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Thom, The "terrorist" attack at the Louvre was at a shopping center nearby. Why did I just learn about it? Our media concentration is killing us.
If Trump gets his way, the coming economic disaster will make the Great Depression look like a 'minor downturn'.
I think I'll start hoarding salt; it may soon be the only thing worth anything.
I was a stockbroker in the late 1980's and you couldn't even tell one client to do something and another to do the opposite, despite there being no specific "fiduciary law" at the time. The NASD would revoke your license and notify your states AG if you did something as small as that. How did the financial community get the ability to commit outright fraud since then? And how are they getting away with the demand to do so?
People should have the right to make bad decisions,.
But, they should pay a high tax to cover the cost of cleaning up the mess
we as tax payers must pay.
The principle applies to junk food, junk financial products, and probably
stranded mountain climbers who cost a lot to rescue.
ct
Trump is so busy filling the swamp that it may soon burst and sweep him away.
Yes! What are these answers? Thom would you please say more about what you know? Can someone get Greg Palast to state facts beyond the lists and identify the most constructive path of action? What facts are there to demonstrate these votes were blocked? Could it be the lists were a research project that was never implemented? Will someone help or influence Palast to make this information more constructively relatable so the facts outway his drama and self-promotion?
Carol & deepspace, Yes, will someone please give us some specifics on whether or not these votes were actually removed? How do we know the "Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck" wasn't just a research project that was never implemented? What action can a group take to reveal specific actions of these Secretary's of State and other active players? What action can be taken to prove Democrat votes were blocked by decisive thousands? This is serious enough that if we had the facts the press would have to run with it. It could demand another election...as costly and improbable as that is, it IS very possible. Typical of the Democrats to moan, write articles, film documentaries, point fingers and blame, yet NOT develop constructive alternative plans.
See, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/business/economy/jobs-economy-voters.html. The entire election came close to being predicted on rational economic grounds. Democrats will have to serve the population of the entire countries before they hope to win an presidential here under our electoral system. In addition they are under the handicap of voter hacking and suppression in Republican Controlled districts, see https://www.mintpressnews.com/donald-trump-warned-of-a-rigged-election-was-he-right/224326/. Its precisely because the U.S. is not majority rule for the Presidency that it has to take account of things like this and the above
A general strike will serve notice that each individual has the personal power to choose to act in concert with others to achieve an important goal. In this case, it's claiming one's dignity. As in, I'm fed up and dog dammit I'm not going to take it anymore.
If the word "moral" is replaced with "money" then it becomes acceptable. The greedy and the selfish will save money by not subsidizing a clean environment and healthcare that preserves life, and they will make money by investing with oil tycoons and military contractors who manufacture sickness and death. Either way, death and destruction equals profit.
Morality costs money, and that is unacceptable. It's okay to let Sunday morning preachers preach when the banks are closed, though.
Sorry! I will never know why americans have an aversion to healthcare?
Why is it okay to allow millions of people to get sick and die in the largest economy on the planet?
Is that morally acceptable?
@ old granny Di: Choose your friends and enemies very carefully. What probably puts the biggest smile on your face is the wishful thought of a dirty old man grabbing your ... fancy?
@ TomDorr #34:
F*ck your sick version of America! The foul sentiments and twisted "ideals" that closeted white supremacist weasels like you excrete have nothing to do with the altruistic principles upon which this nation was founded. We are a good and compassionate people -- that's what makes this nation great! You, sir, are not!
I spit on the phony ameerkkkan flag in which you so confidently wrap yourself, and which you not-so-slyly transpose onto the real symbol of the real America, for which real people have bled and died. F*ck you, un-American scab! How dare you question the patriotism of anyone else!
All that "America First" crap is nothing but transparent code for being a disgusting white bigot! You may deny this portrayal of your inner nature all you want, but by spreading hate and lies and hypocrisy all over the internet, especially on this forum, against whole groups of other human beings, you are condemned by your own words and deserve nothing but scorn and ridicule, as does your small-minded, self-inflated, authoritarian leader -- the sexual predator you so admire.
Arrogant little pissants like you, and the rest of the grossly ill-informed Trump trolls scurrying around the cracks and crannies on this blog, are a dime a dozen on Facebook and the rest of the internet. You all sound the same -- same programmed talking points, same prejudiced attitudes, same transparent lies -- yet, each one thinks they are so clever and so smart.
Legend is exactly right -- you have no real facts to back up your spew, and the majority of the population is more intelligent than that shriveled up, self-righteous image of yourself that you carry around in your deluded mind. Ridiculing others for what you do constantly is called projection and is the core of hypocrisy. Picking and choosing random links on the internet to lend "support" to your narrow, fact-free, overall worldview is utterly laughable!
