California Free Press

Off the Top of My Head

US in Perpetual War Economy to Prevent Perpetual Depression

by John Lawrence, February 17, 2019

Just in from the New York Times: "Roughly 10 percent of the $2.2 trillion in factory output in the United States goes into the production of weapons sold mainly to the Defense Department for use by the armed forces." The US could not keep unemployment low and production high without having a permanent wartime economy. That's why we need enemies to justify this. Enemies like Iran, Russia, China, Venezuela. Despite spending a trillion dollars a year on the military-industrial complex, the US cannot even secure its southern border. So President Trump declares a national emergency. Ho. Hum.

In an article entitled The U.S. Still Leans on the Military-Industrial Complex,, we find the following:

The United States, after all, has 10 aircraft carriers in active service versus just one for China, although China has a bigger manufacturing industry than the United States. One can argue that China is bent on big increases in weapons production and is still in the early stages. Whatever the case, America’s weapons production is still far greater than China’s, while China has burnished its reputation as a manufacturer of civilian goods for export and, increasingly, for its own citizens.

After WW II, the US manufactured all sorts of things for the home. That was what the economy was based on. After the Korean War, however, there was a somewhat different story because civilian production wasn't as profitable.

And companies that considered it in the early 1990s, like General Dynamics in Groton, Conn., decided to stick with making weapons for the Defense Department. These companies argued — accurately — that military work was more profitable and, in those days, generated more jobs.

As weapons production increased, the manufacture of autos and electronics shifted partly or wholly overseas. So did the production of other civilian products — leaving behind weapons bought by the Defense Department as an ever bigger share of the nation’s factory output. ...

While President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of the perils of the “military-industrial complex” in his farewell address in January 1961, the Vietnam War accentuated this reliance on weapons production, which became embedded in annual budgets. That may well continue in the years ahead. In his first budget proposal in May, Mr. Trump called for significant cuts in domestic spending but roughly a 10 percent increase in military outlays.

That outlay of taxpayer money is concentrated in eight sectors of manufacturing, including ammunition, aircraft, guided missiles, shipbuilding and armored vehicles. Shut down production in those areas and factory production in America, measured as value added, would shrink 10 percent or more, according to Richard Aboulafia, a vice president of the Teal Group, a defense consulting firm.

Mr. Aboulafia based his estimate, he said, on an analysis of the Defense Department budget and export data. Dan Luria, research director of the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center, concurred with those figures. To put the matter graphically, factories in the United States churn out one rifle barrel for every nine auto fenders.

This is totally pathetic that a great nation like the US has to perpetually create war in order that its economy continues to hum along. It's an economy based on the immiseration of millions of people. Major changes need to take place. Building infrastructure here and abroad should replace the manufacture of weapons and war planes. Even though the US has a wartime economy, it can't continue to prosper economically without going more and more into debt. The interest on the national debt will soon be almost a trillion dollars a year. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that interest payments will continue to grow rapidly, rising from $389 billion in fiscal year 2019 (the current fiscal year) to $914 billion in 2028. Overall, net interest costs will total nearly $7 trillion over the next decade. And the US cannot even defend its borders without a Presidential declaration of a national emergency. Pathetic.

Calling Emergency Declaration a 'Patently Illegal Power Grab,' ACLU Sues Trump

Published on Friday, February 15, 2019 by Common Dreams

"Because there is no emergency—only the one in President Trump's head for his own political purposes—he has violated our American laws."

by Julia Conley, staff writer

 

25 Comments

The ACLU has filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump, calling his declaration of a national emergency in order to fund a border wall unconstitutional. (Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump's prediction that he'll be taken to court over his national emergency declaration proved correct on Friday afternoon, with the ACLU announcing it would file one of several lawsuits against the Trump administration over the "blatantly illegal" move.

The organization noted in a statement that the president openly admitted the national emergency declaration, which he made to obtain funding for a wall at the southern U.S. border is unnecessary—bolstering the ACLU's case.

"By the president's very own admission in the Rose Garden, there is no national emergency," said executive director Anthony Romero. "He just grew impatient and frustrated with Congress, and decided to move along his promise for a border wall 'faster.' This is a patently illegal power grab that hurts American communities and flouts the checks and balances that are hallmarks of our democracy."

BREAKING: We’re suing President Trump over today’s blatantly illegal declaration of a national emergency.

There is no emergency. This is an unconstitutional power grab that hurts American communities. We’ll see him in court.

— ACLU (@ACLU) February 15, 2019

Cecillia Wang, deputy legal director for the group, outlined how the president's declaration violates U.S. law in a video posted to Twitter.

"The president's action in declaring this bogus national emergency is...illegal and dangerously strikes at the heart of our democracy and our checks and balances because Congress has already enacted our laws that describe exactly when a president can declare a national emergency," said Wang. "Because there is no emergency—only the one in President Trump's head for his own political purposes—he has violated our American laws."

Trump’s declaration of an “emergency” is an illegal abuse of power that strikes at the heart of our democracy. pic.twitter.com/4jhSPiQ3BP

— ACLU (@ACLU) February 15, 2019

The ACLU is building a case arguing that Trump's use of the emergency declaration to evade Congressional funding rules is "unprecedented" as well as unconstitutional:

10 U.S.C. § 2808, the emergency power that Trump has invoked, cannot be used to build a border wall. Congress restricted the use of that power to military construction projects, like overseas military airfields in wartime, that "are necessary to support" the emergency use of armed forces.

The group plans to file the suit early next week, Romero said.

Other groups challenging Trump's action include Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), whose suit is aimed at obtaining documents related to the White House decision,and Public Citizen, suing on behalf of landowners and an environmental group located along the Texas border.

"Throughout history, autocrats have used so-called emergency powers to seize control from democratic systems that don't yield to their will. Often, they have invented fake crises for this purpose and we should all be extremely alarmed that President Trump has reached for this tool in the autocrat's toolkit." —Kristy Parker, Protect Democracy

Protect Democracy and the Niskanen Center are also filing a lawsuit on behalf of El Paso County and the Border Network for Human Rights, arguing that "there is no legal basis for issuing" an emergency declaration and accusing Trump of presiding over the country as an autocrat.

"Throughout history, autocrats have used so-called emergency powers to seize control from democratic systems that don't yield to their will," said Kristy Parker, co-counsel for the pending lawsuit. "Often, they have invented fake crises for this purpose and we should all be extremely alarmed that President Trump has reached for this tool in the autocrat's toolkit."

"Thankfully, our founders also knew that the seizing of legislative powers by the executive was, in the words of James Madison, 'the very definition of tyranny' and made it unlawful," she added. "It's unlawful here and we look forward to the courts upholding our framers' vision."

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Conservatives can’t stop obsessing over Ocasio-Cortez. Their latest target: her boyfriend.

From the Washington Post

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks in Washington on Jan. 30. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

 

 

By Reis Thebault

February 15 at 11:09 PM

First, it was her clothing. Then her dancing. Not to mention her credit score, her apartment, her hometown. Maybe it was only a matter of time before right-wing trolls went after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s love life.

On Friday — the day after Valentine’s Day, as some commenters dutifully noted — an accusation that the New York Democrat was employing her boyfriend as a member of her staff made its way around the Twitter pages of various conservative media magoos. Gleeful outrage ensued.

“While you were having a nice Valentine’s Day, @AOC decided to put her boyfriend on staff — drawing a salary on the taxpayer’s dime,” wrote Twitter user Luke Thompson in one viral post. “Nice to see her adapting to the swamp so quickly.”

The Ocasio-Cortez nude photo hoax is straight from the misogynists' harassment playbook

 

 

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has become the latest target of an online smear campaign, which is harnessing common tactics used to attack women. (Elyse Samuels/The Washington Post)

“.@AOC is having a tough week,” wrote Charlie Kirk, founder of the conservative group Turning Point USA.

Then, from Katrina Pierson, a senior adviser to the Trump 2020 campaign: “Her jobs for everyone starts with her boyfriend. Pure socialism, government chooses the winners and losers.”

Fox News picked up on this chatter and published a story that asserted Ocasio-Cortez “faces questions” about her boyfriend. Similar stories in Breitbart and the Daily Caller followed.

The fast-growing conspiracy seems to have originated from a few would-be sleuths who found her boyfriend’s name, Riley Roberts, listed in online House directories with a “mail.house.gov” email address. Thus, he must be on her staff.

Well, they’re partly correct. Roberts does have a House email address, but, as a spokesperson for the chamber’s Office of the Chief Administrative Officer explained, that does not mean he’s an employee.

“From time to time, at the request of members, spouses and partners are provided House email accounts for the purposes of viewing the member’s calendar,” the spokesperson said.

On Twitter, Ocasio-Cortez made the same point — that allowing partners access to members’ schedules through House email accounts is commonplace and is not against any government rules — adding, that Thompson should “check your facts before you tweet nonsense.”

Her chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, told The Post that, “Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s partner, Mr. Roberts, has no official position, paid or otherwise, with her congressional office. Members of Congress have very tightly scheduled calendars that their family members and partners are allowed to access to make personal plans around official schedules.”

[Ocasio-Cortez learned lobbyists pay people to avoid waiting in lines. She’s horrified.]

The attacks were the latest in a litany of ginned-up or exaggerated controversies that have been unrelenting since she began making political waves.

Merely one such example: In July 2018, John Cardillo, host of a Newsmax show, tweeted a photo of Ocasio-Cortez’s childhood home in Westchester County, N.Y. He wrote, “This is the Yorktown Heights (very nice area) home @Ocasio2018 grew up in” and added, erroneously, that she then went to Brown University, an Ivy League school.

Then-candidate Ocasio-Cortez responded forcefully, writing, “Hey John, 1. I didn’t go to Brown or the Ivy League. I went to BU. Try Google. 2. It is nice. Growing up, it was a good town for working people. My mom scrubbed toilets so I could live here & I grew up seeing how the Zip code one is born in determines much of their opportunity.”

In a January interview, responding to a phony “nude selfie” that the Daily Caller promoted (before walking back its headline), Ocasio-Cortez told The Post that her right wing detractors were “out of all their artillery.”

“The nude is supposed to be like the bazooka. You know, like, ‘We’re going to take her down,’" she said, possibly anticipating future provocations. “Dude, you’re all out of bullets, you’re all out of bombs, you’re all out of all this stuff. What have you got left?”

Take Your Time and Everything Will Get Done

Dear friends,

Lao Tse: “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”

There is a flowering tree outside the front door of our Center. Just last week it was bare, the way trees are in winter.   Then suddenly it is in full bloom. The entire tree is abundant with tiny white blossoms. No human did anything to make this happen. It seemed early to me, but I was assured by long-time residents that this is what it does this time every year. Is this a sign that Spring will surely come? Of course it will. That is the nature of Nature; to reveal the seasons on time, every time.

