2013

As with every year there are lost opportunities and lost grievences…  Some things that have bothered us, disappear.  Somethings that have bothered us, don’t….

This year was no different, and yet, it was very different…. If one asks oneself what was the greatest factor involving the entire year, then pulls back layer after layer until he gets the full perspective,  I think he comes to a surprising conclusion….

This year, 2013 was the tipping point.  We realized we are a third world nation when it comes to the proportion of wealth across our population….   Like global warming, this disparity was first proposed long ago.  Like global warming it was argued by the power brokers that such a proposal was only a crackpot’s theory;  it gradually gained momentum….

2013, brought that home…. In 2013, we had the party of the Teas, vote against giving New Jersey relief for Hurricane Sandy, and vote themselves relief when a little hail landed in their district…. In 2013, we had government shut itself down to stop Obamacare, then open itself without creating any change at all.   In 2013, we had unemployment benefits cut, then reinstated, and now cut again… We had food stamps cut.  We had a sequester go into effect to save $85 billion dollars….

We had the news media lead fake scandals… when the biggest scandal should be, how is Fox and CNN and CBS still able to call themselves news organizations?  We had the IRS scandal… despite that they dealt evenhandedly with groups of both political persuasions.  We had the Benghazi hearings… Much ado over absolutely nothing… For when it came down to why those four died, all fingers point to that very Congressional committee led by Republican Darrell Issa, which cut well over $100 million in funds that were specifically designated to secure advanced unsecured places of that type.

But when we had a real scandal, which was illuminated by Snowden, all the media shied away.  Calling him a traitor for releasing the documents…  As more came out, Americans began to really fully grasp the totalitarian phase our nation’s government was just on the threshold of achieving….

In 2013 we had civil right voting laws thrown out by the Supreme Court, and instantly all those dark ugly human traits those laws previously regulated, took over and sprang out into the open…

We had a rational push for gun control, that bumped into the irrational group against it.  We did not win the first battle… WE did make considerable ground and showed the NRA was led by psychotic bloodthirsty killers, both nationally and locally….

And the unions… are all bought out… from the top down.   Only those on the very bottom in our service industries, the Wal*marts, McDonalds, and retail outlets, who have nothing to lose, are bravely carrying the fight forward… They are on the right track…

Our sole problem in America is that out of every dollar that trades hands in our economy…. 50 cents of it gets sucked out by the top 1%….  The rest of America is economically playing with a half deck…50 cents on the dollar.  No wonder job growth is slower than it should be?

If you invested, you love this year….  The year’s DJIA started at 13,000 and is now at 16,500….  25% yield….   For every $100,000 you had in stocks… you just made $25,000….

We now realize this was at the expense of the QE 3.  The Federal Government is lending the large brokerage houses all the money they wanted at zero interest, and instead of creating jobs, it went right into the stock market, chasing prices and making them higher….  When that free money begins costing the brokerage houses… those investments are going to deflate.

Most of America no longer has money in the market.  The market is primarily owned by those at the top.

And education?  We had corporate America exposed for trying their hand at teaching little children and failing miserably.   Just as Corporate enterprises have now destroyed Facebook,  television news, and are now destroying Twitter, the same forces demolished education.   An attack on the public school system aimed to demolish it and install a privately owned system, is well underway….   It was all just theoretical until 2013.

The prime problem  behind all of these?

It took a new Pope to make it mainstream… To tie all these individual threads into one rope.  As he spoke, people turned to look at each other and said, ” Wow, why didn’t we see it before?”

When one homeless person dies on the streets it  is not news.  But the DOW drops two points, it is THE news….

