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The very best way to solve the budget crisis is simply to cut all social programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, H.U.D., cut Social Security by 60% and stop all welfare programs, end food stamps and programs that aid the poor. If we stop all medical programs except for those who can afford the most expensive plans, eventually we will get rid of the elderly, poor and disabled in our country. Of course we will have to keep some healthcare programs that the workers buy themselves in order to have enough drones to keep the wealthy with enough cheap labor to continue to keep profits coming in for the wealthy Americans. Like I said, before long we will be rid of those pesky poor people and those that are ill will fade away and we can wait for the disabled to eventually die off and no more questions about raising taxes, because we won't need them any longer for those frivolous social programs the people need here in the good ole' U.S. of A.. Or, we could just ship them off to Canada, I understand with the exception of Kend, they take pretty good care of their people...K.W.
DAnnemarc: #14: Right on! You can see what is happening but it sure looks like not many others are. The stigma of "conspiracy theory" turns off a lot of people...cognitive dissonance. Just turn the head and pretend it's not there...maybe it will go away.
Tara T - Thanks for your input. If I felt there was no way to defend myself, should I just throw the doors open and let whatever may happen, happen? I am 6'3'' and weigh in at 215lb. At age sixty I am in better shape than most forty year old males of similar physical characteristics. I am very aggressive and can handle most people if challenged and I will not bore you with situations I have encountered. True, if someone gets in and over powers me I guess I am a dead man, because that is what it will take to stop me. I have an ax handle behind my front door and my master bedroom door and I have practiced using them. My revolver is within a 15 second reach at most times and I keep a 20 gauge double barreled stage gun (20 in. barrel) loaded with 00 shot. I use silver tip hollow points and usually use a .38 spl+P load, so it will do the most damage with one shot and will not leave the perp's body. Whether walking the street (and I carry a 5 in. hunting knife) I always expect the worst so as to be on guard in the event something may take place where I am not armed with fire power. When confronted I expect the worse and would try to eliminate the perp(s) in any situation. I do not believe in just hurting someone who poses a threat in any manner. My daughter often mentions she wishes I would be more mellow and less aggressive. I choose to be excessively aggressive by nature and perceive the world as a threat beyond my doors. I am prepared mentally and emotionally to eliminate anyone who confronts me or my family. If someone harmed my daughter or my grandson I would bail them out if arrested, to eliminate them because I have no faith in the judicial system. The police are a reactionary force which only responds to a situation 95% of the time and only stops a crime from happening before hand approximately 5% of the time, so therefore I will do my best to permanently eliminate any person or persons who attempt to do harm. This may sound like some macho crap to you, but I feel in order to be safe and safeguard my loved ones, a person has to be able to do whatever it takes. I suppose I could be called somewhat paranoid, but I would rather be ready in the event of a situation then be caught off guard. But, you are right about a scenario where someone is over whelmed and caught off guard in a home invasion. Just a thought I would like to share, predators always look for the weakest prey to kill. Never allow yourself to seen as the weakest prey and you may just stop the incidence before it happens. War has taught me one important lesson under stress, never hesitate to react and kill before being killed yourself. Those victims who owned guns and were overwhelmed usually hesitated before imitating any action, which is something that will never happen in my situation. I have no intention of becoming part of the armed population who fails to react and therefore becomes a statistic. If I was to accept your ideology I would not bother to arm myself or do my best to eliminate any perp that threatens my family or me. Why do you won a semi-auto handgun if you do not think it would protect you? I would actually like to hear your response. If you think the police will protect you and yours, you have a terrible surprise ahead of you in the event you are assaulted and you could have prevented it by not allowing yourself to see your situation as helpless against someone who wants to invade your home. K.W. I really did not have any intention of even commenting on Hartmann's blog today, but I felt I needed to express myself in regard to your statements to DeAnneMarc and myself. As most people who follow Hartmann's site knows, I am rather aggressive and somewhat of an agitator in our discussions. Also, I live in what is called the South bay and it is a middleclass neighborhood with very little crime, it is just that my experience in the military has taught me to never be caught off guard.
