18 months beyond that to walk without a limp, for the range of motion in his shoulder to fully return and for his vocalization to return to normal.
Two months? My son had barely regained control of his bladder and bowels in that time, let alone regain mobility,
I don’t know what these insurance companies are up to but they should be publicly shamed. We had a recent OP on an ALS patient denied basic services (respirator) and a new medications on the market.
I think we need to start a Wall of Shame for these insurance companies, those reverting back to their old ways, where denial=death=profit.
Disgusting!
https://www.carbonated.tv/news/blue-crossblue-shield-wants-teen-with-brain-injury-to-leave-rehab
How Dare You Lecture Us About Treason?
The Honorable Representative Jeffries:
<blockquote class="twitter-video" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Treason? <a href="https://twitter.com/RepJeffries?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RepJeffries</a>: "How dare you lecture us about treason. This is not a dictatorship. It's a democracy and we do not have to stand for a reality show host masquerading as President of the United States."<a href="https://t.co/iJhMZdubIi">pic.twitter.com/iJhMZdubIi</a> 🇺🇸</p>— Ed Joyce (@EdJoyce) <a href="https://twitter.com/EdJoyce/status/960904791860723712?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 6, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
"This is a democracy and . . . we do not have to stand for a Reality Show Host masquerading as President of the United States."
Thank you, Sir.
Representative Jeffries deserved a standing ovation, not a warning from the podium.
The Fiscal Responsibility of Republican Governance. And Other FairyTales
Remember when the US Debt and Deficit were the rallying cry of the GOP? When President Obama was accused of racking up more debt than any other president in the history of mankind? This was, of course, after the Republican Party managed to wreck the US Economy, ushering in the ‘Great Recession” of 2007-2008.
Good Times!
While Paul Ryan touts the sheer delight of a secretary finding $1.50 more in her paycheck, Steve Mnuchin has indicated that the country is running out of revenue earlier than expected. He and his financial wizards have advised that the debt ceiling be raised no later than early March because the accounting sleight-of-hand to keep the lights on will have puttered out by then.
But why? The Trumpster has hailed the economy robust, the massive tax cuts as an engine of growth and prosperity. And, and, and . . . the stock market, which unfortunately fell off a cliff on Friday.
The fact that starting in February, the US government will be bringing in $10-15 billion less in revenue each month just might be, could be, whatta think guys the reason for the need to borrow more money to pay the bills.
How much money?
Last Monday, the Treasury Department said they estimated $441 billion dollars would be needed for this quarter. This would be the largest sum of debt requested since 2010, right about the time President Obama was attempting to drag the country from a financial ditch, the steepest since the Great Depression.
Btw, the Republicans sold this piece of reckless financial voodoo on the basis of a 3% annual growth rate. The CBO is projecting a 2.3% growth rate this quarter. If we’re lucky. Because there are also whispers of a housing collapse in the near future, over-exuberant 401K borrowing and other disturbing credit level spending that eerily sounds like the . . . good ole days.
Did I mention the stock market fell off the cliff Friday? I mention this primarily because the Trumpster has been beating his chest over stock market gains. Strange I haven’t heard a word about the stock dive on Friday, presumably brought on by the fear of inflation and increased interest rates.
For all the whooping and hollering, the tax cuts were in service to corporations and Republican donors. These donors have now turned on the funding spigots for their GOP lackeys. While Paul Ryan headlined the delighted secretary (he has since removed that tweet), he failed to tell his giggly constituent that he received $500,000 in campaign funds from Charles and Elizabeth Koch. Mere days after the the tax bill passed.
Coincidence?
Only if you believe Steve Mnuchin’s claim that the country’s lack of revenue has nothing, nada, zip to do with the tax bill giveaway of 2017. If that’s the case, I’ll tell you about Sam Brownback and how he saved the State of Kansas with his fantastical economic policies.
Yup, there’s an entire collection of Grimm Fairytales related to Republican Trickle-Down theory. We’re living inside one of those chapters right now.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/31/us/politics/united-states-debt-limit.html
https://www.snopes.com/kochs-contributed-ryan-after-tax/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trickle-down-economics-is-a-nightmare-kansas-proved-it/2017/06/12/c2d7aae0-4fa6-11e7-91eb-9611861a988f_story.html?utm_term=.db24c98d484f
Profile Information
Name: PegGender: Female
Hometown: New Jersey
Home country: USA
Current location: Wilmington, DE
Member since: Sat Feb 6, 2016, 08:31 PM
Number of posts: 10,826
