The United States of Chaos

Posted on February 14, 2019 by jilldennison under Political commentary, Rants

I don’t know about you folks, but personally I am beginning to feel very irrelevant, inconsequential when it comes to the current administration and the republicans in Congress. You will notice, those of you who are employed, that during the 35-day shutdown, federal income taxes continued to be withheld from your paycheck. Every pay, like clockwork, we pay our taxes, and most of us don’t grumble about it, for we understand that it is our taxes that are used to build roads, maintain the military, provide food and shelter for those less fortunate, and pay the salaries of those who serve in our government. It is as it should be. BUT …

I don’t think there is a single person reading this blog who appreciates Donald Trump spending $50,000 for a toy to keep him entertained on rainy afternoons, during his 60% “Executive Time”. What, you ask, am I prattling on about? This …

Trump plays a lot of golf, as we all know. When he was on the campaign trail in 2016, he criticized President Obama for the amount of time he spent playing golf, and said this …

“I’m going to be working for you. I’m not going to have time to go play golf.” – Donald J. Trump, August 2016

And yet, absorb this: President Obama played 306 rounds of golf during the entire 8 years he was in office, which averages to approximately 38 rounds of golf per year. But Donald Trump, the ‘man’ who said he would be working so hard that he wouldn’t have time for golf, has averaged 70 rounds of golf per year for his first two years! Where’s all that hard work, eh? But back to his latest toy …

During the 35-day government shutdown when nearly a million federal workers were either furloughed sans pay, or were expected to work without being paid, Trump’s advisors were apparently able to convince him that it would look really bad if he were out playing golf instead of working to come to an agreement to re-open the government and pay our people. And thus, he went … wait for it … 69 days without playing golf! And thus, the above toy … a room-sized golf simulator game at the cost of what, for most of us, is an entire year’s salary or more. It is said by an anonymous White House staffer that Trump paid for the toy with his own money, but frankly, until I see a canceled check drawn on his personal checking account, I am skeptical.

It was recently reported that Trump spends 60% of his time doing ‘executive time’ … time that he spends watching television, tweeting and talking on the phone, and that he doesn’t leave his residence to begin work until around 11:00 a.m. Now, you can add another hour to his ‘executive time’, for that is the time it takes to play a round of golf on the new toy. I wonder … will he get all hot & sweaty and have to take another 20 minutes for a shower after he plays?

And in other news … again on the campaign trail, Trump promised this …

In his official campaign launch address, Trump promised to “reduce our $18 trillion in debt,” which will not happen if annual deficits hit $1 trillion in two years.
On the campaign trail, Trump said he would “freeze the budget,” which has certainly not happened.
Shortly before his inauguration, he told Fox News host Sean Hannity that he would “balance the budget very quickly… I think over a five-year period. And I don’t know, maybe I could even surprise you.”
Previous to that, in March 2016, he told Bob Woodward that he could get rid of the debt “fairly quickly.” When pressed, he said, “Well, I would say over a period of eight years.” Since Trump took office, his own budget director called that promise “hyperbole.”
Trump asserted during the second presidential debate that he would bring back energy companies, which would make so much money that they could pay off the national debt. This has not happened.

None of those things have happened but guess what DID happen. On Tuesday, 12 February 2019, the national debt hit a record high of $22 trillion, nearly $3 trillion higher than when he took office just over two years ago. Never before in our history has it topped $21 trillion. For perspective, that is $22,000,000,000. And climbing. Why? While there is no single reason, the biggest reason is the reduction in revenue as a result of the tax cuts for the wealthy that Congress passed, and Trump signed in December 2017. As tax filers are finding out this month, those tax cuts were truly for the wealthy, and the average taxpayer got shafted. And still, he presses on for his unnecessary, useless border wall.

Over the course of the last two years, we have gone from a democratic-republic to a plutocracy, a government by the wealthy. We have ceased to matter to the current administration. And while Trump’s supporters may crow about the low unemployment rate and the stable economy … a change is coming. We cannot continue to exist on high deficit spending and an increasing national debt without paying the consequences which I believe are waiting just around the corner. A rising national debt has been compared to driving your car with the emergency brake on. Trump’s house of cards may well be about to come tumbling down around us, but he’s having fun playing with his new golf toy, so … no worries, right?

Meanwhile, the Trumptanic keeps chugging toward the iceberg …

Why Billionaires???

Posted on February 13, 2019 by jilldennison under Environmental Issues, Political commentary, Social commentary

What does a person do with a billion dollars? I’ve been pondering this for a while now, ever since Trump took office and began making decisions and policies that largely benefit only those who already have more money than they know what to do with. I have a rather socialistic way of looking at the world, believing that it is wrong for one man to live a posh, hedonistic lifestyle while others are starving. As such, I am aghast at the current administration’s constant pandering to those who already have too much at the expense of those who are barely getting by.

It seems somehow criminal to give tax cuts to the wealthy, while the rest of us are paying about the same or even more than before. The latest news is that Trump is attempting to force the Tennessee Valley Authority to keep open a power plant that is no longer viable, simply because they buy coal from his uber-wealthy pal and supporter, Robert Murray, owner of Murray Energy of whom I’ve written before. It seems criminal that Trump is rolling back efficiency standards on light bulbs, which is estimated to carry a high cost to consumers (us).