What 2013 did, was bring to light that we were not a nation beset by little battles…  Loss of labor unions, stymieing of minimum wage, fierce lobbying against Obamacare, a court controlled by corporate interests, lobbyists writing all our nation’s bills,  What 2013 did was bring to light that all our “think tank” research, was pure propaganda, not research.   What 2013 did, was show us just how much power and wealth lie in the hands of very few people…. roughly 100,000…… with most of that being held by a core of 1000 individuals…. Meaning 314,899,999 of the rest of us are out in the cold…

2013 showed us that the happiest people in the world, are those where wealth is more equally shared…  to be happy, one has to tax heavily…  A sharper sense of wealth is gleaned from looking at happy societies…  Where there is enough wealth to be shared, it is…  It makes little sense to pursue the opposite  tack.  To let those with money have it at no cost, and charge the masses heavily for their use of it…

2013, is the turning of the tide… Now when someone says low taxes are job creators they are viciously humiliated and never dare mention such again. Now when someone says trickle down economics work, we now know they are secretly praising how well it works for those at the top.

2013….  We know.

2014…. No Tea Party.  No Republicans.  No Third Way.   Only by mandating that the wealthy who got rich over nothing, pay their fair share and everyone else’s fair share too, can we again create an economy and a nation that thrives from the bottom up…

2014 is the battle year.  This is where those few at the top will throw billions into protecting the trillions they’ve made from our assets…  But… they only have 1% of the population… The question is whether they can mobilize their toadies to vote and suppress the rest as they have successfully done in the past… when in truth, we were still half asleep….

The rallying cry for the 99% needs to be this:  the 1% needs to do more for our nation!.  We should not be ashamed to mention marginal income (including capital gains) tax rates over 50%, 60%, 70%… at least for the short term, until our economic war is over!  That is not too much! Most livable nations have such.  and the USA itself had such during our grandparent’s time, back when it was easy to go out and find a job….  we had more demand for jobs than we had people….

Income equality is the lens with which all items need to be viewed….  What that means is that with every question, every line item, every debate, this question gets asked…. “What does this proposal do to reverse income equality?”  If it does nothing, it is not good…

What does controlling guns do for income equality?  What do charter schools do for income equality?  What does cutting taxes on Delaware’s 1% do for income equality?  What does making the Port of Wilmington non-union do for economic equality?  What does creating NO-prevailing wage zones in Delaware, do for economic equality?  What does opening Beaver Valley to development do for income equality?  What does raising minimum wage do for economic equality?  What does Common Core do for income equality?  What does opening Family Court to the public do for income equality?  What does building a power plant that runs 24/7 on the brown fields of Newark, do for income equality?  What does building a new Wawa in Newark, do for income equality?

I acknowledge some of those are stretches but that is what having a prime filter does.  One looks at everything through that perspective….  It is one thing to bash the governor for a luckluster economy in his state…. Republicans do that too often, and offer neither specifics, or alternatives.   It is another to bash the governor for ignoring 99% of Delawareans’ needs, or  990,000 people, to the benefit of 10,000, or 1%…..  That is legitimate….

Hurting the 1% to the benefit of the 99% will cause 99 times more economic activity in this state.  99% of our citizens will buy more….  If those 1% continue to make more money off our localized spending, then at least they are earning their income honestly for a change….

Perhaps what is missing, is a retort, the kind that becomes a mantra……. When the Chamber of Commerce steps up to a microphone and says, …. “we pay most of the taxes in this state, we should not pay more…”.

The proper response hitherto missing, should be…. ” Then pay your employees more money, so they can help you share that burden…”

2013:  the arrow was released… 2014 is when it impacts its target,….

(This came out last spring. Most of you have seen this.  If by chance you haven’t, be prepared to have your mind blown. If you’ve become jaded since the last showing, prepare to have your mind blown again.)

Breaking: Republicans Make New Demand

Recognizing the possibility that Obamacare will not create a default of USA payments, the Republicans have tacked on a new demand.

Although Congressman Boehner has said privately he is not in favor and thinks the idea is stupid, nevertheless the House has the vote to not pass a funding bill unless it’s demands are fully met.

As Mitch McConnell stated before the Senate,  “We Republicans will not acquiesce to raising the debt ceiling unless all our demands are met in full.”

The Democrats have met all the demands but one, and that one will never pass in the Senate, nor would it get signed by the President.

Although called ridiculous by pundits, moderate Republicans, and Democrats, the Tea Party segment has chosen to default upon our debts, if Sarah Palin is not added to Mt. Rushmore.

Although the expense would be astronomical, especially adding rock to the mountain to complete her new bustline, still Republicans who feel insulted by comments made by 99% of America’s citizens, want their respect bad.

