Friday, April 22, 2016

"Princeworld"

I got back from my work out and it's so nice out, the birds are singing and spring is in the air. I'm trying to keep my spirits up, even though Prince passed away yesterday. He's only 3 months older than me. That's crazy, like Prince can't die!
 I love this video, check out Dhani Harrison's face watching Prince rock his solo, That's what it's all about.
I guess most of us have a "Prince Memory" I have a few, I used to get my daughter out of bed in the morning with"'Starfish and Coffee" from his Sign O' The Times double album, after my husband had passed away, she didn't want to get up for school and I didn't either. I had to make it bearable, Prince sure did help. It's such a melancholy time of year for me, It will be fifteen years since my husband passed away. He was impossibly young, only 39.
So when I heard about Prince, it's just another thing, that doesn't seem right. Like David Bowie and Allan Rickman, these artists that enriched my world.
I can remember when I was a kid, my Nana would be reading the obituaries and telling my mom all about who had died. So I guess that's where I am now, Lemmy died, Merle Haggard, Maurice White, these people were off the charts with their talent, now it's like a parade of obituaries and it just too much. I've heard of the Ides of March, now it's April too?  I think I can speak for a lot of people, that's enough, let's take a break from all this.
I didn't know Kevin Smith had kind of orbited what's called "Princeworld" But I thought this was kind of funny, just to have a laugh.
Prince, was a visionary, a genius, there's no way he could ever be "normal" (whatever that is) Check out what happens when Kevin Smith wants to ask Prince to allow him to get one of his songs for a soundtrack for his movie, from there things get a little weird.
                                         RIP Prince, thanks for the music and the memories.

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Either it's Hillary or Trump, that's your choice, so, no thanks. It amazes me that anyone votes at all. It looks like 3 million people weren't "allowed" to vote yesterday. It's a joke. I don't think much of elections anymore, I can't stand to watch Hillary or Trump speak. However, I do understand peoples need for change because the level of breakdown in this country is causing a lot of suffering, not that Hillary or Trump will be able or even want to do a thing about that. While the big build up to the New York primary was going on I was looking at something else. I actually was reading about the USA being blackmailed by Saudi Arabia
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/16/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-warns-ofeconomic-fallout-if-congress-passes-9-11-bill.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
The families of the people who died in 9/11 are trying to get 28 pages of redacted material from the 9/11 commission, they want to sue Saudi Arabia for their involvement in the 9/11 attacks. Logic should tell them that the Senate and Congress will not listen to them, but that won't stop them.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/19/politics/ryan-mcconnell-9-11-bill-lawsuit-saudi-arabia/
So where is President Obama today? He's soothing some"ruffled feathers" of the Saudi royal family.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/04/obama-lands-saudi-arabia-potentially-tense-visit-160420061709889.html
President Obama is way too busy to be paying attention to grieving family members who lost their loved ones in a national tragedy. This is just one of many reasons why I don't listen to anything any politicians say, I watch their actions. Paul Ryan say's "we need to look at it" speaking about the 9/11 bill. But will he? Doubt it. It's business as usual and the supposedly greatest nation on the planet is afraid of Saudi Arabia and could care less about the American people.
Independent voters, not being allowed to vote in New York, in an archaic system that needs to be upgraded, 311 people have been killed this year by the police and we are barely four months into the year. Corruption runs rampant at all levels of government. This is not a healthy place to be, it's broken. I haven't even brought up the economy or the crappy low paying jobs people are dealing with. It's no wonder people are buying into Trump's lies, but for the life of me, I just can't understand why anyone would even listen to Hillary Clinton, she takes Saudi money too. "It's a big club and we ain't in it, be happy with what you got!"

Monday, April 11, 2016

#DemocracySpring

It started to surface on Facebook that 300+ demonstrators from #Democracy Spring were arrested in Washington D.C. today. The guys from The Young Turks were among them. Cent Uyger was actually kicked off a flight, 2 days ago, because the airline captain wasn't "comfortable" after Cent complained, along with pother passengers about a 4 hour delay, read here. He's had a crazy couple of days!
As of yet, The New York Times, "breaking news" has posted zilch about this demonstration, nor The Washington Post. #Democracy Spring is protesting against corruption and inequality. They have a lot of powerful organizations behind them and celebrities like Mark Ruffalo Larry Lessig gave the kick off speech for the demonstration.
                           
Here's a link for RT; https://www.rt.com/usa/339192-democracy-spring-protest-capitol/
or just click her
I am hopeful things are going to change. I also hope that everyone who was arrested gets out fast and no one was hurt.

