The intent of this blog is to promote human equality, human progress, human peace and justice, and optimism. To accomplish this, to encourage the discussion of ideas after identifying and discovering problems, and then creating positive solutions for "we the people," in order to provide for the "general welfare" and "domestic tranquility" of America now and its "posterity" into the future. To encourage an emphasis on separation of religion and state for all, no matter if this is for those "of faith" in a Maker / Creator (Deists, God-loving people, Christians, various people of spirituality) and atheists or agnostics.

Archive for the ‘Commentary’ Category

Economy & Mortgage Interest Rates

Dear Editors:

Paul Krugman says the economy is doing well. There are many facts and figures which back up what he says.

Thinking about that idea that unemployment is down and the economy is doing good, I have to wonder who is fueling the fire behind the younger generations who are wet behind the ear and are complaining about a business cycle which those of us with wisdom of age have seen all the time and work to be prepared as best we can. Shit happens like inflation happens.  Period. It is a tough thing to prepare and yes, sometimes those of us in the older group find it difficult to be prepared. But we try.

Mortgage rates going up after a long hiatus of low mortgage interest rates is not a topic to be used to bemoan the economy, is it? For those of us in the older Baby Boom generation, we paid mortgage interest rates in the double digits, sometimes as high as 13%. Did anyone give one damn about that? Not on your life.

When Sleepy Ronnie in the Cabinet took measures to “reduce the mortgage rates,” his actions benefited the younger Baby Boomers born in the late 1950s. Why? Because Sleepy Ronnie in the Cabinet allowed the use of lower rates for first-time home buyers. By that time, most of us older Baby Boomers had already purchased a home so we were precluded. I tried to obtain a lower interest mortgage rate on a home in Florida in 1982 and was told no because I had already owned a home in upstate New York.  The house in Florida, at the base rate of homes in Florida, was about $20K more than the one we sold in upstate NY. People like us, purchasing a second home after leaving NY faced an increased housing value AND a very high interest rate. Was there anyone who gave one damn about this? And my salary was just about flat when compared t that I had in New York. Sure. It was my choice, right? Wrong. There was a freeze on hiring in SUNY and other education institutions.  Sure. Sure. Republicans came to power and attempted to destroy the work we were doing to improve software development productivity, reliability, and quality for the military. The terrible commander-in-chief was Sleepy Ronnie in the Cabinet.  What did we get instead? This fantasy of “star wars.”  Only a charismatic idiot who believed that the ripping down of the wall in Berlin and our troubles with the Soviet Union were over and behind us. Where was Putin at that time? A KGB agent? What are the left-wing people of East Germany and Hungary, and so forth, doing today? They are on common ground with one idea today: dictatorship, authoritarianism, autocracy. Nothing to do with ideology at all.

The Republican authorities monitored such events better between states than Republicans did to monitor whether Republicans from the north were voting twice in presidential races, once in the north and once in Florida. No wonder Florida became the one-party state, like a Putin state, as it is today.  Sorry. I diverge.

It is more than just mortgage rates. It is the huge increases in the cost of housing due to greedy and selfish ones with their house flipping. It is about corrupt developers and banks working together to price housing very high in many locations. Developers get their money and banks eventually get the homes which people cannot afford due to cost-gouging high prices.  Long-term investment on a slow pace, is gone, in favor of lovers of money and instant gratification.  During the years of high interest rates which hurt the older Baby Boomers and Neil Bush and others were subversively damaging the federal savings and loan programs created by their family’s enemy from the past, FDR. 

If someone is trying to muddy the waters of the younger ones today, by means of inconsistencies for which younger ones are not able to differentiate, then I, for one, ask that such muddying of waters stop. For those of us in the older Baby Boomers had to deal with very high interest rates after our parents had mortgage rates and lower housing prices after World War II.  It was tough on them, but imagine how much we had to withstand the financial difficulties. This added to an oil embargo which caused prices of gasoline to be at high levels, too. 

Paul Krugman is correct. The economy is doing well. It could do better with regard to mortgages and housing. But it needs more of an overhaul of the corrupt individuals involved in developing real estate and in the banking industry, overall. President Biden has already called for increased perspectives about regulating business, but he keeps getting slammed regarding any ideas he has. Or else the media never includes his ideas in discussions about elements of the economy.  This is areal problem for trying to fix the economy and all of us coming together to attempt to do it, even if we play only a small role. 

Category:

Commentary, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce

Tagged with:

Lethal Weapon Regulation

Dear Editors:

This written communication is about three letters to your newspaper regarding guns. (1) “Stored firearms help to save lives,” “Anticipates court’s gun case ruling,” (3) “Supports firearms insurance statute [San Jose].” 

As citizen who believes in common sense and humanitarian concerns regarding firearms, I wish to comment about these letters.

The first letter is about storage safeguards for those who have firearms. This is a very important consideration. Thanks for publishing this information which came from those who are involved in these practices. 

The second letter about “court’s gun case ruling.” To the author, Bob Way, I do hope I need to purchase many “adult diapers.” In that manner, I can collect what goes into such diapers and wipe The stuff in the diapers in the faces of those who push their emotionally-based and sensationalist-based ideas for free gun and rifle purchase and use into their faces. 