As Lao Tse wisely noted, Nature unfolds with ease and grace. She does not rush to produce beauty, she simply allows it to be revealed. We could take a lesson from Mother Nature. Our sense of time has been shaped by technology to the point it seems to be speeding up. We receive so much information so quickly and constantly that we can hardly absorb it before there is something new to consider. If we want to be more in sync with the natural flow of nature, we might take steps to be outside of the time train as much as possible. For example, not turning on the television in the morning; meditating first thing or taking a walk. Sitting quietly with our tea or coffee, simply being aware of our own aliveness is amazingly restorative.

Why be in a hurry to do anything? When we get into that rushing mode, we tend to create a little chaos, some turbulence.   Our energy is not conducive to producing effortless results. Those around us feel the disturbance in the field and react accordingly. Soon everyone is frantic and agitated. But a calm and steady demeanor is like a magnet that draws the same energy from anyone nearby. Try it. Whenever you are in the midst of poorly managed energy, stand still, smile and wait.  As in Nature, everything will get accomplished more easily and with less effort.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes www.centerforspirituallivingbakersfield.com

www.californiafreepress.net

Off the Top of My Head

Trump Will Get a Few Billion From the Defense Budget So He Can Defend the Border?

by John Lawrence, February 16, 2019

What's wrong with this picture? I am not in favor of Trump's 30 foot concrete wall, but why does the trillion dollar defense budget not include money for border security? Now what should have been a sober discussion about border security has become a magnormous political football. We spend billions on ships and planes but trifling, meager sums on sophisticated border security that would prevent drugs, illegal contraband and illegal immigrants from coming into the country. Each party has taken up political sides, and a common solution that makes sense is nowhere to be found although one is apparent and evident in plain sight.

Satellite surveillance combined with more manpower deployed at numerous stations along the border capable of rapid deployment via helicopters is the obvious solution. Better tracking of visas so people can't come in with a visa and just disappear would require merely twentieth century technology. People that argue endlessly about what should be mutually agreed upon in short order are either insane or dumb. Einstein's definition of insanity needs to be broadened a bit. He said if you repeat the same behavior over and over and expect it to give you a different result, that's insane. People that can't defend a country's borders while devoting a trillion dollars to fighting endless, pointless wars and supporting 1000 military bases in other countries are also insane. Close those 1000 military bases abroad and build 1000 stations along the US border the purpose of which is to surveil and intercept any illegal contraband and/or human beings trying to get across the border.

The problem with ultra tight border security is that it would not cost very much. The military establishment has figured out a solution to US defense needs that requires a trillion dollar budget and makes them all rich. By comparison the best border security in the world would cost only a pittance. How would they justify then the massive sums they're wasting that could be spent on diplomacy, creating friendly relationships with other countries and rebuilding infrastructure in other parts of the world that has been destroyed by American bombs?

The US should be spending more on the peace budget and less on the military budget which although called that isn't really even a defense budget. It's an exercise that wastes money and creates enemies around the world in order to justify itself.

Jayapal to roll out sweeping Medicare-for-All bill by month's end

by PAIGE WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM 

from The Washington Post

THE PROGNOSIS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) speaks at a rally in 2015. (Elaine Thompson/AP)

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) is seeking buy-in from more fellow Democrats for a sweeping Medicare-for-all bill she is poised to release near the end of the month.

It's a proposal that has become a rallying cry for progressives and 2020 presidential candidates, but it is also exposing deep rifts in the Democratic Party over exactly how to achieve universal health coverage in the United States.

The Medicare for All Act of 2019, which Jayapal had planned to roll out this week but delayed because she was seeking more co-sponsors, would create a government-run single-payer health system even more generous than the current Medicare program. Her office hasn’t publicly released the details of the upcoming measure, but Democratic members told me it would cover long-term care and mental health services, two areas where Medicare coverage is sparse.

The bill also proposes to add dental, vision, prescription drugs, women’s reproductive health services, maternity and newborn care coverage to plans that would be available to people of all ages and would require no out-of-pocket costs for any services, according to a letter Jayapal sent to colleagues on Tuesday asking them to consider co-sponsoring the effort.

“Medicare for All is the solution our country needs,” the letter said. “Patients, nurses, doctors, working families, people with disabilities and others have been telling us this for years, and it’s time that Congress listens.”

The 150-page bill had 93 co-sponsors as of Tuesday, although Jayapal spokesman Vedant Patel said more Democrats have signed on since then. That’s still fewer than the 124 Democrats who co-sponsored a much less detailed Medicare-for-all proposal from then-Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) last year. A strategist who has been working with Democrats on health-care ideas told me there have been some frustrations that more members haven’t yet signed on to Jayapal’s bill, despite the fact that there are 40 more Democrats in the House this year.

But Jayapal said she’s confident she’ll have 100 co-sponsors by the time of the bill’s planned Feb. 26 release, explaining she’s not surprised members would take more time to consider it given its length.

“It’s a 150-page bill … it’s not an eight-page resolution,” Jayapal told me yesterday. “Now we’re actually putting detail into it, and so we feel confident we will continue to add cosponsors even after introduction.”

Patel also noted it’s still early in the year, saying he “disagrees” with the notion that it’s taking a long time to bring Democrats on board.

“It’s the second week of February and we are at more than 95 co-sponsors,” he said. “Coalition building is a process, but we are on track to introduce this historic legislation with resounding support at the end of the month.”

Yet differences are emerging among Capitol Hill Democrats over how to expand coverage, part of a larger debate roiling the party as 2020 candidates, many of them senators, and a new class of freshmen House Democrats move the party left not only on health care but also on the environment.

The cracks were especially apparent yesterday, as a separate group of lawmakers gathered to re-introduce their own proposal to allow people to buy in to Medicare starting at age 50. That measure, offered by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Rep. Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.), would take a more incremental approach to expanding health coverage — one that could play better with voters who would stand to lose private coverage under a single-payer program.

Their bill, dubbed the “Medicare at 50 Act,” would allow people to buy Medicare plans instead of purchasing private coverage on the Obamacare marketplaces if they are uninsured or prefer it to coverage offered in their workplace.

And today, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Rep. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) are reintroducing their State Public Option Act, which allows people to buy a Medicaid plan regardless of their income. That measure has broad backing from not just lawmakers (20 senators co-sponsored it last year) but also well-known health policy wonks including former Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Andy Slavitt.

Higgins is one of several Democrats on the House Budget Committee who have proposed a total of three separate and contrasting bills to expand Medicare to more people. The others are Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), who have a bill to expand Medicare to all ages while still preserving employer-sponsored coverage, and Jayapal.

Once Jayapal rolls out her legislation, the Congressional Budget Office is expected to release an analysis of how much it would cost by the end of March or the beginning of April, Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) told me. At that point, the committee will hold a hearing with the CBO to go over the cost and its potential impact on the federal budget.

That's where Jayapal could run into roadblocks. Given the extensive benefits she’s proposing, her bill would probably come at a steep cost to taxpayers — and paying for things is almost always Congress’s trickiest task. Of course, supporters of the legislation stress its benefits would fill in much-needed gaps in coverage under the current Medicare program.

“The biggest change I give her so much credit for is it has long-term care,” said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who is a co-sponsor of Jayapal's Medicare-for-all bill. “This is huge.”

And then there’s also the question of how voters might react if told they would lose their current coverage. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), who has gone the furthest of all the 2020 candidates in pushing for an overhaul of the U.S. health-care system, attracted widespread attention recently when she suggested she’d be fine with entirely eliminating private coverage in favor of government-run plans.

“We’re very aware that there is anxiety about — however imperfect — a system you know and doctors you know, and that is going to be all part of the hearing process, public input into: How do we build a system in this country that really cares about all Americans?” said Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), another co-sponsor of the Jayapal bill.

Trump’s Assault on Elizabeth Warren

by Robert Reich

Wednesday, February 13, 2019

Elizabeth Warren is one of the most talented politicians and policy leaders in America. We must not allow Trump or anyone else to “swift-boat” her because she identified herself as an American Indian three decades ago.

At worst, Warren may have stretched the bounds of the definition of whiteness. That’s understandable. She grew up in Oklahoma, a state created from Indian Territory. She probably witnessed the disrespect and occasional brutality that Native Americans were, and still are, subject to. Her own genetic test showed at least one Native American ancestor. She has stressed that she is not a member of a tribal nation.

Warren didn’t call Mexicans rapists. She didn’t call nations populated primarily by black or brown people “shitholes.” She didn’t assume all Muslims are terrorists. She didn’t characterize black neighborhoods as war zones. She didn’t assert that an American president was born in Africa. She has not sexually assaulted anyone. She has not paid hush money to prostitutes. She hasn’t insulted Native Americans by calling a leading politician “Pocahontas” and joking about the Trail of Tears in the 1830s.

Warren got no career benefit from her self-designation. At every step of her exceptional rise in the legal profession, those responsible for hiring her saw her as a white woman. The fact that she claimed Indian descent on a Texas bar form that was meant to be confidential is further evidence that her identification arose from sincere belief.

In a larger sense, our Native American heritage should be a point of national pride. Bill Clinton proudly claimed in 1998 that his grandmother was “one-quarter Cherokee.” I remember former Republican Senator Alan Simpson beaming proudly as he showed me an old family reunion photo in which several of the eldest attendees were Native Americans.

It’s far better for a presidential candidate to err on the side of racial or ethnic inclusiveness than for a president to whip the nation into a dangerous and delusional frenzy of racial or ethnic divisiveness.

The Fisherman Within

Dear friends,

Henry David Thoreau remarked “many go fishing all their lives without knowing it is not fish they are after.”

Why do we visit museums, love art, listen to great music? Why do we vacation in Nature, long to live by the ocean or in the mountains? Are we unconsciously seeking the inner serenity that comes from proximity to Source? Are things made by us evidence of something within us that we value above all? A simple basket woven a thousand years ago reminds us of our commonality. A bird in flight seems to evoke some memory in us of freedom.

Fly fishing has been prescribed to those with grave illness as a way to stop the progression of the disease. There is something about being in one-pointed awareness that takes us out of time. Great art does that, and so does music. We are in it, not merely observers of it.   We become one with the artist, the composer; we recognize our own creativity. We think “I could have made that or written that” and of course we are correct.