DeAnneMarc - Did your response say if you were raped? I thought you said you were a male? I do not mean to be so inquisitive, and I understand if you want your info to be none revealing as to who you are. Palin feels the same way, I am not concerned if someone knows my identity or location, as I have stated it in past comments. If someone wants a confrontation with me because they do not like what I have to say, my response is bring it on. I will not live my life as a victim.
chuckle8 #12: But Grover Norquist only wants to cut the budget for social programs and wants to increase the budget for military spending. Grover Norquist is a very big part of the problem.
And you may argue that increasing the budget for military spending creates jobs and you would be correct...it would create jobs for some..but only for those who are producing more tools for killing people. And the more tools for killing people you have in your inventory...the more apt some politician is going to make the case for invading someone.
But increasing the budget for social programs would increase jobs that are not geared to creating more death and destruction. Social program money would be spent on needed and useful products and that would create lots of jobs for those who produce those useful products.
Yes, that Reinhart-Rogland study was a scam and it was used by right-wingers to make a case for reducing the budget for social programs...they weren't interested in reducing the budget for the Pentagon. And the way they were playing the Democrats they would have destroyed the social programs and kept and increased Pentagon spending.
Dmark you are going to understand what I am talking about soon. Obama care is just around the corner. Your taxes are going to skyrocket and you will get in the same line as I do for your health care and wait for a year to see a specialist and you will be bitching just like me. The sad part is the wealthy will get the same health care they have for less because like Canadians they will just leave and get care somewhere else.
Kend ~ That story totally flies in the face of the available evidence. :Please explain why despite SocialIzed medicine your particular Vampire pump still seems to be working? That would really help anything else you say seem more plausible.
Wow tuff crowd. Yes the Canadian health care system does cover the vampire pumps but because health care is rationed here, the wait times are so long no one lived long enough to get one.
If it's one of those vampire pumps like Cheney uses, then I say it doesn't count as a real heart. I wonder if the Canadian health care system even covers those? What do you think DAnneMarc?
Seeing how they fly frequently, it didn't take the do nothing congress long to do something about the air traffic control cuts.
Surprisingly though, REPUBLICANS also reached quick agreement on the importance of Govt. spending on even more jobs. But wait, the jobs are connected to the military industrial complex, so I guess no real surprise there either. Just as long as we cut the jobs that deliver meals to elderly shut ins, we can afford to build tanks the military doesn't even want. They're good REPUBLICAN jobs, the kind that relate to the profitable business of killing off our global neighbors.....what a shock!
Oddly the 7 million manufacturing jobs lost since 1980, the ones that have faded away along with the middle class, were the kind of jobs the REPUBLICANS seemed to care litttle about. In fact the REPUBLICANS actually rewarded companies for shipping many of these 7 million jobs overseas by endorsing tax loopholes for them to do so. Efforts didn't stop there however, the same REPUBLICAN ECONOMIC COMBATANTS used the filibuster to block DEMOCRATIC attempts to end these insane tax policies.
So the question remains, why in hell aren't the tanks being built overseas for a buck an hour like everything else? It's a question for the REPUBLICANS and those who vote for them to answer.
DAnnemarc: That's right! It is that time again! The 5th of May! Bring on the Mariachis, chips, and Guacamole!
Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone! Viva la Revolucion!
MontanaMuleGal: No, but thanks for that information..I will certainly check it out. I have known about a couple of other people who have had a very bad time with their former government employers. Sibel Edmonds, a former FBI translator and whistle blower, and Susan Lindauer, a former CIA Intelligence Asset, also a whistleblower, have both been very active in telling us about the corruption and lies that their employers used to deceive the American people about 911. The way they treated Susan Lindauer was just criminal...and done in nearly the same fashion as the KGB would have done it. They even tried to chemically lobotomize her but she was lucky a Judge Mukasey was protecting her. The main stream media tried to make Susan look like she was crazy (that funny laugh she has sometimes doesn't help her any there). But, after all she went through, I'm surprised she can laugh at all. Sibel Edmonds has her own podcast called Boiling Frogs. I can't remember much about the Sibel Edmond's case..it's been a while...I'll have to check up on it again...she had to keep a lot of stuff quiet because she was still under oath of secrecy. I remember the Susan Lindauer case because I just watched one of her video lectures.
