The Cost of Living Index tracks how prices rise as Corporations and business owners succumb, acquiesce or jump ahead of the pressures that motivate their need, or want, for more money. The Cost of Living Index is that measurement by which government keeps apace of their employees' salaried ability to maintain household, family and personal obligations.
Public Sector unions help keep the government's feet to the fire regarding fair pay. Private sector unions do the same though those unions have been systematically strangled, marginalized and neutralized by statute and judicial action since the Reagan era. Noteworthy is that the nation's average wages have stagnated and not kept pace with cost of living increases since the 1980s -- the Reagan era -- as well.
More plainly stated, corporations have raised their prices without raising their employees' salaries and wages proportionately. Productivity in the United States has increased from 200% to over 350%, dependent on the industry, since the Reagan era. So, corporations and business owners have collected the extra profit from raising their prices without paying their employees in proportion to those increases. Corporations and Businesses have reaped the benefits of improved productivity without their employees' wages and salaries reflecting those increased gains.
The overwhelming majority of contemporary wage earners, especially since the so-called Great Recession, have only one protection regarding the wages they earn: Minimum Wage statutes. The minimum wage no longer reflects the pressures and requirements of a living wage. It hasn't since the Reagan era. A living wage is one which is enough to provide for the needs of an average, two adult, two child, nuclear family. How long has *that* not been the norm?
Time was a family could buy a house, own one or two cars, take a vacation every year or so, and send the kids to collage without going into staggering debt. Even after all that, the family could still save for retirement. That hasn't been the norm since the Reagan era. Not since trickle down economics. Since rampant deregulation. Since systematic "conservative" government warfare on unions. Since Reagan's admonition that government isn't the solution, government is the problem. Since socialism became confused with Communism. Since New Gingrich labelled the term liberal a dirty word. Since corporations and rich people got so many tax cuts that the lie describing the social safety net as not affordable became a self fulfilling prophesy. That led to social programs being undermined with funding cuts as some kind of evil, and undeserved by every American citizen who isn't rich enough to not need them. As if the electorate never chose FDR for his policies or his Presidency never happened.
Had the minimum wage, alone, tracked the cost of living, it would be over $24 per hour today. Similarly, had corporate wages and salaries tracked cost of living increases as corporate charges for goods and services has, people who work in corporate offices or in many of the more highly profitable small to medium businesses, would enjoy take home pay up to three and one-half times more than what their bosses currently claim is fair and competitive.
They're lying to you. They're the same ones who say government is the problem, that liberal is a bad word, that unions are bad, and public protections and the safety net is a 'way too expensive socialist evil while giving ridiculously high and undeserved tax cuts to the minuscule upper most elite who already have more than they could possibly spend in many multiple life times. They'll continue lying to pad their pockets as long as the American public lets them get away with it.
Thursday, July 26, 2018
Thursday, June 28, 2018
Path to Citizenship Primer (Cut-and-paste)
Here is an authoritative encapsulation of immigration paths to citizenship available for immigrants, both documented and not, to the United States.
This is a cut-and-paste post from Facebook. Thank you to Eric Pavri, Director of Family Immigration Services of the Catholic Charities of Central Colorado.
Eric Pavri
This is a cut-and-paste post from Facebook. Thank you to Eric Pavri, Director of Family Immigration Services of the Catholic Charities of Central Colorado.
Eric Pavri
I'm an immigration lawyer. I know that many of my Facebook friends, who are good and intelligent people, honestly have questions like the following: Why don't all these immigrants just become legal, and do they get all kinds of public benefits?
I hope you'll read what I wrote here in the spirit in which it was intended, which is to cut through the BS (from poorly-informed but loud voices on both the left and right) and simply provide correct information so that people can decide for themselves what is right and best.
I recently wrote the comment below to a Facebook story from a local news channel, about a teacher here in Colorado Springs who has DACA.
********************************************************
To several of the commenters on this thread – first, I want to acknowledge that asking why people don’t just become citizens, or whether people without legal status can get public benefits that U.S citizens cannot, are legitimate questions. If they are asked in good faith, no one should mind you asking them.
To several of the commenters on this thread – first, I want to acknowledge that asking why people don’t just become citizens, or whether people without legal status can get public benefits that U.S citizens cannot, are legitimate questions. If they are asked in good faith, no one should mind you asking them.
Therefore, let me answer your questions. Please know that I am well-informed on these topics, as an immigration lawyer for the past 8 years, the past six of those in Colorado, and currently the Director of Family Immigration Services at Catholic Charities of Central Colorado (most of you know us best as the organization that runs the Marian House soup kitchen). You may verify those statements by entering my bar number (44591) on the Supreme Court of Colorado website (http://www.coloradosupremecourt.com/Search/AttSearch.asp) or viewing our Catholic Charities website (https://www.ccharitiescc.org/).