                                         

Saturday, April 9, 2016

Euro Spring

It looks like a lot of people are pissed off. I don't blame them. Americans are mad as hell too, they
just don't understand where to direct their anger, or if you do, you get pepper sprayed. When the game is rigged and everything is stacked against you, it tends to make people feel helpless. Americans have swallowed the lie that if you "play by the rules" and you get that college degree (no matter how much debt you accrue)  if you "work really hard" you'll get ahead. Just pick yourself up by your bootstraps and you will be lifted up into a world of reward, right?
Along comes the Panama Papers, it's gaining traction, thousands are marching in the UK on Downing Street, calling for David Cameron's resignation, #resigncameron. But he's not going to go quietly, as if he had any shame. The Panama Papers tell us he inherited money from his dad's offshore tax haven. They are protesting in Paris too, against tax evasion, inequality, the state of emergency and labor laws.
Since it's an election year, most people are focused on going to Trump or Bernie Sanders rallies. They both have spoken about offshore Treasure Islands, it's not real clear how much money Donald Trump has offshored or Hillary Clinton or Bernie Saunders. It seems that there may have been very few Americans that used Panama to offshore their profits, that may be the reason why this company was singled out. There has to be way more tax havens out there. While there are a few hundred Americans involved in the Panama Papers, there hasn't been any mention of any high level government officials. Like President Obama says, it's all perfectly legal. In my country, I haven't seen much scrutiny in this data dump, In The Washington Post, I read an article about what we could do with all the tax money that people aren't paying. Gosh what a nice dream. Just think, if people would just stop all their tax avoidance, things could be so much better! It also says something even more interesting; "The Washington Post has not reviewed the Panama Papers or verified their authenticity" this is the newspaper that broke the Watergate scandal, I am old enough to remember that and the hearings and the eventual resignation of Nixon. "The mind reels", as Lewis Black would say. Paid journalists writing about tax evasion can't be bothered investigating The Panama Papers.
How very odd.
While Icelanders, the UK and Parisiens take to the streets, protesting inequality and offshoring tax money, all you get here in the USA are crickets.
Unless you know where to look and are willing to spend a great deal of time digging, you aren't going to be able to find answers easily and most people are too busy or don't have access or just don't care, I guess journalists feel the same way, then again who knows how much money The Washington Posts owners are offshoring? Well what do you know, Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon, bought the Washington Post a couple of years ago.Jeff Bezos funnels all his money through Luxemborg. It's no wonder no one is reviewing The Panama Papers at the Washington Post. That's just one news outlet, just one owner. No telling how many more are up to the same shady nonsense.
Wikimedia Commons
I guess the jokes on us and that's why Bezos' is laughing. Meanwhile in Europe there are a lot of people who don't think it's very funny, they are taking their anger to the streets, they don't have an offshore option.
FYI, I haven't seen anything in The Washington Post or The New York Times about the protests in London or Paris. Maybe they are reporting it on TV, but I don't watch that anymore, let me know if you see any American reporting on it.



Thursday, April 7, 2016

The Panama Papers and the Precariot

Bye-Bye!
Golly, I think there might be a bit of fallout from the Panama Papers. the Prime Minister of Iceland resigned. Icelanders are so badass, they arrested the bankers during the 2008 crises. They don't take any crap. There was a giant protest, massive amounts of people. I guess they don't use pepper spray on their citizens, anything like that happens in this country, it's pepper spray or getting shot.
Now Putin's coming out and saying  that the Panama Papers are an attempt to destabilize Russia, doesn't surprise me. A little digging around told me that this Consortium of International Journalists are funded by; The Ford Foundation, Carnegie Endowment, Rockefeller Family, read here.
Now what we have is blowback, because what was glaringly obvious to me from the get go was, where were all the American 1 percenters? They are hiding their money too. But no, the finger points at all the other convenient targets, Russia, Iran, Syria. C'mon how naive can you be if you believe it's all them and there's nobody in America using these techniques?
It's sad the explaining I do, if someone actually mentions the Panama Papers and believe it or not, I am the go-to for many people where I work about politics and these sort of scandals. They need to turn off the TV. You won't find any truth on there.
What the Panama Papers has done is launch criminal probes in the international community. It's known that the US is a tax haven, Nevada is one such state that provides these services. So ironic considering we went after Switzerland, but we do it too! With our economic problems and a dollar built on petroleum, which bottomed out back in February, who'd be crazy enough to hide their money here?
So now the Treasury Department, intends to issue a long delayed regulation, long delayed? I wonder why? They will send it along to the White House to look at and after warning every higher up in the Pentagon or Congress or the Senate and lobbyists, to get their money and stash it somewhere else, if they haven't already done it. It will be another Mission Accomplished for millionaires and billionaires, while social programs continue to disintegrate along with our roads and bridges, because we're broke.
I guess the Panama Papers have done a great job of waking people up to the offshore menace of shell companies. I just wish we could go Viking on the corruption in this country the way Iceland did in theirs. Sadly, Americans are too busy working 2 or 3 jobs, and are too exhausted to do anything. Keeping people poor, ignorant and in a constant state of stress, is nothing new
                                                                   Sound familiar?