Our hearts crave connection with the Power behind and within our own being. Our souls need to be reassured of our Divinity. Our minds require the quiet that comes from solitude. Our bodies are renewed by timelessness. Each of us must figure out how we are to satisfy our heart, soul, mind and body. How shall we serve those deep needs today? If nothing else, we can sit still for a few minutes and go fishing within.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes www.centerforspirituallivingbakersfield.com

Check out www.californiafreepress.net

Off the Top of My Head

Medicare for All: It's Time Has Come

by John Lawrence, February 14, 2019

California Governor Gavin Newsom is moving California towards a Medicare for All, single payer health care system at least for residents of the state. Many other politicians such as Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Elzabeth Warren and others are calling for the same thing at the Federal level. Of course, the reactionary Trump administration is dead set against it. They want "freedom" for pharmaceutical corporations to keep gouging their customers. They don't want "socialism" when every other industrialized and most non-industrialized countries already have a single payer system. They say it would cost too much. Well how do other countries do it for half the price of the American system and twice as good outcomes? Thirty-two of the thirty-three developed nations have universal health care, with the United States being the lone exception.

The LA Times reported:

Gavin Newsom backed an assortment of ambitious and expensive programs as he campaigned for governor, none more so than the idea of converting the state to a single-payer healthcare system. On his first day in office Monday, Newsom reaffirmed that goal, but set the state on a more measured — and far more achievable — path toward insuring all Californians.

The most dramatic step Newsom took was also the one least likely to bear fruit: He signed a letter asking the federal government’s permission to mingle federal dollars (such as funding for Medicare, Medicaid and veterans health benefits) and state funds into a single-payer system, replacing the various public and private insurance programs with one run by Sacramento. The chances of the Trump administration signing on to such a plan seem more remote than the most distant star in the Milky Way.

Many other state Governors are working their way toward a single payer system. As usual local and state politicians are leading the way while the sclerotic, antiquated Federal government can do nothing but fund a trillion dollar defense establishment and be at the mercy of corporate lobbyists. People are finding out that the vaunted Trump tax cuts caused their taxes to go up in many cases because it took away the deduction for state and local taxes. They're also finding out that it was mainly a giveaway to the rich while running the country into even more debt.

Politico reports:

Gov. Gavin Newsom wants California to be the first state to offer Medicaid to undocumented adults. Gov. Jared Polis wants Colorado to pioneer a multi-state single-payer system. And in Minnesota, Gov. Tim Walz wants residents to be able to buy into Medicaid.

These radical moves by newly elected liberal governors reveal a new movement among Democrats on health care in advance of the 2020 presidential campaign to see just how far the party will go in pushing universal health care. ...

New Mexico legislators plan to introduce a Medicaid buy-in bill soon after their new session begins next week. Colorado, Connecticut, Nevada, Illinois and Minnesota are all expected to debate versions of a the idea, which would use state money to subsidize a Medicaid-like plan for those who cannot afford health insurance. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a prospective 2020 presidential candidate, announced plans for a public option that could lower premiums on the state's Obamacare exchange.

Newsom, who’s also thought to have eventual national aspirations, said he also wants an individual mandate with revenues used to expand Obamacare subsidies, a step that a few other Democratic-led states have taken. And in New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced he’d devote at least $100 million to increase access to public hospitals and primary care clinics.

Things are happening, folks. Mainstream politicians are getting aboard the Medicare for All express. Woo Hoo! Let's prepare the trash can to accept the antiquated, addlepated, superannuated, moribund, obsolete, debilitated Republican party along with its red state base of adoring Trumpster fans and get on with the Green New Deal, a plan for a revitalized America in the 21st century. Meanwhile, I count myself lucky to be a Californian.

Trump Wants Socialism for the Rich, Harsh Capitalism for the Rest

by Robert Reich

Monday, February 11, 2019

"America will never be a socialist country,” Donald Trump declared in his State of the Union address. Someone should alert Trump that America is now a hotbed of socialism. But it is socialism for the rich. Everyone else is treated to harsh capitalism.

In the conservative mind, socialism means getting something for doing nothing. That pretty much describes the $21 billion saved by the nation’s largest banks last year thanks to Trump’s tax cuts, some of which went into massive bonuses for bank executives. On the other hand, more than 4,000 lower-level bank employees got a big dose of harsh capitalism. They lost their jobs.

Banks that are too big to fail – courtesy of the 2008 bank bailout – enjoy a hidden subsidy of some $83 billion a year, because creditors facing less risk accept lower interest on deposits and loans. Last year, Wall Street’s bonus pool was $31.4 billion. Take away the hidden subsidy and the bonus pool disappears.

Trump and his appointees at the Federal Reserve are easing bank requirements put in place after the bailout. They’ll make sure the biggest banks remain too big to fail.

Trump is promoting socialism for the rich and harsh capitalism for everyone else in other ways. Since he was elected, GM has got more than $600 million in federal contracts plus $500 million in tax breaks. Some of this has gone into the pockets of GM executives. Chairman and CEO Mary Barra raked in almost $22m in total compensation in 2017 alone.

But GM employees are subject to harsh capitalism. GM is planning to lay off more than 14,000 workers and close three assembly plants and two component factories in North America by the end of 2019.

When he was in business, Trump perfected the art of using bankruptcy to shield himself from the consequences of bad decisions – socialism for the rich at its worst – while leaving employees twisting in the wind.

Now, all over America, executives who run their companies into the ground are getting gold-plated exit packages while their workers get pink slips.

Sears is doling out $25 million to the executives who stripped its remaining assets and drove it into bankruptcy, but has no money for the thousands of workers it laid off.

As Pacific Gas and Electric hurtles toward bankruptcy, the person who was in charge when the deadly infernos roared through northern California last year (caused in part by PG&E’s faulty equipment) has departed with a cash severance package of $2.5 million. The PG&E executive in charge of gas operations when records were allegedly falsified left in 2018 with $6.9 million.

Under socialism for the rich, you can screw up big time and still reap big rewards. Equifax’s Richard Smith retired in 2017 with an $18 million pension in the wake of a security breach that exposed the personal information of 145 million consumers to hackers.

Wells Fargo’s Carrie Tolstedt departed with a $125 million exit package after being in charge of the unit that opened more than 2 million unauthorized customer accounts.

Around 60 percent of America’s wealth is now inherited. Many of today’s super rich have never done a day’s work in their lives.

Trump’s response has been to cut the estate tax to apply only to estates valued at over $22 million per couple. Mitch McConnell is now proposing that the estate tax be repealed altogether.

What about the capitalist principles that people earn what they’re worth in the market, and that economic gains should go to those who deserve them?

America is on the cusp of the largest inter-generational wealth transfer in history. As rich boomers expire over the next three decades, an estimated $30 trillion will go to their children.

Those children will be able to live off of the income these assets generate, and then leave the bulk of them to their own heirs, tax-free. (Capital gains taxes don’t apply to the soaring values of stocks, bonds, mansions and other assets of wealthy people who die before they’re sold.)

After a few generations of this, almost all of the nation’s wealth will be in the hands of a few thousand non-working families.

To the conservative mind, the specter of socialism conjures up a society in which no one is held accountable, and no one has to work for what they receive. Yet that’s exactly the society Trump and the Republicans are promoting for the rich.

Meanwhile, most Americans are subject to an increasingly harsh and arbitrary capitalism in which they’re working harder but getting nowhere, and have less security than ever.

They need thicker safety nets and deserve a bigger piece of the economic pie. If you want to call this socialism, fine. I call it fair.

A US Tax on Wealth Is Long Overdue

Published on Tuesday, February 12, 2019 by Boston Globe

Between 1930 and 1980, the rate applied on the highest incomes was on average 81 percent, and the rate applied to the highest inherited estates was 74 percent. Clearly this did not destroy American capitalism.

by Thomas Piketty

 

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Carefully calculated by economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, the proposal by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), now running for president, sets a rate of 2 percent on fortunes valued between $50 million and $1 billion, and 3 percent above $1 billion. (Photo: Getty Images)

What if the final blow for French President Emmanuel Macron came not from the yellow vests but from US Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts? Warren, who announced her candidacy for president on Saturday, has proposed what will doubtless be one of the key points of her campaign — the creation of a genuine federal progressive wealth tax.

Carefully calculated by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, the Warren proposal sets a rate of 2 percent on fortunes valued between $50 million and $1 billion, and 3 percent above $1 billion. The proposal also provides for an exit tax equal to 40 percent of total wealth for those who relinquish their American citizenship. The tax would apply to all assets, with no exemptions, with dissuasive sanctions for people and governments that do not transmit appropriate information on assets held abroad.

The debate has only just begun and the proposed schedule could still be extended and made more progressive — with rates rising, for example, to 5 to 10 percent per annum for multibillionaires. What is certain is that the issue of fiscal justice will be central to the presidential campaign. US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York has suggested a rate of 70 percent on the highest incomes, while Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont defends a tax rate of 77 percent on the highest inherited estates. While the Warren proposal is the most innovative, the three approaches are complementary and should be mutually beneficial. Advertisement

To understand this, let’s look back. Between 1880 and 1910, while the concentration of industrial and financial wealth was gaining momentum in the United States and the country was threatening to become almost as unequal as old Europe, a powerful political movement in favor of an improved distribution in wealth was developing. This led to the creation of a federal tax on income in 1913 and on inheritances in 1916.

Between 1930 and 1980, the rate applied on the highest incomes was on average 81 percent, and the rate applied to the highest inherited estates was 74 percent. Clearly this did not destroy American capitalism. Far from it. It made it more egalitarian and more productive, at a time when the United States had not forgotten that educational advancement and investment in training and skills — not the religion of property and inequality — were the backbone of prosperity.

Presidents Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump subsequently endeavored to destroy this heritage. They turned their backs on the egalitarian origins of the country by counting on historical amnesia and by fueling identity-based divisions. With the hindsight we have today, it is obvious that the outcome of this policy was disastrous. Between 1980 and 2020, the rise in per capita national income was halved in comparison with the period 1930-1980. What little growth there was ended up being swept up by the richest, the consequence being a complete stagnation in income for the poorest 50 percent. There is something obvious about the movement of a return to progressive taxation and greater fiscal justice that is emerging today and which is long overdue.

The innovation is that it is now a question of creating an annual wealth tax in addition to the income and inherited estate taxes. This is a crucial innovation in terms of justice and efficiency. Numerous one-shot capital levies have been successfully applied to real estate, professional, and financial assets subsequent to the world wars to pay off public debts, in particular in Japan, Germany, Italy, France and in many European countries. Collected only once, the rates applied to the largest private estates often rose to 40 and 50 percent, or even more.

With an annual wealth tax designed to be applied on a permanent basis, the rates are of necessity more restricted. However, they must be high enough to enable genuine mobility of wealth. From this point of view, the tax on inherited wealth comes much too late. We are not going to wait until Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg reach the age of 90 before they begin to pay taxes. With the 3 percent annual rate proposed by Warren, a static estate worth $100 billion would return to the community in 30 years. This is a good beginning but, given the average rate of progression of the highest financial assets, the aim should undoubtedly be higher (5 to 10 percent or more).

