(Info from PBS News Hour) Compared to people in most developed nations, including Canada, Americans have for years paid far more for health care while staying sicker and dying sooner!
“To Canadians, the notion that access to health care should be based on need, not ability to pay, is a defining national value.” Americans simply don’t live with that confidence. Losing a job is bad enough, but imagine that you’re going to have to lose everything you’ve got to qualify for Medicaid. Sell your house. Sell your car and basically be on the bones of your ass before you get any medical coverage! That is our way of dealing with healthcare! In 2019, health expenses drove more Americans into bankruptcy than any other reason, according to the American Journal of Public Health. That same year, health care consumed 17 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product, a greater share than in any other developed country, including Canada!
So here is my take. We need universal healthcare, but we need to design it better than Canada who has long wait periods for elective or none emergency operations. They (Canada) do not cover dental, for example, or drugs that have not been prescribed by a hospital. They are way cheaper even when you do have to pay, however. But Switzerland, for example, has a system where you pay, but if you cannot afford to pay the govt pays your premiums. No one goes uncovered. So what we have in the U.S. sucks, it is more expensive, it will bankrupt you before it will even give you minimal coverage, and you die younger, and are sick more than any other industrialized nation.
So I do not know exactly where Biden is going to be, but it has to be better than Trump’s plan which is to get rid of what we do have with no plan to replace it, at all! And he also wants to permanently get rid of payroll taxes for medicare and social security which will bankrupt SS in three years with no ability to pay us any dollars at all. So consider this when you vote, a vote for Trump means you die sooner, stay sick longer, and if you are like me and depend on my Social Security, I will starve, lose my home, my car, and be on the street in Trump‘s America! And so will you, please look at Trump’s policies, at what he does versus what he says while campaigning! They are never the same, and you and I both suffer, no matter whether we are left or right-leaning!Thank you!
The more you see Trump speaking in public, the more noticeable his mental decline. Even weeks ago, in a short statement, he thought he was running against former President Obama. Recently, he confused Nikki Haley, who is competing with him for the GOP nomination, with Nancy Pelosi! He has confused countries and the leaders of those countries, not once but several times. He has spoken in gibberish lately, and his speech bites are incomprehensible and unintelligible! His command of language has always been lacking, but now it is just scary!
He is, of course, still on about how the last election for president was stolen from him. No evidence has been found that it happened! Even his party officials and attorney general told him no interference or skullduggery had happened! He is claiming banks are all crooked now because the big banks will not loan him money, as his financial records are not accurate, and he is not able to back his loans with the financial data required. This is a man who has a party, the Republicans, in his thrall. In the first 234 years of our country, no former President had ever been indicted. In the last few months, Trump has been charged in four criminal cases. Four felony accounts for his role in attempting to overturn the 2020 election. Several recounts were done in states that favored Trump, but even more votes were uncovered for Biden, not Trump. He faces thirteen felony accounts for interfering in the election occurring in Georgia. In New York, he faces 24 felony accounts for trying to hide payments to a porn star to cover up an affair. In Florida, he faces forty felony counts for hoarding classified documents.
This does not take into account at least 18 women who accuse Trump of sexual misconduct and assault. The man, in his own words, has bragged about assaulting women!
The man is a racist. There are instances where he ordered all black employees to be removed from his own casino floor so he and his wife would not have to look at them! He has been sued, not once, but twice by the federal govt, for his actions in his real estate business against selling or renting to people of color.
All of this is well documented; you can find any of this for yourself. So why would anyone want this man to represent America or anyone with any moral fiber whatsoever? This man should be shunned by anyone who represents justice, morality, or fair play! This should be extended to a party willing to look away while these things are done because he can help them gain the power they crave! Power gained in this manner should tell you how corrupt the governing force they represent is going to be!
The more you see Trump speaking in public, the more noticeable his mental decline. Even weeks ago, in a short statement, he thought he was running against former President Obama. Just this weekend, he confused Nikki Haley, who is competing with him for the GOP nomination, with Nancy Pelosi! He has confused countries and the leaders of those countries, recently.
He is, of course, still on about how the last election for president was stolen from him. No evidence has been found that it happened! Even his party officials and attorney general told him no interference or skullduggery had happened! He is claiming banks are all crooked now because the big banks will not loan him money, as his financial records are not accurate, and he is not able to back his loans with the financial data required.