And those are only the most recent examples. All of these decisions are made with an eye toward putting more money in the pockets of billionaires. And what do they do with it? I don’t know, but I will tell you what they don’t do with it. They don’t pay a fair portion of taxes on it – taxes that might go toward such things as taking care of people less fortunate. They don’t donate the bulk of it to worthy causes. They hoard it. It seems criminal to me, for any person to have so much money sitting around for bragging purposes while the vast majority of people in the world are truly struggling to stay alive.

I was in that frame of mind a few days ago when I stumbled upon an article by journalist Tom Scocca. The title of the piece, No Billionaires, caught my eye. Take a look for yourself …

No Billionaires by Tom Scocca

Some ideas about how to make the world better require careful, nuanced thinking about how best to balance competing interests. Others don’t: Billionaires are bad. We should presumptively get rid of billionaires. All of them.

Does this sound like an incitement to the most dreaded kind of revolution, when people are struck down by the mob simply on the basis of some crude simple standard? It is not. The people who have a billion dollars are fine; they may go on living. It is just that, for the sake of everyone else (and, honestly, for their own sake) they must not be allowed to possess a billion dollars.

No one needs a billion dollars. No one deserves a billion dollars. There is a widespread moral and conceptual error, in a society saturated in the ideology of competition and monetary success, that the property a person has gotten does not simply belong to that person but is, somehow, itself an embodiment of their personhood—that to separate a person from property is to attack their human existence.

This is true to an extent—to the extent that property secures a person food, and shelter, and physical security, and health and futurity. Even, despite the inequities and injustices that have emerged by this level, a person’s opportunities to have leisure, to make art, etc.

None of this comes anywhere near adding up to a billion dollars.

Another error is the belief that billionaires have made their money by adding value to society, of which they take a minor share. One pictures some great industrialist inventing and manufacturing a useful item, which makes every single person’s life better, and in return receiving a small share of the price of the item.

A kindergarten teacher, teaching 25 new people a year not to bite each other and to work in occasional harmony with strangers, produces far more social good in a lifetime than an industrialist does. Even to picture the billionaire as a productive industrialist is too optimistic—read up and down the Forbes list, larded with monopolists, retailers, retail monopolists, the heirs of retail monopolies, real estate magnates, Mark Zuckerberg.

What do they do with all their extra money? They buy atrocious houses. They shut down publications. They buy politicians, over and under the table. Now a whole batch of them have moved directly into government—and we have the most corrupt and incompetent executive branch in memory to show for it.

When we speak of the better billionaires, we simply mean the ones who are not actively malignant. There are no good billionaires. There may be some relatively good people who are attached to a pile of money that stacks one billion dollars high, but the money does not improve them. It makes them worse. Their good points would be no less good if they held only, say, 500 million dollars. And their bad points would be that much less of a problem for anyone else.

Fool On The Hill — Mitch McConnell

Posted on November 15, 2018 by jilldennison under Election 2018, Political commentary

The date was 23 October 2010 — nearly two years into President Barack Obama’s first term and two weeks before the first midterm elections of his presidency. Speaking to the National Journal, then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell made a now-infamous statement: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” A statement that congressional republicans intended to do everything in their power to thwart President Obama could not have been any clearer. But, listen to what McConnell had to say on Fox News earlier this week …

“Will Dems work with us, or simply put partisan politics ahead of the country?”

Say WHAT???

Here is McConnell’s OpEd, enhanced by Filosofa’s snarky comments in blue:

Last Tuesday I was proud to see that the American people voted keep Republicans in control of the U.S. Senate. But we also learned that, come January, the Republican Senate majority will be dealing with a House of Representatives under Democratic control. What goes around, comes around, Mitchie.

Needless to say, the past two years of unified Republican government will be remembered as a period of historic productivity. Define productivity??? You haven’t done a damn thing worthwhile!

Both houses of Congress have taken swift action to right-size a bloated federal regulatory state. The Senate has shattered records in confirming the president’s well-qualified judicial nominees, including two outstanding jurists to serve on the Supreme Court. Um… Mitchie … ever hear of a little thing called “climate change”? Those regulations were in place in an attempt to save our earth. And one of your “outstanding” jurists is a sexual predator!

And together, we passed the first comprehensive reform of the nation’s tax code in a generation. Already, Americans’ paychecks are growing, consumer confidence is high and unemployment has reached a near 50-year low. Have you looked at the federal debt/deficit estimates lately? And do you realize that your damn tax reform robbed from the poor and gave to the rich? Rather a reverse Robin Hood!

After this prolific run, I was not surprised to be asked over the past week about just how much the American people can expect from the next Congress under divided leadership. What can we realistically accomplish? Restoration of sanity and accountability is my hope.

I have good news: reports of the death of bipartisanship in Washington have been wildly exaggerated. In fact, some of the most significant accomplishments of this Congress have been delivered with overwhelmingly bipartisan support. Eh? Such as? Name one, please?

Under bipartisan committee leadership, we took major steps toward restoring regular order to our appropriations process. The Senate passed more funding measures before the beginning of this fiscal year than at any point in the last two decades. Funding for what? Certainly not to help the poor, the homeless, the ill. Nothing that I can see that benefits the people in any practical manner.

