Merry Christmas

Announcing my new PRAGMATIC AMERICAN PARTY

Announcing my new

 PRAGMATIC AMERICAN PARTY

Polls show that somewhere between 130% and 150% of all Americans are fed up with our current Democratic and Republican Parties.  They are corrupt, hopelessly broken, and not worth the bullet(s) it would take to put them both down.  Therefore I am today unveiling my new political party, the PRAGMATIC AMERICAN PARTY.  

Our party symbol will be Winston Churchill holding his bulldog.  Never mind that he wasn't American.  I like him. He was a tough, no BS kinda guy.  Get over it.  Here are some of our parties inviolable principles:

Term limits:  President, two four-year terms; Senators, one six-year term; Representatives, three two-year terms.  You must have worked the previous 10 years in the private sector in order to be eligible to run.  If you are caught telling a bald-faced lie, you will be penalized half the distance to the goal.

There will be no campaign contributions allowed.  Campaigns will be publicly financed, candidates given equal funding based on the cost of advertising in their particular region.  This will cost money up front, but will drain a particularly nasty toxic waste dump.

Civil servants will no longer be paid 130% of the private sector wage/benefit scale.  They will be paid par for comparable work.  The public and private sectors will enjoy the same retirement benefits.  No more sweetheart plans.

Everyone will pay taxes.  The poor will pay $100 a year; the wealthy will pay a helluva lot more.

Citizens will be offered a free four-year college education.  To qualify they must complete a four-year stint in the military.  It will work just like the current GI Bill.  In fact it WILL be the current GI Bill, which will be expanded to include those who guard our borders and ports, clean and rebuild blighted areas, and maybe more.

Our veterans will receive their promised health care benefits from private sector providers.  It will cost more initially, but will be cheaper in the long term.  Get over it.

We will undertake a massive infrastructure build/improve project.  It will cost money up front, but will save money in the long term.  Get over it.

There will be no publicly subsidized corporate tax breaks.  If corporations want to buy a professional sports stadium suite, let 'em.  No write off.  If they want a plane or a yacht, let 'em buy one. No write off.  If they want to close a US facility and move it overseas, let 'em.  No write off for closing/moving expenses.  If they haven't fulfilled their part of any tax-abatement deals when they closed and moved, they must pay back all benefits received in full.

We're for a powerful military.  However we will not build $100 million dollar airplanes just to bomb $10 tents or $15,000 Toyota mini-pickup trucks.  Cheap drones can do that just fine.

Captured terrorists (or their remains if they are deceased) will be loaded into giant industrial-sized blenders and pureed with pig butts and feet.  This will not be religion-sensitive.

Undocumented immigrants who have been working here and have caused us no problems will be offered permanent probationary resident status.  They must come out of the shadows and pay American taxes, but they will be paid American wages.  Any employer found to employ now legal immigrants and paying less than American wages will have all their worldly possessions seized and be sentenced to 10-years working in the pig butt blender plant.

The rules defining "IRS tax exempt organizations" will be dramatically tightened.  If they don't deliver 85% minimum of their audited gross income directly to the cause they purport to help, they will be decertified and sentenced to 10-years working in the pig butt blender plant.

Any civil servants found accepting anything of value in exchange for a special consideration will lose their job and be sentenced to 10-years working in the pig butt blender plant.

Those convicted of animal cruelty will have "I AM A WORTHLESS PIECE OF SHIT" permanently tattooed on their foreheads.

Convicted child abusers will be sentenced to serve time in prisons holding criminals who were themselves abused as children.  Lights will be extinguished nightly at 10 PM.

Ivory tower bankers will be condemned to wear a Scarlett "B" at all times.

The Second Amendment will be preserved.  However everyone who wants to own a gun will undergo a background check, and have it re-verified periodically.  Those who want to carry concealed will undergo yearly proficiency training and maintain liability insurance.

Everyone will have good health care, the method TBD.  It will cost money up front, but will be cheaper in the long term.  Get over it.

The mentally ill will receive proper treatment.  It will cost money up front, but will be cheaper in the long term.  Get over it.

Those who do volunteer work that benefits the community will be rewarded with a pizza and beer party every Friday. (Ice cream will be substituted for beer for the underage.)

