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when the country swings to the left...

may it hold true until national healthcare, education, public wealth, and all national investments increases, copiously and hopefully, to the point, each America understands it's all for national defense (all for one, one for all).

in essence...delivery the country to a much better state of conservatism than what these present-day occultists are trying to sell.

...and then when it swings back again perhaps wouldn't go back so far into the orange level.

don is that creepy man telling the naïve, happiness is just inside his pocket.

🦜 bob! get your hand out of that pervert's pants!!

pretty fair.

rather have competent, caring, compromising (to get problems addressed), near-the-center leadership. rid america of crazed, corrupt, callous, craven cowards that prefer power over contentment.

tho' seeing higher education, sane healthcare, and a tax structure that provides for all the necessities of running a country...if that's a revolution - then joe missed the mark.

(see there? complaining about joe & ain't in office yet! not about the party, it's about feeling good enough to want to party!)

problems want to have...
- road surfaces so smooth, have to fight the impulse to nap
- primary education so effective, 8yr-old takes over doing the taxes after seeing last year's submitted forums
- healthcare so affordable, have no reason to see doctor...when too broke, embarrassed, or there are needles!
- an employer that pushes you to work harder w/"are we paying you too much?" & you know the bastard is right.
- hoping your mandated paid vacation time isn't so long you forget how to say 'you want fries w/that'
- keeping your voting selection secret because you don't want to hurt anyone's feelings 'it was so hard! all were so worthy! have to choose someone?!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klUweWE-u6A

Plenty of job opportunity in healthcare and funerals

Newt,

This is in response to your comment on my statement about Biden needing to lose in '20.

I recently wrote this as a reply to one of my readers (I write under a number of different names in other places).:

Dear <name>,

>I took some time to absorb what you wrote. It's a lot to juggle. The Atlantic has an article in the July-August issue on the worst and best case scenario in CLO defaults. I'll read more.

I read the article you mentioned, and while it's certainly good, it also misses a very important point that explains the mess we're in: the collapse of Lehman and Bear-Stearns, while catastrophic in their own ways, were not the nightmare that caused the Fed to freak out in 2008 -- AIG was. Had AIG gone under and the counterparty default contracts triggered, we'd be on the barter system right now. We came within hours of not having an economy in the western world. The $700b ($.7t) the Fed coughed up to stop this from happening calmed the panic, but did nothing to resolve the underlying issues. These issues continued to compound during the 2011-2020 stock run-up and now we're at the point where the Fed is throwing trillions of dollars at every piece of bad debt they can find just to keep the whole thing from imploding into an economic black hole. It is important to note that in September '19, the credit markets started freezing because of the debt that was already on the books then, -before- CV-19 started rolling, and it took $3t just to get them unlocked again. Absolutely nothing has gotten better since then, and I would argue things have gotten dangerously worse.

In an odd coincidence, the NYT ran an article today about the looming bankruptcy crisis. They're calling for 30-60 days before things start imploding, but I'll stick to my estimate of ~90 days. There's some talk about extending the $600 benefits (we'll see) and chatter about another stimulus check, but that's kicking the can as well as telegraphing how bad things really are. When the Republicans are getting behind free money, you know we're in some uncharted territory. For all intents and purposes, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) -- the reason the Fed is backstopping debt and printing money like crazy -- is the hill the US economy will live or die on. Should the US dollar come unpegged as the world's de facto currency or should inflation begin (and there's already worrying signs this is happening), that's game over.

Please don't take anything I say as the Word of God; please do your own research and come to your own conclusions. Everything I've said is an opinion based on my education, experience and way of thinking. Your mileage may vary.

Here is the article I mentioned: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/business/corporate-bankruptcy-coronavirus.html -- might be paywalled, but clear your cookies for the NYT and you should be able to read it.


>Frankly, it's the physical danger in my area of the States that concerns me. There are the guns and bullying. During some BLM demonstrations in the Midwest, locals were standing around with semi-automatics. I drive a Prius for the fuel efficiency. Pick up trucks enjoy tailgating, trying to intimidate me. This behavior isn't going to change with a change of President but will get worse is we don't change. This ideological push to takeover the country instead of ruling by compromise started around the same time we came to the US in 1981, Reagan's first year. I was so shocked when I heard talk radio for the first time; this wasn't the country I had left in the 1970s.


And now we come to the giant pile of sweaty dynamite that's just waiting for the right shock to set it off. I could give you a prolonged lecture about how this all started in 1978 with California's Proposition 13, or how David Stockman's tragically prescient warnings were blatantly ignored, but Haynes Johnson does a far better job at this than I ever could in his 1991 book "Sleepwalking Through History", as does Kevin Phillips in 2006's "American Theocracy". Honestly, at this point, the prelude is academic. The reality of the situation is that a large swath of adult Americans are appalling ill-educated, innumerate and devoid of even the most basic critical-thinking skills. These people are now locked out of the Information Economy. They lack the most basic skills required to compete in the 21st century job market and thus will watch their standard of living sink into the abyss. These people are not blind to this fact because they're living with the reality of their situation every single day. They're totally without hope, cut off from all avenues of control over their own lives and they feel utterly abandoned by the very people who're supposed to be helping them. The reason you're seeing bullying and behavior like that is because these same people are totally removed from any avenues of recourse and the only people they can take their anger out on are people like you and me. Their anger is being stoked on a daily basis. FOX News and the GOP are experts at this and have a host of boogeymen to keep the anger from being pointed their way: ANTIFA, BLM (black Americans have always made a perfect target), "coastal elites" and, of course, Liberals.