The measures included the largest year-on-year increase in defense funding in 15 years, which put an end to the Obama-era atrophy of our armed forces. Geez, Mitchie … the U.S. already had the largest military budget in the western world! How is that “atrophy of the armed forces”??? Ever hear the term ‘guns or butter’? We. Don’t. Need. More. F***ing. Military. Toys. Get it? We need help for the poor, we need healthcare!

Working closely with counterparts in the House, we found common ground on rebuilding America’s crumbling infrastructure. In fact, America’s Water Infrastructure Act – designed to improve interstate commerce, water quality and flood safety – passed the Senate by a vote of 99-1. Let me just pop over to Flint, Michigan and see how much help you’ve given them …

And in August, the Senate voted unanimously to expand Americans’ opportunities to receive technical and career-focused education. Meanwhile, you’ve done nothing to improve our public schools, and have made a college education damn near out of reach for the average citizen! There is much, MUCH more to education than technical and job training …

We’ve passed 22 pieces of legislation produced by the bipartisan work of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee. From improving the efficiency of Department of Veterans Affairs medical facilities to enhancing access to post-9/11 GI Bill educational benefits, each of these pieces of legislation was designed to help America keep its promises to returning heroes and their families. Not what I’m hearing from the vets. Have you talked to anybody from AMVETS lately? I have.

And last month, the Senate passed a landmark package of targeted resources to combat the opioid epidemic. The legislation was produced by five bipartisan committees and included direct input from 72 different senators. Whoopee. Meanwhile, those of us who need medications such as insulin to stay alive, cannot afford them.

Of course, these are just a few highlights of a Congress that has conducted as much serious, cooperative work as any in recent history. Hah! Let me ask Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi if that’s true …

So make no mistake. The Senate has proven its ability to reach bipartisan solutions to some of the most pressing challenges facing our nation. I think you mistake the meaning of “bipartisan”. I’ve seen naught but infighting and chaos in the 115^th Congress.

And looking ahead to the coming year, there will be no shortage of opportunities to continue this impressive record of cooperation across the aisle and across the Capitol. Opportunities, yes. But will you put aside your love of all things Trump and join the democrats in holding him accountable? Will you put the 99% ahead of the 1% just for once? Will you act with the interests of the nation in mind?

What we can make of those opportunities will depend on our Democratic colleagues. Will they choose to go it alone and simply make political points? Or will they choose to work together and actually make a difference? Look in the mirror and ask that question, Mitchie.

Last week, the American people made it abundantly clear that they prefer that Congress focus on making a difference. Is this a new concept to you?

That message may have been lost on a few House Democrats, who have made clear their preference for investigations over policy results. After years of rhetoric, it’s hardly news that some are more interested in fanning the flames of division than reaching across the aisle. Not ‘fanning the flames of division’, Mitchie … it’s called ‘accountability’. Look it up in the dictionary.

But however Democrats interpret the latest message from voters, Senate Republicans will continue our commitment to delivering results. Continue??? When did you start?

We’ll keep working to lift the burden on American job creators and small businesses. We’ll stay focused on helping communities across the country seize new opportunities and realize greater prosperity. We’ll seek new ways to make life easier for working families. “Lift the burden”??? WTF??? The burden is on the poor and middle-class, not the big corporations whose so-called ‘burdens’ you seek to ‘lift’.

Most importantly, in the face of whichever tactics the far left chooses to employ next, we’ll continue to stand for the rule of law. We’ll continue to confirm more well-qualified nominees to serve on our nation’s courts. Rule of law? Where is that, Mitchie? Where was rule of law when Brett Kavanaugh lied under oath? Where was rule of law when you and your cohorts refused to ban assault weapons because you are in the pocket of the NRA? Where, indeed, is rule of law in Trumpdom?

This is what the Senate’s Republican majority was elected to do. And we’ll continue to get it done. Bull. You’ll keep right on licking the boots of the fool in the White House.

It is obvious to me that McConnell was doing damage control, making it clear to the Fox viewers, which likely includes Trump’s & McConnell’s followers, that whatever goes wrong in the next two years will be the fault of those mean ol’ democrats. Mitch McConnell has been in Washington far too long … time for him to retire!

An Ego Trip …

Posted on August 16, 2018 by jilldennison under Political commentary, Rants

The people who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 did so based on certain things that they believed in, that they believed would make their lives better, and he promised to fulfill their wishes. One of those things was a smaller government that provided fewer services. The reasoning was that if the government shrunk, had fewer employees and provided fewer services, money would be saved and taxes could be lowered, thus putting more money in the pockets of the working class.

However, theory and reality are often not quite the same, and the reality here is that Trump has cut services to the poor and disadvantaged, he has cut taxes for the wealthy, but the working class is no better off than they were before, and in fact have less now than they had before. Why? There are a number of reasons, including massive amounts of waste by Trump’s cabinet and by Trump himself, the tax cuts were only to the wealthy, Trump’s tariffs are causing prices to rise, and this …

Trump Military Parade To Cost Taxpayers Nearly $100M

What a colossal and foolish waste of our money!!!

