Milktoast Bandit
Dominate with compassion...
- MBTI
- MEAT
- Enneagram
- 9
I blame you and you alone.
I'm sorry! Now I don't know how to get it back and we're all screwed!
I blame you and you alone.
I'm sorry! Now I don't know how to get it back and we're all screwed!
OMG
Jeff Sessions says he'll keep job 'as long as appropriate' despite Trump's criticism
Attorney general speaks after Donald Trump’s comments that he would not have hired Sessions had he known Sessions would recuse himself from Russia inquiry
Jeff Sessions. Photograph: Andrew Harnik/AP
Associated Press
Thursday 20 July 2017 15.44 BST Last modified on Thursday 20 July 2017 16.45 BST
The US attorney general, Jeff Sessions, said on Thursday that he would continue in his job “as long as that is appropriate”, despite Donald Trump’s barrage of criticism of him.
Trump had told the New York Times in an interview published late Wednesday he regretted giving Sessions the job after Sessions recused himself from matters relating to investigations into links with the Trump campaign and Russia.
[...]
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/20/jeff-sessions-attorney-general-job-trump-criticism
In a parallel universe, Jeff resigned and got a contract to do advertising on TV.
Yep...makes total sense right?So, there were two bullets wounds to his head. And he committed suicide. I am not a medical examiner working in a morgue, but I sense that there is something wrong here!!
Yep...makes total sense right?
How do we take back the US and the world from big money, big corporations, big politics, warmongers, psychopaths?
It has finally brought me to tears tonight as I watched the Daily Show...I guess it has been a gradual building of frustration and I finally snapped.
On the show they had Matt Taibbi talking about his new book ‘The Divide’...not the wealth divide in the normal sense that we may think, but the divide in our criminal justice system...mostly here in the US...but I’m sure it’s becoming more and more similar in other regions of the world.
He used the example of several big banks who laundered cartel drug money...they were caught red-handed and yet...they paid fines...nothing to them.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/avinash-tharoor/banks-cartel-money-laundering_b_4619464.html
Meanwhile, a guy was prosecuted and spent 90+ days in jail for walking down the street smoking a joint...probably pot supplied by those very cartels.
The bankers drive their Maserati’s and live in their penthouse apartments, hand each other ridiculous bonuses, all with money that has basically been stolen from the average Joe. The sub-prime mortgages that they sold to little old ladies under false pretenses are different than a phone scammer selling fake magazine subscriptions how?
And yet, NO ONE has done anything to stop them.
It’s the very same thing at the hospital I work...
Right before Christmas last year they laid off 500 employees, mostly housekeeping staff, minor support roles...while they were patting each other on the back and giving hundreds of thousands of dollars, even millions in bonuses to the Administrative staff - themselves.
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oreg...sf/2013/08/steve_duin_that_healing_touch.html
Have we all gone insane to ignore such things? CEO pay has gone up to disgusting amounts (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...king-273-times-the-pay-of-the-average-worker/) while the working class has seen nothing but stagnation.
If you combine stagnating pay with inflation, the cost of food, gasoline, health care, rent, education, etc., etc. we have seen our average pay worth less and less.
All of the protections that the working class once had have been systematically torn down...union are being busted (not that they have had any real power since Reagan fired the Air Traffic Controllers for striking in the 80’s), retirement programs are nonexistent, pensions are a joke now, even the money that you think is safe in our “new” form or retirement the 401-K/403-B plans get raided and raped by the big banks ever since the regulations that stated specifically banks and investment houses MUST be separate (my Mom lost a huge part of her retirement when the banks collapsed in 2009/10).
They have deregulated and privatized everything they possibly could get their hands on...not because competition is good for business, but because it makes THEM the most money...it is theft, pure and simple.
In the 1950’s and 60’s one could go to college for FREE....in the 70’s you could work a part-time minimum wage job and afford to pay your tuition...then came the deregulation in the 80’s under the guise that competition would actually LOWER tuition rates for students - is that what happened? A resounding “NO!”.
"Since 1981 the list price level of tuition and fees has risen sixfold while the consumer price index has only increased two-and-a-half times.” -http://www.forbes.com/2010/08/01/ri...nions-best-colleges-10-feldman-archibald.html
The price of a university education has systematically “dumbed down” America and left the next generation starting a life after school with crushing debt.."Average Student Debt Climbs To $29,400, Up 63 Percent In Less Than A Decade” - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/04/average-student-debt-2012_n_4380946.html
It was the Baby Boomer generation who got us in this mess, who created the national debt, who spend more money on warmongering than any other country in the world - Every hour, taxpayers in the United States are paying $10.17 million for Cost of War in Afghanistan Since 2001.
Every hour, taxpayers in the United States are paying $365,297 for Cost of War in Iraq Since 2003.
Every hour, taxpayers in the United States are paying $10.54 million for Total Cost of Wars Since 2001.
http://nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/
And yet...we cannot feed and clothe our poor? We cannot educate our nation? We cannot provide healthcare for all?
And then we hear how the subsequent generations are LAZY...because kids graduating college have to live at home with their parents...really?!
Who created that situation for them? Who raised them? Who destroyed any practical social benefit once enjoyed in the name of GREED?