Our party slogan will be "Get over it!"  If you don't like it, get over it.

We'll have many more principles to post later, once I think of them.

Would you like to be a charter party member?  It costs nothing to join, and we won't call you to beg for money.  The initiation is to just find a current Democrat or Republican and kick them to the curb.  Good times!  :)

S

And how did killing that goose that laid the golden egg work out for them? *

Please don't run off.  I'll keep this simple, and it's important that you understand:

Recently I read an article about the 2017 "Gini Coefficient" study by the German bank Allianz which ranked developed nations based on their level of income inequality.

Some brief background:  It was a little over a century ago that an Italian statistician, Corrado Gini, devised the method for measuring income inequality which we now call the Gini Coefficient.  It is a scale from 0 to 1, with 0 meaning everyone has the same wealth, and 1 means one person has everything and everyone else has nothing.  Obviously in the real world the Gini score will be somewhere in between.

In the current Allianz Bank Gini Coefficient study of 53 developed countries, the United States was the most unequal with a Gini of .81.  (Example:  Just 3 Americans, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos, have more wealth than the poorest 50% of all other Americans combined.)  Others with high Gini scores are Germany with .73 and Russia with .69.  Among the most equal are South Korea with a Gini of .54, China with .53, and Slovenia with .48.

Going back thousands of years, archaeologists have determined the relative concentration of wealth in various societies by looking at the size of their homes, the amount of valuables they had (such as pottery), and the size of their stables (the more affluent had the most large, domesticated animals, making them the most productive farmers).  Until modern times the most unequal they could identify was the Kahun society in ancient Egypt with a Gini of .68.

Here is their warning for us:  Throughout history, when things became as unequal as what we're seeing today, violence eventually erupted and societies collapsed.

When I've written on this topic before my conservative friends have just rolled their eyes and said, "Oh, here we go....rob from the rich, and give it to the poor."  "Income redistribution" they moaned.  "Socialism at it's worst."  

My point was that unless things somehow evened out, the ultra-wealthy will some day find themselves owning everything, but be under siege and fighting for their lives.  

IMO the wealthy would be smart to back new tax laws that allowed the middle class to keep more of what they earned, and be content with having for themselves a slightly smaller slice of a very big pie.  But instead what are they doing?  They, through their lobbyists, are about to get their wish of yet another tax windfall.  

A day of reckoning is coming.  How soon, I have no idea, but it's coming.  Wise up, America.

S

*According to the fable, a cottager and his wife had a goose that laid a golden egg every day. They supposed the goose must contain a great lump of gold in its inside, and in order to get the gold they killed her.  Having done so, they found to their surprise that the goose differed in no respect from their other geese. The foolish pair, thus hoping to become rich all at once, deprived themselves of the gain which they were assured day after day.

How will you die?

I recently read an interesting article that asked "How will you die"?  It sounds like a rather morbid topic, but if you think about it, it's a legitimate question.  Hopefully none of us have received a medical diagnosis giving us X months to live, therefore we likely just don't know.  

I suppose if you're a base jumper or a wing-suit flyer a "wardrobe malfunction" or a slight miscalculation could result in your untimely demise.  If you're a gang member, especially in a place like Chicago or St Louis, you might die in a violent shooting.  And it isn't hard to imagine a top member of the Trump administration being bludgeoned to death in prison.  But I doubt many of us fall into any of those categories.  So, what do you think will get you?  Stepping on a rusty nail?  Choking on a chicken bone?

For myself....hmmmm.  There was once a time in my life a chance I might have fallen off a cliff, or walked into an airplane propeller or been sucked into a jet engine, but those days are now mostly behind me.  I do drive daily in Dallas' insane traffic, so I suppose it's possible that might do me in some day.  I'm very careful with my firearms, so I doubt I'll pop a cap in m'self.

I have heart arrhythmia, but my pacemaker is ticking away like one of John Cameron Swayze's old Timex watches....no problem.  Otherwise my heart and all associated plumbing are in good shape.  I don't smoke, and I'm told my lungs are better than great.  I rarely drink, so I'm guessing my liver is safe, and my kidneys seem to be working as advertised, too.

