Month: April 2019

Say Good Bye To Right-To-Work (Hopefully!)

Closing Thought–30Apr19

Tomorrow is the International Day of the Worker….so I thought I would post on labor and its place in American society…..

I live in Mississippi a right to work state….a term that sounds good but in reality means that if you want to work then you will work for less money……what a glorious idea of the conserv pricks in our country……I have written what I think of this idea…..and none of it flattering….

https://lobotero.com/2008/08/27/employment-at-will-vs-right-to-work/

https://lobotero.com/2011/10/10/the-right-to-work/

To say that I am not a supporter of this rip-off of the American worker would be an understatement…….but at least one state is fighting back at the attempt to make right-to-work a stable of their economy…….right to work supporters tried to use this as a union busting move and for the most part it was successful……..but Illinois is fighting back……

With the support of labor unions, a new bill prohibiting municipalities in the state from enacting “right-to-work laws” was signed into law by Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker last week.

The “Collective Bargaining Freedom Act” prohibits local right-to-work ordinances and imposes penalties for violations.

Right-to-work laws became a focus for state lawmakers after the village of Lincolnshire, a northern suburb of Chicago, passed one in 2015.

A federal court later overturned the ordinance.

Changing Of The Guard?

In 2018 the House reverted back to the Dems and in that election more women and Millennials were elected and they came to Congress with one plan to do the work of the people who elected them.

While they set about making their mark they were told by the “Old Guard” to be silent and keep their heads down…..they did not take that advice. And now the Old Guard is running scared and are doing all they can to make these Congresspeople as least effective as possible.

Come let’s be honest these old farts Dems are as conserv as the GOP all their noise made in contrary is just political theater knowing full well that their opposition will not be taken seriously and the status quo will remain….that means you will be crapped on as usual.

Starting with Clinton, Bubba not Hil, the Dems have drifted into conservatism and remained there…there has been lots of talk about change….but really? What has changed within the DNC? Obama may talk a good game but policies remained in the conserv vane…and yet he is seen as a progressive.

As a true progressive I despise the use of the term used to describe anyone in the DNC…the new brand is embracing true progressivism over the conserv BS from the past…..the country will win in the end.

These freshmen Congresspeople are giving the American people what they have had so little of in the past…a voice in their future.

I am so tired of these pundits on TV that make 6 figures or more telling the American people what they need and what they want.  These people have NO idea what an average family wants or needs……but yet they bad mouth the so-called Left populism…..

The considerable advances that the labor movements made in the period 1945–1978 (known as “The Golden Age of Capitalism”), and the considerable expansion of social, labor, and political rights that these movements achieved on both sides of the North Atlantic (North America and Western Europe), generated a response from the economic and financial establishments—as well as from the political and media establishments which they influence enormously—that had an extensive impact. These establishments developed the anti-labor movement policies, known internationally as neoliberal policies, that significantly reduced the powers of labor and weakened the rights that had been won over the previous decades.

The data speaks for itself: labor income fell as a percentage of GDP in most of these countries at the cost of a large increase in capital income from the 1980s until now (see my book Ataque a la democracia y al bienestar. Crítica al pensamiento económico dominante. Anagrama, 2015).

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/04/26/why-left-wing-populism-is-not-enough/

I worries me when I see so-called unions come out in favor of the conservatism of Biden and most other Dem candidates…..unions NO longer represent the worker in the manner they were intended to in the past. (a post in waiting?)

The DNC needs a sharp turn to the Left…….we have had at least 3 decades of big money party politics….those days need to go away and stay away.

There are way too many “centrists” in this field of Dem candidates……these are the cowards from the past time for them to do what they can to help the changing of the guard…..

Democratic centrists — or you can call them New Democrats or moderates or “pragmatic progressives” or whatever label you choose — have had quite an impressive run in national politics. They have won seven consecutive Democratic presidential nominations (or perhaps eight, depending on how you classify Michael Dukakis), and then went on to win the popular vote in six of those general elections. This stretch of relative success came after Republicans had won five of six presidential elections between 1968 and 1988.

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/03/a-new-role-for-democratic-centrists-helping-the-left-win.html

I have never liked Centrists…..pick a path a stay on it…the center of the road is a dangerous place….especially for the nation.

Change the guard and move the nation forward…we have had enogh back peddling.