First, as to why young people who have DACA haven’t just become citizens:
To become a U.S. citizen (other than by birth), one must first become a Lawful Permanent Resident (“green card” holder). Only after five years as a Permanent Resident can you apply to become a citizen. Thus, the obvious next question: how does a person become a Permanent Resident? There are three primary options to do so:
1) Family-based petitions. This means that a U.S. citizen or Permanent Resident parent, spouse, adult child, or sibling files a “petition” for you. Depending on the category that you fall into, the wait will be anywhere from 1 – 22 years (yep) before you can use that petition to take the next step – applying to become a Permanent Resident (background checks, medical exam, more fees, etc.). That works for people living outside the U.S., but for those who have been here, it may not be possible if they entered the U.S. illegally, even if they were minor children when they did so.
2) Employment-based petitions. A U.S. employer can similarly sponsor you, but generally only if you are in a profession requiring an advanced degree or unique skills (doctors, software engineers, world-class athletes to coach professional sports teams, etc.). Even then, the potential employer must generally also prove that they made good-faith efforts to hire a U.S. citizen for the position, but no qualified applicants applied.
3) Diversity visa lottery. Every year, the U.S. government selects 50,000 people worldwide who enter a lottery and pass background checks to come to the U.S. as Permanent Residents. This lottery, however, is only available to people from countries that traditionally send few people to the US – so, for example, people from countries such as Mexico, the Philippines, China, Guatemala, India, El Salvador, and other countries that send larger numbers of immigrants to the U.S. do not have this option.
Extra note: The current Administration has actively sought to eliminate or dramatically limit Options #1 and #3. The new term being used in the attempted re-branding of Option #1, family-based immigration, which has been the basic principle of U.S. immigration law for over a century, is “chain migration”. If those two options are in fact eliminated or curtailed, legal immigration to the U.S. will be significantly reduced.
The KEY POINT to all of the above: If you do not qualify for one of these 3 options, then there is no “line” to get into to legally become a Permanent Resident and eventually a U.S. citizen. So, if you are not fortunate enough to have, say, a U.S. citizen spouse or a graduate degree in computer science, you very likely can never become a citizen of the United States.
Second, one commenter above asked why President Obama, when he established DACA in 2012, did not just create a path to citizenship for these young people at that time. The answer: earlier that year, Congress had for the 11th year in a row failed to pass the Dream Act, which would have done exactly that. The President acting through his authority as head of the Executive Branch cannot create a path to Lawful Permanent Residency (and eventual US citizenship). Only a law, passed by Congress and then signed by the President, can accomplish that. So President Obama on June 15, 2012 created the more limited DACA program through Executive Action – which is why President Trump, as the new President, was able to end the program, also without an act of Congress, last fall.
Finally, as to the question of immigrants receiving public benefits, only a U.S. citizen or a Lawful Permanent Resident (green card holder) can receive almost all types of public benefit – including Medicaid, Medicare, SSI disability, Social Security payments for seniors, TANF, and food stamps. The irony: most undocumented immigrants work under made-up Social Security numbers and so receive a paycheck from which Social Security, federal income taxes, and state income taxes are withheld, and of course they pay the same local sales and property taxes as anyone else through retail purchases, pass-through costs of apartment leases, etc. Same of course goes for the 800,000 current DACA recipients, who are authorized to legally work in the U.S. But none of those employees, despite paying IN to the system, will ever receive those public benefits listed above, that are paid for by the money withheld from their paychecks. So they are propping up our federal and state government entitlement programs because they pay in but won’t ever take out.
The following are the public benefits that undocumented immigrants can receive in United States:
1) Public education for children in grades K-12. This was definitively established by a 1982 Supreme Court case, Plyler v. Doe. The Supreme Court in its reasoning explicitly stated that it would not serve the overall public good of the U.S. to leave many thousands of children uneducated.
2) Emergency room services, but only to the point where the patient is considered “medically stable”, at which point he/she is released. These services are not free, however, as in my job I meet hundreds of immigrant families who sacrifice over years to slowly pay off high emergency room medical bills.
3) WIC assistance. This is for milk, food, etc, and available only to pregnant mothers. The rationale is that the children in the womb will be U.S. citizens when born, and therefore it is in the long-term economic best interests of the nation to ensure that they receive adequate prenatal nutrition to improve their chances of being productive citizens in the decades to come.
4) Assistance from police if they are the victim of a crime and call for help. To their credit, the vast majority of our Colorado Springs law enforcement officers take their duty to protect all people seriously. Chief Carey of the CSPD and Sheriff Elder of the EPCSO have made clear that their officers can’t do their most important job – keeping us safe by getting dangerous criminals off our streets – if a whole class of people (undocumented immigrants) is afraid to call 911 to report crimes that they witness or are victim to.