This ego trip was initially, we were told, to cost a mere $12 million. That would have fed 2,307 average families for a full year, but hey … Trump’s ego is far more important than feeding hungry kids, right? But now, the estimated cost, $92 million, could have fed 17,692 average families for a full year! How do we justify this? What is the purpose of this ‘military parade’? The answers are that we cannot possibly justify it and the only purpose is to stroke the ego of the megalomaniac in the Oval Office.

The parade is scheduled for Saturday, November 10^th, and is to start at the U.S. Capitol and end at the White House where, undoubtedly, the 5,000-7,000 troops who are marching will be expected to salute Trump. Now, not only is the parade costing an exorbitant amount of money up front, but there is a likelihood that there will be ‘after-the-fact’ costs to repair Pennsylvania Avenue. Initially, General Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that no tanks would be included in the parade, for they would cause “damage to local infrastructure”. But now, because Trump wants them, eight tanks will make their way to the White House on a street that taxpayers will then be required to repair.

Now, how did this all come about? Well, remember last July when Trump happened to be in France during their annual Bastille Day celebration? As a part of the festivities, there was a military parade, and Trump, exactly like the child who, upon seeing his friends new toy, then insists that his parents buy the same toy for him, decided that he must also have a military parade. And so, during a meeting at the Pentagon on January 18^th, Trump ordered just such a parade for himself. The Washington Post got wind of it and published the story, after which the White House issued a statement that said Trump “has asked the Department of Defense to explore a celebration at which all Americans can show their appreciation.” Hello? First, very few, if any Americans will travel to DC to watch this costly display of foolishness. Second … show our appreciation to whom and for what??? Are we supposed to be appreciative to Trump for destroying our environment, our schools, our reputation, and our very nation? I think not.

Trump originally intended the parade to be on July 4^th, Independence Day, but apparently it couldn’t be pulled together quite that soon, so he settled for the November date, which is one day before Veteran’s Day and also marks the 100^th anniversary of the end of World War I. What Trump fails to realize … or simply doesn’t care … is that the Bastille Day parade in France is a long-standing tradition, dating back to 1880! And, France’s Bastille Day parade is a celebration of citizen’s rights, not military might. The U.S. has no such tradition, nor do we need one.

The U.S. has not held a major military parade in Washington since 1991 to mark the end of Operation Desert Storm. That parade reportedly cost approximately $8 million and was paid for with about $3 million in government funds and the rest with private donations. Trump’s parade, all $92 million, would be paid for with taxpayer dollars.

Our economy is on the verge of a downturn, due largely to some very poor decisions on the part of Donald Trump and his minions. The average wage earner has not seen an increase in his or her real wages in years, and in fact, today’s real wages have dropped to 1974 levels (more about this in a future post). Trump takes credit for a lot that is not his due, and is spending our money willy-nilly on such foolishness as a parade to show American’s gratitude to him, when we should be showing him the back door! This is nothing but yet another ego trip for Donald Trump at a huge cost to We The People.

Note to Readers: This evening, a couple of hours after this post was published, it was announced that the parade has been postponed until 2019! Perhaps sometimes our voices are heard?

Snarky Snippets From A Grump …

Posted on August 2, 2018 by jilldennison under Bits 'n Pieces, Environmental Issues, Political commentary, Random, Social commentary

Not having slept particularly well for the past several nights and being particularly peeved by everything in the news for the past two days (or is it two years???), I am in an especially foul humour today. What better time for a few snarky snippets from the mind of a grump, eh?

Score one for Portland, Oregon!

In 2016, the City of Portland, Oregon, passed a city ordinance that would prohibit new fossil fuel infrastructure, including storage and distribution terminals for oil and gas. But business groups, including the Columbia Pacific Building Trades Council, Portland Business Alliance and Western States Petroleum Association appealed the ordinance to Oregon’s Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA), saying that it was unconstitutional in that it restricted interstate commerce.

LUBA ruled that Portland had violated the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution in that it restricted interstate commerce, but this past January, a Court of Appeals overturned the LUBA ruling, finding that Portland’s ordinance is not unconstitutional. The coalition of businesses, seeing dollar signs waving ‘bye-bye’ in their sleep at night, took the issue to the Oregon Supreme Court.

Two days ago, the Supreme Court upheld the ruling of the lower court, placing air quality and lives over corporate greed! What this means is that existing facilities as well as new ones will be subject to size and capacity restrictions. Some of the corporations affected include energy giants Shell, BP, Kinder Morgan, Chevron, Phillips 66, and NW Natural.

It is a small step in the grand scheme of things, but an important one. The region is plagued by sea level rise linked to global warming, in addition to other growing environmental hazards exacerbated by climate change. Let us hope that other cities follow suit and place a higher value on human life than on corporate greed.

Two thumbs-down to Trump’s trickle-down theory …

According to Donald Trump, we are living in “the greatest economy in the HISTORY of America and the best time EVER to look for a job.” But, as is most always the case when Trump opens his mouth, this is not quite the truth.

First, while it is true that unemployment is low, the nation is experiencing historically low wage growth. Take a look …Now … what happened to that ‘trickle down’ economic theory? You will remember that the wealthy and big corporations received a Christmas gift last December in the form of significant tax cuts, and you may also remember that Trump said we would all benefit from those tax cuts, as corporations shared their wealth with their workers. Guess what, folks? It didn’t happen.

