Let's start with Hillary Clinton. To be fair, let me say up front I do not like this woman. She strikes me as phony for lots of reasons, mostly her complete lack of ability to say the stupidest things with no recognition of what she said. That is NOT someone I want as president. Recently, Hillary claimed she was "dead broke." This did not play out well nor should it have. This past Saturday, Hillary continued her streak of really dumb bon mots when she answered a question about how her and her husband's wealth may play a problem in a time of rising inequality. She responded, wait for it, that she was not like the "truly well off" who don't pay their taxes, rich is rich, and she only became wealthy through "hard work." Yeah that book tour you got paid millions for looks brutal. I'll be happy to switch positions with you any day, Hillary. I'll wait patiently by the phone for the upcoming phone call. Yup, any minute now.
Here's Robert Reich's response:
"I wish Democrats eyeing the presidency in 2016 would talk less about their own finances and more about what they’d do to reverse rising inequality if elected. Specifically, would they (1) raise taxes on the rich to their pre-Reagan levels? (2) close giant loopholes the wealthy have arranged such as “carried interest” for hedge-fund and private-equity partners? (3) increase the minimum wage to a living wage? (4) expand the Earned Income Tax Credit? and (5) exempt the first $15,000 of income from the Social Security tax while eliminating the cap on income subject to it? Americans need to know where Democrats stand on inequality, not the size of their bank accounts."
All of these are good ideas and so far exactly no one, except for a handful of left leaning senators like Liz Warren and Bernie Saunders, are actually trying to do anything about this. Neither the left nor the right, and certainly not Hillary, is going to champion any of these unless we make her. If you guys don't start voicing your opinions stronger, you won't have a voice left. Our democracy is under attack and no one is doing anything to stop it. I tell people about it which is something. The best way to make any changes is to start getting better acquainted with what is going on and then start demanding more from our politicians. Say what you want about the Tea Party, as I do, but at least they got enough people together to get rid of Eric Cantor. Sure their candidate is even worse, but it is still a step in the right direction. If a bunch of idiots wearing revolutionary garb and tea bags from their hats can upend of a guy with millions in the bank versus a guy with nothing, anyone can be beat if enough people care. You can't rig a landslide yet. We can take this country back with nothing more violent than pulling a lever, and it has to start in 2014. Vote the GOP out and give the democrats enough rope to hang themselves. When 2016 rolls around, if enough of us are smart enough to not fall for dirty tricks, we might just be able to get someone into office and Congress who will fix this giant mess we are in.
A quick word about Joe Biden. As Iraq falls apart, as it always going to, as it's a fictional country, three states are going to emerge, instead of this nonsense which some drunken British fool drew on what appears to be a cruel bet. Joe Biden said back in 2006 that we should divide the country up according to religious views and use oil profits that would be equally shared among the three to keep them in check. It was a great idea so of course, Bush said "No fucking way," and then went back to playing with his toys while Cheney kicked Biden in the ass on the way out. Had they done this common sense approach, things would be far better than this rapidly deteriorating situation. But as Bush and Cheney screwed up the world playing Jenga with countries, Iraq looks like it is ready to fall and it may take the Middle East with it. Syria and Jordan and starting to see fighting on it's borders and Israel, as always, is a hairs breath away from killing everyone. Joe Biden has resisted the urge to give a big "I told you so," which I find admirable. If he could move further to the left and start espousing things like raising the minimum wage, legalization of weed, and fixing student loan debt, he could win. And if he behaves better than Hillary, as he did this week, he could still beat her.
The conservatives are still denying Climate Change with the Supreme Court upholding a recent EPA ruling for clear air and coal burning. but at the same exempting some businesses. As for what business are being exempted, I don't know, because God forbid someone who works in news does their freaking job. No article I could find spells out what exactly is being exempted. And they wonder why no one trusts the news anymore. In reality, the situation itself is highly confusing as the liberals won one part, 7-2, but lost the exemption rule 5-4, so everyone is happy and claiming victory which, to be honest, has to be seen to be believed as I have no idea how this will affect anyone.
Meanwhile, the Telegraph in UK, published an article from some hack named Christopher Booker, who looks like the crypt keeper in a suit. Dumb ass goes to say the world has actually been cooling for the past thirty years, using research from Stephen Goddard of the Real Science website and is false advertising to the nth degree as there is no actual science on that site. Goddard uses cherry picked info and graphs to hammer home his complete fabrication that climate change is not happening and/or it's getting colder, both of which are total bunk. I can disprove both without hardly trying. Climate change is happening as statistics conclusively show a warming trend, not the other way. We know this but actually looking at data from across the country on a day to day basis, not the hottest/coldest day ever which Goddard, Booker and other use to skewer the data. Can we please stop giving credence to theories that are not only disproven but decidedly so?
The scariest thing right now is the Ebola virus which is out of control now in Central Africa. With hundreds sick, it could be the biggest outbreak ever. The good news is is that Ebola is not that contagious. The bad news is, it could be. Airborne Ebola does exist, but it has never been seen in humans. However, the more people get it, the greater the chance for a mutation and then suddenly, it is. If that happens, its game over world, as the death toll could reach as high as 90%, although chances are it would be much lower. However, even if only 10% die, that's still 700,000,000 dead. Society would still break down as services would stop and anarchy may reign. Let us hope none of that comes to pass, which at this point, is still highly unlikely. But it still deserves attention. Just like Hillary Clinton. Pay close attention to what she is saying and ask yourself if she is really what you want. We should be demanding Liz Warren run with either Robert Reich or Bernie Sanders as her running mate. What do you think out there?
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