5) Assistance from a fire department. Rationale, besides the obvious moral one: If your house was next to that of an undocumented immigrant family, would you want the firefighters to let that house continue to burn, putting yours at risk of catching on fire too?
And that’s it. Those, to the best of my knowledge, are the only public benefits that an undocumented immigrant can receive in just about any part of the United States. As someone who directs a small office that works with hundreds of low-income immigrant families per year, know that when I see the precarious economic situation of many of these families, I'd help them access other benefits if they could. But they simply can't. Now, children of undocumented parents, born in the U.S., are U.S. citizens under the 14th Amendment (the one that declares that all human beings born on U.S. soil are citizens – this was passed immediately after the Civil War to forever end the legal argument that African Americans were not U.S. citizens). As such, those children can qualify for the same public benefits as any other U.S. citizen, if they qualify through economic need or disability. But their parents or undocumented siblings cannot.
I hope that this information has been useful to those willing to read through this long (for Facebook anyway) explanation. Please know that even this long summary leaves out a ton of detail -- there are tens of thousands of pages of statutes, regulations, internal federal agency procedures, and court decisions guiding how all of this is interpreted and implemented. But please take my word that I honestly believe that no detail I omitted for conciseness changes the basic points above. And I'd be happy to answer questions if you have them. Like I said, I don’t mind honest questions, and I believe that legitimate questions asked in good faith deserve well-informed, accurate answers. If all of us in the U.S. would be willing to actually listen to each others’ sincere concerns and do our best to answer each others’ questions, instead of just yelling at each other or retreating to our corners of the internet (left OR right) where everyone already agrees with us – well, I think we’d move our nation forward a lot more effectively.
Tuesday, June 26, 2018
The Real America, The Real Liberal/Progressive Agenda
The American electorate, under objective examination, describes The US as essentially a liberal country. It would benefit the Democratic Party establishment to embrace and aggregate Democratic Socialist voters, and sympathetic Democrats or Independents as awakened by Bernie Sanders, and revel in the country's true character, values, as well as the trends in overall electorate sentiment they represent.
This is the Democratic Agenda. These are definitive, progressive issues and the measure by which the greater proportion of the country supports them:
Same Sex Marriage 61%
(Some state candidates would legislate this back to exclusion)
Undocumented Immigrant Support 59%
support and acknowledgement that undocumented workers are an essential workforce so many industries depend on, and that Dreamers are productive members of society. Dreamers are fully American in every sense except a certificate that officially agrees.
Non-criminal undocumented immigrant path to stay 74%
Why would those who pose no threat yet are productive, often essential members of society be persecuted? Racist elitists kindly Butt TF Out and Shut TF Up.
Build the wall 34% total support.
Why is nonsense still being talked about?
Legalize Marijuana 58%
The War on Drugs was and remains a racist, Republican cudgel to control their opposition. MJ poses less public health concern than alcohol or tobacco and has major medical and therapeutic applications denied millions with medical complaints. MJ significantly reduces the addiction and overdose affects of the opioid crisis. Portugal reversed this nonsense almost a score years ago, saves many millions annually on arrests, prosecution, incarceration, productivity loss due to addiction, applying the savings to treatment, prevention, general healthcare, infrastructure and education. Left Coast and other states with medical and recreational MJ available collect many millions annually in tax revenue. And, it's cutting significantly into foreign drug cartels' grip on American markets.
Obamacare is good or doesn't go far enough 58%
Why don't the Republican talking points used to vilify the ACA identify the portion of voters who oppose the law because it doesn't go far enough, isn't liberal enough, or isn't single payer they claim support their antipathy for this signature legislation championed by that black guy?
Single Payer Healthcare 58%
It's only a matter of time. Embrace it. Revel in its goodness. Run on it.
Equal Pay 84%
Because it's (always and forever been) The Right Thing to do
Free (Tax supported) child care and pre-school 59%
Our investment in the future. Just like the rest of the developed world already does.
Support $12 minimum wage 66%
Support $15 minimum wage 52%
Had the minimum wage tracked productivity and the cost of living since 1980, it would now be $24/hr (or more). Instead, corporate owners, Republican think tanks and the likes of the BBB feign hardship whenever they are called out on their long held free ride and need to get responsible for a change.
Address Climate Change 64%
It's 'way long past time to get real, for crissakes.
Reduce Defence Spending 64% overall; 80% Democrats
The US spends more on defense than the next eighteen country *combined*. There are multiple failed and/or archaic defense development programs that are authorized over and again solely as employment sources for House members' constituents. That money would better be used to create actually productive jobs like retraining the traditionally coal mining population to work in much healthier alternative energy jobs like solar panel, windmill farm or even the infrastructure supply manufacture pipeline.