The beneficiaries of that big tax cut decided to keep it for themselves after all. Surprise! Instead, these corporations, for the most part, have spent their additional wealth on their top executives and largest shareholders!

A couple of examples:

At Walmart, with 2.3 million workers, half made less than $19,177. Late last year, Walmart launched a stock buyback initiative to the tune of $20 billion in order to boost its stock prices, which disproportionately enriches the biggest stockholders in the company.
Median pay at McDonald’s is $7,017, in part because McDonald’s directly employs hourly servers at more of its restaurants. Meanwhile, McDonald’s bought back $1.6 billion in stock in the first quarter of 2018 alone.
Gap’s very low median pay of $5,375 per year coincided with the company buying back $100 million in stock last quarter.

There are plenty more examples, including most of the restaurant industry, but you get the picture … it ain’t trickling down, folks, it’s trickling up to those who least need it. Nothing new here, but it proves the lie, once again, of the theory that giving to the rich will ultimately enrich the poor.

Say WHAT???

The ‘man’ who sits in the spot a president should sit in if we had such a critter, is so out of touch with reality that I’m not sure what planet he even hails from! I’m sure you have all heard by now that Donald Trump believes a photo ID is required in order to purchase food. So, how in the Sam Heck does he think people who don’t have a photo ID, and there are many such people, buy groceries??? Oh wait … he doesn’t think … he just opens his mouth and spews.

“You know, if you go out and you want to buy groceries, you need a picture on a card — you need ID,” said he at rally on Tuesday.

Funny that … I’ve been buying groceries for more than half a century, and have never once been asked to prove that I am who I am at the checkout!

Trump’s disconnect with those “American people” he claims to be ‘fighting for’, seems to be a gap about the size of the Grand Canyon. In addition to believing that buying food requires ID, he thinks that we spend $12 per year on our health insurance! If you aren’t growling yet, you should be. I spend more than $130 per month for Medicare that I paid into all my life! The average American spends close to $10,000 a year on health care.

Trump was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and has never had to enter a grocery store, sit down and figure how to pay a mortgage payment or worry about the electric bill that is more than he can afford. He has never had to fret over money or do without a single thing. Not once in his life has he had to do without medical care so that his kids could have food to eat. He is not fighting for the ‘American people’ … he is fighting to preserve a way of life for himself and his rich friends … a way of life that 99% of this country cannot even imagine.

And so concludes Filosofa’s Snarky Snippets, although there will surely be more to come soon! Have a great evening, friends!

The Rich Get Richer …

Posted on July 31, 2018 by jilldennison under Election 2018, Political commentary, Rants, Social commentary

In a recent tweet, Donald Trump claimed, “I will keep fighting for the American people!” Donald is not particularly literate, and thus his words often need some translation. In this case, the translation only requires the addition of a single word: wealthy. “I will keep fighting for the wealthy American people!” And by default, the rest of us can go to hell. If you’ve been awake for the past 18 months and kept your eye on the ball, this will come as no surprise. The 40% or so who still think Donald Trump is the greatest thing since sliced bread will, no doubt, continue to ignore the writing on the wall.

You will remember that last year Congress passed a tax bill that included tax cuts for the wealthy, but did very little for the average wage earner. And the wealthy were happy, for they heard the ‘ka-ching’ of still more money hitting their bank accounts, so they donated some of that money to republican candidates so the republican candidates could buy more air time on national television to stay in office and ultimately give those wealthy people even more advantages. It’s a vicious circle.

But apparently the glow of their tax cuts wore off, and now they want even more. And guess what? Trump and his minions want to give it to them! Now, members of Congress are cognizant of the fact that there is an election in less than 100 days, and they don’t want to rock any boats right now by giving the wealthy more money, for they understand that the rest of us also get to vote on November 6^th. So, Trump & Co have found a way to do their reverse Robin Hood act without the blessings of Congress, and certainly without the blessings of We The People!

From The Washington Post …

The Treasury Department is considering a tax cut for the wealthiest Americans through a change that would not need approval from Congress, officials said, a move that would follow a package of tax cuts last year that also benefited the super-rich.

The agency is studying whether to allow investment income, known as capital gains, to be adjusted for inflation in a way that shields more of it from taxation. Most capital gains are paid by wealthier Americans, who disproportionately hold large portfolios of investments.

A brief explanation of capital gains …

When you sell stock, you likely realize either a capital gain or loss, which is the difference between the amount for which you sold it and the amount you initially paid for it. If you paid $1,000 for 25 shares of XYZ stock in the year 2000, and you just sold it for $900, you have a capital loss of $100. Conversely, if you sold that same stock for $1,100, you have a capital gain of $100 which is subject to income taxes.

But what Steve Mnuchin, Secretary of the Treasury Department, is suggesting is that the basis, or what you paid for that stock, should be adjusted for inflation in the calculation of capital gains. Thus, it could be argued that the $1,000 you paid in 2000, adjusted for inflation, is equivalent to $1,100, thus wiping out your capital gain and BINGO — you now owe no taxes on that gain! Now, when you consider that for the wealthy those capital gains may be in the millions of dollars, well you can only imagine how much they would save in taxes. You and I won’t benefit more than a few dollars, if that, but people like Donald Trump, Betsy DeVos, and a host of others, stand to save hundreds of thousands in taxes.