Even in your last post, you have managed to mangle the history of card check, the Cadillac tax, the ACA, the minimum wage, economics, undocumented immigrants (not "illegals"), jobs, unions, and the Democratic Party. My job is not to educate your dumb ass, which would be an exercise in futility, other than to address quickly your first few glaring mistaken notions:
Democrats were able to pass The ACA during the small window (about 90 days or so) -- after Al Franken's recount and before Ted Kennedy's death -- when they had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. "Card check" was filibustered and killed by Republicans after Scott Brown was elected and the window closed.
The Cadillac tax was one of the numerous compromises during initial negotiations of the ACA that the Democrats offered to keep Republicans on board, who promised to vote for the act but who later went back on their worthless word in the final vote in Congress.
Similarly, most of your main points fail the laugh test, the smell test, the IQ test, and the history test, on further scrutiny. I guess you'll just have to get off your dumb ass and do your own homework -- or remain a bigoted ignoramus. Whatever. I really don't give a damn what you think, anyway.
BTW: I worked on freight, the real railroad for a real union not afraid to strike (not some paper-tiger snow job), for 34 years through one of the most dangerous corridors in the country, maintaining an excellent record. Don't tell me about hard realities, hard-won skills, or all that self-important, overblown crap about how great you once were back in the day riding a cushy passenger train -- a heavily socialized operation that right-wing hypocrites like you would probably call communistic. I've heard it all.
FYI: most of the rank and file in my local were loyal Democrats, not turncoat scabs, so don't lecture me on union sentiments, buddy. The Republican Party is the anti-union party and always has been.
Go away, troll; I have a football game to watch...
And I thought Gibbon was the wackiest doodle on this island of misfit toys. Mr. Ed, you make him/her sound like a normal person.
Two nights in a row you sent me to bed with a huge smile on my face. Good luck with your blood pressure meds.
Thank you again,
your friend
Diane
Actually, Trump really didn't "win," unless you accept winning by cheating. It wasn't Russia, it wasn't that Hillary ran a flawed campaign or because of her e-mails, it wasn't James Comey's partisan moves, it was (mostly) because of INTERSTATE CROSSCHECK that knocked millions of people off the registers. Most of them were people of color & other minority groups. The tactic that allowed the Republican states to implement this "cross-check" (orchestrated by Chris Kobach) was false fear of "voter" fraud, which the gullible swallowed, hook, line & sinker. There isn't any "voter" fraud though & it's been well-documented. There is plenty of "election" fraud, however. Do you hear it spoken about on mainstream media? No.....of course not. They are leading your attention elsewhere, much like a parent does with a toddler who is insistent on doing something that they shouldn't. Even alternative news sites aren't pounding the truth, instead grudgingly accepting that DT "won." If you dare to open your mind, watch the trailer to Greg Palast's movie, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy." Then watch the whole movie. This administration is totally illegit. It was an Americanized version of a coup d'etat. https://www.youtube.com/embed/kg2gCgFMBOg
Mr. Ed : Continuing on my response to you. (Had to go to dinner I have a life), normalizing relations with Cuba would be a huge mistake. First of all, the timing is premature. Cuba has lost its Communist (USSR) and socialist (Venezuela) benefactors that propped up its economy. With the embargo and no subsidisers, Cuba's system of government is totally unsustainable. Why should we negotiate normalization now? Wait a year or two until the Cubans are begging for food like the Venezuelans and need our crumbs for survival.
If we wait long enough, Cuba will be desparate enough to settle for anything that ends the embargo.
When I said I was concerned about the 90 mile distand between the US and Cuba I was not talking about Cuban illegals coming to the US. I was talking about extremely low wage Cuban factory and production workers producing cheap goods that could be cheaply shipped for only 90 miles. Like Having a Bangladesh 90 miles from us. A disaster for American workers. Let Cuba stew in its own juices for awhile and have them come to us for normalization when they are truly desparate. That puts us in the strongest position to have Cubans oust their murderous regime and reconcile with the U.S.
I agree that NAFTA and the other trade deals are bad for American workers. But Trump is th only president truly committed to end or renegotiate them. Mexico needs a trade agreement far more than we do. Lets negotiate from a position of strength rather than treating Mexico as an equal and get what we want while giving Mexico the crumbs they need. Very simple. Very good for US workers.
Infrastructure bills, being part of Trumps promises, have a much better chance than Democratic infrastructure initiatives because now a bi-partisan bill with Republicans and Dems getting the credit is viable.