Eric Cantor boldly stated:  “An America without Sarah Palin on Mr. Rushmore, is not America.  If it is not America, there is no special reason it cannot default on debt as any other country.  If you want America to be special, and by special I mean pay its obligations on time, then we must get the commitment to place Sarah Palin on Mt. Rushmore by October 1st.”

Currently the House has enough supporters to keep key budget legislation from being passed.  The President reiterated this afternoon, that he would not deal with hostage takers, over Sarah Palin’s bust.

Ted Cruz was said he would perform another all-nighter for Sarah Palin’s benefit.  He requested that she be by his side.

“With her beside me, .. I couldn’t go to the bathroom even if I went to the bathroom…”  Fox News picked up off an open mike.

Time To Shut Down The NSA

it is probably time to discuss this.

For years we have quietly known and accepted the negatives of having an NSA. Things like we need it for our protection, or it makes things safer, tended to overide our fears that they know too much already, and I can’t do anything in private anymore…

We accepted that as progress.

However, when you have an organization so secret, that members of Congress are shocked to find out what it is doing, that no one knows who is authorizing who gets spied upon and what, that when brought before the courts for overstepping the Constitution, it can’t be prosecuted because a) it operates under “secret” laws, b) with “secret operations”, c) authorized by “secret courts” …. it is time to shut the entire operation down.

Why do we have the NSA when we have the CIA and the FBI. The FBI covers domestic spying. The CIA covers international spying. So, unless we find out that there are aliens and the NSA is really running the world while we think otherwise, then it probably ought to go.

I find it interesting that those on the far right, and those on the far left are the most outraged by this disclosure. We’ve been stating that news on this blog after the story was broken back in 2007-8 and not one press person cared. I supposed the AP Story opened their eyes this time. Struggling to put a finger on why, I came up with the theory primarily by looking at Congress, that it is the libertarians on left and right who are against, and the conformist, primarily in the center who are acceptive. So this gives us a split where the bottom third and the top third of the political body are opposed to the middle third… If you look at Congress that is exactly how it splits up. Moderates are pro domestic spying, the libertarians are not.

Probably similar is the theory that those beholden to corporate interests are pro-spying, after all, that is normal in the corporate environment; interoffice spying is not limited by any judicial system because it is deemed to be private. Those aghast, tend to fight corporate intrusion from their original political perspective, either left of right.

What the NSA does, watch everything to discern what is happening to increase its chances of survival, is not new. Intelligence has been the secret success of many an empire. Knowing what someone will do before they do it, is pretty comfortable in a world where in a day, we probably pass within 10 feet of 10,000 people (that includes inside our vehicles).

That is what all governments with the capacity, do. The biggest argument against it, is that it is un-American. Sure we have the “ability” to do it, but do we have the restraint, not to…

America has always been ruled by restraint. When Washington was entreated to be the King, he restrained and said no. When the heads of Europe all bet that Washington would invent a method to stay in power, he restrained, and government turned over peacefully. When the US was left in charge of a broken Europe, it put it back together and went home. The only country to invade another and give it back willingly to its original owners.

We had a scare in Boston a while back. Did the NSA protect us then? It’s a secret, no one knows. In Newtown 26 bodies littered the floor of an elementary school. Did the NSA protect us then? When a gunman burst into Aurora firing into the audience, did the NSA protect us then? When Gabby Gifford took a bullet, where was the NSA? Did the NSA protect us then?

That is the point. We are always in danger. But our personal lives are more at risk if our private information should fall into a competitors hands, than being victim of a terrorist. In Boston just 2 people died. In Newton 26. But each and every one of us, is at risk that selective information from ones past, can be used in secret to smear each and every one of us, should it fall into the wrong hands.

What would happen if we shut the entire agency known as the NSA down? A big nothing. They overstepped. It is not knee-jerking anger to respond “Shut them down right now!” It it calm, cool reasoning tipping the balance, that points out simply that is the right way to go.

So, Who Is The Second Most Televised Reality Show Family?

Everyone know’s the Kardashians are the first.  They are everywhere.  But who is second?