Almost everything out of the Trump camp, especially if uttered by him, is exaggerated or patently untrue. Republicans are claiming that education is being used to turn our kids and young adults away from the party and God. Education is how you determine what your vote means, what your congress is doing, and how things work in the world. The last thing they want is an informed public, so education has to be attacked. Along that same line, some of our politicians have started whitewashing our history, even changing it, to make our country seem to be what it is not. Whenever you start changing or even deleting our history, you cheat us out of knowing what not to repeat in the future and how best not to fail! You must know where you have failed and what mistakes were made to plan a better future. I do not believe that a lot of the GOP believe that! Book bannings are on the rise. To Kill a Mockingbird is an example of a banned book. One of the classics. A Color Purple, The Catcher in the Rye, and The Grapes of Wrath are a few examples. These books are based on our country’s past, and we need to experience them and study the era that spawned them. Then come to your own conclusion about how we make ourselves better.
Trump is dangerous; he is a bully, and he is attracted to men who rule without democracy getting in the way! I believe he was always challenged morally, and his mental acuity is that of the trickster, not statesman, and even that mental acuity is now fading fast!
If I can see it, you certainly should. I did not go to school for more than a couple of months a year until the sixth grade. I still took time off for jobs sweeping up after school lunch in order to afford to eat! So that made me late to math class in the seventh grade because it was right after lunch, and I had to wait until the cafeteria was vacated before I could sweep up and empty trash cans. Math was my hardest class, so not really a good thing! I also left early before school finished at the end of the 6th grade because I got a job with a sheep farmer herding 3000 critters for the summer, and the drive started a couple of weeks before school let out. On the drive, I was in charge of the pack string. After we got up to the target meadows in the high country, my 13-year-old self and a 14-year-old were left in charge of 3000 sheep for the summer. So until I moved to Council Idaho and the eighth grade, that was the first time I actually went to a whole year of school.
I tell you this because I had to work hard to catch up to my classmates in Council, who were way above average, as it turned out. I had no parents, but that was not as much of a disadvantage as you might think. I ran away from my stepfather and birth mother at age eleven and convinced a step relative to hide my sister and I. Long story short, this was accomplished, and my sister and I were farmed out to other step-relatives. That was another nightmare we will not go into. A school teacher from Council knew of my predicament and managed to get me away from these people just as I was ready to flee again and move me to Council, where I stayed with them for three years. I then moved into the town Doctors home during my junior year in high school. By the time I graduated, I had become an A-average student, been a class president, a two-time editor of the school paper, captain of an undefeated football team, and on the Student Council. So a fairly successful transition!
While in college, I ran out of money; even though I was working in the woods for Boise Cascade summers by then, it was not enough. Doctor Edwards was planning on putting me through college, but I, for some reason, had not figured on that, so since there was a draft, I took a series of tests and qualified for a guaranteed posting in aviation. I selected the Marines because you could get a four-year posting, whereas the Air Force wanted six. I did not like the navy uniform or serving at sea, so the Marines won. A day into boot camp and I was kicking my ass for that decision! But glad I did it afterward!
I made it through aviation electronics school and was assigned to work on EA6A Grumman Intruders, a computer warfare aircraft. I wound up in VMCJ-1, two tours in Nam in what was called Linebacker II operations out of Da Nang. I also spent a lot of time in Japan and the Philippines, so not all work and no play. After four years, I got out of the Marines as a Sgt. and returned to school. Got factory trained by GM, got rated as a Delco Tech, and Master Mechanic with an Advanced Engine System degree. Got my smog license and specialized in five-gas analysis on a dyno! Mr. Pratt probably rolled over in his grave to find out I actually made a living with physics and chemistry! I did that for the same company for 29 years as their lead tech, shop foreman, and service manager. I then went to work for a group of five Bobcat dealerships as a service manager and sometimes shop foreman when needed. I retired after a six-year stint.
Since then, I have written a published novel called Shipp; The Alien Wars of Earth. I am now writing a sequel. I write a blog, called the Love Chronicles, which a lot of you probably wish I did not as I am a political activist, or at least think I am! I guess telling you I write a blog is superfluous as you are reading it now!
But I tell all of you this to demonstrate that if an old Marine with no big-name college degrees can look at a man and immediately see the liar, the immoral person, the thief, the cheat, and the fact that he is a narcissistic egomaniac, you my audience should also easily see this! I should not even have to name this person; every one of you should know exactly who I am talking about!