Money Laundering

I read where there might be some form of money laundering in the “Report”……so in keeping with my efforts I present an FYI post……

With all the horrible legal news that the president has been getting lately the one that may be the most damaging if proven to be true is “money laundering”…

This is not some accident where you cash goes through the wash cycle…..nope…this is a crime punishable by lots of prison time.

Bloomberg has shown how this crime is done……

You’re a Russian criminal with millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains but one big problem: Transferring slugs of money or carrying suitcases of cash will raise eyebrows. You need to “launder” the dough — make the dirty money appear to be the proceeds of legitimate enterprise. Then it can be spent anywhere in the world — say, on real estate or luxury yachts — no questions asked. Most countries and all the world’s major banks have controls in place to flag suspicious funds coming into the financial system. But as shown by the so-called Troika Laundromat scandal and the probes roiling European banks, bad actors come up with innovative ways to skirt the rules.

Hiding under shell companies

Deliberately opaque “shell” companies, which exist only on paper and have no active business operations, are easy and cheap to set up and effective at obscuring ownership. They’re key to what experts call the “layering phase” of money laundering, in which funds are shoveled around multiple times to make them harder to track. Shell companies are commonly found in traditional tax havens such as Switzerland and the Cayman Islands, but the U.S. states of Delaware and Nevada also permit corporations to be set up in anonymity. The international consortium of journalists that uncovered the Troika Laundromat scheme says it involved at least 75 shell companies that generated a total of $8.8 billion in transactions through made-up deals. There’s been a global push for more transparency, even in the U.K., whose crown dependencies include Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-09/money-to-launder-here-s-how-hint-find-a-bank-quicktake

And that is how it is done!  One does not be a rocket scientist to be able to achieve success.

Learn Stuff!

Closing Thought–29Apr19

Last week the big story was that Joe Biden was entering the 2020 process……but everybody knew he was going to do what he did….big story.

The true big story was the one that hit while the country was focused like a laser on the Biden announcement…….when Otto Warmbier was a bigger story.

We all have watched the antics of Don the Orange and Li’l Kim……but think back to their first “summit” one aftermath was the release of Otto Warmbier from a North Korean prison…..

North Korea insisted the U.S. agree to pay $2 million in medical costs in 2017 before it released detained American college student Otto Warmbier while he was in a coma, a former US official said Thursday. An envoy sent to North Korea to retrieve the 21-year-old student signed an agreement to pay the $2 million on instructions passed down from President Trump, the former official told the AP, speaking on condition of anonymity. The bill went to the Treasury Department, where it remained—unpaid—throughout 2017, per the Washington Post. CNN reported the bill has not been paid since then.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said the administration does not comment on hostage negotiations. US policy is to refuse to pay ransom for the release of Americans detained abroad. While the majority of Americans detained by North Korea have been released in relatively good condition, Warmbier, a University of Virginia student, died last June after he was flown home comatose after 17 months in captivity. Warmbier was seized from a tour group while visiting North Korea in January 2016, convicted of trying to steal a propaganda poster, and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. Joseph Yun, the US envoy, told CNN he could not confirm the payment report, saying, “These are diplomatic exchanges and negotiations.” Fred Warmbier, Otto’s father, said he was never told about the hospital bill, per the Post. He said it sounded like a “ransom” for his son.

Seriously?

Was this the big decision that was made at the first “summit”?

If so, it is pathetic!

Further reading on this news story…….

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/25/politics/otto-warmbier-north-korea-comatose-bill/index.html

And Bolton says it is true…..

National security adviser John Bolton confirmed on “Fox News Sunday” that a Trump administration official signed a document pledging to pay North Korea a $2 million hospital bill to release Otto Warmbier, though he said no money was ultimately transferred.

WALLACE: Did North Korea demand money for the release of Otto Warmbier?
BOLTON: It appears that they did. This occurred before I came into the administration, but that’s my understanding.
WALLACE: Did the U.S. official who was there to get him out of the country, Joseph Yun, did he sign a document pledging the money in order to get him out.
BOLTON: That is what I am told, yes.
WALLACE: I guess the bottom line question is, did the U.S. pay any money to North Korea, however it was disguised, after Warmbier was released?
BOLTON: Absolutely not. And that’s the key point.

The backdrop: President Trump called the Washington Post story that first reported the hospital bill “fake news,” though the report notably said it was “unclear” whether the administration actually ended up paying the bill. Nothing in the story has been proven inaccurate.

Is not this negotiating with “terrorists” and I thought the US does not do this.

