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(1) The Donald's first deal: Deal between Donald and the GOP: Mike Pence can be Dick Cheney on steriods, if the GOP establishment unites with the Tea Party behind Trump as a figurehead/spokesperson/maste of cerimonies.
(2) Rodger Ailes will soon transition to "chief-of-staff" for Campaign Donald. He'll expect to be high up in the White House propoganda arm, on stage or behind the scenes, e.g., Press Secretary? Trump's Carl Rove?
(3) Of course, Donald, if elected, can renig on either or both of these deals at anytime.
Like ckrob, I like your "prerecorded break" and would love to post it on Facebook. Is that possible? I couldn't find a link to do that. Thank you Thom for all you do!
I desire a ONE-State Solution.
Palestine.
Let's hope so!
I am the beneficiary of property tax funded schools. Through junior high I lived in the school district in Salt Lake City that encompassed the massive Kennecott Copper mine and associated Magna smelter operation. We wanted for nothing. Our school district could barely figure out how to spend all the money they had. We got a first class education, probably as good or better than you get at a private school nowadays. At the same time, in neighboring school districts, they were resorting to double sessions with the high-schoolers going to school at five in the morning so that they could have after-school jobs and the junior high kids in school till after dark in the winter time because they couldn't afford separate schools for junior high and high school.
We then moved to Denver where our neighborhood wasn't rich but it was in the same school district as some of the richest neighborhoods in town. Same deal: we had the best facilities money could buy and were being taught college-level courses by moonlighting professors from the local universities, while the kids going to the inner-city schools in the same city were having to share books.
This is immoral. I personally benefited from it, but it is immoral. Watch the section of Michael Moore's "Where To Invade Next" on the schools in Finland. All of the schools are funded equally and at a high level. No school is any different than any other and they are all good.
We need to demand that our schools are uniform and uniformly good. Affirmative action and all that other stuff wouldn't even be necessary if everyone really got the same opportunity from the git-go.
A $300 speeding ticket is actual punishment for a working class person. That same $300 speeding ticket for a one percenter is just the low cost of having fun speeding!
Citations and property tax should both be based on income, although property tax actually needs to be abolished and revenue raised entirely by progressive income tax, or in other words, the ability to pay. Extremely regressive property tax exists because funding local schools and government with a progressive income tax would force guys like Trump to pay their fair share, and until we have government by and for the people, it ain't going to happen.
Listening to the RNC leads me to wonder was there ever a George W. Bush and his economic crash that we have been steadily crawling out of for the last eight years? Guess I'll have to get back on my meds. Or maybe an antipsychotic in the Cleveland water supply would help us all.
They eventually will not have a choice. You can't take Blood from a turnip. Society is ripping itself apart now. On the edge of complete cayous everyone will lose. Is humanity smart enough to stop it before it happens. Because you probably will not get it stopped after it starts. The price will be too high. Everyone's loses then.
Morality in the U.S. went down with the Mayflower but it brings up a good point. If the opposite of morality is sin and sin is defined as hypocrisy then why the tolerance and spread of so much hyprocrisy?
It was taught in the Pelagian school of Christanity that "if there was no rich class, then there would be no poor class".
The United States now has a level of economic hypocrisy that would make Adolph Eichman shudder. Hypocrisy develops in hierarchical bureaucratic institutions-any hierarchical bureaucratic institution not just governmental.
I would like to see Thom do a weeks worth of his "Big Picture" just on the sociopathology of hyprocrisy in the U.S. ; because if we cannot successfully fix the problem of hypocrisy in our social systems the suffering will continue. Let's get to the root cause.
It is morally indefensible for a government to have to make criminals of its citizens just to have enough money to survive.
Big Pharma and private insurance companies posted a 400% increase in profits over the past 30 years while government like the media dropped the ball and made obliviousness or indifference into absolutes. Indifference is really love's enemy.
Tom Frank in "Listen, liberal!" explains that the democratic party switched from the working class and the New Deal to a party of the creatives and innovatives who brought us indecipherable financial products. Silicon Valley is exempt from anti-trust prosecution, Silicon strategy is to get market power while labor markets (for humanities graduates) were casualized.
Bill Clinton brought new styles instead of paying homage to FDR. He deregulated Wall Street, bailed out hedge funds and put an end to the federal welfare system. Bill Clinton rammed through NAFTA and undermined his own party's greatest ally. Professionals, technocrats, corporate funders, wired workers, the creative class or the innovative class became the party's center. Saving social security meant privatizing and then came Monica! All the gains of the economic recovery have gone to the already wealthy.
I like your 'prerecorded break' of the last week or so. Repetition of good content, thumbs up!
As Bernie returns to the Senate a much more powerful force than heretofore, Brunch with Burnie could become a tool for him to regularly nudge and stimulate the movement he has created. (millions of new listeners?) Seems to me this would be a route around our biased corporate media and a means to influence the new administration.
PS On the topic of "Class," per sae
It sounds by some of the comments here that to have a middle class requires there be poor.
I don't think so.
I was instructed to read about (I was facilitating a Middle Class Support group for 7 years; one bright person handed me the article in question), one working economy designed in such a way that noone was allowed to earn more than 8 times what the bottom did. The result: high, middle and low wage earners, with noone 'going under'.
Greed is absolutely relevant to the discussion of American economics.
My Pay
In the early 2000s, I worked a job I had done in 1984. The pay had gone down on that job by just shy of 50%. Does that tell you anything? By the way, it was a psychotherapy job working for a non-profit that had decided to pocket more of the alloted county pay per contract (which had risen) to pay their administrators. I then took out a contract directly from the county (rarely the government admits individual contractors) and got a 600% raise. Hmmmm.