Monday, April 4, 2016

The Taxman

I highly doubt  it was some kind of cosmic accident that this Panama Paper dump has happened at the
height of the tax paying season here in the U.S., where working people are scrambling to pay accountants or H&R Block to do their tax returns, because the archaic and complicated tax rules are so hard to figure out you have to get help. However, for some people, it looks like complex tax codes=offshore tax havens=not paying anything. What I love are the headlines screaming about Putin and Cameron, like American political prostitutes aren't doing the same things. So where are the American names? Supposedly there will be a release of documents every 2 weeks.
Let's go back in time to 2012, it was the election and Mitt Romney was running, it was being reported that Romney had millions in offshore accounts. Fast forward to today and Bill and Hillary Clinton's tax exempt Clinton Foundation. Hillary stepped down when she became a presidential candidate, so Bill and Chelsea took over. They accept all kinds of money from foreign donors and I am sure it's all perfectly legal. However, many of the Clinton Foundations donations come from wealthy foreign and American donors offshored bank accounts.
It can be a non-profit, or offshored accounts, or one of my favorites, non-government organisations. These are for profit entities that rely on government and private funding, they rely on paid staff and are based around volunteer labor. I am sure some of them are great like OxFam, the point is there are many ways to avoid paying taxes worldwide. Donald Trump even spoke about it; $2.5 trillion sitting out of the country that they can’t get back because they don’t want to pay the tax"
a loophole that lets companies avoid taxes, they make it look like all the profits are coming from outside the U.S. so they don't have to pay. This problem is systemic and rampant. It is a worldwide 1% phenomena. I am sure that many of my honest hard working taxpaying friends are paying more than many corporations, It's a joke. There may be a lot of outrage over this Panama Paper dump, but seriously, it's not going to change. There's no accountability. I look at it like Governor Rick Snyder poisoning the people of Flint with contaminated water, there have been petitions and calls for him to step down, or for him to be arrested since last year, here we are in April and he's not going anywhere. 
No matter what the scandal or who's not paying taxes, it's the working class that gets hit.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/12/23/more-than-90-of-us-businesses-dont-pay-the-corporate-income-tax/#260e918152c4
                                                       

Saturday, April 2, 2016

Some Kind Of Punishment

It's getting to the point where I don't even want to read the news anymore. Things have become so bizarre. Chris Matthews had an interview with Trump and of course, we need  "some form of punishment for the woman" Women should be punished for getting a legal medical procedure, but people for some reason talk, act or want to believe that abortion is illegal when it's not, it's like a weird fantasy, now, everything's ok, because Donald Trump was probably informed by

someone on his staff that the laws "were set." My response to Trump and to Chris Matthews for suggesting such a thing, is haven't we been punished enough? We aren't paid as much as men, we suffer  more violence at the hands of men, but there's never enough punishment for women.
Hillary Clinton should be heaving a big sigh of relief, since the FBI has told the State Department to put their internal review on hold, so the FBI could do it's work, whatever that is.
Bernie Sanders had a bird land on his podium in Oregon and it's a sign! It's a mystical oracle telling everyone to feel the Bern!
Americans want change, however, we voted for that before and nothing changed, If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, then voting is just crazy.
Whomever gets elected doesn't matter, the shadow government will go on and the corporate piratocracy always wins. A lot of people know intuitively something is very wrong and almost everyone I know under 40 aren't going to be voting. People over 40. well they like Trump, because "he's not a politician" So many of these people feel betrayed or left behind or both, the system is that broken. We have been taken over by a war based economy and the result has been riches for defense contractors, while everyone else has been left in the dust and that's probably radioactive or full of Round Up. Both parties are corrupt, they change the voting laws and the debate rules, neither of them want Trump to win, because they won't be able to control him. He can't even control what comes our of his mouth, but this dude is like teflon, nothing seems to matter, the mainstream media is horrified and fascinated by him, but the general public just laughs at what he says. Congress has a 14% approval rate, it's obvious they just don't care and won't do anything to improve their job performance. Trump, if he's elected may be like a hostile takeover. Watch what Susan Sarandon says about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton;
Hillary Clinton is like Republican Lite, if that, while I really do like what Bernie Sanders says, it's so reminiscent of President Obama and all those promises back in 2008. Read what Chris Hedges has to say about Bernie Sanders, if he's elected he will be co-opted by the Democratic Party and rendered ineffective, because neither of these parties want change, the system is rigged by superdelegates. You can vote however you want, but we have already seen in state after state where superdelegates minds are made up and they won't be voting for Bernie Sanders. This is the system that's been foisted upon Americans with shady manipulations by everyone from Congress to corporations, lobbyists and the Pentagon. Talk about punishment, there's just no end in sight. As long as this system is in place, there's no point in believing in change or making America great again. It's going to be more punishment for Americans, men and women, white, black, red and yellow. The system is both broken and rigged, it's both a crime and punishment.
For your reading pleasure, Ron Paul just blogged this;
                                           
Trump, Not An Outsider, credit, Ron Paul