It is also crucial to allocate all the revenue to the reduction of inequalities. In particular, the American property tax, like the French real estate tax, weighs heavily on those with limited resources. Those two venerable property taxes, contrary to what is sometimes stated, tax not only the ownership of housing but also tax business assets (offices, plots of land, warehouses, etc.). The problem is that they have never been genuinely rethought since the 18th century. The time has come for them to become progressive taxes with graduated rates on net assets, with the key element being strong reductions for indebted households who are seeking to accede to property ownership. Let’s hope that the forthcoming American campaign, like the French discussion around the yellow vests, will at last afford the opportunity for an in-depth discussion on the taxation of property and fiscal justice.

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Thomas Piketty is a French economist and the author of the best-selling book, Capital in the 21st Century.

Insight Into the Creative Provess

Dear friends,

Striving for perfection is what artistic blocks are all about. Unable to finish the work, fearing it is not yet perfect, is the death of originality. If we write with the reader’s reaction in mind, we fail to allow what might be truly useful to emerge from our deeper self. Flaws are growth points. Potential is always present in the imperfect expression. The paradox is this: we have potential because we are perfect, spiritually! It is precisely because of that truth that we can improve, achieve new heights, heal from the past and become happier, healthier and more creative.

When we know there is a vast, untapped reservoir of creative ideas available, we can approach the work with the attitude of “let’s see what wants to happen here.” I   often begin to write a Sunday talk with a question; “what wants to be known today?” It seems to unlock my own insight and facility with words. I love the creative process. It is forever at work, never pausing or stopping. We enter into it to the degree we realize we are its way-in to visible expression. It is a true partnership of co-creation, and it is not just for artists.

Everyone of us is co-creating with potential. If we are unaware of it, it is known as the Law of Averages. It is kind of a survival mechanism. But once we realize the Presence of Potential and its counterpart, the Law of Specificity, we have entered the realm of Creation. We begin to specify what shall be on the canvass of our life, what the life story we are writing shall be. We have become the “imperfect that adores its own perfect.”

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes www.centerforspirituallivingbakersfield.com

Check out www.californiafreepress.net

Off the Top of My Head

Is Nancy Pelosi Standing in the Way of the Green New Deal?

by John Lawrence, February 13, 2019

The Green New Deal will solve a lot of this nation's and the world's problems, namely by promoting the rapid transition to renewable energy and away from fossil fuel pollution and greenhouse gasses. It will forestall climate change at the rate and speed that needs to be carried out if the earth isn't to become a living Hell for growing numbers of people including in major American cities such as Miami and New Orleans which will essentially be under water. It will build the infrastructure needed to make America a First Class nation again. Notice I didn't say that it would Make America Great Again. That slogan represents a regression to the Dark Ages.

So what is the leader of the House, Nancy Pelosi doing about all this? She's standing in the way of the Green New Deal. She's blocking it. She's making sure it will never come to a House vote. Nancy Pelosi represents the Old Guard, the centrist Democrats who don't want anything to do with the Bernie Sanders's, the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's, the Elizabeth Warren's of the world. She doesn't want Medicare for All and the end to American adventurism abroad. She wants essentially the status quo minus Trump. truthdig reported:

The legislative prospects for the measure “are bleak in the foreseeable future,” Friedman and Thrush write, adding that “Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California has no intention of bringing it to the floor for a vote, according to a Democratic leadership aide with direct knowledge of her plans.”

On the same day that Ocasio-Cortez and Markey released their resolution, Pelosi announced the members of a new House Select Committee on climate change. Ocasio-Cortez was not one of them. In an interview with Politico, Pelosi also dismissed the plan as “the green dream,” adding, “Nobody knows what it is, but they’re for it, right?”

Well, Nancy, why don't you read it then? Here's the link:

The US is trillions of dollars behind in repairing and maintaining traditional infrastructure like roads, bridges and ports let along new green infrastructure such as mass transit and renewable energy facilities. Trump has done his best to Make America Suck Again - MASA. Sort of has a ring to it, don't you think. Rhymes with NASA. Seriously, all that Pelosi is thinking is "What Democrat is electable?" and it sure isn't Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren or Kamala Harris. The Democrats will lose again predictably unless they go bold. They will lose if they try to play it safe. They need to take a strong stand on taking the money away from the military, ending useless military involvements abroad and doing the peaceful work of building sustainable infrastructure and that includes in nations where the US military has destroyed infrastructure, houses and businesses.

Off the Top of My Head

The Green New Deal and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Real Deal

by John Lawrence

See the other articles on California Free Press today. Finally, someone is standing up to the establishment with the wit, wisdom and smarts that Alexandria possesses. The Green New Deal faces the real challenges Americans and People of the Planet face in the next 10 years: dealing with runaway climate change and economic inequality on a massive scale. If these changes are implemented (and believe me, the status quo will do everything in their power to see that they're not), Americans can look forward to leading the way towards creating a sustainable planet and at the same time creating a society in which everyone has a decent life, a good job and reasonably priced health care.

Medicare for All will simply allow the US to catch up with the rest of the developed world insofar as health care is concerned and prevent the ripping off of Americans by Big Pharma and the health insurance corporations. Putting people back to work building and maintaining infrastructure will make a huge difference as far as catching up with the infrastructure development in other parts of the world. Although the Green New Deal does not state it explicitly, the implication is that the US will reduce its role as the world's policeman and use the money thereby saved for more peaceful pursuits. In other words the US will become more aligned with what progressive, developed nations are already doing, and, instead of maintaining enemies in order to justify its military expenditures, will work with other countries including our supposed "enemies" to work out our differences with them.

The US military is one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. By diminishing its role climate change will be greatly ameliorated. Putting people to work with good paying jobs instead of gig economy jobs will diminish economic inequality. Who knows the US might finally use some of its inherent largesse and expertise to help the rest of the world develop as China is now doing with its Belt and Road initiative in which China is helping other nations around the world to build infrastructure which will contribute to their economic development.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her cohorts have a vision for a better America and a better world. Let's hope it comes to fruition before it's too late.

'This Is What Hope Feels Like': Green New Deal Resolution Hailed as 'Watershed Moment' for New Era of Climate Action

Published on

Thursday, February 07, 2019

by

Common Dreams

"When we look back on today, this will be the moment we will be able to say that the political tide has turned on the rising seas."

by

Jake Johnson, staff writer

 

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) speaks as Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and other congressional Democrats listen during a news conference in front of the U.S. Capitol February 7, 2019 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

"Today is a good day for the country, for the climate movement, and for all humanity."

After years of congressional inaction and minor policy tweaks that failed to address runaway global warming with the urgency and ambition the science demands, experts and advocacy groups representing millions of Americans hailed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey's (D-Mass.) Green New Deal rollout on Thursday as a "watershed moment" in the fight against the climate crisis that—with enough grassroots mobilization—could usher in a bold new era of action.

"This is a historic moment made possible by a grassroots movement (you!) of people fighting for the just climate solutions we need." 
—350.org

"We must be as ambitious and innovative in our solution as possible," Ocasio-Cortez declared during a press conference unveiling the Green New Deal resolution, which calls for a "national mobilization" to transition to 100 percent renewable energy by 2030. "We're here to say that small, incremental policy solutions are not enough."

"There is no justice and there is no combating climate change without addressing what has happened to indigenous communities," the New York congresswoman continued. "That means that there is no fixing our economy without addressing the racial wealth gap. That means that we are not going to transition to renewable energies without also transitioning frontline communities and coal communities into economic opportunity as well. That is what this is about: It is comprehensive, it is thoughtful, it is compassionate, and it is extremely economically strategic."

.@AOC speaks about her resolution for a Green New Deal to tackle the systemic crises in our country: climate change, deepening structural racism, and skyrocketing inequality.

"Small incremental policy solutions are not enough." pic.twitter.com/XSYXe5Ozh9

— Justice Democrats (@justicedems) February 7, 2019

Introduced with the backing of Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), eight Senate Democrats, 64 House Democrats, and a large coalition of national consumer and environmental groups, the Green New Deal resolution represents a significant first step toward creating an energy and economic system that prioritizes the planet, workers, and vulnerable communities over the profits of fossil fuel corporations.

"Let's celebrate the fact that—thanks to the Sunrise Movement, AOC, Sen. Markey, and many others—there's now climate legislation in Congress that actually addresses our greatest crisis at its actual scale." 
—Bill McKibben, 350.org

"The sun is setting on the dirty energy of the past," Markey wrote on Twitter following Thursday's press conference. "Today marks the dawn of a new era of climate action. When we look back on today, this will be the moment we will be able to say that the political tide has turned on the rising seas."

In an indication of how quickly a previously marginal policy proposal has burst into the mainstream, "Green New Deal" appeared at the top of Twitter's trending list in the United States on Thursday as the proposal also garnered front-page newspaper coverage and editorial board endorsements.

"This is a historic moment made possible by a grassroots movement (you!) of people fighting for the just climate solutions we need," said 350.org, one of the organizations that has helped organize and lead Capitol Hill protests in support of the Green New Deal in recent months.

Climate change is a national emergency and we need a #GreenNewDeal to stop it. Today, @AOC & @SenMarkey released their Green New Deal Resolution, which lays out a 10 year plan to move America to 100% clean & renewable energy. This is what hope feels like. pic.twitter.com/qDZ5E3Y3RO

— Sunrise Movement 🌅 (@sunrisemvmt) February 7, 2019

Below is a complete list of all of the original congressional co-sponsors of the Green New Deal resolution. The Sunrise Movement, Justice Democrats, 350.org, and other organizations are circulating a petition urging members of Congress to sign on to the resolution. As of this writing, the petition has received over 11,600 signatures.

The historic Green New Deal resolution introduced by @AOC and @SenMarkey has 64 House Co-Sponsors and 9 Senate Co-Sponsors.

We've got the momentum. 💯 🌎 👩🏾‍🏭

Add your name to call on your member of Congress to support the #GreenNewDeal --> https://t.co/HCJHPqplqA pic.twitter.com/LDmlXv9twG

— Justice Democrats (@justicedems) February 7, 2019

As essential components of a comprehensive and just transition to 100 percent renewable energy in just ten years, the Green New Deal resolution (pdf) also calls for universal healthcare, a federal jobs guarantee, massive infrastructure investment, and affordable housing.

"Senator Markey and Representative Ocasio-Cortez are telling the truth about what it will actually take to prevent climate catastrophe—a WWII-scale climate mobilization that eliminates greenhouse gas emissions in 10 years and draws down excess [greenhouse gases] from the atmosphere," said Margaret Klein Salamon, executive director of The Climate Mobilization.