I am retired now, from being locomotive engineer for 38 years. I have also been a union rep for the only union that represents locomotive engineers and conductors exclusively. No conductor, assistant conductor, or conductor trainee has not liked working with me. In fact, during my career, many of them have come for my advice and assistance when the UTU failed them or was, in many cases, clueless.Also, a great many railroaders lean conservative, due to the fact they are responsible, work long hours, have married family responsibilities, and want to keep as much of their earned income as possible.
To show your ignorance, no one in the passenger service I worked in for the last 33 years needs to be in the cab with me. Their job was to punch tickets and attend to passenger needs. ( Like flight attendants as compared to pilots).
Besides, the UTUE is a tiny part of an inferior union that had to work with sheet metal workers to survive. (No one else wanted them!).
So please attempt to deal with reality, not your far left fantasies and resentments.
Also, please take the time to educate yourself on the facts before you try to counter my opinions and facts.
Trump, with the help of a great many skilled workers' votes, won this election. Get over it and try to cope with the fact that Left wing policies are very unpopular, and would hurt skilled union members.
Also, it appears that the photo on your blogs and responses would be more accurate if you posted the opposite end of the horse you want to be.
And please don't attempt to tell me what would be good for most skilled union members. You would be out of your league. Especially oif you believe you would be better off working for locomotive engineers represented by a bus drivers union that had to merge with sheet metal workers to survive.
Please try to understand the realities of the real world, rather than the "deep space" you evidently prefer and live in.
Mr Ed, as Diane Reynolds names you, is amusing. But Deepspace is certainly more appropriate as your logic and facts are far from fact on the Earth we live on.
Let me start:
Obama could have gotten a "card check" law passed in the same manner as Obamacare. No Republicans voted for Obamacare and it still passed. Why didn't the Dems pass Card Check in the same manner the shoved the "Affordable Care Act" down the throats of the American people? It was their priorities.
The fact that the Dems, with the "Cadillac Tax" were willing to throw unions under the bus to get this scheme through, speaks volumes. They were more interested in redistribution of health and wealth than supporting unions. Disgraceful. Also, the ACA passed without Republican support, so the Cadillac tax was not necessary. (Except to pay for the huge subsidies for, almost exclusively, non-union healthcare recipients.)
The ACA may have allowed more people to get insured, but harmed the very ones that were not the problem in the first place: union and non union workers that sacrificed wages and other work conditions to get excellent health care. There are more people who will be harmed by rthe ACA than will be helped by it. Also, the promise that the ACA would actually lower health care costs was a lie. The only way health care was affordable, is for those that got expensive subsidies that others would be forced to pay for.
As tort lawyers were significant contributors to the Dems to protect their interests, the Dems never pushed for the tort reform needed to lower health care costs. They screwed the unions instead. Disgraceful.
The significant negative effect of raising the minimum wage immediately to 15 Dollars per hour, would not just be in the increased costs of services and products delivered by those workers. As you correctly stated, prices rise and fall depending on what the "market will bear". If the economic floor rises due to a doubling of the minimum wage for everyone, even teenagers working part time jobs, market prices for necessities and other goods will rise as millions will have more money to spend.
These increases will undoubtably raise prices for eveyrone, particularly middle and upper middle class workers. (Economics 101).
If raising the minimum wage ids such a panacea, why not raise the minimum wage to 60 dollars an hour? That would put everyone in the 120,000 Dollar wage. Everyone woulkd e happy! (Yea, right - an absurd idea that shows how doubling the minimum wage would hurt workers making middle class wages). Another Left Wing fantasy that would cause harm to many more than it would help.
Allowing illegal aliens permanent status would cause permanent harm to workers and taxpayers. Giving work authority to millions would allow them to metasticise throughout the workforce, and legalize a permanent imbalance of worker supply and demand.
Removing the illegals from the construction and manufacturing industries alone (through an effective EVerify system) would free up millions of good paying jobs for Americans which would become even better paying without wage-undercutting by illlegal aliens.
When our economy had its most recent recessions, millions of illegals repatriated due to lack of jobs. A much more massive lack of jobs due to EVerify would cause what would be a Depression for illegals and force them to go back to their countries.
Take away the hope of work, and illegals would not only repatriate, but few would sneak in to our country.
Yes, families may be separated, but not by Nazi-like deportations. Self-deportation due to job loss would make the decision to leacve the country or stay up to the illegals.
Besides, what about the family separation and crises in American Families caused by illegals displacing workers and lowering pay? I side with the American Worker. I am an American First person. What are you?