The 2nd Amendment is about militias, but not intended for personal individual rights. Militias were an important to safeguard against a government which squelches freedom of speech and does not abide by the U.S. Constitution.

How about if Mr. Bob Way becomes familiar with the Preamble to the U.S> Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in Order to
form a more perfect Union, establish Justice,
insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the
common defence, promote the general Welfare,
and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves
and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this
Constitution for the United States of America.

Comments.

1. “establish justice…”

1. establish justice…  With people like Bob Way, they think like immature ones and consider the only justice is the justice in which they approve and only for their individual rights. They forget the responsibility required in order to maintain our rights.

2. “insure domestic tranquility…”  Domestic tranquility is also defined in a false manner by immature people who are not able to take responsibility for the rights and liberties they have. Such people simply want “law and order” defined in their way only. It is the reason why there are so many incidents reported in which, for the same law and order ideas for domestic tranquility is to arrest and charge African-Americans by dredging up a wrongful charge while letting white people go or just ignoring white people entirely and looking the other way. Case in point. Possession of marijuana and making certain that a black person is checked, while a white person is not.  Such measures do not insure domestic tranquility and often encourages the use of gun violence, in the process.

3. “provide for the common defence…” The important word in this statement is “common.” Militias are designed for the “common” defense, not individual defense for individual rights.  “Common” is not meant for a small group of people, but for the overall defense of the American government and all inhabitants of the USA who are depending on domestic tranquility.

4. “promote the general welfare…” The general welfare is far from being promoted by individualist ideas regarding guns or small groups like the KKK and Jim Crow despots in Dixie.  It is not promoted by those with guns who live in fear of colored people and minorities who might one day become more of a majority.  We all need to coexist, not be subjected to unsubstantiated thoughts of conspiracies by emotional and immature folks, based on sensationalist attitudes.

5. “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”  Liberties are not defined by one minority group of white supremacists with red necks and bigotry and hatred towards others and then they form a militia on that basis.  They deny blessings and liberty to others in society by use of fear tactics and guns.

Ironically, When a government defends civil liberties and other matters, in line with the preamble to the U.S. Constitution it is not to be faced by small groups of militia with guns in the USA. Whether it is white supremacists or the black panthers, it is small groups of militia with guns and these groups do not respect the U.S Constitution with words like this in the preamble.

Hunting for deer and other animals, in my estimation is all right. WE just need to follow guidelines offered in the first letter about safeguarding weapons.  There is also no need for automatic weapons in public. Hunters have told me they so no common sense for using an automated weapon on deer because the meat would be rendered of little use. I have heard hunters say that they are more challenged by using a bow and arrow, not a rifle. It is all about common sense approaches regarding guns.

Yes, one can argue that gun permits and other laws for gun control might not work. Correct. Humans and their institutions lack perfection so one would expect there to be imperfections. A mature person with common sense would take this into consideration. 

An example of the failure of gun control is the mentally deranged guy near Rochester, several years ago, who, on a Christmas Eve, set a home on fire and began a rampage of killing firefighters and police.  The mentally deranged guy had been in prison and not allowed to own a gun. The law is a good one. But, this mentally deranged person got a neighbor to purchase the gun for him. That neighbor then became an accessory to murder.  People against gun control mention it is the person and the mental stability at fault, not the guns. In this case the gun was the fault and the law existed for the protection of those who were subjected to killing by a mentally deranged person.  With this case, I hope I can have an adult diaper and rub in the writer’s face the contents. Sad to say that one of my great-great-grandparents was from the Way family which had settled on Long Island in the 1600s.  “…liberty and justice FOR ALL,” not just liberty for the individual rights of militias which represent a small portion of the population.

Lastly, the letter from Bruce Joffe regarding liability insurance for ownership of guns is very pertinent. The topic is about the mandate in San Jose, CA, for gun owners to carry liability insurance. Sad to say that we need to resort to such practices, but it is a practical solution.

One statement by Joffe needs to be emphasized. “Responsible, law-abiding gun owners risk being seen as extreme and crazy when lawsuits [as in the case of the mandate in San Jose] are filed to oppose such necessary regulation of lethal weapons.”  This is comparable to “responsible, law-abiding” rifle owners who hunt in the wild for venison meat and are portrayed as being crazy for their opposition to automatic weapons.  Perhaps gun regulation, based on common sense of human beings, is a more appropriate terminology to describe “gun control?”