Trump's election was a warning, not an outlier. Trump was the primal scream of these people and Liberals and the Democrats as a whole chose not to listen because they found the sound so abhorrent. The rage will only get worse and the number of people enveloped by this rage will only grow as economic conditions worsen. At this point, it no longer matters who wins in '20. Winning the election will be like winning the deed to the World Trade Center one second after the first jet hit. The damage has already been done and no steps are being taken to repair it; if anything, people are actively making it worse either through ideological blindness, deliberate malfeasance or outright stupidity. It took almost 50 years to get to this point and the endemic issues will not be undone in a single generation, much less a single election. Until the people who voted for Trump feel a sense of real hope, a sense of control over their lives and a genuine expectation of recourse for their grievances, they will keep right on voting for Trump, or people like him.

My unfortunate suspicion is that this country will rip itself to shreds long before those reforms are enacted.

Side note: the fundamental difference between the United States and Europe is that European history has forced the nations of Europe to live with the consequences of their actions. Not so the United States. Europe has suffered for her sins. Not so the United States. The two bloodiest wars in human history were fought on European soil. Not so the United States. The United States has never faced true suffering, nor has it ever had to live with the ramifications of its own actions. Both these facts are about to change and a nation whose character is built on a mythology of individual action and violence is going to have to face reality. The people of this nation are not prepared for this and they will not like it.

Second side note: many people are erroneously comparing the current situation to the Wiemar Republic. This is a lack of historical understanding. A more apt comparison would be to Spain in late 1935.


>As for re-opening, we could have gotten some control if the "leader" had simply donned a mask and used realistic thinking. People could go back to work more safely, wash hands, stay a certain distance. But his hubris led the way, so now we'll have a roller coaster for months and years that will affect the economy even more. France is a good comparison because they were unprepared also, having slashed the public healthcare budget for the last twenty years. But when they laid down the rules, troops patrolled the streets to be sure they were followed. So far, they've flattened the curve (for now), and used different economic incentives, such as paying part of employees' salaries to keep them employed.

At this point, the pace of re-opening is a difference between very bad and much worse. Had $3t been used to pay the yearly salary of every American, we could have saved lives and the economy, but we didn't. The history of 2020 will be littered with "what-ifs". However, the first thing you learn when studying history is that what-ifs are useless because things are what they are and you can't change that. It's already obvious we're going into a second wave. If previous pandemics are any indication of what's to come, this second wave will be many times worse than the first. The wait for a vaccine is indeterminate, but if we're going for herd immunity, ~70% of Americans will need to catch the virus. To date, ~1.5% have. If the US population is ~330 million, ~230 million will need to catch the virus. Call the mortality rate 2%, that means ~4.6 million Americans will die. That's a lot of dead Americans and grieving families.

Take care,

(my actual name)

And when they get their way and their healthcare system collapses, they'll use a neighboring county's whose population WERE wearing masks, and won't have learned a damn thing.

Not very many, and most of them are masked, unlike the anti-healthcare worker rallies by Trumpsters. >70% of Americans are intelligent enough to say it's not time to reopen, dozens of states are still on the upswing in cases, not flat or falling. Thanks to brain dead morons, we are nearly guaranteed a second outbreak this summer, Trumpronavirus is going to be with us in November, and most Americans are intelligent enough to understand why.

We should definitely listen to you because you've only been wrong about everything you've ever said about Covid 19.
It's not even as bad as the flu.
We won't ever have more than 15 cases, quickly dropping to zero.
There's no need for federal guidelines.
It will disappear by April.
We won't ever see 1000 deaths.
We definitely won't hit 10000 deaths.
We won't hit 20000 deaths.
40000.
60000.
80000.
100000.
Ok, it's well over 100000 dead Americans from horrendous planning, foot dragging, and obstinate denials, but Trump saved us from it hitting 2.5 million dead.
Only Chinese nationals carry it, so a travel ban on them solved everything.
It's an Obama era CDC created virus handed to China by Democrats to attack America.
*facepalm

Oh yeah? Tell me these known stories of Democrats cheating....I must have missed that, or is it data only found on OAN? Trump's multi million dollar nationwide election fraud investigation sure didn't find any, that's why you never heard it's conclusions.

We don't need Republican examples, we all remember last election and the candidates who had their campaign collect thousands of ballots from the elderly and change their votes, and the judge who voted as their dead spouse, and those woman who admitted voting multiple times because Trump said Democrats would, etc. All Republican cheating.