The wealthiest 1% of American households own 40% of the country’s wealth. That share is higher than it has been at any point since at least 1962, according to a study by economist Edward N. Wolff. Meanwhile, you and I struggle to pay the bills and put food on the table, keep the 10-year-old car running for another year, and cut corners wherever we can.

Trump’s policies and the December donor tax cuts have already plunged the nation into deeper debt and increased the deficit. This move further reduces the income without doing a single thing to reduce expenses. And it can all be done without Congressional approval. If you ever had any doubt whether Trump had the good of the nation and its people in mind, this should convince you.

Oh … and would you be interested in knowing Steve Mnuchin’s net worth? $400 million. Personally, if this is what Donald Trump means when he says he will “keep fighting for Americans”, I wish he would just stop fighting. The wealthy, under Trump, are having a field day, but eventually, as those of us whose brains have not been replaced with dollar signs know, eventually the party comes to an end. Debts come due and there are very real consequences when there is no money in the treasury to pay those debts. And what about the rising poverty rates in this nation? How do you explain to a poor person that you are cutting their food stamps because the rich people are paying less taxes and, well, sorry but there just isn’t enough money for you to feed your children?

That “great economy”, that rise in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) that he keeps bragging about? Guess what, folks … it doesn’t mean a damn thing for the average citizen in the U.S. Sure, unemployment is low, but wages haven’t risen. Many lower income people still have to work 2 or even 3 jobs just to buy food and keep a roof over their heads! But by all means, let us make the wealthy even wealthier.

Let Them Eat Trump Steaks

Posted on May 11, 2018 by jilldennison under Political commentary, Social commentary

Paul Krugman is an economist who has taught Economics at MIT, Yale, and the London School of Economics. In 2008, he won a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. This man obviously knows of what he speaks. He is also a columnist for the New York Times. His column today, titled Let Them Eat Trump Steaks, is about the current administration’s efforts to rob low income people of any and all benefits. His words grabbed me and I felt it was something worth sharing.

In general, Donald Trump is notoriously uninterested in policy details. It has long been obvious, for example, that he never bothered to find out what his one major legislative victory, the 2017 tax cut, actually did. Similarly, it’s pretty clear that he had no idea what was actually in the Iran agreement he just repudiated.

In each case, it was about ego rather than substance: scoring a “win,” undoing his predecessor’s achievement.

But there are some policy issues he really does care about. By all accounts, he really hates the idea of people receiving “welfare,” by which he means any government program that helps people with low income, and he wants to eliminate such programs wherever possible.

Most recently, he has reportedly threatened to veto the upcoming farm bill unless it imposes stringent new work requirements on recipients of SNAP — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, still commonly referred to as food stamps.

Let me be upfront here: There’s something fundamentally obscene about this spectacle. Here we have a man who inherited great wealth, then built a business career largely around duping the gullible — whether they were naïve investors in his business ventures left holding the bag when those ventures went bankrupt, or students who wasted time and money on worthless degrees from Trump University. Yet he’s determined to snatch food from the mouths of the truly desperate, because he’s sure that somehow or other they’re getting away with something, having it too easy.

But however petty Trump’s motives, this is a big deal from the other side. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that new work requirements plus other restrictions proposed by House Republicans would end up denying or reducing nutritional aid to around two million people, mostly in families with children.

Why would anyone want to do that? The thing is, it’s not just Trump: Conservative hatred for food stamps is pervasive. What’s behind it?

The more respectable, supposedly intellectual side of conservative opinion portrays food stamps as reducing incentives by making life too pleasant for the poor. As Paul Ryan put it, SNAP and other programs create a “hammock” that “lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency.”

But this is a problem that exists only in the right’s imagination. Able-bodied SNAP recipients who should be working but aren’t are very hard to find: A vast majority of the program’s beneficiaries either are working — but at unstable jobs that pay low wages — or are children, elderly, disabled or essential family caregivers.

Oh, and there’s strong evidence that children in low-income families that receive food stamps become more productive and healthier adults, which means that the program is actually good for long-run economic growth.

Is it about the money? The enactment of the budget-busting 2017 tax cut proved once and for all, for anyone who had doubts, that Republicans don’t actually care about deficits.

But even if they did care about deficits, the C.B.O. estimates that the proposed cuts to food stamps would save less than one percent, that’s right, one percent, of the revenue lost due to that tax cut. In fact, over the next decade the entire SNAP program, which helps 40 million Americans, will cost only about a third as much as the tax cut. No, it’s not about the money.

What about racism? Historically, attacks on food stamps have often involved a barely disguised racial element — for example, when Ronald Reagan imagined a “strapping young buck” using food stamps to buy T-bone steaks. And I suspect that Trump himself still thinks of food stamps as a program for urban black people.

But while many urban blacks do get food stamps, so do many rural whites. Nationally, significantly more whites than blacks receive food stamps, and participation in SNAP is higher in rural than in urban counties. Food stamps are especially important in depressed regions like Appalachia that have lost jobs in coal and other traditional sectors.

And yes, this means that some of the biggest victims of Trump’s obsession with cutting “welfare” will be the very people who put him in office.