The Palin Family, of course…

The Palin family has become second perhaps only to the Kardashians in terms of reality-show performances on TV. Mrs. Palin herself had a show on TLC, “Sarah Palin’s Alaska.” Her daughter Bristol made a splash on “Dancing With the Stars” and currently has a show on Lifetime that also features her sister Willow and son Tripp. Now Mr. Palin has entered the arena.…

Birds of a feather, flock together…… 

Rice Krispies

Susan Rice is crispy around the edges. Republicans are refusing to endorse her… Why? When pressed by reporters the answer is… they don’t know.

They tried to pin the Benghazi hearings on her. That backfired. She was telling what was thought at the time. Republicans say… you should have said you didn’t know instead of saying what you thought was true…. Not many other then Breitbart readers are buying that one.

Her real sin, it appears, is that she is our UN ambassador. Republicans hate the UN.. Why? If the US wants to attack Canada for tar sands, the UN will object. If the US wants to attack Newfoundland to change its timezone by one half an hour…. the UN will object. If the US attacks Iraq to steal its oil, the UN will object……

That is why the Republicans don’t like the UN. They can’t attack random countries. The UN recently supported Palestine over their favorite child Israel, giving it another bad mark in Republicans eyes… For you see? Republicans have a basic flaw. If you hand them a giant bag of money, and tell them what to believe, THAT becomes what they believe… Forget facts.

Now, conservative pundits are becoming worried. It appears that all the noise they created, as of itself, pushed Susan Rice into the number one contender. Originally, no one outside of the beltway and New York, knew who she was. Now thanks to Republicans, we all know her name… And the more we see of her, the better she appears over other contenders to take over the Hillary Clinton legacy.

As anyone who has just come from seeing the movie “Lincoln” knows, the Secretary of State needs to be on a very personal relationship with the president. Obama and Clinton though once adversaries, did sit on quite a few stages together throughout the primary campaign. That relationship has worked well.

The president gets to chose who he wants. The Republicans have offered a list of those who they recommend. However, based upon the election, the direction the American people want to go, is directly opposite the way Republicans want to take us… In fact, it should be argued that the election proved concisely that Republicans are going in the wrong direction. Beaten back on every platitude they uttered, the American people said “no! We don’t like what you say, how you act, or what your policies are.”

So the Republican list, should read as…. these people are exactly the ones who should not be Secretary of State. In fact, based upon the election’s results, by sitting back and seeing whom the Republicans object to the most…. should point the finger at who will become our best Secretary of State…

That person appears to be Susan Rice.

She is reportedly blunt, or crisp around the edges, at times. Yet, her detractors are decrying that on the talk shows… she was not blunt enough.. She was diplomatic, obfuscating, pleasant, and believable. So, since they are using her bluntness against her, and her non-bluntness against her at the same time, it is obvious that as with everything else on Capitol Hill right now, Republicans are in disarray. Repbumblicans don’t know what they want… Which is why,… no news source should be noting their objections except to make fun of them.

If she has the president’s confidence, it sounds like the Benghazi episode in itself, PROVES she has all the qualifications she needs… If she made the world believe the incident was caused by a video, (without intention of course) thereby buying time for the US to rescue it’s informants, I would think she would have the perfect qualifications to be Secretary of State….

Some of us can remember a Chief Executive once saying: We do not have spy planes flying over Russia”, less than a week before one got shot down…. Sometimes, you have to lie to your enemies….

The fact that John McCain, Susan Rice’s biggest critic, thinks Sarah Palin is the smartest woman in the world (at least back in 2008) shows the world how good of a judge he is when it comes to women and that little matter of their intelligence.

So, if this Rice IS a little crispy wound the edges…. it is time to move forward and to serve the world a wondreful batch of: Rice Crispy Treats….. 🙂

Please Make Them Go Away!!

Tomorrow, is the day… like a wedding, can’t wait for it to finally be over so life can go on again…. But there is one last thing to do.

Look at the Republican Party. The only reason Romney is doing well, is because he pivoted in the first debate, and became a liberal. His past track record had almost pushed him to the point of no return, until he reinvented himself upon that first debate stage. In other words, Romney is now the more liberal candidate, if one just looks at what he has said since October 4th.