No, I think some freak viral pandemic will eventually get me.  I had (past tense) a super strong, aggressive immune system, which oddly enough caused problems of its own, so I'm now taking meds to slow it down.  Now I'll probably be attacked by a flock of wayward mosquitoes carrying some deadly virus, or stung by that herd of killer ants making their way up from Mexico.  (All together now...."BUILD...THAT...WALL!  BUILD...THAT...WALL!")  *snort*

Maybe those crazy birds from Asia will find me here in Dallas and dump a load of their infected poop on me.  I really have no idea, but with my luck, it will likely be something weird that turns me into fertilizer.

How about you?  Venture a guess?

S

You know what I want?...

What I want is really simple healthcare.  I pretty much have that with my Medicare and supplemental insurance, but most everyone below Medicare age has a royal mess on their hands.

Need an appendectomy?  This hospital will charge $8K, but that one across town will charge $32K.  What's that all about?  Can you shop around?  Not really, because doctors are not in-network on all insurance plans, and are not on-staff at all hospitals.  And each health insurance company covers certain things, but not all things.  Some things are covered this year, but not necessarily next year.  

Some things are covered by United Health Care, but not Aetna, or Anthem.  WTH?  Insurers determine AFTER the event if it was necessary, and may or may not pay.  But SURPRISE, you're still responsible for the bill.  And if they decide your doctor charged more than the "usual and customary" fee, you're responsible for that, too.  How the hell is a layman supposed to know these things?

Doctors go to school for decades it seems, and owe $$$$$$ after med school, yet walk on eggshells every day, afraid they'll be sued.  Most are if they practice long enough.  To defend themselves they put patients through test after test, bleeding us almost dry, to make sure they have every eventuality documented.  On and on and on.....

If I get sick, I want to go the the doctor and I want him/her to evaluate me and fix me.  Don't send me a bill, or a statement, and I don't want to hear from my insurance company, ever.  The Doc fixes, the insurer pays.  Period.  No arguing about if this falls into the covered or non-covered category.  I don't care about Tier 1 or Tier 2 medications, or "formularies".  I don't care how they build the car.  I just want to turn the key and have it start.

If they want to do it through the government, Medicare style, I don't care.  If they want to do it via private health insurance, I don't care.  I'll pay for it with higher taxes or higher premiums if necessary, but once I pay, I want no excuses.

Bundle it all, I'll cut one check, then that's it.  Life is too short to put up with all this bullshit. Is this asking too much?

S

Choose your poison

President Donald Trump, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Speaker Paul Ryan are in an all-out sprint.  They're scared shitless their Republican Party will lose control of one or both houses of Congress within a year.  Their wealthy benefactors....the deep pockets that fund their political careers....are going to be pissed beyond belief if they don't get what they paid for were promised. 

While polls say Democrats are not at all well liked, Republicans are even deeper in the hole.  A flip of just 2 Senate seats and a handful in the House of Representatives to the Democrats and the GOP leaders will be asking for more knuckle-dragging body guards.  They won't want to have to face Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Banks, Big Insurance, Big Ag, and all the others and swim with the sharks. 

By next summer the mid-term election campaigning will be in full swing, so if they're to deliver on their promises, they'll have to do it before then.  The GOP will be doing their damnedest to ram something through pronto, forget thoroughness or public hearings.  Committee members will get 5 minutes each to ask questions, then it's vote time. *Wham...Bam...SOLD...SOLD...SOLD*  And of course President Trump will sign whatever Congress puts in front of him because THEY are the ones who will vote on whether to impeach/convict him and ruin his Mother-Of-All ego trips.

What should we expect between now and then? A push to finalize a tax cut in the House that will please the GOP donors, another run at getting the government out of the health insurance equation, squashing Medicaid as much as possible (we have too many poor people, don'tcha know), and maybe even squeezing Medicare and Social Security dry, too. 

I'm guessing they have 8 months to make it all happen.  By August our politicians will all be back home, looking us in the eye and telling us how much they love us.  I think the Democrats will have a pretty good chance of winning one house of Congress, spoiling the Republican's party.  Further down the road in 2020, at the rate the GOP is digging its own grave, the Democrats just might gain control of all 3 branches of government.  Then it will be their turn to rape and pillage us and glad hand their special interests.

Another day in Washington.

S