Abortion always legal or in most cases 56%
It's a guaranteed, Constitutionally protected right. If it's not your uterus, not your personal abortion, it's none of your business. Your invisible, magical, celestial superhero doesn't have any more say than anybody else who isn't involved in that, individual event. Theocratic option and anti-women's rights crusaders kindly Butt TF Out and Shut TF Up.
Fund Planned Parenthood 58%
Same as above.
Universal Background checks 85%
Mental Illness history restricting gun possession 79%
Federal background check Database 70%
Common Sense ain't anywhere near what it's cracked up to be. Good sense is a much better option. It's 'way long past time to get real. The Russian finance accepting, foreign funds laundering, American Terrorist Organization, armament manufacturers lobby and mouthpiece, the National Rifle Association, doesn't represent even a plurality, much less an actual majority, of Americans. I don't have data on again outlawing assault rifles, which nobody but combat zone military personnel have any business having And that includes domestic municipal and state police.
There are a few issues for which I do not have stats. These are central to the survival of the Middle Class.
These, and other heretofore uncounted issues, are what America is all about. Stand up, declare these values loudly and clearly. With these issues, city, county, state and Federal counsels, boards, agencies, legislatures and administrators can take this country back from the sociopathological Right Wing.
This is the Democratic Agenda. These are definitive, progressive issues and the measure by which the greater proportion of the country supports them:
Same Sex Marriage 61%
(Some state candidates would legislate this back to exclusion)
Undocumented Immigrant Support 59%
support and acknowledgement that undocumented workers are an essential workforce so many industries depend on, and that Dreamers are productive members of society. Dreamers are fully American in every sense except a certificate that officially agrees.
Non-criminal undocumented immigrant path to stay 74%
Why would those who pose no threat yet are productive, often essential members of society be persecuted? Racist elitists kindly Butt TF Out and Shut TF Up.
Build the wall 34% total support.
Why is nonsense still being talked about?
Legalize Marijuana 58%
The War on Drugs was and remains a racist, Republican cudgel to control their opposition. MJ poses less public health concern than alcohol or tobacco and has major medical and therapeutic applications denied millions with medical complaints. MJ significantly reduces the addiction and overdose affects of the opioid crisis. Portugal reversed this nonsense almost a score years ago, saves many millions annually on arrests, prosecution, incarceration, productivity loss due to addiction, applying the savings to treatment, prevention, general healthcare, infrastructure and education. Left Coast and other states with medical and recreational MJ available collect many millions annually in tax revenue. And, it's cutting significantly into foreign drug cartels' grip on American markets.
Obamacare is good or doesn't go far enough 58%
Why don't the Republican talking points used to vilify the ACA identify the portion of voters who oppose the law because it doesn't go far enough, isn't liberal enough, or isn't single payer they claim support their antipathy for this signature legislation championed by that black guy?
Single Payer Healthcare 58%
It's only a matter of time. Embrace it. Revel in its goodness. Run on it.
Equal Pay 84%
Because it's (always and forever been) The Right Thing to do
Free (Tax supported) child care and pre-school 59%
Our investment in the future. Just like the rest of the developed world already does.
Support $12 minimum wage 66%
Support $15 minimum wage 52%
Had the minimum wage tracked productivity and the cost of living since 1980, it would now be $24/hr (or more). Instead, corporate owners, Republican think tanks and the likes of the BBB feign hardship whenever they are called out on their long held free ride and need to get responsible for a change.
Address Climate Change 64%
It's 'way long past time to get real, for crissakes.
Reduce Defence Spending 64% overall; 80% Democrats
The US spends more on defense than the next eighteen country *combined*. There are multiple failed and/or archaic defense development programs that are authorized over and again solely as employment sources for House members' constituents. That money would better be used to create actually productive jobs like retraining the traditionally coal mining population to work in much healthier alternative energy jobs like solar panel, windmill farm or even the infrastructure supply manufacture pipeline.
Abortion always legal or in most cases 56%
It's a guaranteed, Constitutionally protected right. If it's not your uterus, not your personal abortion, it's none of your business. Your invisible, magical, celestial superhero doesn't have any more say than anybody else who isn't involved in that, individual event. Theocratic option and anti-women's rights crusaders kindly Butt TF Out and Shut TF Up.
Fund Planned Parenthood 58%
Same as above.
Universal Background checks 85%
Mental Illness history restricting gun possession 79%
Federal background check Database 70%
Common Sense ain't anywhere near what it's cracked up to be. Good sense is a much better option. It's 'way long past time to get real. The Russian finance accepting, foreign funds laundering, American Terrorist Organization, armament manufacturers lobby and mouthpiece, the National Rifle Association, doesn't represent even a plurality, much less an actual majority, of Americans. I don't have data on again outlawing assault rifles, which nobody but combat zone military personnel have any business having And that includes domestic municipal and state police.