The failure of the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump to build an international coalition to combat the coronavirus is a lasting failure! The damage to America’s standing, influence, and power in the world by weakening the system of partnerships and alliances the country has created and relied on for decades may take many decades to repair. Since the start of his presidency, Trump has abandoned multiple treaties and agreements, undermined the credibility of U.S. defense agreements, bullied and belittled allies, and kissed the asses of dictators who threaten both our allies and the United States. And now he is running for President again with multiple criminal investigations going on! Including incitement to violence against our own government, which you can hear with your own ears if you look for it! Tried to have a legitimate election overthrown; again, you can hear him with your own ears if you just spent five minutes looking for it. I could go on, but I will leave you with this last tidbit, and I will shut up. There was multiple investigations into illegal voting during this last Presidential election. Most of them were sponsored by the GOP. None found anything. As a matter of fact, when more votes were found, they were for Biden, not Trump, and this from GOP-driven investigations in Arizona! Even Trump’s attorney general stated there was no election fraud that would have even attributed minutely to a different outcome!
Pay attention to the speeches even now being given by Trump because, again, the truth is an elusive critter in his world. Do you really want this man to be your guy?
Your going to hear the big lie repeated by Trump and his supporter’s ad nauseam as the presidential election gets nearer! So we need to start addressing what it is, and how it is being used!
A big lie is a gross distortion or misrepresentation of the truth, used especially as a propaganda technique. The German expression was coined by Adolf Hitler when he dictated his book Mein Kampf to describe the use of a lie so colossal that no one would believe that someone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.”.
According to historian Jeffrey Herf, the Nazis used the idea of the original big lie to turn sentiment against Jews and justify the Holocaust. Herf maintains that Joseph Goebbels and the Nazi Party actually used the big lie technique that they described – and that they used it to turn long-standing antisemitism in Europe into mass murder. Herf further argues that the Nazis’ big lie was their depiction of Germany as an innocent, besieged land striking back at “international Jewry“, which the Nazis blamed for starting World War I. Nazi propaganda repeatedly claimed that Jews held power behind the scenes in Britain, Russia, and the United States. It further spread claims that the Jews had begun a war of extermination against Germany and used these to assert that Germany had a right to annihilate the Jews in self-defense.
In the 21st century, the term has been applied to attempts to overturn the result of the 2020 U.S. presidential election by Donald Trump and his allies, specifically the false claim that the election was stolen through massive voter and electoral fraud. The scale of the claims resulted in Trump supporters attacking the United States Capitol.[3][4] Later reports indicate that Trump knew he had lost the election while promoting the narrative.[5][6][7][8] Scholars say that constant repetition in many different media is necessary for the success of the big lie technique, as is a psychological motivation for the audience to believe the extreme assertions. (Sourced through Wikipedia)
Two days before the Jan. 6 insurrection, Tucker Carlson sounded like a man finished with Donald Trump.
“We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can’t wait,” Carlson, Fox News’s biggest mouth, said, adding, “I hate him passionately.” Then, musing on Trump’s catastrophic presidency, he said, “We’re all pretending we’ve got a lot to show for it, because admitting what a disaster it’s been is too tough to digest. But come on. There really isn’t an upside to Trump.”
At least that’s what Carlson said privately to colleagues in text messages. Publicly, Carlson continued to do what he had done for years — promote Trump’s lies, ardently defend the man he deeply despised, and keep Fox’s prevarication (lying) mill churning with American democracy being the true victim! This has been reported by many different news sources, but what really capped it all off is that many of Fox News people have had what they said privately about Trump exposed in court. They knew there was no election fraud and that Trump was lying! But they kept up the façade because they knew it was what their audience wanted, and they were afraid to lose in the ratings. So they lied and then lied some more. So by any definition, Fox News has never reported actual news. They report sensationalist falsehoods to bolster their audience share; they have never bothered with facts. I repeat, never bothered with facts!
Out of all of the investigations, the big lie spawned, none found anything that would even come close to changing the election outcome. In the recount done by Arizona, for example, sponsored by the GOP, even more votes were found for Biden. Of course Fox, or GOP politicians never told you that, did they?
Trump claimed that 85 billion in perfectly fine equipment had been left for the Taliban in our withdrawal from Afghanistan. $83 billion was the total amount of money Congress had appropriated during the war to a fund supporting the Afghan security forces. Only part of this funding was for equipment. We did leave about 7 billion in equipment, but most of that was rendered inoperable before we left. Trump lied, as usual.