Some stories are more important than others.

Is Biden The Answer?

Biden announced and now he must start in earnest to be the candidate that America needs (his words not mine)……but he is nothing more than policies of the Clinton and Obama…..corporate candidate of the first degree.

Dems need to find their candidate and not suffer at the hands like they did in 2016…..they, Dems, will NEVER regain their place among the American people it they lose twice to Donald Trump…..

But the burning question is….can Biden truly win in 2020?

Joe Biden has officially entered the 2020 presidential race. His case to win the 2020 Democratic nomination is fairly simple: As Barack Obama’s two-term vice president, he’s the most familiar brand in the field. He’s ahead in the polls (it’s emphatically not a tie for the lead with Bernie Sanders; Biden’s polling is quite a bit better). He’s also the best-performing Democrat in polls against President Trump, and he gains a lot of support from Democrats on the basis of his perceived electability. And while he might not be the most liberal Democrat, that isn’t necessarily a disadvantage; roughly half of voters in the Democratic primary identify as moderate or conservative,1 which could be a plus in a field where many candidates are running to the left.

Of course, this doesn’t mean Biden’s path to the nomination is easy. Not by a long shot. But before we start to poke holes in Biden’s candidacy, let’s ruminate on his advantages a little longer. There’s a case to be made that the media — in seeking out shiny new objects like Pete Buttigieg, and in ignoring the preferences of older, more working-class and more moderate Democrats who still make up a large part of the Democratic base — is overlooking the obvious front-runner in Biden. Arguably, in fact, media elites have the same blind spots for Biden that they had for Trump. There aren’t likely to be a lot of Biden voters in most journalists’ social circles, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t out there.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-joe-biden-could-win-the-2020-democratic-nomination/
 
My thoughts are the Biden is just a carbon copy of Hillary in policies and donors…..in other words he will be a minor Left of center president and this country has suffered at the hands of centrists for the last 50 years.
 
If you need a place to look at all the candidates….even the ones the media tries to ignore…..then look no further than USAToday interactive…….
 
 
Is Biden the answer?
 

Let’s be blunt: As a supposed friend of American workers, Joe Biden is a phony. And now that he’s running for president, Biden’s huge task is to hide his phoniness.

From the outset, with dim prospects from small donors, the Biden campaign is depending on big checks from the rich and corporate elites who greatly appreciate his services rendered. “He must rely heavily, at least at first, upon an old-fashioned network of money bundlers — political insiders, former ambassadors and business executives,” the New York Times reported on Tuesday.

Biden has a media image that exudes down-to-earth caring and advocacy for regular folks. But his actual record is a very different story.

 
I have said that he is the big business candidate…..just another Clinton-esque candidate……

Hours after officially entering the 2020 Democratic presidential field Thursday morning, former Vice President Joe Biden is expected to head to the Philadelphia home of Comcast executive David Cohen for a big-dollar fundraiser that will reportedly be attended by Democratic lawmakers, the CEO of insurance giant Independence Blue Cross, and other high-powered party players.

Biden launched his presidential bid with a video condemning President Donald Trump’s response to the 2017 neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville and calling the 2020 election “a battle for the soul of this nation.”

“The core values of this nation, our standing in the world, our very democracy, everything that has made America America is at stake,” Biden said. “That’s why today I’m announcing my candidacy for president of the United States.”

 
This just illustrates why I say he is a Corporate candidate…..
The media trope that portrays “Lunch-Bucket Joe” Biden as a regular, down-to-earth guy who cares deeply about regular folks is pure, unadulterated bullshit. His real constituents wear pinstripe suits and works on Wall Street and in corporate headquarters. They fly around in fancy private jets. And the supposed “everyman liberal” Joe Biden is their loyal apparatchik.
 
I do not support Biden and still am a Tulsi fan….for now……
 
Do not let the media pick your candidate……
 
Learn Stuff!

The Free Trade Con

As Americans we pretend that we are down with the concept of Free Trade…..but in reality there are very few voters who know what the term means and we voted a dim wit into the presidency with the promise of more “Free Trade”…….

First let us define “Free Trade”…… Free trade is a policy to eliminate discrimination against imports and exports. Buyers and sellers from different economies may voluntarily trade without a government applying tariffs, quotas, subsidies or prohibitions on goods and services. Free trade is the opposite of trade protectionism or economic isolationism. (Trump shot that concept in the ass!)