There are a few issues for which I do not have stats. These are central to the survival of the Middle Class.
- Repeal restrictions on Medicare price negotiations with Big Pharma
Medicare and the individual states' auxillary medical plans have HUGE negotiating power that is arbitrarily prohibited by laws passed at the behest and benefit of pharmaceutical manufacturers. Enough of their free ride on the backs of the sick and vulnerable. - Outlaw employer mandated labor dispute arbitration.
Restore employee class action suits.
Make arbitration an employee opt-in issue at the time labor action is brought, prohibiting arbitration as an term of employment.
What oligarchy coddling bullshit. For the last fifty years, employers, the so-called job makers, have usurped the productivity gains and the massive profits generated by labor. leaving behind a legacy of stagnant wages and less-than subsistence remuneration. Repeated and ever increasing tax breaks and subsidies have robbed the middle class of its very existence. Reverse the tide. Make American Labor great again.
These, and other heretofore uncounted issues, are what America is all about. Stand up, declare these values loudly and clearly. With these issues, city, county, state and Federal counsels, boards, agencies, legislatures and administrators can take this country back from the sociopathological Right Wing.
Sunday, June 24, 2018
There are a lot of badly informed people posting apologies for the recent zero tolerance policy that has separated over two-thousand children from their parent(s) at the border, whether they were seeking asylum or otherwise. It's merely been yet another exercise of falsely villainizing innocent people for political points.
Separating children from their parents, even those entering lawfully and immediately applying for asylum, is reprehensibly cruel. The trauma visited on these children presauges a life filled with anxiety issues, distrust of ALL authority, substance abuse, coronary disease, high blood pressure, learning difficulties and a further list of life-long disease and dysfunction.
There is no such thing as a just law that separates children from their parents without just cause, even were the infractions at issue felonies. Crossing the border into this country without a visa or identification papers, assuming there are such documents available from the fleeing immigrants' home country, is a misdemeanor. That's a traffic ticket level infraction. Reentering the country without proper documentation after having been previously deported, is where immigration felonies begin.
There's nothing just about stripng any families of their children on a technical, misdemeanor infraction. Stripping statutorily defined asylum seekers of their children under the excuse of smuggling children is an outrage, and just one more lie perpetrated by the Trump administration in their quest of eliminating any kind of empathy or good will extended by this country's government not only to the world at large but to the non-white, non-rich citizens of this country and any of the non-white, non-rich sympathies that exist.
Apologizing for anything this President does that is any kind of a dick move, which is everything the Buffoon-in-chief does, is any among innocently ignorant, willfully ignorant, racist, misogyny, ageist, xenophobic, and ultimately, anti-social to the point of pathology. Shame on anyone who follows right wing propaganda as if it were reflections of reality. Shame on asny who not falsifying the things heard over whichever medium, no matter how good those things make you feel. Shame on everyone who apologizes for this man's obvious antipathy for anything and everybody who isn't he, himself.
Plus, it was Stephen Miller, senior advisor to the President, who previously stated on camera that the President's orders shall only be obeyed, who was the driving force behind this zero tolerance policy which had never been proposed as policy by any previous president. EVER. This particular little episode would never have happened were sociopaths like Wormtongue, I mean, Miller, not at the President's ear.
Keep in mind, as well, that these laws are written by humans with agendas and benefactors other than their constituents to satisfy. None of these immigration laws are any more than arbitrary. Those laws which limit and scapegoat honest workers -- who are crucial and critical for our economy, who pay taxes without any chance of the benefits we citizens derive from paying those membership dues to our society -- are disingenous and are never or in any way, providential. Immigration laws are subject to political whim at the expense of the very people we need for cheap food, safe and clean social venues, and many, many places in which they remain invisible. They have no voice. They are the easy targets of villains and cowards.
Anti-immigration policy is unamerican, antidemocratic, antidemocracy, and contrary to the most basic fabric of which this country stands and thrives.
Tuesday, June 5, 2018
Anatomy of (The) Witch Hunt
"President Trump, ramping up his assertions of extraordinary powers, declared in a tweet that he had "the absolute right" to pardon himself for any crime. The claim was the latest in an aggressive series of moves, as Mr Trump and his legal advisoers, have argued that his authority places him above the reach of obstruction statutes."
-New York Times
-New York Times
Whom among Trump voters expected their votes meant elevating their guy above the law? Where are all the Right Wingers apoplectic about their claims Obama was setting himself up to be king?