Legend is not misinformed, he is just super pissed off, so in his clamoring for "facts", he cherry picks until he finds an article or source that supports his claims. If one wants to spend the day probing Al Gore's internet and left wing websites, so be it. He is relatively mild compared to some idiots here that expect to see Republican heads roll on the White House lawn.
For me it is not worth my time so I will respond like Thom Hartmann does, with opinions.
If you leftie/socialists don't like them, go out and set a storefront on fire, smash a cop car, or refuse to let a conservative speak at a college while doing a hundred thousand dollars worth of damage quickly followed by bitching because you think your free speech rights are violated and your tuition is going up to repair property destroyed by your childish actions.
It appears democrat party has become the party of malcontents and property destruction. How's that for the next blog headline?
Legend: Where are your facts? Admit it: I was right when I claimed union members voted for Trump in numbers that put Trump over the top.
Please give me facts to counter this, or become what you hypocritically me.
No "relevant" facts Legend seems to fit here.
Trump was especially strong in getting the low educated male vote. Probably because they would vote for anything other than a woman. It makes a lot of sense for Union Members to vote for the party that has done all of the damage to Unions. I am sure that Ronald Reagan is your hero.
Legend: I can see why you are so misinformed. You get your facts from Wikipedia !
What is said is absolutely true. Trump got support from Police and Border Patrol unions, support from some local fire unions, and a smattering of other unions.
I never stated that Trump got anything near the majority of union endorsements.
The main point I made was that Trump did very well with union workers, who abandoned the Dems/Left because the Dems/lLeft abandoned them.
But don't take my word for it. For your edification, I have selected a handful of articles from a wide variety of sources. Read and learn:
www.dailycaller.com/2016/11/13/rank-and-file-union-members-in-the-rust-b...
www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-did-really-well-with-union-hou...
www.salon.com/2016/11/26/the-union-revolt-no-one-is-talking-about
www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/10/donald-trump-got-reaga...
www.autonews.com/article/2016/11/09/oemo2/161109818/labor-unions-anger-f...
Please don't tell me how union members voted. Or why.
There are lots of people smarter than me "out there". But you certainly are not one of them.
"Now was it in the meaning of the Declaration of Independence when it said that there were certain rights that were inalienable....the right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.... Is that a right of life, when the young children of this country are being reared into a sphere which is more owned by 12 men than is by 120 million people?"
Every Man a King radio speech to the Nation, 1934 Huey Long!
Here we are in 2017.... The United States of Amnesia, and Paul Ryan's attack on the what's left of the social safety net is still flying under the radar. The Dems are not seizing the moment...not even close. Hell yes, the ban is bad...but also hell yes, many many more will be ignited and rise up when they find out what Ryan and McConnell want to do to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid.
Sure, social injustice is always immoral, but this proposed safety net economic injustice is a bipartisan outrage....we all need to seize the moment and capitalize on Ryan's catastrophic overreach.
Wilrod,
It's amusing that you only speak out on that short portion of the entire video. HA! I'm amazed people are searching for each little morsel they can argue in support of this wholly horrible attempt at a presidential administration.
Reply to cccccttttt
It is my belief that if a company can't afford to pay their employees a decent wage, and give them decent benefits, they should not be in business.
Take care of your employees and your employees will take care of you.
Why is it that buisness owners are always whining about labor costs and how they're just barely getting by...boo hoo hoo! Maybe they should just relax and pay more attention to how their employees are doing financially....but noooo, instead they pay lobbyists to get big government all shook up and concerned about how unfair it is to employers to have to pay employees a fair wage.
Hey Diane Reynolds...did you notice how I used your rightie talking point words, whining, and relax...all of my rightie family members and rightie conservative friends use those exact same words all the time and sound exactly like you...geeez...wonder how that could have happened??? LMAO
Well here's the answer to all this: If big government is going to strip workers of their labor rights, then big government also needs to require business owners to fully disclose publically all income derived from the sweat of others backs. Then we'll see whether or not all that crying and whining has any merit.
I'll add one more item....Based on a fair econonmic formula, big government also needs to require that all product, service, and energy price hikes are also tied to wage hikes,....or price hikes do not get approved. I'm so sick and tired of the giant lie that free market monoply capitalism is....time to overthrow the fascists once and for all.
Unrelated....there's a big push from underground Russian patriots to expose Putin and his regime...he can't arrest and kill all of the them....evidence of Trump's collusion/treason will leak out sooner than later...not that it will do us any good to have a theocratic maniac like Mikey Pence in power!!!!