Consider Owsley County, Ky., at the epicenter of Appalachia’s regional crisis. More than half the county’s population receives food stamps; 84 percent of its voters supported Trump in 2016. Did they know what they were voting for?

In the end, I don’t believe there’s any policy justification for the attack on food stamps: It’s not about the incentives, and it’s not about the money. And even the racial animus that traditionally underlies attacks on U.S. social programs has receded partially into the background.

No, this is about petty cruelty turned into a principle of government. It’s about privileged people who look at the less fortunate and don’t think, “There but for the grace of God go I”; they just see a bunch of losers. They don’t want to help the less fortunate; in fact, they get angry at the very idea of public aid that makes those losers a bit less miserable.

And these are the people now running America.

These, folks, are the facts. Just one more reason we need to ensure some changes happen on 06 November.

Snippets of Ridiculosity …

Posted on March 28, 2018 by jilldennison under Environmental Issues, Political commentary

Being once again plagued by that mind-bounce phenomenon, I decided on just a few snippets for this afternoon’s post.

‘Sheriff Joe’ is back in the news

What would I do for humour if it weren’t for the likes of good ol’ former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio? This man deserves to be an Idiot of the Week! Oh wait … I gave him that honour back in October 2016! Well, folks, let me assure you that he is no less an idiot today than he was then!

You knew that he was convicted last year of criminal contempt, and then pardoned by his soul-mate, Donald Trump, right? And then, emboldened by the fact that Trump liked him well enough to grant him a presidential pardon, he decided to run in November for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Senator Jeff Flake.

Last week, hot on the campaign trail, Arpaio addressed a group of supporters (wait – he has supporters???) at the Western Conservative Conference in Phoenix. And he made them a promise … a promise to follow up on his tired old argument about whether President Barack Obama’s birth certificate is the real deal, or a fake. Seriously, folks, this fool wants to be elected to the U.S. Senate just so he can continue to bash a former president??? He claims to have “scientific evidence” that will prove once and for all that President Obama was not born in the U.S. Even Trump admitted that he knew Obama was born in Hawaii! Perhaps Arpaio does not realize, since there is a lot of water between Arizona and Hawaii, that Hawaii is actually a part of the United States?

Here is a 2-minute clip … notice his audience? Does anything stand out here?

I sincerely hope that the people of Arizona have better sense than to elect this fool, because I have a very real problem with paying a hefty salary to a man who is going to waste time on this garbage instead of doing the job of a legislator. We have enough clowns in the congressional circus – we don’t need to add another.

And now that I’ve told you about an idiot with zero common sense, let me take you to the opposite end of that spectrum …

A most honourable judge …

Judge Mary Ann Driscoll of West Roxbury District Court deserves, in my book, two thumbs up. Yesterday, she ruled that 13 people who were charged with civil disobedience were doing only what was necessary to protect the environment. The case was brought by Spectra Energy, who was building a pipeline that would run for 5 miles right through their Boston neighborhood, and they, along with nearly 200 others, protested by sitting in holes drilled by Spectra, and other actions in the attempt to stop the construction of the pipeline. The judge decided it was necessary for the protestors to engage in civil disobedience in order to block the construction of Spectra Energy’s high-pressure fracked gas pipeline and acquitted the activists of civil infractions. A baby step? Certainly, but it sends, I think, a big message that I hope will be followed by more, similar messages.

After having the protestors arrested, Spectra did complete the construction of the pipeline. By their own admission, they do not have a safety plan in case of a disaster. In this Trumpian era, when environmental concerns are being, not only placed on the back burner, but ridiculed and ignored, it is encouraging to see the courts stepping up to the plate.

HUH???

The headline read: “Republicans propose a balanced budget amendment after voting for trillion dollar legislation”Wait a minute. They cut revenue by more than $1 trillion by giving a ridiculous tax cut to all the wealthy people in the land, then they passed a $1.3 trillion spending bill, and now they want to balance the budget??? Have none of these fools ever taken Econ 101??? I think I should go address Congress and explain to them the concept of limited resources!

In truth, I’m sure even the Bozos on Capitol Hill are aware that there is no way in heck to balance the budget at this point, but … there are those mid-terms coming up in November, and since they already have more than a few strikes against them, the republicans must figure it would make them look good to at least be able to say they are working toward a balanced budget. I’m quite curious to see how they fudge the numbers to even make it look like it could work. Creative Accounting 101. In my world, it would get a prison sentence.

And so, friends, that wraps up my snippets for today. I’m sure I could find more, but I do have laundry to do. Have a good Wednesday evening!

Senator Susan Collins Is The Real Reason The RNC Is Now supporting Judge Roy Moore Again

Posted on December 7, 2017 by jilldennison under Political commentary, Re-blogs, Social commentary

Senator Susan Collins earned our kudos when she voted against the abominable ACA repeal bill a few months ago, but now? Not so much, since she sold her soul downriver to the big money donors and came out in support of the latest tax “reform” bill that is destined to cause nothing but grief for the 99% of us who are not wealthy. Ms. Collins current term does not end until 2021, so perhaps she believes we will forget her treason against We The People by then. Please read Gronda’s excellent post to see where Ms. Collins stands and what she is doing now. Thank you, Gronda!