Where are all the righteous Republicans demanding return to decency after sex in the Oval Office and a history of rampant womanizing before assuming office? Where are the birthers grasping at straws to legitimize not having a real reason to hate that guy, when their guy, right now, is surrounded by conspirators to defraud the government and conspirators of outright treason? Their guy's spokesman is talking in terms of "relative truth" and evolving reality endangering his exposure to examination? And, then, they claim liberals and "independents" apply double standards simply for pointing out the demonstrable and blatantly obvious?
It's blatantly obvious the President of the United States has in the past laundered vast amounts of money through his real estate holdings and has accepted huge amounts of cash to enable further real estate development through Russian Oligarchs' billions. This president is subject to coercion and blackmail over his illegal activities on an international scale. It's obvious this president has offered influence for a fee paid to his previous agent who is currently under investigation with an array of imminent indictments right around the corner.
*Money laundering
*Graft,bribery, pay-to-play influence peddling, through Essential Consutltants, LLC and the Presidential Inauguration Fund
*Emoluments through his Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC and Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
*Obstruction of justice per firing Comey, intimidating Rosenstein, pressuring, intimidating, firing McCabe,
*Abuse of power with pardons of Arpaio, Libby, D'Souza and its implied invulnerability over the law.
*Graft,bribery, pay-to-play influence peddling, through Essential Consutltants, LLC and the Presidential Inauguration Fund
*Emoluments through his Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC and Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
*Obstruction of justice per firing Comey, intimidating Rosenstein, pressuring, intimidating, firing McCabe,
*Abuse of power with pardons of Arpaio, Libby, D'Souza and its implied invulnerability over the law.
And that's just in the past sixteen months. Trump has never been held fully accountable for his fraud, deceptions and discrimination over his entire life.
Seventy-five charges among twenty-two individuals, five guilty pleas and one sentence to date. That's a lot of witches and nobody but Mueller knows how many more are to come. The noose is tightening, and how the President declares himself above the law.
What a sick, twisted, foolish, silly little man.
Saturday, June 2, 2018
Reality Check
(1) The truth is that which reflects reality. Reality is that which exists, can be measured and tested to reveal the quantity and quality of its characteristics. Reality is absolute. Any description that deviates from absolute reality ceases being true. Period. No wiggle room.
(2) A significant tell of racist dysfunction is the pathological person's disability to discern the nature of racism and the difference between racist offense and simple rudeness, simple insults or even honest descriptions of reality.
(2) A significant tell of racist dysfunction is the pathological person's disability to discern the nature of racism and the difference between racist offense and simple rudeness, simple insults or even honest descriptions of reality.
Calling someone out for racist behavior is not equal to being racist. Similarly false is mischaracterizing calling out a traitor's behavior as if it were equal to committing actual treason. Calling out the President for racism, and pointing out his campaign's intercourse with agents of the Russian oligarchy and Russia's kleptocracy -- not to mention his gratuitous condemnation, persecution and discrimination against hispanics, Muslims, women, Black people, Jewish people, non-white people. or any manner of lying about these marginalized, legally suspect groups, even lying to these same folks to their faces -- is not the same as the President's, his family's and his circle of supporters, advisors, Cabinet and minions' anti-social, anti-democratic, anti-Constitutional, anti-democracy goals and behaviors.
Describing despicable people as despicable people is neither being a despicable person nor behaving in a despicable manner.
Thursday, May 24, 2018
Democratic Agenda and 2018 Election Platform For All
The American electorate, under objective examination, reflects how The US is essentially a liberal country. It would benefit the Democratic Party establishment to embrace and aggregate Democratic Socialist voters, and sympathetic Democrats or Independents as awakened by Bernie Sanders, and revel in the country's true character, values, as well as the trends in overall electorate sentiment they represent.
This is the Democratic Agenda. These are definitive, progressive issues and the measure by which the greater proportion of the country supports them:
Same Sex Marriage 61%
(Some state candidates would legislate this back to exclusion)
Undocumented Immigrant Support 59%
support and acknowledgement that undocumented workers are an essential workforce so many industries depend on, and that Dreamers are productive members of society. Dreamers are fully American in every sense except a certificate that officially agrees.
Non-criminal undocumented immigrant path to stay 74%
Why would those who pose no threat yet are productive, often essential members of society be persecuted? Racist elitists kindly Butt TF Out and Shut TF Up.
Build the wall 34% total support.
Why is nonsense still being talked about?
Legalize Marijuana 58%
The War on Drugs was and remains a racist, Republican cudgel to control their opposition. MJ poses less public health concern than alcohol or tobacco and has major medical and therapeutic applications denied millions with medical complaints. MJ significantly reduces the addiction and overdose affects of the opioid crisis. Portugal reversed this nonsense almost a score years ago, saves many millions annually on arrests, prosecution, incarceration, productivity loss due to addiction, applying the savings to treatment, prevention, general healthcare, infrastructure and education. Left Coast and other states with medical and recreational MJ available collect many millions annually in tax revenue. And, it's cutting significantly into foreign drug cartels' grip on American markets.