Category:

Commentary, democracy, Gun Safety

Tagged with:

Government Reform

​

Dear Editors:

In agreement with Frank Haberer of Peckville, I say the IRS is an institution which needs to be overhauled by replacing the income tax (additionally, state sales and income taxes) with the value-added tax (VAT). Since a young age and reading, listening, and considering the VAT, I have been fascinated about how much better it COULD be in reducing government costs and open up spending for more teachers, nurses, and others involved with the human element, not the number-crunching of lawyers, accountants and business people (like Trump) who end up corrupt and getting away with thievery.  In those years, I learned from a CONSERVATIVE person, not fascist bigot, founder of the CONSERVATIVE magazine, National Review, and producer and host of Firing Line, William F. Buckley, Jr. His program appeared on television so as to provide viewpoints and opposing viewpoints for the audience to consider and to LEARN and GAIN WISDOM. Such media programs 50 years ago were unlike Fox, Newsmax, Breitbart, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, ABC, and other one-side biased media approaches today (even PBS) while the details provided by newspapers is being destroyed. For instance, the deliberate strategy to condense newspaper content and then claim “no one reads them,” has been working and disrupting America as time goes by. Thus, we still have a Scranton newspaper in which we can consider, discuss and challenge not only those who are writing editorials or those who write letters to the editor or the op-ed columnists who run the entire length of the political spectrum.   Thus I agree with Haberer that government needs to be reformed, not overhauled and the one issue which needs overhaul is the tax system and the IRS. 

To speak in favor of the VAT, the little island nation of Morrocco, made up of mostly wealthy and a monarchy, does NOT have an income tax. It uses the VAT as well as personal real estate taxes.  There are other reasons I support the VAT. I have written those reasons over several decades, but everyone thinks in terms of “I’m happy, so don’t upset the apple cart.” It is not the reasoning based on individual rights and happiness only of an individual. It is about recognizing what makes the community and society, with individuals acting responsibly not carelessly (as libertarians promote) to come together and promote life, liberty and happiness among all of us, not just for a few snotty immature brats only, especially those with money.  When surveys have been done, Denmark always tops the list for a society with the most happiness. The USA drops to near 20 on the list. That is due to too damn much irresponsibly immature brats with a quest ONLY for individual right. Individual rights for guns when the constitution addresses the rights of the community against a Hitler fascist-style government with censorship of people, as the meaning behind a militia.  The problem today are those nasty vicious snotty immature brats with money who spin this issue to make it LOOK like there is something wrong with government when there is often no wrong deeds in it, but the deeds emanating from big business, such as the big rifle company lobby and the NRA in trying to control the government and not to the favor of a major part of the electorate which seeks justice and “domestic tranquility.” 

The problem I have with Haberer is his false sense of problems with the United States Postal Service. The same day Haberer’s letter is printed, your newspaper had statistics which prove the TRUE problems of the USPS. Overhaul is a pretty strong word from Haberer. The facts demonstrate what is needed is reform, as proposed in a pending House of Representatives bill. Republicans are likely to work to shoot this bill down, due to those who want an “overhaul.” To me, “overhaul” means to “destroy.” Destroy is a strong word used by Trump, Rick the Prick Scott and Ron DeSantis of Florida, and Rick the Prick Santorum of Pennsylvania. 

Goddamn Haberer for stating, “no one supports the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. You insult those of us who must be the “no ones.” You asshole.  You had me in support of some of what you said, until I got to that part, you insulting ingrate.  You insult those of us who DO support that.

Want me to explain WHY we support it? Some of it is due to the fraud among Republicans in Pennsylvania and New York. Another part of it is the fraud I witnesses, as  a registered Republican, in Florida during the 40 years I lived there. 

Shall I lengthen this message just to explain? Why not.

1. Sleeping Ronnie in the Cabinet and convert former Democratic Party Mayor, Bob Martinez, along with Jebbie Bush of Miami.  The push for a lottery and gambling in Florida was made on a promise to use the money to fund public education. Martinez promised this in Florida when he was a Republican governor of Florida. it never happened.

2. Former turn-coat Democrat, now Republican, Attorney General (also of Tampa) Pam Bondi, looked the other way when it came to identifying election fraud among Republicans. 

3. Gerrymandering in Florida was designed to give a stronger voice to the turn-coat Democrats to Reupblican white supremacist rednecks of rural Florida in the inner land more power to take over the Florida state legislature for the purposes of defeating any issues favorable to the black population. Larger black populations in the urban areas of Florida, such as where I once made a home in Fort Pierce, don’t have representatives in the Florida legislature and today, DeSantis of Florida is trying to tighten the clamp even more with more voter suppression of black people, after Jebbie Bush set up a privatized jail system based on numbers of how many black people could be incarcerated in order to remove their right to vote. Profits mean, in such a Sleepy Ronnie in the Cabinet privatization effort, that these people at Wackenhut have to justify numbers in jail beds, so they attack black people.  And this merely negates efforts of those who are successful in bringing black people off the streets and teaching them how to be successful at running capitalist businesses. How about if this guy views the programs on Create TV, rather than the shallow entertainment and sensationalist news coverage elsewhere in the media?