Susan Lindauer was told by her CIA boss to meet the Iraqi representatives in NYC, prior to 911, and give them a message that the CIA wanted Iraq to provide them with any actionable information on a planned aircraft hijacking and plans to crash into buildings. Susan said that the Saddam hated jihadis because he was afraid that they would try to cause trouble in Iraq so he was very interested in cooperating fully with the US. But they said that they didn't have any more info than they had already given. Susan's boss, after he found out that Susan didn't use a very demanding tone, sent her back to make stern threats (which originated from the very top level of our government...Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld). Her second meeting in NYC still didn't produce any new info. Susan said that it was very well known all throughout the agency and in other agencies that attacks were imminent...they all believed...within a matter of weeks. She was told to call AG Ashcroft to warn him that they just received info that the attacks were imminent..within a few weeks. Ashcroft was furious that she told him because, Susan believes, he and the Bush administration no long had plausible deniability. They could not effectively say that they had no idea that we would be attacked. But, I guess they did anyway...didn't they..but then they put Susan into a Texas prison for a year, with no visitors, and they tried to chemically lobotomize her. So the Bush administration went on and claimed they had no idea...blah, blah, blah until we all learned of the memo warning of the attacks.
Susan said that prior to 911...the Iraqis were falling all over themselves to be friendly to the US promising all kinds of trade deals...telecom..medicine...all kinds of stuff....except those things that would make our military industrial complex rich. But, Bush had a petty vendetta against Saddam and he wasn't going to listen to anything the Iraqis had to say. The plans were already laid to invade Iraq...all they needed was an excuse...911 gave them that excuse. The Iraqis even invited our FBI over to Iraq to have a completely hands off investigation of any suspected jihadis. There weren't any in Iraq...they were in Afghanistan.
Susan believes that hijackings did occur but she believes that the WTC buildings were rigged with explosives and demolished. She has a friend and confidant, high up in an agency, that told her that there were several unmarked vans that came and went in the early hours, from about 3am to 5am every day for 10 or 11 days. These vans were tailed and the agency knows where the vans originated from. There are other vans that are marked for building janitorial that were the normal vans that left before 3am then the other vans would show up.
But I had heard testimony from survivors who told of lots of noise and vibrations from an on-going construction on various floors for a number of weeks prior to 911. They were even told to stay home for a couple of days while construction took place.
Cancer Causing substances...oil, coal, gas, pesticides, pesticide-drenched Ag Biz, radiation-contaminated fertilizers, dioxin-producing chlorine products galore, etc., are subsidized. And, lawmakers who support those industries, instead of protecting their constituents FROM the abuses of those industries, are subsidized by taxpayers, the victims of those industries.
We are through the looking glass...deeply into Backwards Land.
What must be subsidized are organic crops (foods, fabrics and livestock feed), hemp (to replace logging and pesticide intensive cotton and it's chlorine usage, for starters), public transit (to minimize carcinogenic etc emissions), independent science, medical and otherwise (to eliminate distrust and $elf-$erving results), and...easily Above All, public airwaves (to counter commercial broadcast domination of public informatiion).
You stated above in your blog
Which is not true, what it says it prevents doctors, from asking you about your guns. As Bill Moyers explains in a Essay: The Gun Lobby’s Firepower, it starts about 3 min. and 45 seconds into the video
Kend wrote ~ "Oh by the way before you send me your hate mail I had a MRI and I saw that I do have a heart I can show you the proof."
In that case please find a way to post it. If the majority of us don't see concrete proof you have a heart we won't believe it. (BTW Even with proof I fear most people on this Blog won't believe it anyway!)
chuckle8 ~ No! Please understand my perspective. I see three unexplained, tragic explosions occurring on American streets right after the President announced a $200 Billion cut in defense spending. I'm looking at the situation from the perspective of Dwight Eisenhower and JFK after they gave the farewell address and the speech about Secret Societies respectively. I'm also looking at the situation after I just heard about the peer reviewed scientific journal article entitled, "Traces of Super Thermite found in WTC Dust. I'm also considering this 'opinion' after learning for the first time about "Operation Northwood." If you know nothing about this--and it appears you do--I'd suggest typing "Operation Northwood" into your search engine. You will be shocked and surprised to find "Operation Northwood" appear in your number one search location before you finish typing O P E R A T I O ,.....