Trump claimed his administration “filled up” the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but it has now been “virtually drained” by the Biden administration. It actually contained fewer barrels of crude when Trump left office in early 2021 than when he took office in 2017. Biden did use some to mitigate prices at the pump, but it still is the largest oil reserve of any country on the planet!
Trump also claimed that no president had ever sought or received $1 for our country from China until he came along. In reality, the US has had tariffs on China for more than two centuries! Also, American importers, not Chinese exporters, make the actual tariff payments – and study after study during Trump’s presidency found that Americans were bearing the cost of the tariffs. Trump lied back then, and he is still lying. Is anyone really surprised?
His claim that we are worried about a minuscule amount of sea rise in 300 years when we should be worried about nuclear weapons is a crock. Of course, we, as a people and as a govt., are concerned about nuclear weapons. Sea rise, however, is going to be way more than he predicted, and it is rising now, not in 300 years. But the man lies, has always lied, no surprise!
There isn’t anything factual about his statements about the drug problem in China. They are more rigid in their law enforcement across the board then we are, but they do not have immediate trials and execute drug offenders on the same day! They also have a large problem with drug abuse, just like we do. Trump just reached into his magic bag of lies for that statement too!
He completely misconstrued the facts about the missile that landed in Poland; he did not get any of that right. They do not know where it came from or that Russia was behind the launch! It is being heavily investigated at this time.
He claimed he finished the border wall but was stopped from building even more than there ever was. He did not finish, and immigrants made sport about climbing over what was built!
Trump claimed that he had to send in the national guard despite democrats’ refusal to ask for such help in places like Minnesota. Actually, a democratic governor sent in the guard 7 hours before Trump even threatened to do it. Trump had no idea what was even really happening. When Trump made this false claim in 2020, the governor activated the Guard in response to requests from officials in Minneapolis and St. Paul – cities also run by Democrats. Trump lies about everything every time he opens his mouth. Not just little errors in facts but giant lies he knows are lies.
Look, I just wanted to point out enough lies for you to get the idea that he lies about everything. The rest of the speech was no different. He said, for example, that he went for decades as President with no wars. He was only President for 4 years, so how is that true? He does not even live in reality, and you want him to be back in office? I will not even get into Jan 6th, or about the election lies, or his trying to force people to do his bidding to stay in office, and yet you have not learned yet how dangerous this man is. Even Fox and others have finally come around to an OMG realization when it comes to Trump!
Yes, I am talking about Donald Trump! The January six insurrection and what we now know. The big lie about the last Presidential election. The people the man idolizes; Putin, Kim Jong-un, Alex Jones, to name a few he has publicly fawned over!
The secret documents debacle! The fact that he had them at all or that we now know he moved them after receiving a subpoena to give them up! The fact that he said publicly that he owned them or that he declassified them with his mind should give any sane person pause.
The women, do I need to mention the dozens of women he has sexually molested? Again! One or two against a rich man, ok, maybe they are motivated by money. But when the numbers reach 26 as they do in Trump’s case, some for actual rape, one of a tender age! Then you have to start to take these allegations seriously. If you do not, then there is something seriously wrong!
How about the fact that he hides his grades from the public! Or why he had to go to a military school. It was because he got kicked out of private school for grades and being a bully to younger kids! Look it up. The military school was not known for scholastics but more as a place to put incorrigibles. He was turned down because of his grades when he applied to Wharton. His brother pulled strings, in that case, to get him in. Even then, one of his professors said he was the most ignorant person he had ever seen in his class. Ill-prepared and arrogant!
It is almost a certainty the man is a crook. He has is accused of overvaluing property to access loans, then undervaluing them to the IRS for taxes. He has been in court many times for non-payment to contractors for work done! His major scam was to threaten to take them to court so they would agree to take pennies on the dollar as they could not afford to fight him in court!
Racism! Well, it is documented that people of color had to remove themselves from his casino when he and his wife would visit. He has made public remarks overheard by many about people of color, brown, black, red, and Jewish people. He has been sued more than once by the federal govt for his racist policies selling and renting properties!
The man is a habitual liar. Anything he thinks should have been bigger, grander, or just more, he claims it was. It is estimated that he has told over 30,000 lies in four years! So even if we cut that in half, still a bucket full by any standard! Commentators and fact-checkers have described the scale of his deceit as “unprecedented” in American politics. The consistency of these falsehoods became a distinctive part of his business and political identity!