4. Now DeSantis wishes to negate overall teaching of history and about sexual identity in the schools. In other words, he preys on the fears and emotional outbursts of people like Haberer of Peckville, rather than teaching us with an overall approach. As a recent magazine article said, what is happening is the destruction of overall instructional coverage. What the article did NOT have the balls to say was that this is the result of white supremacist bigots who live in fear that there are other groups of people in the future who will become more of a majority over white folks. I can guarantee bastard DeSantis that such will never happen for the 10% they figure are gay in the population. It will happen with those of African and Spanish decent.  Guaranteed. What will Haberer and DeSantis do then? Or do they simply want to kill off those in opposition to them, as Trump really dislikes those in opposition to him, and expect better results, as was the practice of Hitler.  Election suppression is being used so these people can do as Putin does in Russia. Putin, a fascist who comes from the depths of Soviet communism and its form of fascism, with his Russian Mafia in Florida, is helping Trump and the fascist Republicans do this. Most of these people are former Democrats, as was Reagan, Trump, Martinez, Bondi, and many others.  It is due to the fact these people are cowards, fearful of not having as much power and  bullies who use actions of viciousness and lying to gain power and control over the population. Ultimately, they will destroy anyone who supports them now and won’t give one damn about it.

5. DeSantis wants to attack voter registration people, too, in order to suppress voters.

6. DeSantis and others claim that people in Florida who only live there a few months of the year are voting in states like New York, Pennsylvania and others in the northeast AND voting in Florida.  The only time such a matter is important is during a Federal election. But try to gain a law in Congress which carefully monitors such actions on the Federal level by having a Federal registration for voting in presidential elections. If a person votes in a state election in New York and then votes in a Florida state election, what is the problem? They only vote once. My father lived six months in New York and six months in Florida. I am quite certain he voted ONLY in New York where he was a resident. He was never a resident of Florida and never got a chance to vote in local Florida elections.  Many times, he chose to vote in New York in early November and THEN head for Florida where he remained until April or so.  He lived all those months in Florida and never had a voice in local elections in that state.  I know one thing. In 2014, he would have voted in favor of Charlie Crist, not Rick the Prick Scott. Rick the Prick Scott barely won even 50% of the vote. But living in Florida with a father who would not go against the law and take marijuana for his glaucoma, would be a very law-abiding citizen in all things. 

With this being said, let me also explain what I witnessed in Florida when I was a registered Republican. A Republican strategy to maintain a one-party state, even with term limits. They found other ways to do it and now people like Haberer, the dumb jerk, does not want such things reformed, including the abolition of the Electoral College.  Nothing but snotty bratty immature brats who don’t think and wish the John Lewis Voting Rights Act is “not supported by anyone.” What a foolish brat to insult me and others who DO want this reform.  The headline for his letter says, “overhaul” government services. By not supporting the John Lewis Act, Haberer is endorsing the DESTRUCTION of democracy as the backbone of our government.

Furthermore, I witnessed, with all this supposed “fraud” and people voting two times in Florida, once in another state and once in Florida, how is it that the Republicans gained a status of a one-party state in Florida? A one-party state like Putin’s Russia or like communist China or like the former Soviet Union… one party in control of governor’s mansion legislature and the courts?

In fact, I heard more reports of braggarts who proclaimed joyously how they had voted twice for Trump and did so from Florida. They were so thrilled about doing so. I have heard of NONE who did the same thing with Joe Biden. Makes me wonder if it is the same thing in Arizona or other sunbelt states? Notice in Florida, the issue of voting twice in two different states is not plugged as much as in other sunbelt states. 

As a poll worker at a recent primary here in upstate New York, a person who voted commented about fraud, saying, “they take the names from gravestones at the cemetery and they use those names for extra votes.”  As a poll worker, I an merely state something such as, “we don’t discuss matters like that at the polling place, but why don’t you bring this to the attention of the Supervisor of Elections.” What I wish I COULD have said was this. You see, there are not Democratic Party primaries here, so I know the only people who showed up were Republicans. With this in mind, I have to wonder now about why the Republicans can maintain such a majority in this county in upstate New York?  It Republicans are the ones always winning, then it is Republicans who fraudulently take the names from gravestones. 

Overall, I think Haberer needs to check the facts before bloviating lies such as the one in his letter and published on Feb. 7. I think more people also need to call such a person on the carpet for the lies perpetuated by people who think Republicans are above the law but Democrats are not, implying that Democrats are just plain no good at all.
—

Professor Douglas Willet Cornwell (Retired)

Newark Valley, NY

bibsinger@gmail.com

———————————“Love your neighbor as yourself.” “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” “The problems of the world are not that some people love in a different way. The problems are that so many people don’t know how to love at all (CGA, 1970).” A Puritan is someone in fear that someone, somewhere, is having a good time. “Liberty and justice for all [not priorities on individual and selfish rights].” “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union [and overall wealth of American society]…” 
​Benjamin Franklin: “​Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are ​affected.” Stacey Abrams: “Compromise about actions, but not about values.”  Oscar Wilde: “​​​I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.”  Oscar Wilde: “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” Benjamin Franklin: “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”  Whoopi Goldberg: “To handle this COVID-19 pandemic effectively, we all need to get on the same page.”  Note: To be clear, I do not like being patronized. I do not express my disdain over what happens to my fellow humans just for my own sake and to pursue favors and handouts. I do it in order to gain R – E – S – P – E – C – T for me and for millions of other Americans of any race, ethnicity, religious belief, or sex and sexual identity who try to walk in integrity as they attempt to achieve, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  PERIOD.  One nation under God [our Creator] with liberty and justice for all.