After you read about "Operation Northwood" and hear the speeches I'm talking about--as well as reading the paper I'm talking about--come back and ask your question again!! IF YOU DARE!!!!
We HAVE TO CUT MILITARY EXPENDATURES NOT FOR ECONOMIC SECURITY; BUT FOR THE MILITARY SECURITY OF THE NATION!! The economy is a lesser concern. Our chief security/financial problem is our military! IT MUST GO!!!!!!
Your country is 17 trillion dollars ($17,000,000,000,000.00) in debt and you are finding it hard to cut a few hundred billion here and there. Are you kidding me? We did it the best way here. We cut every department by 5% right across the board. The best part is no body even noticed the cuts. Nothing changed.
Do you know in 2014 the US budget is about 3.8 trillion. ($3,800,000,000,000.00), billions are a drop in the bucket.
Ohhh i wish I was a liberal it is so much easier to spend it then pay for it and when you are spending it you are the hero. No one even says thank you to the ones who pay for it they just tell you you didn't pay enough. God forbid you ever asked them to spend less you are evil, heartless, you don't care.
Oh by the way before you send me your hate mail I had a MRI and I saw that I do have a heart I can show you the proof.
DAnnemarc: No, man, just something I read and thought rather amusing. I don't have cancer...yet...hopefully never. But if I ever do get it...who knows...coffee is a lot cheaper than radiation treatments. But, I wonder how Steve Jobs tried to treat whatever it was that he had..didn't work, obviously.
Actually, I enjoy eating Napolitos (cactus) with scrambled eggs (and doused with a large amount of hot sauce) when I go to my favorite Mexican restaurant.
That is interesting about using Napolitos in the other way that you describe. But, I once got some advice from someone to rub a dead chicken on my bare chest for curing a cough. I passed. My cough disappeared a few days later anyway. Had I used the chicken, I'm sure my adviser would have said "see there, it works, doesn't it?"
DAnneMarc -- If you are saying we have to cut the budget to cut more fat from the "greasy pigs", then you begin to sound like Grover Norquist. I like the more possible scenario of spending more (actually investing more). Have you not heard that the Reinhart-Rogland study that says we need to cut expenditures was a scam?
Thanks for the links. I will try to study them in the next couple of days. Do you know if R. Wilkinson computes the GINI coefficient for Brazil? That would be a good indication if the policies of the new leaders are working.
I have an idea for the central peg for our economy...elections. Since the (massively inappropriately named) Citizens United case, we have seen unprecedented spending by the 1% trying to buy the government THEY want. I'm not sure we'll ever know where all of Sheldon Adelson's $100mil got spent, but some of it must have filtered into the economy. So it seems to me that as long as we can keep a government that the 1% don't like, in place they will open their pockets in an effort to overthrow it. Then all we have to do is create a perpetual election cycle and ... Voila! Economy solved.
People, raygun created this fiasco when he made "for profit" health care LEGAL. Wake up! obama the liar is forcing us all to buy into this failed republiCON policy just as he has forced us all to live with the "trickle down" BS.
Dont trust republiCON or democRAT. Both are terrorists.
Demand that the only sane person in washington, Bernie Sanders, take over washington now.
Thom and Louise wrote ~ "The military must absorb $487 billion in sequester cuts over the next decade, and like various other programs affected by the cuts, they're finding it difficult to figure out where that money will come from. "
Are you kidding me! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!! I previously suggested cutting $250 Billion from the military ANNUALLY!! I was being conservative for crying out loud. However, now that we know what they are capable of when the President suggests cutting $200 Billion annually, maybe we better watch out. Who knows if we dare to cut more fat from this huge grotesque greesy PIG of a bureaucracy we might find one of our beloved cities in nuclear ashes.
I say cut 100% of the military budget. With friends like these who needs enemies?
Poverty in Rio de Janeiro
“Are any of the Brazilian leader's actions reducing wealth and income inequality?”
I do not have an answer to that question. But there is great separation from the top wealthiest people, and the extreme poor. I’m going to give you two YouTube videos one of them Poverty in Rio de Janeiro, the another, a TED Talk, given by Richard Wilkinson. I do believe you will find them interesting.