"We will continue to fight to protect humanity and the natural world by telling the truth about the climate emergency and addressing it at the speed and scale required," Salamon added.

While environmentalists were overwhelmingly supportive of the path-breaking Green New Deal resolution, they also pointed out—as Ocasio-Cortez herself acknowledged during Thursday's press conference—that it is just an initial step that must be built upon and improved.

In particular, green groups expressed concern that the resolution does not mention the words "fossil fuels," even as scientific research makes clear that continued oil and gas extraction in the U.S. threatens to undermine global efforts to drastically slash carbon emissions before it's too late.

"We urgently need a bold and ambitious Green New Deal that tackles fossil fuels head-on," Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food and Water Watch, said in a statement. "We support the ambition and scale of this resolution, and we are heartened by its recognition that climate change poses a grave threat to healthy food and clean water, but any legislation that does not explicitly address the urgent need to keep fossil fuels in the ground is insufficient."

Noting that there is still "much work to be done," 350.org founder Bill McKibben concluded, "let's celebrate the fact that—thanks to the Sunrise Movement, AOC, Sen. Markey, and many others—there's now climate legislation in Congress that actually addresses our greatest crisis at its actual scale."

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WATCH: This Viral Video of Ocasio-Cortez Explaining "Fundamentally Broken" US Democracy Has Been Viewed More Than 16 Million Times

Published on

Friday, February 08, 2019

by

Common Dreams

Lawmaker "exposes just how much 'bad guys' can get away with"

by Andrea Germanos, staff writer

 

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) addresses a panel at a House Oversight Committe hearing on Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2019. (Screengrab/C-Span)

In a critique of campaign finance laws that has now gone viral, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) this week showed how the United States has "a system that is fundamentally broken" due to the pervasive influence of corporate money that infects every aspect of the nation's democracy.

The take-down—which took just under 5 minutes—occurred Wednesday during a hearing held by the House Oversight Committee. To make her point, she played "a lightning round game" with the watchdogs on the panel, including Common Cause's Karen Hobert Flynn, CREW's Walter Shaub, and Brennan Center for Justice's Mehrbani Spitzer.

With her creative attack, said Common Cause, the freshman lawmaker "exposes just how much 'bad guys' can get away with under the shameful state of our campaign finance laws."

Watch the video below:

Now This News highlighted her effort on Twitter, which was then boosted by comedian James Corden. As of this writing, the Now This version of the video has been viewed over 16 million times.

‘We have a system that is fundamentally broken.’ — Rep. @AOC is explaining just how f*cked campaign finance laws really are pic.twitter.com/sCwpkRzcHB

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) February 8, 2019

Reacting to her comments, Ocasio-Cortez's policy advisor Dan Riffle said, "This was all her. She did this on the fly. She is very good at this, folks."

Actor Ken Olin, meanwhile, mused, "No wonder the right is terrified of her. It's not her politics, it's her intelligence. She's fierce, she's focused, she's real, and she's got lots of time to rock their world." 

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Why the National Enquirer’s Attempt to Extort Jeff Bezos Backfired

By John Cassidy

February 8, 2019 from the New Yorker

 

Memo to the honchos at the National Enquirer: if you are going to threaten one of the richest men in the world by saying that you have sexually explicit selfies of him and his girlfriend, don’t have your lawyer and top editor put the threats in writing. The rich guy might decide he can ride out a stolen dick pic or two, especially if he’s already announced that he’s getting divorced.

“Something unusual happened to me yesterday,” Jeff Bezos, the founder and C.E.O. of Amazon, writes in a piece that appeared on Medium on Thursday evening. “I was made an offer I couldn’t refuse. Or at least that’s what the top people at the National Enquirer thought.” Evidently, Bezos thought different. “Any personal embarrassment AMI could cause me takes a back seat because there’s a much more important matter involved here,” he writes, referring to American Media, Inc., which is the National Enquirer’s parent company. “If in my position I can’t stand up to this kind of extortion, how many people can?"

At some length, his article relates the recent dealings that his representatives have had with the National Enquirer, which in early January published intimate text messages that he had exchanged with his girlfriend, Lauren Sánchez, a former television anchor. Bezos also published three threatening e-mails sent, on Wednesday, by the supermarket tabloid’s top editor, Dylan Howard, and by Jon Fine, the deputy general counsel of A.M.I.

In Howard’s e-mail, he describes in graphic terms some of the “photos obtained during our newsgathering,” which he says include “a below the belt selfie” and a shot of “Ms. Sanchez wearing a plunging red neckline dress revealing her cleavage and a glimpse of her nether region.” He concludes, “It would give no editor pleasure to send this email. I hope common sense can prevail — and quickly.” One of Fine’s e-mails lays out the National Enquirer’s “proposed terms” for reaching an agreement between the two sides, which included Bezos publicly acknowledging that he and his representatives didn’t have any basis for their suggestion that the original story about him was politically motivated. In a statement released on Friday morning, the company said, “American Media believes fervently that it acted lawfully in the reporting of the story of Mr. Bezos. . . . Nonetheless, in light of the nature of the allegations published by Mr. Bezos, the Board has convened and determined that it should promptly and thoroughly investigate the claims.”

All credit to Bezos for refusing to submit to these intimidation tactics. He’s a ruthless plutocrat whose online behemoth crushes retailers big and small. He has run his company with all the transparency of the Politburo. And he has exploited his great riches to buy one of the most important and influential newspapers in the country, the Washington Post. But he’s just as entitled as the next person to a private life—and he has just performed an important public service, or maybe two.

Bezos has made transparent the bullying tactics employed by the National Enquirer and raised the question of how often they are directed at targets who are less well able to defend themselves. “On that point, numerous people have contacted our investigation team about their similar experiences with AMI, and how they needed to capitulate because, for example, their livelihoods were at stake,” Bezos writes. In addition, he has raised the intriguing question of how and why the tabloid went after him in the first place.

“Simply put, this was and is a news story,” Fine, the A.M.I. attorney, says in one of the e-mails. But there are grounds for wondering whether that was really all there was to it. As practically everybody now knows, David Pecker, the chief executive of A.M.I., is an old friend of Donald Trump. Late last year, A.M.I. entered a plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, in which the company admitted that, in 2016, it bought and suppressed the story of Karen McDougal, an ex-Playboy model who claimed to have had an affair with Trump, “so as to prevent it from influencing the election.” At first glance, the Bezos story doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Trump, but first glances can sometimes be deceiving.

On January 9th, two days after the National Enquirer informed him it had obtained intimate text messages he had exchanged with Sánchez, Bezos announced that he and his wife of twenty-five years, MacKenzie, were divorcing. After the National Enquirer published some of the texts, Bezos writes, “I engaged investigators to learn how those texts were obtained, and to determine the motives for the many unusual actions taken by the Enquirer.” The principal investigator he hired was Gavin de Becker, a well-known security expert who runs his own consulting firm. “I asked him to prioritize protecting my time since I have other things I prefer to work on and to proceed with whatever budget he needed to pursue the facts in this matter,” Bezos adds.

• Read reporting by Jeffrey Toobin on David Pecker, the chief executive of American Media, Inc., and his fervor for Donald Trump, and Ronan Farrow on how the National Enquirer protected Trump early in his Presidential campaign. *

According to a Washington Post story that was published on Tuesday, de Becker and his team “concluded that the billionaire was not hacked. Rather, de Becker said in an interview, the Enquirer’s scoop . . . began with a ‘politically motivated’ leak meant to embarrass the owner of The Post—an effort potentially involving several important figures in Trump’s 2016 campaign.” More specifically, de Becker came to focus his attention on Sánchez’s brother, Michael, a Hollywood talent agent who has ties to Roger Stone and Carter Page, two Trump associates who have been caught up in the Russia investigation. “Michael Sanchez has been among the people we’ve been speaking with and looking at,” de Becker told the Daily Beast.

Michael Sánchez is vigorously denying any involvement. In e-mails and texts that the Post obtained, he made the extraordinary claim to de Becker that he suspected the texts between Bezos and his sister may have been obtained by the National Security Agency, British intelligence, or the Mossad. The Post also reported that Michael Sánchez issued a statement in which he “said he believed de Becker, Bezos’s security chief for two decades, was involved in the leaks to the Enquirer ’to sabotage Mr. Bezos and Ms. Sanchez’s love affair.’ ”

Just how the National Enquirer obtained the photographs remains murky. What’s far clearer is that the publication tried to go gangster on the wrong person. “Of course I don’t want personal photos published, but I also won’t participate in their well-known practice of blackmail, political favors, political attacks and corruption,” Bezos writes. “I prefer to stand up, roll this log over and see what crawls out.” He won’t be the only one watching.

THE NEOCON PLAYBOOK IS A RECIPE FOR DISASTER IN VENEZUELA

From Who.What.Why., FEBRUARY 10, 2019 | KLAUS MARRE AND DONKEYHOTEY

Neocon Nosferatu: Making South America Great Again. Photo credit: DonkeyHotey / WhoWhatWhy (CC BY-SA 2.0) See complete attribution below.

When Donald Trump promised that he would only hire the “best people,” maybe he should have been pressed on what, exactly, they would be good at. Because it’s clearly not running the US government. Over the past two years, it has become clear that liars, grifters, conmen, opportunists, and crooks seem to be drawn to the president like flies to … well, you know.

Now, however, a situation is arising for which one of Trump’s “best people” seems ideally suited for forcing regime change somewhere in the Americas.

At a time when the president seems intent on getting the US out of Syria and Afghanistan, he appears to be equally determined to plunge headfirst into the chaos in Venezuela.

His point person for this adventure is Elliott Abrams, who has a long history of mucking around in the US’s backyard — often with dubious methods. In other words, he’ll fit right in.

To those unfamiliar with Abrams, here are the CliffsNotes: In the early 1980s, Abrams served as assistant secretary of state for human rights, which, in retrospect, seems like some kind of cruel joke. In that position, Abrams once stated that former Guatemalan leader General Efraín Ríos Montt “brought considerable progress” to human rights in his country. In case you are not familiar with Ríos Montt, he was convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity in 2013.

Abrams’s motives back then seemed to be consistent with the goals of the military-industrial complex: He wanted an embargo on military aid to Guatemala to be lifted. Just as an aside, and unrelated to Abrams but possibly relevant to Venezuela, the CIA-engineered coup in Guatemala in 1954 did nothing to stabilize the country and led to a brutal and lengthy civil war.

Around the same time, Abrams sought to downplay reports of a massacre in El Salvador and testified before the Senate that the incident was being used for guerilla propaganda. A decade later, however, the UN-approved Salvadoran Truth Commission found that more than 500 civilians were “deliberately and systematically” murdered during that massacre. At the time, the Reagan administration was worried about El Salvador becoming a communist country and falling under the influence of the Soviet Union and spent billions to provide weapons to El Salvador’s military. Oh, and there was a brutal and lengthy civil war.