Gronda Morin

Image result for images for susan collins mcconnell SENATOR COLLINS

It seems that the republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine did a major fubar by being talked into voting for the US senate tax bill in the wee morning of December 2, 2017.

Her constituents have held her to task bigly for this vote to where it is very unlikely that she will vote in favor of the final legislation.

The US Senate’s Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is aware of this fact and he needs to guarantee that 51 republicans will vote in favor of the final bill’s passage.

Image result for image of breakdown of us senate between democrats and republicans

So, the RNC Republican National Committee officials which had previously withdrawn their support for the alleged pedophile republican candidate Judge Roy Moore who is running to become the US senator from Alabama on December 12, 2017, but they have reversed their earlier decision and are now backing him because the republican senate leaders need his vote to pass their…

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Wit and Wisdom

Posted on November 16, 2017 by jilldennison under Humour, Political commentary, Social commentary

First thing this morning I came across a gem from one of my favourite New York Times writers, Nicholas Kristof, and while I very rarely share more than a paragraph or two from another source, this one was just too good to pass up! I am always a fan of sardonic, tongue-in-cheek humour and this fits that bill perfectly. Read on …

Billionaires Desperately Need Our Help!

It is so hard to be a billionaire these days!

A new yacht can cost $300 million. And you wouldn’t believe what a pastry chef earns — and if you hire just one, to work weekdays, how can you possibly survive on weekends?

The investment income on, say, a $4 billion fortune is a mere $1 million a day, which makes it tough to scrounge by with today’s rising prices. Why, some wealthy folks don’t even have a home in the Caribbean and on vacation are stuck brooding in hotel suites: They’re practically homeless!

Fortunately, President Trump and the Republicans are coming along with some desperately needed tax relief for billionaires.

Thank God for this lifeline to struggling tycoons. And it’s carefully crafted to focus the benefits on the truly deserving — the affluent who earn their tax breaks with savvy investments in politicians.

For example, eliminating the estate tax would help the roughly 5,500 Americans who now owe this tax each year, one-fifth of 1 percent of all Americans who die annually. Ending the tax would help upstanding people like the Trumps who owe their financial success to brilliant life choices, such as picking the uterus in which they were conceived.

Now it’s fair to complain that the tax plan over all doesn’t give needy billionaires quite as much as they deserve. For example, the top 1 percent receive only a bit more than 25 percent of the total tax cuts in the Senate bill, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

Really? Only 25 times their share of the population? After all those dreary $5,000-a-plate dinners supporting politicians? If politicians had any guts, they’d just slash services for low-income families so as to finance tax breaks for billionaires.

Oh, wait, that’s exactly what’s happening!

Trump understands, for example, that health insurance isn’t all that important for the riffraff. So he and the Senate G.O.P. have again targeted Obamacare, this time by trying to repeal the insurance mandate. The Congressional Budget Office says this will result in 13 million fewer people having health insurance.

But what’s the big deal? The United States already has an infant mortality rate twice that of Austria and South Korea. American women are already five times as likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth as women in Britain. So who’ll notice if things get a bit worse?

Perhaps that sounds harsh. But the blunt reality is that we risk soul-sucking dependency if we’re always setting kids’ broken arms. Maybe that’s why congressional Republicans haven’t bothered to renew funding for CHIP, the child health insurance program serving almost nine million American kids. Ditto for the maternal and home visiting programs that are the gold standard for breaking cycles of poverty and that also haven’t been renewed. We mustn’t coddle American toddlers.

Hey, if American infants really want health care, they’ll pick themselves up by their bootee straps and Uber over to an emergency room.

Congressional Republicans understand that we can’t do everything for everybody. We have to make hard choices. Congress understands that kids are resilient and can look after themselves, so we must focus on the most urgent needs, such as those of hand-to-mouth billionaires.

In fairness, Congress has historically understood this mission. The tax code subsidizes moguls with private jets while the carried interest tax break gives a huge tax discount to striving private equity zillionaires. Meanwhile, a $13 billion annual subsidy for corporate meals and entertainment gives ditch diggers the satisfaction of buying Champagne for financiers.

Our political leaders are so understanding because we appear to have the wealthiest Congress we’ve ever had, with a majority of members now millionaires, so they understand the importance of cutting health insurance for the poor to show support for the crème de la crème.

Granted, the G.O.P. tax plan will add to the deficit, forcing additional borrowing. But if the tax cut passes, automatic “pay as you go” rules may helpfully cut $25 billion from Medicare spending next year, thus saving money on elderly people who are practically dead anyway. If poor kids have to suffer, we may as well make poor seniors suffer as well. That’s called a balanced policy.

More broadly, you have to look at the reason for deficits. Yes, it’s problematic to borrow to pay for, say, higher education or cancer screenings. But what’s the problem with borrowing $1.5 trillion to invest in urgent tax relief for billionaires?

Anyway, at some point down the road we’ll find a way to pay back the debt by cutting a wasteful program for runny-nose kids who aren’t smart enough to hire lobbyists. There must be some kids’ program that still isn’t on the chopping block.

The tax bill underscores a political truth: There’s nothing wrong with redistribution when it’s done right.

Filosofa's Word

Cogito Ergo Sum

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