We send young men and women to foreign countries and stick our noses in business that we have no real right to stick it in...the politicians, sitting in their cushy leather chairs in air-conditioned offices, send our KIDS to fight and die so OIL prices can be maintained at an already bullshit inflated rate...they are dying so fat cat politicians and banksters and corporations can make higher profits! And war is big business for American corporations...they make BILLIONS and BILLIONS in profits while people die...our kids...people who have nothing to do with the conflict at all die...innocents.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money...10-companies-profiting-most-from-war/1970997/
I once had the opportunity to train at the Grossman Burn Center in souther California...and helped do facial reconstruction surgery on a 6 year old boy burned in the Iraq War over 90% of his body...he will NEVER, NEVER just be able to be a little boy...to play as a child should...how all children should.
(excuse me, I need to compose myself...more tears)
Okay...a cigarette fixed it all...lol.
Now we have a congress that cuts programs for the poor at every turn possible...while continuing to give HUGE tax cuts to giant corporations that by no means need tax incentives...they even get patted on the back for sheltering moneys offshore!
It isn’t just fiction that the 1% pays a lower tax rate than your average working class person...it is factual.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/25-of-m...-than-many-middle-class-americans-study-says/
Why? Why? Why?
Because they can...because this country has systematically stolen our Democracy and handed it to anyone who antes up.
With the Citizen’s United decision in the supreme court that says corporations are people, and now the McCutcheon v FEC decision that says individual donors have no limit to their donations we have securely taken the vote out of the hands of the average American.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...d50720-be80-11e3-9ee7-02c1e10a03f0_story.html
I’m sorry, but corporations are NOT fucking people...they are businesses. Even a 4 year old can tell you that.
There are reasons why there were laws governing how much money is allowed in political races and politics in general...because it is abused.
Who has more political sway? Your average working class Joe who cannot really afford to make political donations because he has to feed his/her family...or a Billionaire who now can make unlimited donations? They can both vote sure...but who will the political winner be beholden to? His constituents or his donors?
The answer is obvious. And those who can and do make such donations DO hold them accountable...in the name of profits, usually at the expense of the working class and poor.
That pretty solidly eliminates what should be a Democracy.
We are now a Corporatocracy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatocracy
“- is a term used as an economic and political system controlled by corporations or corporate interests.[SUP][1][/SUP] It is a generally pejorative term often used by critics of the current economic situation in a particular country, especially the United States.”
How did this happen to us? How could we just sit back and let the profiteers take over like they have?
No one...not a single person who contributed to the bank crash has seen jail time...not a single person...even those who have been found grossly negligent, or worse purposefully criminal.
I don’t want my Son to grow us in this world if this is all he has to look forward to.
"Yale professor and economist Robert J. Shiller, who was among three Americans who won the Nobel prize for economics in 2013, believes that rising economic inequality in the United States and other countries is "the most important problem that we are facing now today."
"Conservatives like to say that "a rising tide lifts all boats." In other words, if an executive makes $20 million a year, his income will eventually trickle down into the rest of the economy and ultimately benefit poor people.But that theory hasn't exactly proven true. The highest-earning 20 percent of Americans have been making more and more over the past 40 years. Yet no other boats have risen; in fact, they're sinking. Over the same 40 years, the lowest-earning 60 percent of Americans have been making less and less."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/06/rich-richer_n_4731408.html
Top 1% own 38.1%
Top 96-99% own 21.3%
Top 90-95% own 11.5%
And it gets much uglier as you proceed downward. Bottom 40% of population has 0.2% of all wealth.
So the reason I decided to finally compile most of this together (and believe me there is SO MUCH MORE I could post concerning this issue) is because I personally feel helpless...but I don’t want to be...I want to fight it...I want to make it better, if not for me, then for my Son and his children.
I need thoughts and ideas on what we can do.
You can throw your political ideology in here if you like, but that isn’t the point of this thread...I don’t really care if you disagree with what I have posted.
I am NOT going to debate you on the state of politics and my own viewpoint.
I want constructive ways to fix what has been broken.
I am asking for your help.
Thank you.
I know exactly how to take it back and I know exactly when and how it all was initiated in this country. But there is an X factor - people. Even if given a better choice, how many will reject out of fear or desire the status quo of greed.
I know right?
*sigh*
I think most people here are ready for it....but we have a serious money in politics problem here that will not voluntarily commit suicide.
The people will have to make themselves heard and demand it....then make sure it gets implemented and carried out.
The ruling class will never shift the wealth they have been siphoning off the middle class and poor since the late 70s.
It will have to be taken...therein lies the problem.
It's funny how much further along the path to green energy China and Taiwan are than the US.There's a very simple solution that includes real estate, the business community, and simple marketing that would transform everything. People would be able to see the exact reason for the change and be incentivized highly for choosing it.
If the energy market could be tapped, and I believe it can, then that would serve as a catalyst to make the change complete within five years (otherwise 15 years is a closer estimate). It would be completely revolutionary. The only risk would be the threat of force by the government / military, which technically they would not have a reason (other than a desire to control). That, and the government saying that it would collapse the financial system, which it wouldn't if an alternate currency was utilized during the process (also not difficult, given that crypto currencies are fully available and are free from artificially being inflated by government policy or the Feds control).
It's funny how much further along the path to green energy China and Taiwan are than the US.
We've got our heads in the tar sands.