But Abrams truly left his mark when trying to solicit funding for the Nicaraguan Contrasfrom the Sultan of Brunei. He later tried to cover up what happened and ended up pleading guilty to two counts of withholding information from Congress. He was pardoned by George H.W. Bush. All of this, of course, had to do with the US government supporting far-right “rebels” in Nicaragua and it involves a lengthy civil war that took a terrible toll on the country.

You may be detecting a pattern here.

We were certainly skeptical when it was announced that Abrams would be the special envoy for Venezuela. Throw in John Bolton and you have all of the ingredients you need for another neocon clusterfuck.

While Venezuela seems in urgent need of assistance, history has shown time and again that when the US “helps” in the Americas, almost everybody ends up worse than before — apart from the new US-backed right-wing regime and the people who supply the weapons. Just ask Abrams, who has had a front-row seat for some of the worst examples.

Based on his track record, he will make a terrible situation much worse. But maybe that’s the plan. And then he would certainly be the right man for the job.

***

The cartoon above was created by DonkeyHotey for WhoWhatWhy from these images: Elliott Abrams caricature (DonkeyHotey / Flickr – CC BY 2.0), Venezuelan money (Jorge Andrés Paparoni Bruzual / Flickr – CC BY-SA 2.0), Venezuelan flag (Anyul Rivas / Flickr – CC BY 2.0), and Nosferatu (Archive.org).

National Enquirer’s source for Bezos story believed Trump knew and supported the effort: report

From Alternet, written by Matthew Chapman February 11, 2019

On Sunday, The Daily Beast reported that the National Enquirer’slikely source for the steamy text messages between Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his mistress Lauren Sanchez was the mistress’ brother, Michael Sanchez.

But the saga could be deeper than that. It turns out that Sanchez believed that the Enquirer, and its parent company AMI, were acting with the blessing of President Donald Trump, who allegedly wanted revenge on Bezos for negative coverage about him in the Washington Post:

Documents reviewed by The Daily Beast show that Michael Sanchez believed the Enquirer pursued its story about Bezos with “President Trump’s knowledge and appreciation” — a chase encouraged, in Sanchez’s estimation, by Republican operatives “who THINK Jeff gets up every morning and has a WaPo meeting to plot its next diabolical attack on President Trump.”

Bezos, the richest man in the world, purchased the Post in 2013. However, there is no evidence he plays any role in the paper’s editorial direction, and the Post has actually run a number of articles critical of Amazon under his ownership without comment from him.

AMI and its owner, David Pecker, are facing backlash after Bezos revealed that the company tried to blackmail him with nude photos after he launched an investigation into how they acquired text messages from his affair.

Pecker, a friend of Trump’s, was granted immunity last fall as part of an investigation by the Southern District of New York attorney’s office into Trump’s hush payments to women prior to the 2016 presidential election, one of which — to cover up Trump’s encounter with Playboy Playmate Karen MacDougal — was brokered by AMI. If it turns out that AMI broke the law by blackmailing Bezos, which could constitute criminal extortion, this would violate the terms of their immunity agreement, meaning SDNY prosecutors could pursue charges against the company.

Moreover, there may be yet another side to Trump’s alleged involvement. The president has reportedly “rewarded” Pecker by putting him in touch with people connected to the Saudi royal family, at roughly the same time that AMI was attempting to secure funding from the Saudis to acquire Time Magazine and ran a special edition that lavished praise on Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

If it transpired that Trump tried to hook up his publisher friend with funding from a despotic foreign regime in return for helping to discredit a businessman at the center of a personal vendetta, then the Russia collusion allegations could be just the tip of the iceberg for the president’s wrongdoing. Sanchez’s belief that Trump gave his imprimatur to AMI’s actions does little to help him.

There Are Many Ways to Create Beauty

Dear friends,

As Emerson noted “little things are often filled with great beauty.” Once I marveled at the patterns ice had formed on my window. It was as beautiful as any museum painting. The glimmering trail left by a garden snail; the way grass turns silver in the moonlight; our own breath on a chilly day. There is beauty everywhere. We are affected by it because it seems to have been intended. It is as if we are meant to enjoy everything about this place and this life we are living.

Can we find beauty in death? We praise birth as a miracle but death is something we see as tragedy, and yet it is no less a miracle. There is great mystery surrounding the departure of a conscious being, but we would be wrong to think they are no longer aware of be-ing. It seems that Life is intent on creating beauty in unexpected ways: as chaos becoming order, darkness becoming light, young becoming old, as the emergence of form and its disappearance. It is all the exquisite activity of Intelligence and Love in perfect right relationship.

When our personal intelligence couples with love, we also create beauty. We turn challenge into opportunity, confusion into understanding, fear into compassion. We create comfort, safety and respite for those who have no place to call home. We feed the hungry and rescue animals. We foster children and show them how to trust. We are turning chaos into order all the time and that is a beautiful thing.

Affirm: “Today I find many ways to create beauty for all to see.”

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes www.centerforspiritualivingbakersfield.com

Also see www.californiafreepress.net

Off the Top of My Head

National Enquirer CEO Pecker Threatens to Publish Pics of Amazon.com's CEO's Pecker

by John Lawrence

You couldn't make this stuff up, folks. Only in America would a tabloid dirtbag like the National Enquirer blackmail the world's richest man, Jeff Bezos, threatening to expose to the world his private parts unless he stopped an investigation into the National Enquirer. Jeff Bezos has the financial cajones to run the National Enquirer out of business, and I say more power to him. The National Enquirer publishes all the dirt on celebrities appealing to the prurient interests of self-righteous Americans. Most celebrities want to keep the image at least of being upright, honest Americans. Take John Wayne or Henry Fonda, for example. They would be outraged if the National Enquirer published pictures of their dicks.They would lose their upright American fan base.

But Jeff Bezos? He could give a fuck what part of his anatomy the National Enquirer chooses to publish. He's not running for office. It won't erase one zero off his billion dollar fortune, nor will it cause amazon.com to lose one sale. People could care less. Jeff Bezos could care less. Therefore, David Pecker has no hold over Jeff Bezos and his attempt to intimidate, blackmail and extort him so that he won't have the Washington Post, which Bezos owns, do an investigation of the National Enquirer will come to nought. So Bezos should encourage the Washington Post to investigate away, and, if they can put the National Enquirer out of business, good riddance to a paper that will not be missed. In fact the moral landscape of America will be greatly improved if the National Enquirer goes away. We could rest assured that there will be no more pictures of celebrities' junk.

This all came about because Bezos texted a picture of his junk to his girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez. Of course Bezos was married to another woman at the time. But when you're the world's richest man, you can afford to have more than one woman at the same time. The sultans had harems with hundreds of women if not thousands. The largest harem in the world belonged to King Tamba of Benaras. The 6th century BCE king’s harem was about the size of a city and housed approximately 16,000 inmates! So Bezos could well afford to start his own harem, but he is probably going to stick to the American formula of marriage, divorce, remarriage, redivorce etc. In other words serial monogamy. It seems that given their druthers, most men would not confine themselves to one woman. Certainly not the President of the United States who famously said, "When you're famous, you can grab them by the pussy." God Bless America.

Off the Top of My Head

Power to the People and Venezuelan Oil

by John Lawrence

This was a slogan in the sixties. We are a lot less naive today. Today it would mean public banking, a central bank owned by the People of the US and not private shareholders, accountable to Congress and printing its own money. Today the privately owned Federal Reserve prints the money. As Ellen Brown vividly illustrates in the accompanying article, Venezuela's problems are mainly caused by its assets and debts being denominated in American dollars and not Venezuelan bolivars. The US is then able to squeeze Venezuela and any other country that disagrees with it by the use of sanctions. To quote Ellen: "[Venezuela] owes massive debts in a currency it cannot print itself, namely, U.S. dollars."

The US would not have a debt problem if the Central Bank were publicly owned and printed its own money instead of delegating that function to the privately owned Federal Reserve. Venezuela would not have its problem with inflation if it had the ability to print its own money and pay off its debts that way. We've seen from history that things don't go well when a country affirms that it will sell its oil for anything other than US dollars as Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gadhafi found out. A Green New Deal as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive Democrats are proposing has the accompanying suggestion that oil should be made irrelevant; it should be left in the ground as we convert to renewable energy. That would certainly wreak havoc with countries whose national income is highly dependent on the sale of oil.

In the meantime China has invested $62 billion in Venezuela's nationalized oil industry. John Bolton wants to get his hands on the Venezuelan oil industry so he can privatize it and place it in the hands of American corporations. How climate change, the need to convert to renewables and the potential clash over Venezuelan debt and US perceived interests there plays out is anyone's guess. China wants Venezuelan oil. The US wants Venezuelan oil. Progressive Democrats want a Green New Deal which eliminates oil as a source of energy. Does all this portend an upcoming clash between superpowers played out in a Venezuelan landscape?

The Venezuela Myth Keeping Us From Transforming Our Economy

by Ellen Brown, from truthdig, February 7, 2019

Alex Lanz / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is getting significant media attention these days, after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in an interviewthat it should “be a larger part of our conversation” when it comes to funding the “Green New Deal.” According to MMT, the government can spend what it needs without worrying about deficits. MMT expert and Bernie Sanders adviser professor Stephanie Kelton says the government actually creates money when it spends. The real limit on spending is not an artificially imposed debt ceiling but a lack of labor and materials to do the work, leading to generalized price inflation. Only when that real ceiling is hit does the money need to be taxed back, but even then it’s not to fund government spending. Instead, it’s needed to shrink the money supply in an economy that has run out of resources to put the extra money to work.

Predictably, critics have been quick to rebut, calling the trend to endorse MMT “disturbing” and “a joke that’s not funny.” In a Feb. 1 post on the Daily Reckoning, Brian Maher darkly envisioned Bernie Sanders getting elected in 2020 and implementing “Quantitative Easing for the People” based on MMT theories. To debunk the notion that governments can just “print the money” to solve their economic problems, he raised the specter of Venezuela, where “money” is everywhere but bare essentials are out of reach for many, the storefronts are empty, unemployment is at 33 percent and inflation is predicted to hit 1 million percent by the end of the year.

Blogger Arnold Kling also pointed to the Venezuelan hyperinflation. He described MMT as “the doctrine that because the government prints money, it can spend whatever it wants . . . until it can’t.” He said:

To me, the hyperinflation in Venezuela exemplifies what happens when a country reaches the “it can’t” point. The country is not at full employment. But the government can’t seem to spend its way out of difficulty. Somebody should ask these MMT rock stars about the Venezuela example.