Obamacare is good or doesn't go far enough 58%
Why don't the Republican talking points used to vilify the ACA identify the portion of voters who oppose the law because it doesn't go far enough, isn't liberal enough, or isn't single payer they claim support their antipathy for this signature legislation championed by that black guy?
Single Payer Healthcare 58%
It's only a matter of time. Embrace it. Revel in its goodness. Run on it.
Equal Pay 84%
Because it's (always and forever been) The Right Thing to do
Free (Tax supported) child care and pre-school 59%
Our investment in the future. Just like the rest of the developed world already does.
Support $12 minimum wage 66%
Support $15 minimum wage 52%
Had the minimum wage tracked productivity and the cost of living since 1980, it would now be $24/hr (or more). Instead, corporate owners, Republican think tanks and the likes of the BBB feign hardship whenever they are called out on their long held free ride and need to get responsible for a change.
Address Climate Change 64%
It's 'way long past time to get real, for crissakes.
Reduce Defence Spending 64% overall; 80% Democrats
The US spends more on defense than the next eighteen country *combined*. There are multiple failed and/or archaic defense development programs that are authorized over and again solely as employment sources for House members' constituents. That money would better be used to create actually productive jobs like retraining the traditionally coal mining population to work in much healthier alternative energy jobs like solar panel, windmill farm or even the infrastructure supply manufacture pipeline.
Abortion always legal or in most cases 56%
It's a guaranteed, Constitutionally protected right. If it's not your uterus, not your personal abortion, it's none of your business. Your invisible, magical, celestial superhero doesn't have any more say than anybody else who isn't involved in that, individual event. Theocratic option and anti-women's rights crusaders kindly Butt TF Out and Shut TF Up.
Fund Planned Parenthood 58%
Same as above.
Universal Background checks 85%
Mental Illness history restricting gun possession 79%
Federal background check Database 70%
Common Sense ain't anywhere near what it's cracked up to be. Good sense is a much better option. It's 'way long past time to get real. The Russian finance accepting, foreign funds laundering, American Terrorist Organization, armament manufacturers lobby and mouthpiece, the National Rifle Association, doesn't represent even a plurality, much less an actual majority, of Americans. I don't have data on again outlawing assault rifles, which nobody but combat zone military personnel have any business having And that includes domestic municipal and state police.
Here are a few issues for which I do not have stats. These are central to the survival of the Middle Class.
Repeal restrictions on Medicare price negotiations with Big Pharma
Medicare and the individual states' auxillary medical plans have HUGE negotiating powere that is arbitrarily prohibited by laws passed at the behest and benefit of pharmicutical manufacturers. Enough of their free ride on the backs of the sick and vulnerable.
Outlaw employer mandated labor dispute arbitration. Restore employee class action suits. Make arbitration an employee opt-in issue at the time labor action is brought, prohibiting arbitration as an term of employment.
What oligarchy coddling bullshit. For the last fifty years, employers, the so-called job makers, have usurped the productivity gains and the massive profits generated by labor. leaving behind a legacy of stagnant wages and less-than subsistance renumeration. Repeated and ever increasing tax breaks and subsidies have robbed the middle class of its very existence. Reverse the tide. Make American Labor great again.
Back in the 60s and 70s, there were PSAs from the President's Council on Fitness, The Peace Corps and, especially, Stay In School and Go To College for America's future announcements. What happened to those? Every other developed country pays for their citizens' higher educations. Some even pay students a stipend to attend college. Why are Americans saddled with life-long student loan debt that profits banks? Free college for all. Or, at least offer students government funded, interest free loans like the Fed essentially gave to too-big-to-fail banks and individual billionaires after the financial failure of 2008.
These, and other heretofore uncounted issues, are what America is all about. Stand up, declare these values loudly and clearly. With these issues, city, county, state and Federal counsels, boards, agencies, legislatures and administrators can take this country back from the Right Wing.
If only we can get all the people represented here out to vote on each election day. One's failure to vote doesn't hurt only that non-voter, but it hurts me and every person, whether citizen or not, on American soil you'll never even meet.
This is the Democratic Agenda. These are definitive, progressive issues and the measure by which the greater proportion of the country supports them:
Same Sex Marriage 61%
(Some state candidates would legislate this back to exclusion)
Undocumented Immigrant Support 59%
support and acknowledgement that undocumented workers are an essential workforce so many industries depend on, and that Dreamers are productive members of society. Dreamers are fully American in every sense except a certificate that officially agrees.
Non-criminal undocumented immigrant path to stay 74%
Why would those who pose no threat yet are productive, often essential members of society be persecuted? Racist elitists kindly Butt TF Out and Shut TF Up.