However the old message is still prevalent in Delaware’s Republican exoskeleton. Kovach who once was considered a decent person, is now a compromised decent person. Kevin Wade, is nothing more than a word to rhyme with suede. Jeff Craig wants us to believe that if you can run a 16 X 40 foot retail outlet buried in the middle of a Fairfax strip mall, you can run the entire state’s government. Greg Lavelle believes that if you trash your opponent hard enough, you will get elected. Cathy Cloutier believes that no one gives enough of a hoot, making it so simple that she can be endorsed by the pro choice and pro life movements in the same election. Evan Quietsch believes the United Nations has set up a secret outpost somewhere in the woods of the 11th District, and that his challenger is the Manchurian Candidate who is actually from Manchuria. Rick Jensen has to ignore 99% of a story to make his case in support of any Republican who shows up on his show. Dori Conner, is running “Go, Go William Penn” down in Cavalier Country. NCCE Blake has to put stickers on his campaign signs, that say “I’m not Tom Gordan.” Then there is DelawarePolitics.Net, which although it has great people, they all get their orders from Homer Simpson. There is Brian Pettyjohn who, whenever his name gets mentioned, reminds one of the Lollypop Guild soliciting a hooker on the side of the Yellow Brick Road… And then, there was Two Timing Booth, kicked out for…. oh my. Don’t even get me started on Bodenweiser…. And above all this mess, flies the green faced witch on her magic broom, saying 2014, 2014…..

What happened? Siegler, is this what happens when you put the NRA actually in charge of something?

From top to bottom this party is (I’ll bend over backwards and be very nice here)…. dysfunctional… It is time for it to go away….

I heard a caller put it very well on Al Masciti this morning. Business needs representation. With this party they don’t have it. What they do have is Jack Markell, Chip Flowers, and Beau Biden, working with them as well as representing “we the people” who simultaneously do the necessary work for these businesses as well as us who depend on their health to live well ourselves…..

Delaware works better as a single party state than as a two party one…. Why? Simply put, everyone is an individual again. There is no reason NOT to work with someone who’s viewpoint is different from yours… It is called “compromise” and with today’s Republican Party from the top down, that compromise gene is simply not in their chromosomes……

Now here is my argument… Any vote for any Republican, weakens our state. I’m guessing we need an 85/15 democratic majority to permanently make this party go away…. I’m worried that many in Delaware may not vote this time because our national election is a foregone conclusion, and really, there is no reason to suspect or worry that any Republican will win….

Here is why you must… Your vote against the Republican Party, is needed to make it be gone forever….. We need single party government now more than ever… WE need cooperation between workers and businesses, and only one party, the Democratic one, can provide that.

Some say we need another voice to balance out one party rule… We will have them. 21 separate voices in the Senate, and 45 separate ones in the House, but only if they are all Democrat … Every person is an individual, and every person has to represent their district. There are some conservative districts, there are some progressive districts. but it still will take a majority to get anything passed.

At least if there is only one party, they will get things done the old fashioned way. The conservatives will express their needs, the progressives will express their needs, and some type of compromise all can live with, will get hammered out….

That can’t happen if there are Republicans anywhere in government to mess things up…..

So do your civic duty… Vote Democratic or Libertarian, or any another candidate…. Just make Republicans go away…. I used to like watching cartoons on Saturday… Now, that I have to watch them 365 days at 24/7, it is too much…. (Now, where’s that Advil?)

Make them go away.

Breaking: Tea Bagger Killed By Squirrels In Wisconsin!!!!

Photo Courtesy of Soggy Log

They thought he was nuts.

Paul Ryan: Body Pop!

So Who Won? Sarah Palin. She Came Across The Better Of The Two Losers

Yep.   She beat Ryan bad.  Real bad.

Jobs Seen In Their Proper Perspective….

Here is the problem… The red on top of the line must equal the red on the bottom line before we can go forward. Currently there is now more red on the top of the line. We are indeed better off than we were four years ago. More of us are working…… 325,000 more of us incidentally.