I’m not an MMT rock star and won’t try to expound on its subtleties. (I would submit that under existing regulations, the government cannot actually create money when it spends, but that it should be able to. In fact, MMTers have acknowledged that problem; but it’s a subject for another article.) What I want to address here is the hyperinflation issue, and why Venezuelan hyperinflation and “QE for the People” are completely different animals.

What Is Different About Venezuela

Venezuela’s problems are not the result of the government issuing money and using it to hire people to build infrastructure, provide essential services and expand economic development. If it were, unemployment would not be at 33 percent and climbing. Venezuela has a problem the U.S. does not, and will never have: It owes massive debts in a currency it cannot print itself, namely, U.S. dollars. When oil (its principal resource) was booming, Venezuela was able to meet its repayment schedule. But when the price of oil plummeted, the government was reduced to printing Venezuelan bolivars and selling them for U.S. dollars on international currency exchanges. As speculators drove up the price of dollars, more and more printing was required by the government, massively deflating the national currency.

It was the same problem suffered by Weimar Germany and Zimbabwe, the two classic examples of hyperinflation typically raised to silence proponents of government expansion of the money supply before Venezuela suffered the same fate. Professor Michael Hudson, an actual economic rock star who supports MMT principles, has studied the hyperinflation question extensively. He confirms that those disasters were not due to governments issuing money to stimulate the economy. Rather, he writes, “Every hyperinflation in history has been caused by foreign debt service collapsing the exchange rate. The problem almost always has resulted from wartime foreign currency strains, not domestic spending.”

Venezuela and other countries that are carrying massive debts in currencies that are not their own are not sovereign. Governments that are sovereign can and have engaged in issuing their own currencies for infrastructure and development quite successfully. I have discussed a number of contemporary and historical examples in my earlier articles, including in Japan, China, Australia and Canada.

Although Venezuela is not technically at war, it is suffering from foreign currency strains triggered by aggressive attacks by a foreign power. U.S. economic sanctions have been going on for years, causing the country at least $20 billion in losses. About $7 billion of its assets are now being held hostage by the U.S., which has waged an undeclared war against Venezuela ever since George W. Bush’s failed military coup against President Hugo Chávez in 2002. Chávez boldly announced the “Bolivarian Revolution,” a series of economic and social reforms that dramatically reduced poverty and illiteracy as well as improved health and living conditions for millions of Venezuelans. The reforms, which included nationalizing key components of the nation’s economy, made Chávez a hero to millions of people and the enemy of Venezuela’s oligarchs.

Nicolás Maduro was elected president following Chávez’s death in 2013 and vowed to continue the Bolivarian Revolution. Recently, as Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gadhafi had done before him, he defiantly announced that Venezuela would not be trading oil in U.S.dollars following sanctions imposed by President Trump.

The notorious Elliott Abrams has now been appointed as special envoyto Venezuela. Considered a war criminal by many for covering up massacres committed by U.S.-backed death squads in Central America, Abrams was among the prominent neocons closely linked to Bush’s failed Venezuelan coup in 2002. National security adviser John Bolton is another key neocon architect advocating regime change in Venezuela. At press conference on Jan. 28, he held a yellow legal pad prominently displaying the words “5,000 troops to Colombia,” a country that shares a border with Venezuela. Clearly, the neocon contingent feels it has unfinished business there.

Bolton does not even pretend that it’s all about restoring “democracy.” He blatantly said on Fox News, “It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.” As President Nixon said of U.S. tactics against Salvador Allende’s government in Chile, the point of sanctions and military threats is to squeeze the country economically.

Killing the Public Banking Revolution in Venezuela

It may be about more than oil, which recently hit record lows in the market. The U.S. hardly needs to invade a country to replenish its supplies. As with Libya and Iraq, another motive may be to suppress the banking revolution initiated by Venezuela’s upstart leaders.

The banking crisis of 2009–10 exposed the corruption and systemic weakness of Venezuelan banks. Some banks were engaged in questionable business practices. Others were seriously undercapitalized. Others still were apparently lending top executives large sums of money. At least one financier could not prove where he got the money to buy the banks he owned.

Rather than bailing out the culprits, as was done in the U.S., in 2009 the government nationalized seven Venezuelan banks, accounting for around 12 percent of the nation’s bank deposits. In 2010, more were taken over. Chávez’s government arrested at least 16 bankers and issued more than 40 corruption-related arrest warrants for others who had fled the country. By the end of March 2011, only 37 banks were left, down from 59 at the end of November 2009. State-owned institutions took a larger role, holding 35 percent of assets as of March 2011, while foreign institutions held just 13.2 percent of assets.

Over the howls of the media, in 2010 Chávez took the bold step of passing legislation defining the banking industry as one of “public service.” The legislation specified that 5 percent of the banks’ net profits must go toward funding community council projects, designed and implemented by communities for the benefit of communities. The Venezuelan government directed the allocation of bank credit to preferred sectors of the economy, and it increasingly became involved in private financial institutions’ operations. By law, nearly half the lending portfolios of Venezuelan banks had to be directed to particular mandated sectors of the economy, including small business and agriculture.

In a 2012 article titled “Venezuela Increases Banks’ Obligatory Social Contributions, U.S. and Europe Do Not,” Rachael Boothroyd said that the Venezuelan government was requiring the banks to give back. Housing was declared a constitutional right, and Venezuelan banks were obliged to contribute 15 percent of their yearly earnings to securing it. The government’s Great Housing Mission aimed to build 2.7 million free houses for low-income families before 2019. The goal was to create a social banking system that contributed to the development of society rather than simply siphoning off its wealth. Boothroyd wrote:

… Venezuelans are in the fortunate position of having a national government which prioritizes their life quality, wellbeing and development over the health of bankers’ and lobbyists’ pay checks. If the 2009 financial crisis demonstrated anything, it was that capitalism is quite simply incapable of regulating itself, and that is precisely where progressive governments and progressive government legislation needs to step in.

That is also where, in the U.S., the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is stepping in—and why Ocasio-Cortez’s proposals evoke howls in the media of the sort seen in Venezuela.

Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution gives Congress the power to create the nation’s money supply. Congress needs to exercise that power. The key to restoring our economic sovereignty is to reclaim the power to issue money from a commercial banking system that acknowledges no public responsibility beyond maximizing profits for its shareholders. Bank-created money is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States, including federal deposit insurance, access to the Fed’s lending window, and government bailouts when things go wrong. If we the people are backing the currency, it should be issued by the people through their representative government.

Today’s government, however, does not adequately represent the people, which is why we first need to take our government back. Thankfully, that is exactly what Ocasio-Cortez and her congressional allies are attempting to do.

---

Ellen Brown is an attorney, chairman of the Public Banking Institute, and author of twelve books including "Web of Debt" and "The Public Bank Solution." A thirteenth book titled "The Coming Revolution in Banking" is due out soon. She also co-hosts a radio program on PRN.FM called “It’s Our Money.” Her 300+ blog articles are posted at EllenBrown.com.

 

The State of Our Disunion

by Robert Reich

Monday, February 4, 2019

Donald Trump says his State of the Union address on Tuesday evening will be about “unification”. But Trump discussing the state of the union is like pyromaniac discussing lighter fluids. His goal is, and has always been, disunion.

The man thrives on divisiveness. It’s how he keeps himself the center of attention, fuels his base and ensures that no matter what facts are revealed, his followers will stick by him.

There’s another reason Trump aims to divide – and why he pours salt into the nation’s deepest wounds over ethnicity, immigration, race and gender.

He wants to distract attention from the biggest and most threatening divide of all: the widening imbalance of wealth and power between the vast majority, who have little or none, and a tiny minority who are accumulating just about all.

“Divide and conquer” is one of the oldest strategies in the demagogic playbook: keep the public angry at each other so they don’t unite against those who are running off with the goods.

Over the last four decades, the median wage has barely budged. But the incomes of the richest 0.1% have soared by more than 300% and the incomes of the top 0.001% (the 2,300 richest Americans), by more than 600%. The net worth of the wealthiest 0.1% of Americans almost equals that of the bottom 90% combined.

This grotesque imbalance is undermining American democracy.

“The preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy,” Martin Gilens of Princeton and Benjamin Page of Northwestern concluded a few years ago, after analyzing 1,799 policy issues that came before Congress. Lawmakers respond to the demands of wealthy individuals and moneyed business interests.

No secret here. In fact, Trump campaigned as a populist – exploiting the public’s justifiable sense that the game is rigged against them. But he never attacked the American oligarchy and his divide-and-conquer strategy as president has disguised his efforts to make it even stronger.

His tax cuts, his evisceration of labor laws, his filling his cabinet and sub-cabinet with corporate shills, his rollbacks of health, safety, environmental and financial regulations: all have made the super-rich far richer, at the expense of average Americans.

Meanwhile, he and his fellow Republicans continue to suppress votes. Last week, the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, denounced Democratic proposals to increase turnout, even calling the idea of making election day a federal holiday “a power grab”. Of course, it was a power grab – for the people.

Sitting behind Trump’s left shoulder on Tuesday night when he delivers his State of the Union will be a Democratic speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, who refused to blink when Trump closed the government in an attempt to fund his wall at the Mexican border.

Has Trump met his match? The real question is whether, and to what extent, Pelosi and other Democrats will also unblinkingly take on America’s increasing concentration of wealth and power.

In recent weeks, senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, both eyeing the White House, have with 29-year-old freshman congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for sharp increases in taxes on the super-rich. Democratic presidential hopefuls are also proposing to expand access to health insurance by creating Medicare for all.

Polls show strong public support but the corporate Democrats who bankroll much of the party are not happy with this drift to the putative “left”.

Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former New York mayor now considering a presidential run as a Democrat, warns that when you try to redistribute wealth, you get “Venezuela”. Howard Schultz, the billionaire former Starbucks chief executive who is considering an independent bid, calls Warren’s plan “ridiculous.”

Trump, along with the Republicans and perhaps some corporate Democrats, would rather opponents focus on the ethnic, racial and gender differences he uses to divide and conquer.

But Democratic leaders and candidates appear to understand that the largest threat to the state of the union – one that trumps all others, rendering it all but impossible to address anything else – is the deepening divide of wealth and power between the many and the few.

Words of Wisdom From Frank Thomas

by Frank Thomas

 

I fully agree there's a dire need for an intelligent Democratic counter strategy, Jerry, to the non-sensical lashing out of  the label "socialism" by the right and its standard barrage of ad hominem one-liners. This labeling often reaches a desperate, severely insulting, even vitriolic level, e.g., calling Obama a fascist, and a socialist, and a communist - calling his health care plans a massive leap into central government planning and control. The right has become politically powerfully adept resorting consistently to attack ad hominems like, "socialism and socialistic," or  "any form of socialism leads to Big Brother government control and loss of freedoms."  Another example is Wayne LaPierre's (chairman of the NRA lobby syndicate) response to a public call for prompt, concrete, strict gun restrictions: "Socialists, in typical European style, want to take away our God given freedoms, the next one the right to own a firearm." Then he warns us, "You must be afraid." 