Category:

Commentary

Dear U.S. House of Representatives:

Even with other problems, such as Ukraine, impacting America today, I urge you to vote in favor of thee U.S. Postal Service Reform Act.

In light of the 75-year advanced payment for U.S. Postal Service health benefits, estimates are that it costs the taxpayers some $27B. This is outrageous and needs to stop.

Also in light of this fact, ultimately this bill would remove such an investment and save the USPS an estimated $22.6B over 10 years.
‘
This bill would also “well serve the USPS fundamental mission, by requiring it to continue delivering mail and packages six days a week.” For a consumer, I much prefer having a private mailbox than to force us to move to an Amazon confiugations of delivery to our personal home garage and such delivery people to have a remote key to our garage, as demonstrated in Amazon commercials. Some people don’t have garages and those of us who do do not want our privacy by way of waling to a mailbox to receive mail replaced by some companies access to our garage.

Our government keeps it private because it does answer to American citizens, as you, Representative Reed, need to answer to your constituents like me. How can we expect to trust big business to do the same thing? Who represents us on the Amazon or UPS or Fedex or Emory boards? Sleeping Ronnie in the the Cabinet was stupid in saying, “government is the problem.” It may be difficult for constituents NOW to speak out, but it’s better than the prospect of losing that means of doing so, as it is in Putin’s Russia which Republicans wish to impose such fascism upon us all. Thus with Sleeping Ronnie i the Cabinet and his deregulation and privatization since that time, we the people are losing out.

With this being said, the current Postal Regulatory Commission has regular “reporting requirements” for matters such as setting rates and other issues pertinent to the American public.

Again. I urge you to pass the USPS postal reform bill and stop the crap from Trump fascists in the Republican (to which I once belonged to the Republican Party) leadership who work to destroy, not reform. Thus, we can assure the long-term survival of the U.S. Postal Service.

At the same time, since only 25% of U.S. Postal Service employees join the benefits package paid by taxpayers, perhaps you should REFORM, not DESTROY Medicare, really lousy system implemented by Bush and the Republicans and one of the reasons I left the party. This system is set up with tiers, donut holes and “pre-existing” conditions in privatized Medicare supplement plans.

What I am discussing is health conditions covered AND PAID FOR WITH PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE, while employed, but going into retirement, we suddenly have to pay through the nose with six-months of premiums and risk not getting such conditions covered during the six-month period.

Put in place a single-payer user-financed universal healthcare plan with teeth to protect that money for healthcare of the individual based on a LONG-TERM investment and DIVIDENDS gained by such a capitalist notion.

Please don’t just reform Medicare by giving handouts to those of us who are senior citizens. Such handouts are typically figured on income and revenue stream, not the profit margin in a single family budget. Imagine giving out corporate welfare based on income and revenue stream, not profits. What is good for big business is good for we the people, is it not? After all, Citizens United identifies that corporate entities are like a human entity, does it not?

This is addressing the stupidity of Mr. AWOL George Bush who proclaimed that “what is good for business is good for America.” This statement also turned me off to the Republican Party so I sought something else in this democracy. What I say about big business and Mr. AWOL Bush defending it, speaks to big tobacco which Democratic Party Governor Lawton Chiles (Florida) and former U.S. Senator, worked to bring down due to the deaths to many people and society having to pay for such healthcare. But this statement also supports American drug lords and the lousy lawyers who defend them who don’t want to legalize what are called “illicit” drugs because they know it would not be “good for their business.” So, therefore, they have money to persuade lousy Baptists and other puritanical evangelicals to continue prohibition of those drugs which are now illicit, rather than the lower-cost alternative for society of working for rehab. Examples of the crap of Mr. AWOL Bush in his statement about business.

Side Note: Single-payer universal healthcare
On the topic of single-payer healthcare for all Americans, are you aware of the comparison of costs to the Canadian system, or do you cling to the lousy stupid attitudes of a fascist Republican leadership which bows down in reverence to the puritanical crap of America, and think it’s all about socialism. I just explained how there are matters involved in this question which are about capitalist long-term investments with dividends. Instead, the fascist Republican leadership also bows down to the likes of big insurance which does not want to maintain long-term benefits with dividends because it eats at the pockets of the big CEOs at the top, not the profit margins.

Read about 19th-Century Massachusetts Insurance Commissioner who found that money paid in premiums for whole-life life policies was being fragrantly spent by the CEOs of big insurance. Then at death, families of people holding such policies were told there was no money. Read all about it, in a book written by historian and professor, Dr. Daniel J. Boorstin. Dr. Boorstin was appointed to and served as Librarian of Congress. It was one of the better things that Sleepy Ronnie in the Cabinet did back in the 1980s, back at the time I was a registered Republican.

Category:

Commentary, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce, Healthcare, wellness, medicine

Tagged with:

Oakdale Commons, Johnson City, NY

RE: Oakdale Mall / Commons (23 Feb. 2022). We lived in Palm Beach County. The Palm Beach Mall was failing. New Owners put in an outlet mall. The old mall was torn down, to build the new one. Don’t know the reasons why. But the new outlet mall is fantastic. Just something I offer.