Politically, a free-trade policy may be the absence of any trade policies, so a government doesn’t need to take specific action to promote free trade. This hands-off stance is referred to as “laissez-faire trade” or trade liberalization. Governments with free-trade agreements do not necessarily abandon all control of import and export taxation. In modern international trade, few free trade agreements (FTAs) result in completely free trade.

If you have a hard ti me with this concept we can get more simple……

https://youtu.be/sLoL99lIJzU

From the start of these “Trade Agreements” like Clinton’s NAFTA and then it went on from there….I had to write about them as well….

https://lobotero.com/2016/12/09/what-about-nafta/

https://lobotero.com/2018/10/03/nafta-vs-usmca/

The promise of a better trade economy from the dolt in the White House has done little to expand the concept of “Free Trade”…..and the GOP can NO longer claim to be the party for Free Trade as long as they enable the policies of this president…..

The whole idea of a “new” NAFTA is a con and the American people need to be aware of this con…..

Approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA 2.0 also known USMCA) will do little to reverse the problems of the NAFTA trade agreement of 1994. Nothing in the proposed replacement agreement will prevent job outsourcing, nor is there any part of the agreement that would reverse our current agricultural trade deficit. So what’s the deal with the “Motorcade for Trade” tour?

The 2018 Census of Agriculture documents the occurrence of a clear shift in farm size. Small and medium sized farms are exiting production while the number and overall size of larger farms continues to increase. We are told growth is inevitable in any business if they wish to succeed, because growth goes hand in hand with efficiency and profit.

Farmers are told they must become more efficient and adopt economies of scale and that rationale is often accepted since farm prices are seemingly always on the decline and less income per unit of production means more units of production are required if one wants to survive. This same logic is applied to most jobs: factory workers must produce more, teachers must teach larger classes, etc.—all for the same low wage.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/04/17/dont-fall-hype-free-trade-agreements

Voters need to know that a con job is a con job and this BS is at beast “snake oil” for the mindless.

Makes Good Fertilizer!

A Beautiful Sunday here in the golden Gulf Coast……fruit trees are full of fruit…grape vines are starting to climb……and we wait for the stifling heat of Summer waiting for the “season” to begin.  And if you are in the Midwest and suffering from that snowstorm…..sucks being you.

Remember in the movie Soylent Green….people were recycled into food after they passed on…..cool, huh?

I like the series on the tube, The Expanse, and in one episode the cop is in the morgue checking on some dead guy…..the ME asked if he was finished because the agri-sphere needed some fertilizer.

Now this is just some ramblings by a blogger right?

Not really!

Residents in the state of Washington are set to become the first in US to be permitted to be disposed of by so-called “human composting”, a process that rapidly transforms remains into soil and is considered less harmful to be environment than burial or cremation.

Members of the state legislature voted to pass bill SB500l, a measure that would legalise the use of both alkaline hydrolysis and natural organic reduction for human bodies. 

The move comes amid growing interest in alternative ways of disposing of human bodies. Supporters of the bill have said they like the idea of their remains being recycled and helping nourish plants or trees. 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/human-composting-washington-jay-inslee-remains-alkaline-hydrolysis-bill-a8880601.html

I once joked that when I died I wanted to be put through a chipper and then spread my remains over a wheat field so I could become a loaf of Roman Meal bread (It was a long time ago)…..those days are not that far away.

But seriously folks…..

Katrina Spade is the CEO of the human composting company, Recompose, and told CNN affiliate KIRO-TV she is hoping her company can be one of the first to build a facility for the practice.

She explained to KIRO the complex process of turning a dead body into soil.

“(The) body is covered in natural materials, like straw or wood chips, and over the course of about three to seven weeks, thanks to microbial activity, it breaks down into soil,” she said.

While the dead body is being broken down, Spade said families of the deceased will be able to visit her facility and will ultimately receive the soil that remains of their loved. It is up to the family how they want to use that soil, Spade said.

“And if they don’t want that soil, we’ll partner with local conservation groups around the Puget Sound region so that that soil will be used to nourish the land here in the state,” she said.

The process was the focus of a new study at Washington State University, according to KIRO, in which six people donated their bodies for research.
“We proved recomposition was indeed safe and effective for humans as well,” Spade said.

My garden awaits (no pun intended)…..a small glass of wine, some Brie and aa few crackers.

Be well, Be safe…..chuq