I know you have heard most of this from me before. But there is an election coming up. We need to stand up for decency, yes, democracy itself, in the upcoming elections. Against anyone who supports such a person, against anyone who does not see the evil for what it is, for anyone who does not recognize in history who and what this man resembles!
Trump’s misleading or outright lies total over 30,000 over his four years in office. If you cut that in half to account for inaccuracies in reporting or misrepresentation, you still have a staggering 15,000 lies! My accounting finds most of the lies to be just that, lies. Trump lies even when the truth would help his cause! He has lied his entire life and does so without thought as an automatic response to any question! Crowds are always larger than facts show them to be! He always knows more than any expert on any subject. He does not read well, as is evident in many speeches where he has a teleprompter but utters incomprehensible sentences. He has demonstrated a lack of historical knowledge, and does not know where countries are located, sometimes not even what continent they are on! And this is all done in public speeches he had time to prepare for that you and I could watch!
Trump has demonstrated his racism time and time again. Long before he became a politician, he was sued by the federal government, not once, but twice, for his role in refusing to rent or sell to people of color! He has said, in public, that black and brown people are naturally too ignorant to be in business or to vote for him! The wording is not exact, as I got lazy and did not look this up again. My point is you can find the man on video telling lies that are easily refuted, making fun of the disabled, and name-calling his black, or in most cases, anyone who disagrees with him, like a grade school bully!
Then you have a political party that makes excuses, tells lies to cover Trump’s lies, and makes stuff up. True, both major parties do that, but the GOP has turned lying into an excepted political standard! Any Republican who dares to tell evident truths not approved by Trump is quickly demoted within the party and voted out of office. That is partially our fault, as we vote based on lies we could easily find the truth about; we do not want to because the facts do not fit our skewed views! That is not democracy by any standard.
I used to be a Republican. But the party I joined just before going to Nam as a Marine is not today’s party. Even then, I never voted a straight party ticket, but now I cannot find anything redeeming in a party I once belonged!
We have to get back to education as a priority! I have no university degrees. I am a product of automotive trade schools, factory training, and eventually teaching advanced automotive engine, computer systems, and five gas analysis with a dyno. I had a family, a mortgage, and after two tours in Nam and years overseas, some undiagnosed PTSD. I finally came to my senses and started going to school, but I needed the schooling to be immediate and make me money, as I now was a daddy, and as I said, a mortgage, two 4×4 trucks, a family car, a dirt and street bike, a boat, and lots of toys! But I did eventually start taking college-level classes and have always been a heavy reader! But, for a few years, instead of going to college, I raced motorcycles in the desert, became the crew chief of a winning race boat, and even fitted out my 4×4 to race, so money had to be made and play time had to be curtailed.
I love science, and I took political science classes in college and got high marks. That does not make me a person who is a professional! But I do try and look at both sides of a political dispute with an open mind. I admit I am a Trump hater, but that was so long before he entered politics. He was a bully, even in his teen years; you can find all kinds of information if you want to know the truth about the man, including his long and sordid reputation with women and young girls!
So when I see people almost worshipping a man who has a disgusting reputation, both in business and his personal life, hides his grades and taxes, well, anyone should be able to see the writing on the wall! And now he is going to run for President again! Come on! But that is for another day, as we now have an FBI investigation!
So you are driving down the road, and your President is having a fit in the car, trying to grab the steering wheel and lunging at a secret service agent because he wanted to go back to the White House after the Stop the Steal rally and take his place as President again. So even though the agents this happened to told several people this story, they now deny it happened. It was reported that after Trump was taken back to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., he had a fit and through his lunch up against the wall! So the two agents involved are Trump loyalists, but then why would they tell this story in the first place! They would not have. And the text messages would not have disappeared for that time frame either! I mean, what an unbelievable farce that was! Just one example of many of a man who is not entirely sane!
Donald Trump admitted that after he flew to Iraq aboard Air Force One, he wanted to give himself the Medal of Honor — the country’s highest award for military valor in action — but was told he wasn’t allowed to! This is a man who definitely suffers from a narcissistic mental disorder. Just think about it logically for just a second. Is this the kind of thinking you want in a world leader! I think not!