Build the wall 34% total support.
Why is nonsense still being talked about?
Legalize Marijuana 58%
The War on Drugs was and remains a racist, Republican cudgel to control their opposition. MJ poses less public health concern than alcohol or tobacco and has major medical and therapeutic applications denied millions with medical complaints. MJ significantly reduces the addiction and overdose affects of the opioid crisis. Portugal reversed this nonsense almost a score years ago, saves many millions annually on arrests, prosecution, incarceration, productivity loss due to addiction, applying the savings to treatment, prevention, general healthcare, infrastructure and education. Left Coast and other states with medical and recreational MJ available collect many millions annually in tax revenue. And, it's cutting significantly into foreign drug cartels' grip on American markets.
Obamacare is good or doesn't go far enough 58%
Why don't the Republican talking points used to vilify the ACA identify the portion of voters who oppose the law because it doesn't go far enough, isn't liberal enough, or isn't single payer they claim support their antipathy for this signature legislation championed by that black guy?
Single Payer Healthcare 58%
It's only a matter of time. Embrace it. Revel in its goodness. Run on it.
Equal Pay 84%
Because it's (always and forever been) The Right Thing to do
Free (Tax supported) child care and pre-school 59%
Our investment in the future. Just like the rest of the developed world already does.
Support $12 minimum wage 66%
Support $15 minimum wage 52%
Had the minimum wage tracked productivity and the cost of living since 1980, it would now be $24/hr (or more). Instead, corporate owners, Republican think tanks and the likes of the BBB feign hardship whenever they are called out on their long held free ride and need to get responsible for a change.
Address Climate Change 64%
It's 'way long past time to get real, for crissakes.
Reduce Defence Spending 64% overall; 80% Democrats
The US spends more on defense than the next eighteen country *combined*. There are multiple failed and/or archaic defense development programs that are authorized over and again solely as employment sources for House members' constituents. That money would better be used to create actually productive jobs like retraining the traditionally coal mining population to work in much healthier alternative energy jobs like solar panel, windmill farm or even the infrastructure supply manufacture pipeline.
Abortion always legal or in most cases 56%
It's a guaranteed, Constitutionally protected right. If it's not your uterus, not your personal abortion, it's none of your business. Your invisible, magical, celestial superhero doesn't have any more say than anybody else who isn't involved in that, individual event. Theocratic option and anti-women's rights crusaders kindly Butt TF Out and Shut TF Up.
Fund Planned Parenthood 58%
Same as above.
Universal Background checks 85%
Mental Illness history restricting gun possession 79%
Federal background check Database 70%
Common Sense ain't anywhere near what it's cracked up to be. Good sense is a much better option. It's 'way long past time to get real. The Russian finance accepting, foreign funds laundering, American Terrorist Organization, armament manufacturers lobby and mouthpiece, the National Rifle Association, doesn't represent even a plurality, much less an actual majority, of Americans. I don't have data on again outlawing assault rifles, which nobody but combat zone military personnel have any business having And that includes domestic municipal and state police.
Here are a few issues for which I do not have stats. These are central to the survival of the Middle Class.
Repeal restrictions on Medicare price negotiations with Big Pharma
Medicare and the individual states' auxillary medical plans have HUGE negotiating powere that is arbitrarily prohibited by laws passed at the behest and benefit of pharmicutical manufacturers. Enough of their free ride on the backs of the sick and vulnerable.
Outlaw employer mandated labor dispute arbitration. Restore employee class action suits. Make arbitration an employee opt-in issue at the time labor action is brought, prohibiting arbitration as an term of employment.
What oligarchy coddling bullshit. For the last fifty years, employers, the so-called job makers, have usurped the productivity gains and the massive profits generated by labor. leaving behind a legacy of stagnant wages and less-than subsistance renumeration. Repeated and ever increasing tax breaks and subsidies have robbed the middle class of its very existence. Reverse the tide. Make American Labor great again.
Back in the 60s and 70s, there were PSAs from the President's Council on Fitness, The Peace Corps and, especially, Stay In School and Go To College for America's future announcements. What happened to those? Every other developed country pays for their citizens' higher educations. Some even pay students a stipend to attend college. Why are Americans saddled with life-long student loan debt that profits banks? Free college for all. Or, at least offer students government funded, interest free loans like the Fed essentially gave to too-big-to-fail banks and individual billionaires after the financial failure of 2008.
These, and other heretofore uncounted issues, are what America is all about. Stand up, declare these values loudly and clearly. With these issues, city, county, state and Federal counsels, boards, agencies, legislatures and administrators can take this country back from the Right Wing.
If only we can get all the people represented here out to vote on each election day. One's failure to vote doesn't hurt only that non-voter, but it hurts me and every person, whether citizen or not, on American soil you'll never even meet.
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