Poverty in Rio de Janeiro
Richard Wilkinson: How economic inequality harms societies
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rio de Janeiro is the 2nd richest city in Brazil, behind São Paulo and the 30th richest city in the world with a GDP of R$ 201,9 billion in 2010. The per capita income for the city was R$22,903 in 2007 (around US$14,630). According to Mercer's city rankings of cost of living for expatriate employees, Rio de Janeiro ranks 12th among the most expensive cities in the world in 2011, up from the 29th position in 2010, just behind São Paulo (ranked 10th), and ahead of London, Paris, Milan, and New York City. Rio also has the most expensive hotel rates in Brazil, and the daily rate of its five star hotels are the second most expensive in the world after only New York City
Lots of Christians are waiting for the second coming, I believe we have a long time many, centuries before that will happen. Tell me what you think, or believe.
It seems to me that nobody was concerned when they closed the tank plant in Detroit. The "Arsenal of Democracy" was kicked when it was already down. As a matter of fact, the "government" paid General Dynamics to build a massive facility just 5 miles up the road and then sold off the facility where tanks were produced for 50 years to a couple of bankrupt corporations and a farce of a vocational training school.
I have to ask why it is so difficult to bring manufacturing jobs to the people, jobs that could create jobs and save energy at the same time, but then it becomes obvious.
The "government" is nothing but a terrorist organization, intent on ruining the middle class. Led by a liar who chumped us all with his "look forward, not backward" scam, we are stuck with people that would prefer to game the system by passing tax cuts that benifiet themselves, protecting banksters from criminal prosecution because "they" hope to capture one of those board of directors jobs that pay 2 MILLION per year for attending a couple of meetings, meaning they can write off the personal jet as a business deduction, additionally protecting the mortgage fraudsters, freddie may and company along with the criminally insane energy cabal.
It becomes quite evident why obama is so intent on passing gun control laws, even though his "affordable care joke" has a law in it that forbids gun registration.
The "government" consists of criminals. Most all should be in prison for treason. At the least, anyone that voted for the support of either invading Afghanistan or Iraq should have "@sshole" tatooed on thier forehead but instead we allow the parasites to keep on voting themselves raises and immunity from laws that the rest of us are held to.
Jefferson was right. We should flush the toilet of washington every 20 years. The toilet is full of terds. Time to flush.
Tara T ~ Point well taken. I meant using my wit in preparation before the event not during. If someone wants to physically hurt me--other than shoot me--they are going to have to get very close. If they want to rape me--even closer. Once that gun gets in my reach and they become distracted--like one does during a rape--one of us is going to die. May God help him if he attacks my wife first.
You see my friend I'm only 50 years old. I still have my youthful physical abilities. This is not to say that I won't change my mind about gun ownership when I'm Ken Ware's age. Not that Ken can't take care of himself, but I doubt I will have his physical prowess at 65 years of age--if I'm lucky enough to live that long. LOL
By the way Tara T, you might want to know that I grew up in the most crime infested areas of Oakland, CA. I still live here. I've learned to cope with criminals without owning a weapon. I've experienced everything from purse snatchings and muggings to drive by shootings and gang fights with machine guns. I've never been inspired to own a weapon. I've never been terrified. Perhaps I'm numb to the violence. Perhaps I'm just used to it.
The only thing that ever really terrified me was a brutal bar fight in San Francisco and a mugging of a little old lady my family experienced when I was a toddler. Strangely, neither incident involved a gun. In the case of the little old lady my father helped her after finding her collapsed on the street, bleeding profusely and we took her to a local hospital. Despite cooperating with the mugger he beat her senseless. Broke her nose right off her face. I still have nightmares about it. You could see the hole in her skull. We kept struggling to find things in the car she could use to stop the bleeding.
I brought up this attack experience as an adult at a neighborhood watch meeting several years ago with an experienced Oakland Police Officer presiding over a group of mostly seniors. The advice she gave those senior in such a situation may surprise you. She suggested that holding ones keys in their hand with the shafts pointing out between our fingers and your hand balled up into a fist makes a very dangerous weapon. She also suggested pepper spray. However, under the table she said she carries in her purse a can of Easy Off Oven Cleaner. She guaranteed that a blast of that to the face of anyone will discourage any further aggression--possibly forever. She asked us all not to tell anyone she said that. So please Tara T, just keep that between you and me. LOL