Trump has at least 19 accusations of sexual assault. If you read the accounts, they have one thing in common in almost all instances. There was no conversation, just a grab, a kiss, or even a rape, without consent, or even flirting beforehand! It was always sudden and without remorse of any kind. Two cases were for actual rape, and one of those was an underage girl at a Jeffrey Epstein party. The other is a full-grown woman in a department store. From his mouth direct from the transcript live on air from the Billy Bush interview; Trump: “Yeah, that’s her. With the gold. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Bush: Whatever you want.Trump: Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”
Again, how do you want this man representing you and your country to the world? This man hides his grades while claiming to be a genius. Trump hides his taxes, and it is known he misrepresents his holdings and may get his financial backing from Russian oligarchs. Hence his fight to keep his finances and taxes a secret. How much influence do foreign investors have over such a man? You need to know before you walk up to a ballot box and check off his name! He is famous for not paying his contractors or making them sue to get their money and paying pennies on the dollar for services rendered! He has a track record of racism and has been sued by the federal gov’t twice over this kind of action in his business practices.
I do not understand with the information available how you, or anyone, could entertain the idea of letting this man anywhere near the reins of power! I do not think he should be allowed to roam free, and I am not the only one to think that! I ask in the title, what would you do?
I am going to try a little honesty here! I grew up all over the western United States. Lived in an affluent Beverly Hills location when my father was healthy and working for Hollywood Technicolor Corp. When he got sick and was hospitalized we moved to a one-bedroom in Venice just off the canals. When my stepfather came into the picture I was basically a migrant worker. Picked all kinds of crops all over California, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. Never went to school during that time! I finally found a home in Council Idaho at 14 after having run away from my stepfather and mother when I was 11, never to return! But that is another really strange story. I had a run of good luck in Council! Rescued by a teacher there, and then later taken in by the town Doctor and his family.
I ran out of money in college, there was a draft on, so joined the Marines for more years than required after taking some tests and being guaranteed aviation training. I wound up doing two tours in Nam and other Westpac locations as a result. So my point is, I probably did choose the Marines due to small-town Idaho patriotism! But my time in Nam had nothing to do with patriotism. I did love my job working out of the Aviation Electric Shop on a computer warfare bird. But my main goal was to stay alive and keep my crew alive as I was a Sgt for most of my time in Nam, and that is about it. I never really gave a whole lot of thought about how patriotic it was! I had seen things that did not make me all that proud by this time! I will always be a Marine, but with a final secret clearance, I was privy to things we did that were not the flag-waving patriotic things I had come to expect. I got spit on at the San Francisco airport in full uniform upon my return! I almost lost it were it not for a couple sailors who calmed me down. But after reflection, no one owes me anything for serving as far as the American people go! But I think a house and an education were the least the government should have been responsible to supply to any combat veteran. I am not talking about a VA loan or help with the cost of education. I am talking about absolutely free of charge! But that is just me and my opinion talking!
But I digress. Flag-waving is fine in some circumstances! But we as a nation have been at war for 225 of the 243 years since its inception in 1776! And I hate to burst any bubbles here, but it was only rarely to free a subjugated people in need! No, mostly it was a fight for power, oil, and other resources we thought we needed to have to keep us in global power! So when you exercise your right to vote, your only real power, know your history, the real history, and make your vote count for something.
Our education rating among the top nations is absolutely horrendous! A large segment of Americans distrusts science and education! That, my friends, will be our downfall! I will not go into how we here in the U.S. actually spend way more on healthcare than nations who provide it as a service to their citizens! A fight for another blog!
So we need to get back to actually educating our youth to compete in the world of tomorrow. And just as important, the truth in media should be a law, with punishment meted out for even distorting the truth. And when it is a mistake, fine, but it should be corrected on the front page, so to speak, where the disinformation was disseminated in the first place!
Covid-19 and the variants that have erupted all over the globe I would rate as #1 in disasters that occurred last year, among many, some of which I will elaborate on in this blog! One of the worst things associated with covid-19 is the misinformation that has primarily been championed by those in the GOP! One example is Twitter has permanently suspended the personal account of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), saying last Sunday that the congresswoman repeatedly violated the company’s covid-19 misinformation policy. Her account has been frozen temporarily a couple of times for spreading falsehoods about covid-19! She has claimed that covid is not dangerous to anyone under the age of 65 who is not obese! The last claim that got her permanently banned from Twitter was her claim that the vaccine kills, in large numbers, those that took it! There is no study and no reports that any such thing has ever happened anywhere, she made it up! She claims that Twitter, among others, is an evil organization that is dangerous to America. She and others like her are the real danger!