The ideas for the Oakdale Commons sound great. Someone suggested a coffee shop. We love Starbucks. But a local bistro coffee / bistro with art exhibits would also be wonderful.

As a person who has to limit his diet, due to diabetes, one establishment we really enjoyed in South Florida was Golden Corral buffet. You can pay a lower price and pick and choose the foods you want, rather than choosing from an established, pre-determined menu with combinations of foods.

Unlike Chick-Fil-A, the CEO at Starbucks is gay friendly and does not condemn same-sex marriage. Not so with Chick-Fil-A. We would never go into Chick-Fil-A. Shame on people who would go just to snub their nose at those of us who stand up for human rights and believe we don’t go “because we don’t like the food.” We never said we did not like the food. The question is about the treatment of human beings. Make the commons for the community, not just to satisfy those who want to push the LGBTQ+ back into a closet and keep us segregated.

One more thing. The idea of including health and wellness services in the commons is also wonderful. Another option similar to this is considering spaces where community college students training to be dental hygienists, dental assistants, cosmetologists, masseuses, and other vocations, could work with patients, under the supervision of instructors. They would clean teeth or do other functions in which they are being trained to do. This idea is taken from the old Sunshine Mall in Fort Pierce, FL, where Indian River State College had similar health offices just for the purposes I describe.

Best wishes to the new ownership of the Oakdale Commons!

Category:

Commentary, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce

Tagged with:

Electoral College & the 1912 Election

Electoral College and third-party presidential candidates. Dateline 1912. Candidates for president. Democrat Woodrow Wilson, a native southerner living in New Jersey; employed at Princeton U. . Howard Taft, Republican from Ohio. Teddy Roosevelt of New York, running as a third-party candidate on the Progressive Bull Moose Party.

Teddy Roosevelt had split the Republican Party in half and walked out and formed the Progressive Bull Moose Party. He had been president a few years earlier, but had declined to run again. He was unhappy with the way Taft was as president and unhappy with the Republican Party leadership of Taft.

Two things which held back Roosevelt and his third-party effort to win. (1) An attempt on TR’s life by an anarchist which today is nothing but a libertarian. In other words, libertarian / anarchists only believe in individual rights and don’t care about the lives of others. (2) The Electoral College.

TR was giving a speech when someone tried to gun him down. He felt it but continue his speech. He was a tough guy. They took him off to tend to his injury only to find he had an eye lens case in his chest pocket and it helped block the bullet. He was hospitalized for some time, but his hospitalization caused him to stop his whistle-stop train campaigning across the nation. This was problem for him as he attempted to win the election.

The second thing which stopped TR’s campaign to win the presidency was the existence of the Electoral College. For had there been no Electoral College and there had been, on the day the Electoral College would have met, a runoff election between the top two winners, Wilson and Roosevelt, would have happened instead. There are historical analysts who believe, had this happened, Roosevelt, the third-party candidate would have won in 1912. Mere speculation, but very possible it could have happened.

Susan Collins is a Republican more like TR than Howard Taft. Yet, all she want to do is not think about this situation and merely put a Band-Aid on a wound which is caused by the Electoral College and hope that it will solve the problem Reform, in the eyes of Susan Collins. It won’t solve the problem because it IS the problem and needs to be abolished.

I can say something like calling this woman a bitch. Or I can use the comedic words of Dan Akroyd of SNL when he would often be doing the “news” on SNL and turn to Jane Curtin and say, “Jane, you ignorant slut.” Perhaps these words would be more appropriate for this particular situation?

Category:

Commentary, democracy

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Sleepy Ronnie in the Cabinet, Supply-side Economics, & Privatized Medicare

Sleepy Ronnie in the Cabinet gave us supply side economics It was for the benefit of increasing salaries of fat pigs in the board rooms by over 1000%, busting unions and paying as little as possible to the people doing the work in this nation.

It was the idiot, Shrub, with words to validate supply-side economics, who said, at the turn of the Millennium, “what’s good for business is good for America.” Then with his political party gave us privatized Medicare in order to prop up supply side economics even further.

This was done while the Shrub and all those in Congress and in the government could get a lifetime benefit for healthcare which the rest of us “little people” don’t get, at least as good as those with “divine rights.” Remember, we are just “little people” and only numbers, not worth one damn except as chopped liver.

With this, then, we have this wonderful supply-side economics in the form of privatized Medicare.

When the glucose meter is working fine and is not broken, we face the “preferred” choice of supply-side privatized Medicare. The meter was not broken, so it did not need fixing. We, in America, often said, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” With supply-side economics, that is apparently no longer true. More like, if the big fat pig at the top can line his/her pockets by being paid off by manufacturers of meters (and other medical equipment), such as this one, we waste the money, whether the old one works or not. All for the sake of us “little people” in the senior citizens group.

No wonder we in America pay more for healthcare than those in Canada with their “socialized” system. We pay nearly twice as much asws our neighbors to the north. We pay and the big fat pigs line their pockets.

On top of it all, we in America have a lower longevity rate than our neighbors to the north with their “socialized” medicine. All for the big fat pigs with hedge funds and sitting at the heads of many corporations, on their damn fat asses like lazy bums in board rooms. While WE THE PEOPLE are treated like shit with this wasted money.