Idiot, vote by mail is not new. The only thing new is one party claiming it's improper or illegal....only when their political rivals do it, not their own party (Trump isn't threatening any red states who've gone to vote by mail...neither are Democrats, blowing your snide bullshit accusation out of the water.) Multiple states were 100% vote by mail when Trump was elected....are you saying that election was invalid and he's not the president?! Ok, I'll go along under those circumstances, but only if I get the last 3 1/2 years back first.

Trump hopes he can create that kind of confusion, then morons like you would accept his just declaring himself the winner and maybe having to postpone any further elections until we can figure out what's going on (indefinitely).

No one likes him OR the shit he's gotten done, shit like sparking a depression by not handling the outbreak in any useful way (banning some Chinese but not travel from China clearly didn't help) for almost two months while telling the nation there was nothing to worry about, go about your business, no need to prepare for anything, shit like handing trillions to political allies, withholding aid from Democratically led states, dragging his feet, publicly denying there's any problem while those around him illegally prepared by selling hotel stocks etc, blaming one race for creating the virus to deflect blame from his total failure to lead, etc.

If Hillary was in office, she wouldn't have disbanded the CDC international pandemic prevention and preparedness teams and plans, so wouldn't have needed Republicans to vote for her stimulus package.

If Dems/Hillary put forth a $2 trillion recovery bill, Republicans would have denied her a penny, not one Republican vote, called it a socialist cash grab, fake virus, and insisted the stimulus was tied to death squads who would come murder grandma, just like they did over healthcare. Republicans are incapable of compromise or honest debate, incapable of legislation that doesn't benefit Republicands at least 2-1 over Democrats, and incapable of putting the good of the nation before party, unlike Democrats. Republicans agreed to give billions to citizens, as long as they got trillions for businesses like Trump's failing clubs, and they complained about hundreds of millions to fight Covid.

Name these non related goodies, I bet you can't without asking OAN, who will give you an outright lie to repeat.

Everyone lost except maybe the makers of hydrocloroquin and Trump's failing golf clubs and a few billion dollar companies that took most of the small business stimulus money. All that loss was due to Trump's complete failure to take Covid seriously and his multi month delays when every second counted to save lives, jobs, and the economy, and his removal/firing of all oversight positions listed in the recovery bill he signed to facilitate disqualified billionaires and Trump family members getting the lions share.

Trump claims the first stimulus package was for up to $6 trillion, not just two....and expects two more will be needed, making the bill for his inaction near $18-19 trillion by his estimates. That means all the outrage over Sanders plans to spend trillions on healthcare and education was utter bullshit (which we knew) or that the problem was we would get something for our money. Trump's just handing it out, largely without strings attached or getting any equity or concessions for it like Obama's bailouts did. Now THAT'S some serious socialism, meaning in just over 3 years his mismanagement would have more than doubled the national debt during an economic expansion (he added >$5 trillion without the pandemic, well over $1 trillion per year deficit before the economic collapse)....Conman Don, Don the Con, that's what they call him, I'm hearing people call him that, Don the Con.

It's all but guaranteed that he's going to just grab the Covid19 funds to build his wall, which is quickly becoming the wall America paid for FOR MEXICO who handled the pandemic infinitely better with only .3% of the cases America has and is stopping Americans from going to Mexico now.
(Side note, with immigrant harvesters staying home and crops rotting in the fields, expect food prices to skyrocket while unemployment also continues to skyrocket.)
@bobknight33 , comments?

Possibly. Right now, it looks like COVID is deadliest to the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions.

So, inner city inhabitants will be more likely to *get* COVID, but most of them will only suffer mild symptoms. Obviously, poorer people with less access to healthcare will suffer more.

It's hard to say what the ultimate effect will be in terms of voter demographics. Disasters can sometimes favor the incumbent, as the country gets behind its leadership, but Trump's handling of this has been a total clusterfuck. OTOH, *everything* Trump has ever done is a total clusterfuck and that doesn't seem to deter his supporters.

You realize her tone and aggression are a response to administration officials refusing to answer questions with life or death consequences, refusing to commit to following the law or using the power of their office to do anything helpful, or to commit to anything, right?
When it's your job to serve the nation and citizens by getting answers and commitments that have life or death consequences for thousands and what you get is red herrings, non sequiturs, and feigned ignorance, an aggressive tone is the only appropriate tone.

When the administration and it's allies in congress's only tone is venomous vitriol and berserker rage for anything non Trumpian and self congratulatory kudos over their own failures, an aggressive tone is the only proper response. Those healthcare bureaucrats likely do agree with her, but know that doing so in public will bring the wrath of the infant in chief and his lackeys. Only forcing them to admit their obligations and make public commitments gets anywhere, as she proved here.

It's hard to get past her tone and aggressive language to points that the healthcare bureaucrats likely already agree with.

Organizing healthcare better would save you money, not cost you. Nationalism is self-blinding. Nothing against local-patriotism, but this flag waving schtick is so.. nineteenth century. "I love my country and believe in god therefore im right" got us all into two world wars. If you love your country take care of the people that live in it and dont be a nuisance to others.

The question is, would what Bernie wants really be better? Are Bernies supporters less blind than Trumps? Who knows?