This shows a more disturbing trend. This document does not go far enough back into the Bush administration files, but if one does follow, one sees red below the line all the way back to when Clinton handed off the reins to Bush. That was the last time we had red above the line until we (whoo hoo) just happened to vote for the greatest president in our lifetimes and his accompanying party, the Democratic one…

The Capitalist Party (formerly called the Republicans) don’t really care about jobs. As Capitalist’s (formerly called Republican’s) they care about earnings per dollar. Jobs are a side effect, but when too many people impact their earnings per dollar, they get rid of them. When unions impact their earnings per dollar, they get rid of them. when the Chinese impact their earnings per dollar, they run to them, ignoring the slave conditions those human beings must endure in order to line the Capitalist’s (formerly known as Republican’s) pockets….

When can Capitalist’s (formerly called Republicans) grow jobs? Only when they build a new plant here in the USA. Once it gets built, they have no use for the builders. they have no use for the opening team, they have no use for those extras needed to fill in when someone quits. Once it gets built, they fire people. They like to “fire people Romney says”. (yeah, I know, I’m disingenuous).

If one looks back over the economic data from WWII one sees job growth steady until Ronald Reagan (benefit of doubt given to Nixon_Ford because of oil embargo).. As soon as Reagan got elected, we entered a horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible recession. People got termed left and right. Democrats in Congress were persuaded to lower taxes because of the economy. We had one year of growth. 2006, and then the slide. The 2008 tax law (a low 28% top marginal rate), immediately sucked out and flattened growth and sent it on a skid; we entered the worst recession until Bill Clinton raised taxes and instantly, we began our climb out. It was instantaneous as anyone who foolishly bet on the stock market against Bill Clinton, can well attest. Taxes on the wealthy are the most awesome thing ever created by mankind. The climb continued, America reached new heights of prosperity, and growth seemed like an endless proposition… That is, until the Bush tax cut. Growth stopped. Construction got laid off. And we began our descent. During the Bush years our descent was modified by a housing bubble the Capitalists (formerly called Republicans) created; we borrowed against their newly increased estimated value to survive and keep our Clintonian Standard of Living; it was also blunted by two trillion dollar wars, (imagine being given a credit card with unlimited balance on it; “whoo hoo, livin’ it up, baby” spoken in Donviti style).) As soon as the Capitalist (formerly known as Republicans) were kicked out, the debt became due.

Bottom line, is on the chart above, Capitalists (formerly called Republicans) had a job slump in negative numbers stretching back across the time spans of two of these charts added on to the right.

So when Mitt Romney accuses our Commander in Chief, SURE YOU GREW JOBS, BUT YOU DIDN’T GROW JOBS FAST ENOUGH, one has to point out how his own policies under George W. Bush, did nothing to grow jobs either…. In fact, Mitt Romney’s policies, cost America jobs. (See the evidence in the red below the line in the graph above).

But if you don’t already know that Capitalist’s (formerly called Republicans) economic policy is nothing more than a smokescreen for getting all the money out of your pocket and into theirs, then you aren’t reading this blog… There are still dumb people out there who still believe in Republican values; they just can’t read….

If you do read this, it can be assumed that you already know that every single economic fact ever truthfully told, shows that if you take money out of the middle class, your economy fails. It doesn’t matter if you are a Capitalist (formerly known as Republican)… or a Communist. If you take money out of the middle class, your economy falls….

So how does one put money back into the Middle Class? It’s one word but I’ll say it twelve times, one for each term it has been in effect: Democrats, democrats, democrats, democrats, democrats, democrats, democrats, democrats, democrats, democrats, democrats, democrats…..

That is how one puts money back onto the middle class and grows one’s nation and ones economy…

Don’t take my word for it. Look at the chart above! And just imagine how wonderful it would be if we had not had a Capitalist (formerly known as Republican) House of Representatives intent on tubing the economy just to make Obama looked bad? Imagine how great our results would now be, if they had. instead chosen to help America get back up on its economic feet, instead of kickin’ our ass with their pointy cowboy boots, while we were down?

One word leads to more jobs and Economic Growth. Democrats.