Let us give thanks to the demagogues with divine rights, such as charismatic Sleepy Ronnie in the Cabinet from long ago.

And we live happily ever after.

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Commentary, democracy, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce, Healthcare, wellness, medicine

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Stupidity of Republicans and Bleeding Heart Liberals

Dear Editors:

Feb. 20, 2022, The New York Times.

Susan Collins wants to reform the Electoral College? Why? Is she afraid if she runs for the presidency, only a popular vote being in place will means she would lose? Democrat Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election with the popular vote, but Republican Trump won the Electoral College vote. Susan Collins lives in fear that she would lose due to the demise and destruction of the Electoral College? And in her “bipartisan way” she is going to convince Democrats who have no confidence in themselves that they might live in fear at the loss of the Electoral College? it is like putting a Band-Aid on a deep wound which might need to be stitched back together and expecting the wound to heal, as the person with the wound bleeds to death.

Another reader in the newspaper, when reacting to David Brooks and his lainbrained ideas that we should have hope that evangelicals would come to their senses, said, Brooks is simply putting wallpaper over a problem. Having hung wallpaper myself, I found that if there was a lump of wallpaper paste, it simply got covered over, but it still existed. Just as with a wound which needs something more than a Band-Aid.

Americans are poor at remembering history in order to learn and move forward. There is no sense for what the Danish Kierkegaard said:

​In the 1850s, when the Republican Party was formed, we can learn from history regarding the Republicans, civil war, and the Dred Scott Decision. The Republican Party was formed from members of the Whig Party which was dying at that time. Many Whigs became disgusted with the work by George W. Bush’s maternal line ancestor who was president at the time, a Democrat, who nixed the compromise arranged regarding slavery. ​The bleeding heart Yankee liberals in the Supreme Court felt they needed to appease the South (i.e., Dixie white supremacists and forerunners to the KKK and Jim Crow ideas) by issuing a scathing attack of a black man in that SCOTUS decision. Politics and appeasing white people prevailed, not justice for human beings, as the SCOTUS is SUPPOSED to do.

Being in these situations today and considering Republican Senator Susan Collins with SCOTUS today, there is too much being done to “appease” the other side. That would include the words of David Brooks, too. Appeasing the South did not nothing to divert a civil war after Abraham Lincoln was elected. When will America learn before it implodes from within?  After all, we want to feel better about “turning the other cheek” to those who are lousy ones and insist on their dictatorial anti-human race ways. Considering friends like that who want to destroy democracy in America, who needs enemies?

With friends who are being “overly nice” to the other side so as to show empathy to hateful bigoted people, it is as if hatred and bigotry need to be recognized as protected by a U.S. Constitution. Such hateful people and bigots are confusing the population with ideas which have survived from  Reagan, a hateful Democrat turned Republican, that “government is the problem.” Translated. To the hateful and bigoted ones, government is only a problem when it regulates how Americans should treat one another and not have hatred and bigotry. Reaganomics with deregulation actually got extended to the notions of hatred and bigotry. How do I know? I was a member of the Republican Party at the time. I feel just like the former Whig Party members who decimated the party and began a new one. David Brooks, too, has no brains and knowledge of history on this one.

But Senator Collins? Reform the Electoral College? Senator Elizabeth Warren says (in my words), DESTROY the Electoral College. It has outlived its purposes when it was created during the time of only 13 colonies and it took quite some time to get the election results from New England to Georgia.  It is no longer needed and could be replaced by a hybrid system based on the parliamentary system in Britain (and Canada and other nations in the British Commonwealth which has a very brilliant constitutional monarchy with the royal family doing the ceremonial stuff that our president does with all the other duties of the president).  Get rid of the Electoral College, specify that, should no candidate win more than 50% of the popular vote, then the top two winners do a runoff election on the day when the Electoral College would normally meet.

Democracy takes participation and time, so I don’t accept the crap about trying to get voters registered and to get them out to vote. Don’t give me bullshit about the complexity of the situation, but solve the problem.

Let me just say that we can make excuses and any excuse will do.  Getting people involved in the democracy by voting and also working for issues and ideas for solutions is what takes to run a democracy. It takes a strong Middle Class, destroyed by big fat pigs who have seen an increase in salaries, since Reagan, of over 1000% while workers have seen a rather flattened increase over the same period and work too hard to have time for voting and elections. The Middle Class has been destroyed in this period of time, along with unions and worker rights.

Suggestion. Abolish the Electoral College. On presidential election days, close all bars and grills and make those a holiday. Consider that anyone objecting to this due to their false ideas that their “individual rights” have been violated are nothing but traitors to this nation. Sorry to be so tough and play so much hardball with this question. But it is true. 

Why do I suggest the above solution? Because in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, it just happens to mention “WE THE PEOPLE.”  It does not say, “Me, myself, and I, dictator Trump or DeSantis or Scott…” It does not specify any other INDIVIDUAL only.  It does not identify a god (demagogue) with divine rights which is made in the image of hateful and bigoted men and women (like David Brooks with his heart out to evangelicals). 