So we enter another year! Let’s hope it is better than the last, yes?
Next on my list is the non-existent voter fraud, and the voter rights suppression going on in GOP-controlled states. Voter fraud has been investigated extensively, mostly at the behest of Trump! He cannot accept he lost, as his mental impairment will not allow such a thought to occur! Even in states that favored Trump, like Arizona, for example, every recount actually found even more votes for Joe Biden! Even his own man Attorney General Barr stated there was no voter fraud, yet Trump to this day is still trumpeting that message and is believed by millions even when all the evidence by every investigation says otherwise. This, to me, says a lot about Americans and who we are as a nation! I am a Marine Sgt who served two tours in Nam, which does not make me a patriot, but it does give me the right to be angry when my fellow Americans cannot tell when a lie is being fomented for political gain, and yes, power! Especially when their leader, Trump, is a proven liar, an abuser of women bragged about from his own lips! Do I need to mention the 26 women who have accused him of sexual assault? Or that he will not allow his academic grades to be released! If he is a genius as he claims, why would he not want that? He also does not want his taxes examined, and I say, for the same reason he does not want his grades looked at! They would reveal he is hiding the truth, in this case his criminal activity, as some already have! Lastly, and I will shut up about Trump, he is a racist, and again condemned by his own remarks. A long list, including being sued by the federal govt. for discrimination against people of color in his own business dealings! Twice!
We have a whole section of our population that has always been racist, but now they think they can be open and in your face about it. You only need to look at GOP re-districting and recent laws passed to see who benefits. It is never anyone with any kind of color to his or her skin other than white! I said I would not mention a certain person again, so anyone who does not know who fanned the flames must live in a cave, in the dark, blaming any and all immigrants for his or her plight!
I was born in a hospital in Hollywood, lived in Beverley Hills at the time as Dad worked for Hollywood Technicolor Corp. But he died when I was very young, mom made some really bad decisions about men, and I wound up in Idaho picking pretty much anything that grew in a field or in a tree. So, most of my younger life I spent in Idaho. I had run away just before my 12th birthday. Spent a couple of years with an evangelical family, then made plans to get the hell out of there. A teacher from Council who knew about me convinced me not to try taking off on my own, that she was working on getting me and my sister, who was with a different evangelical family, into her custody. So I spent my formative years in Idaho and I can still see bullshit walking and talking! I am still talking about he who cannot be named! My point is, I love the people from my Idaho hometown. I disagree with some politically, but as I know them to be people who would give you the shirt off of their back if you did not have one and they had a spare! So it is not a good versus bad situation. It is a bad information situation. I am convinced of this. I watch Fox News all the time, just so I can investigate if what they say is true. Now I am not talking about listening to some other station or talking head. I am talking about live footage from a meeting, a live conversation, or watching C-SPAN, to see a live accounting. Fox News lies, all the time. And it is very popular where I come from! They supported the Pizza Gate fiasco where supposedly Hillary Clinton was selling young girls out of the basement of a pizza business. Info Wars and Alex Jones jumped on that, claiming to have proof, and a young man shot up a pizza joint where this was supposedly happening, but realized their were no girls, as a matter of fact, no basement! All too many people believed this. Currently those same people also believe that covid-19 and the variants are some kind of scam by a cabal of the far left. That the vaccines are killing people in large numbers, that it is no worse than a cold, and the vaccines were manufactured to put microchips in our bodies to control or spy on us. You say, but I did not believe that, but way to many of your neighbors did and you said nothing!
Violence, it has always been a problem, but it is growing in intensity by leaps and bounds. A person we all know, a person who cannot be named, championed violence from his bully pulpit! You can find instances of this in live video easily; you do not have to take my word! White Supremacy was given legitimacy, encouraged to riot, and even attack our capital. Of course, certain GOP members claimed that it was BLM and Antifa radicals claiming to be white power groups like the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, and QAnon! When the Justice Dept and the FBI found proof that these aforementioned groups were actually the real culprits, then certain prominent GOP members claimed they were being persecuted and were just exercising their rights, no matter that they destroyed property inside the White House, attacked and even killed police!
I say we need to open our eyes, forget politics and start using our brain-housing group for more than just a hat rack. You cannot, in the name of Christianity, condone murder, attacks on women, racism, and hatred of groups, unlike yourselves. If you do, then you are no better than the radicals who have corrupted the Quran for power and extremism. Evil is evil in any guise!
The Love Chronicles 