Rising 'Values'
My bungalow house, charming old 1800s farmhouse in Seattle, for which I paid $139.5 in 1990 is in a neighborhood where the houses are now selling at upwards of $800. It's valued around $600, but multiple bids drive it upwards. Hundreds of thousands of increased 'value', in a little less than 3 decades is uncontained economics. Period. (Also, the rent I get for it is about $1000 more than I should be getting, in my estimation. This is un-controlled, or Over-Controlled, i.e. manipulated growth, in my humble opinion.
So, Thom, your book on the crash? ... I think so; I am just waiting.
It seems like Health Insurance companies would fight this price gouging of pharmaceuticals and all other healthcare exploitation
This problem is a peoblem of both Republicans and Democrats. At the very least, there should be a law mandating any drug company that benefits from subsidized research must not sell non-generic drugs to other nations or entities at prices less that what we pay for them in the US. It galls me that other nations can buy needed drugs for their citizens at a fraction of what we have to pay for them. This could help stop some of the abuse.
The Big Pharma taxpayer ripoff phenominum is about to get a whole lot WORSE!
The old accusations about Hillary aren’t what ‘s seriously concerning us now.
If Hillary gets elected President and implements President Obama's dishonestly promoted TPP/TTIP/TiSA rigged (and unconstitutional) "trade agreements" (as her Democratic Party Platform delegates indicated last week that she is planning to do), then those so-called "trade agreements" would authorize multinational corporations to "legally" engage in MASSIVE FRAUD and EXTORTION-RACKET activities that would override (wipe out) our consumer protections, environmental protections, worker protections, union protections, food safety protections, equal rights protections, etc. as well as our Obamacare, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security Programs, etc. This will cause IMMENSE DAMAGE to the livelihoods and wellbeing of most Americans for generations to come! In fact, this is the most dangerous threat to our “national security” since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and it will be perpetrated by our “best politicians money can buy.”
1) Just stop the lobby influence
Why does a democracy need to be lobbied???
A lousy american notion
2) Just get money out of politics
Another lousy american idea
Thank s to millions of ignorant, hateful ' poorly educated' GOP voters & Fox & pals for the gov't we have. Party of Lincoln & Eisenhower is DEAD ! Today Eisenhower would be considered a ' flaming liberal' IKE was Last decent GOP President who did not screw the middle class, push cuts in education, cut wages, cut the disabled, suck up to corps ...Ike was a General who warned of 'War profiteeris' aka ' Military Industrial Complex' Bush Cheney wars inc ' everything ' weapons , war contractors like Cheneys Halliburton who made a ' killing; on Iraq war, bombs, tanks, planes, Caring for our injured vets & families, dealing with ISIS , TARP, 2008 global crash - loss of 700 K jobs a month in 2008 alone costs taxpayers many 30 trillions. Get the facts www.politifact.com factcheck.org Rush Hannity & hacks , Drudge , Savage, 600 right wing radio talk shows do NOT inform or discuss FACTS Opinion ,smears, hate, anger, blame. GOP takes responsibility for NOTHING .. trickle down Iran contra, cuts in SS , wasting billions shutting down gov't...and endless fruitless ' investigations' blocking, lying, arrogantly refusing to even take a damn vote / hearing on a new Supreme court judge. .GOP does NOT represent WE the People - They are NOT public servants ' they are the ruling class / our Lords . 90 % of politicians get wealthy, on our dime, get great penions, bribes, keep tons of campaign cash, make millions just to speak even Bush who has little of value to say . They ignore our wishes time and again, GOP wages wars we do not need or want. Bush Cheney lies... smoking gun, mushroom cloud, weapons of mass destrruction.... GOP policies are Destructive to workers, fair wages, women, birth control, education, trickle down, cozing up to dictators like Shah of Iran Read your damn history prople
Mention stock holders, your neighbors, profiting from these corporate welfare queens from the taxpayers' buck
And why does big pharma get away with tax dodging and price gouging? The Neo-con right wingers, that's why. So good will be the day when the Neo-con filled Repubican party is finally punished for their traitorism.
chuckle 8 If the minimum wage were to be raised nationally to $ 15.00 per hour, the greatest effect would be the raising of prices of necessities to what the market will bear. If the minimum wage were to be raised the same percentage as the Social Security COLA, that would be fine, but it would take much longer to raise the minimum wage. If the minimum wage is raised immediately to 15 per hour, those in the middle class making $16-% 40 per hour (middle/upper middle class) would be hurt badly, if they don't get a proportional increase. I believe the best way to help low wage heads of households is dramatically increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit to something the equivalent to $ 15 per hour, and paying it quarterly. This would be much less inflationary, more narrowly target the increase to those who most need it, and quell opposition to increasing wages for the poor who believe it would cause job loss.
I don't think so. Security software and devices like brickhousesecurity or gofleet
https://www.gofleet.com/product/gps-vehicle-tracking-device
helps our devices a lot to be safe. We should go for cure not for prevention this time.
Tom D - Have you made any computations for how much the EIC would help a couple with one child and each earning $14 for example, or any other such computations?
Of course, as you have mentioned in other blogs what we really need is stronger unions. Card check came so close to becoming law, it seems that it would be politically viable. With strong unions, they could force a 35 hour work week and tariffs. The only problem would be that the union bosses may be making 2 or 3 times what their workers make.
TOM D -- It seems if the min wage is raised less than the productivity rate would demand there would be very little detrimental effect due to inflation. Also, remember soc security has a cpi adjustment. If one was trying to sell supply side economics, one of the benefits would be low inflation. Of course, supply side economics has been shown to destroy economies, but the inflation is low.
Do you know what percentage increases the previous min wage raises were? The current plan for minimum wage is to raise it over several years (at least that is the plan in CA).