When will people like Brooks and Collins wake up and learn from history, before it is too late? When will bleeding heart Democrats learn from history?

Sometimes a Band-Aid is necessary for a wound. But the question about the Electoral College is a deep wound causing too much divisive rigor in this nation. It is so deep that we really need to work to eliminate it and not expect perfection with a blind eye towards hate and bigotry with no chance of SCOTUS justice being accomplished so as to maintain the balance with scales of justice. In this case, the scales of justice need to be heavily weighted on the side of humanitarian ideas of coexistence and not political ideology or preference of political party. In the 1850s, a political party was destroyed and it was not the Democrats which have evolved, over time, into a more humanitarian party. I saw many such white racist bigots in Dixie leave and join the Republicans, of which I was a member. I found them to be disgusting people who tried (and are still working hard at trying to balance to their dictatorial hateful side)  to balance the scales of justice towards their side of hatred. 

Is my writing too long? Too bad. It is important to say what needs to be said here and do so in detail. I apologize for the detail because I might just detain those who are two thumbs just reading fake news on mobile phones or the fake news on Fox / Fake News. Is there a vulgar word in the text, without a “bleep” to cover it over? Really? I am surprised.  Well. At least it was not the “f” word.

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Commentary, democracy, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce, human-rights, Political Commentary

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Let’s Discuss Inflation (Part 2)

Inflation is in the news. Inflation has been in the news in the past years, so we all need to check our history. Inflation woes are being over-rated and put too much into the attention of the public so as to blame the Democrats. Wrong. Just check history.

In Florida, there were arrangements made to bolster big insurance. Floridians were to pick up the bills for hurricane coverage in homeowners’ insurance. In the process, there are estimates that, during those years, Floridians saw an INFLATIONARY increase of some 60% or so. Is this true? Seems as if those of us paying this saw it happen. So, now, we are to be complaining about a 7% (?) increase in prices?

With the insurance thing, all the companies moved at once with the same high prices, protected by those paying off our government legislators in Florida. At least with the 7% rise in inflation, with groceries, gasoline, and other products, the consumer does have a choice. You don’t want a meat priced at $10 per pound, then find a lower cost meat. WIth homeowners’ insurance, if I did not wish to pay the higher price, then find another one? NOT. The OTHER one did not exist. Furthermore, the money we put into the higher premiums went into some black hole, probably to pay the 1000% increases of CEO fat pig salaries during those years and there was a 0% return on investment. For me, myself, and I, I can say that, for my 40 plus years of investing in homeowners’ insurance, I have received zilch – nothing in return for all that money I have put in. No dividends. Nothing. Nada. Does anyone even care about the inflation with this product called homeowners’ insurance. Nah. No one cares. But we have to view and read in the media the BS about inflation right now, blaming the Democrats. I know for a fact it was primarily fat pig Republicans at the heads of those insurance corporations who were a large part of those on the receiving end of my premiums.

Then there is healthcare insurance. I worked on union negotiating teams as we tried to work to hold down the increases in healthcare insurance for our union members. Republicans on the other side of the table who were appointed by Republican Jeb Bush or Republican Rick the Prick Scott. Many of those guys were vicious and had no human cares at all, as they pushed healthcare increases upon the employees.

Now, being on Medicare and being on a lower revenue stream, I see increased costs far worse than the inflation to which the media and others lend microphones for people to complain.

Makes me wonder. How is it that these inflationary prices were missed when we had to experience them? Did they have no impact on the numbers figured for inflation? In other words, the 60% increase in homeowners’ insurance had negligible impact on inflation numbers? The increases in health insurance premiums PLUS healthcare costs had negligible impact on inflation? After all, we are reading and hearing that the numbers for inflation are the “highest in years.” Gosh. Where was I, on the planet Mars, when I experienced exponential increases in insurance premiums? Gosh. Silly me for complaining.

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Commentary, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce

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Healthcare & Longevity of Life

According to a recent newspaper article, Canadian senior citizens have a better longevity of life than American senior citizens. At the same time, healthcare costs in Canada are half of what they are in the USA> Canada has a single-payer universal healthcare system. The USA does not. The USA has Republicans, in order to get their way and destroy ideas for single-payer universal healthcare in the USA, lie through their teeth and get RINOs (and some Democrats, too) and others to believe them. After all, as Hitler’s Goebbels said, “if you tell a lie enough times, it eventually becomes the truth.” Trump and his followers work to destroy Obamacare. Bush says, “what’s good for business is good for America.”

Translated. What’s good for big insurance is good for America, even if it means some of us have experienced dumping money which SHOULD BE capitalist investments, into homeowners’ insurance at very high rates in the Florida of DeSantis and Rick the Prick Scott and many years into big health insurance, only be told that when we don’t have such coverage, we have to pay out of pocket for “pre-existing conditions.”

The end result is that we line the pockets of big fat cats in business, pay twice as much as in the Canadian system, and have a lower life expectancy than what the Canadians have. Am I being cynical or what? Silly me.

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Commentary, Healthcare, wellness, medicine

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