"

"Socialism" is the slur du jour ad hominem of the conservative right to denigrate, demean, distort, deflect, demonize liberals and ideas the right disagrees with. We have a long history of lumping "socialism" with almost all things "liberal." Today for many, the label continues to serve as an effective, if cynical sledgehammer against civil, rational, constructive give-and-take policy decision-making. Now Trump is becoming the new master socialist-accuser by tweet. The conservative right's long standing traditional fear is that America will turn into a decadent, socialistic age-old Europe. Thus, given our nation's long history of anti-socialist sentiments, it's good conservative strategy, e.g., to associate universal health care with "socialism." This applies to most government interventions. So Medicare and Medicaid are carrying us into the abyss of run-away socialism as is happening in Canada and Europe - so goes the ideological rant! American conservatives hold this philosophy sacrosanct for most government interventions while the 2009 great financial meltdown crisis of all crises showed once again how laissez faire capitalism is prone to extremely dangerous, costly market failures - given pure capitalism's natural inclination of blatant abuses and concentration of money in fewer and fewer hands. And this leads to a concentration of power. 

 

Since the New Deal, ideological battle lines over socialist or governmental intrusions into American lives have increased. For conservatives the political cry is liberty through capitalism and free markets. For liberals the political cry is equality through equal opportunity, government oversight, and social responsibility. Both liberty and equality have made great contributions to our nation since its founding. As I've said in previous writings, it's all about getting the right balance between capitalistic and social elements that fit a particular culture.  In Europe, the  political norm is that, "Whatever promotes the general welfare will also promote personal happiness and motivation as well as economic progress." This contrasts with the U.S. indoctrinated conservative norm starting in 1980 that , "Whatever promotes the corporate and individual welfare promotes the general welfare."  

 

The reality is that democracy needs a healthy balance and tension between these two elements to survive. Looking way back, it seems a miracle that at the high point in our cold war with Russia, a limited form of socialized medicine - Medicare - passed Congress and resistance by the insurance industry and the American Medical Association. Those forces now have teams of lobbyists influencing every key (and bought) Congressman in the policy-making process. The ordinary American ends up in effect having: no right to life if an insurance firm can deny one's coverage because of a prior illness history or inability to pay; no right to elect his or her leaders if a fair election or governing process is unjustly compromised or corrupted; no right to an equitable income if tax cut programs are designed to overwhelmingly favor the upper social class with the greater material influence.   

 

The European Way sorts out conflicting and competing interests behind capitalism's tremendous wealth creating capacity so that income and social benefits are broadly and fairly shared. Europe's  social democracies and market economies embrace the principles of both pursuing a free market and serving humanity. As one researcher explained, social democracy is all about a healthy, well-managed, thriving public system in education, health care, transportation, clean environment, child care, libraries, parks. It's all about government programs and blends of policy in concert with a competitive capitalistic dynamic that improve (or do not improve) the conditions of people's lives. In Europe, It's in general a very self-critical, exceptionally transparent process supported in most countries by multi-party systems and coalition governance where constructive compromise is a sine qua non. But the American conservative right disingenuously derides Europe's social-economic democratic model with the idiotic ad hominem one-liner it's essentially a welfare state. A better one-liner is workforce state. 

 

Meaning all social networks operate as part of a comprehensive system of institutions and policy decision-making that's geared towards keeping individuals and families healthy, productive, free working individuals to insure a vibrant, sustainable economy. This approach was originally conceived as a security revolution, NOT a socialist revolution by the conservative politicians - Churchill, Monnet, Adennauer, Schuman. In the words of Monnet, "Europe  will be attained by concrete achievements generating an active community of interest." The result since 1950?  There are as many if not more European Fortune 500 companies than U.S. China or Japan. The Netherlands, for example, is a small land one-half my state of Maine with nearly 18 million people with some very reputable, innovative world firms including Unilever, Phillips, Royal Dutch Shell, Heineken, KLM, DSM, ASML.   

 

Europeans in general don't see their unique form of hybrid capitalism with its high degree of economic freedom AND socialist elements as a conflicting societal norm ... but rather as a mutually reinforcing norm for improving the lot of ALL citizens. The developed economies of mature European countries are in essence "hybrids" that are constantly being refined. The private management is capitalistic while being the home also of public oversight and social institutions, providing strong job protections, well-trained labor markets and centralized unions, affordable quality health care and good coverage, relatively low-cost trade schools and colleges. Success has NOT been achieved by being more Right or more Left, by being more Capitalistic or more Socialistic. Labeling people, policies, programs socialistic and capitalistic as a discussion norm is seldom if ever done to evoke emotional reactions or to make prejudgements or charges that distort reality. The degree to which American conservatives automatically invoke the frightful specter of "socialism" serves no constructive purpose in advancing inclusive, creative, balanced, policy discussions and actions in Europe within multi-party and coalition governing systems. 

 

Here are a few words on "socialism" in 2009 by Jefferson Cowie and Nick Salvatore, American History Professors, Cornell University  

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

"When socialism can be used interchangeably with fascism - as it often is in the heat of contemporary political debate - Americans 

are playing with historical fires they do not understand. America has not had a politically meaningful socialist movement since that 

of Eugene Debs early in the last century. The Soviet Union has perished, the Berlin Wall has fallen, and capitalistic China is our 

No. 1 industrial competitor. Against such a political landscape, what meaning could socialism have even as an epithet?

 

Those who hurl the "s-word" misunderstand the role of the state in American history. While they accurately point to the enormous 

growth in government since the Civil War and claim that it has stripped Americans of their individualism and self-reliance, the focus 

of the state's activities has been subsidizing and promoting "private" enterprise. Government growth promoted by Gilded Age 

Republicans, New Deal Age Democrats, and Reagan revolutionaries has been one of the most enduring constants in American 

history. Despite regular election cycle pleas to shrink the size of government, a unifying theme of political experience has been the 

government's growing intervention in the market on behalf of the business community.

 

For an exceptional few decades, however, things were different. Sparked by the Great Depression and the rise of the New Deal, the 

government expanded its responsibilities to include working people as well as business. It was not accidental that between 1945 and 

1972, while business grew drastically, income inequality declined significantly for Americans while posing no threat to the nation's 

wealthiest. Nor was it accidental that in the decades of growth since the early 1970s, a reversion to uniformly pro-business policies

promoted a significant rise in income inequality with the top 1% of all incomes enjoying the largest percentiles of growth. This too is

partly a direct result of government's beneficience to the private sector (business).  

 

The issue, therefore, is not government intervention, yes or no; rather it is on behalf of whose interests government intervenes. When

the government assists business by bailing out the financial markets - as it often should - it is called supporting the market. When 

government helps regular folks, as with health care reform, it stirs fears of something called "socialism."

 

Republican Theodore Roosevelt understood the central role of property for American individualism and citizenship - much like those 

who wield the fear-laden charge of "socialism" today. But, he argued in 1910, when human rights are in conflict with property rights,

"human rights must have the upper hand, for property belongs to man and not man to property." Some today would call this "socialism." 

My summary one-liner advice to Democrats: they should stop hiding and running from the words "socialism" and "socialistic." They should make the policy blend of social welfare and capitalism their way to  best achieve a humanly, democratically and financially sound, just, equitable, social-economic-political environment. They should talk up the good parts of it, take the heat when necessary and be transparently on the offensive for ALL Americans every day - especially for the bottom 90% to counter our movement into autocracy.

 

I Value My Friends

Dear friends,

Roger Egret was back at my pond yesterday and he brought the two ducks with him! I am happy he has made friends. It must be lonely to be the only one of your kind around; to have to forage for food all by yourself. Now he has a couple of experienced hunters to help him get breakfast. He stands in the pond close to where they are floating. He seems calmer to me.

Having friends to share our life with makes it an adventure. We laugh at our less than skillful moments and cry together when things are tough. Mostly it is good for the soul to be seen and known for who we really are without the need to impress. I bet those ducks feel safer, too, with Roger around. He is quite large and when he spreads his wings even the squirrels take off. Sometimes friends are more loyal to us than family. It doesn’t matter if we are not blood relatives. Mutual appreciation for the whole person is the best gift we can give each other.

Some of my favorite people have passed on but they remain my friends. When I think of them I smile. Sometimes I talk to them. I feel their presence. I always love it when I am introduced as “this is my friend, Carol.” It is an honorable designation. I am happy for my friends' successes, and I try to be there, encouraging, when life is not so blissful. Like you, I can be the big bird or the attending duck. Both roles are valuable.

Affirm: I value my friends. I value myself as a friend. I am blessed to be seen and known with all my flaws, quirks and strengths.”

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes www.centerforspirituallivingbakersfield.com

Check out www.californiafreepress.net

Off the Top of My Head

Liam Neeson Called Out for What He Was Thinking?

by John Lawrence, February 8, 2019

Liam Neeson had a bad thought about a black man. He didn't act on that thought, but he has been called out by the citizen thought police. Liam had admitted to a journalist that he had harbored thoughts of killing a black man for which he is being widely condemned as a racist. But the fact is he never acted on those thoughts. Who among us has not harbored some negative thought or feeling about doing harm to or making fun of some ethnic group or tribe different from our own? Most of us, however, are sane and rational enough not to act on those thoughts or feelings.

There has to be a distinction between thoughts and actions. The human mind is capable of harboring both positive and negative thoughts at the same time. We hope that the negative thoughts never see the light of day in terms of words or actions. But sometimes under duress they do. At some level we identify with members of our own tribe. This has become very evident in the political arena. But we must overcome this and treat every citizen fairly, honestly and humanely regardless of color or ethnicity if we hope to live in a decent society. Too often wars have been fought because one tribe harbors a grudge against another.

Not every person should be called a racist because he harbored some negative thoughts against black people. By the same token not every black person should be called a racist because he harbored a negative thought about a white person. Leave the name calling to situations where people have acted out of hate towards another race or ethnic group. In the end most of us have had both positive and negative thoughts and have done both positive and negative actions. It is up to God - or society in some instances - to sum them all up and report them out. The final report card hopefully will show a positive balance.

I don't think that stupid things done 30 or 40 years ago should affect the career of someone who has constructed a positive life in the ensuing years. Even criminals who serve their time are supposed to be given a second chance. So why should say a Brett Kavanaugh or a Ralph Northam be castigated for incidents that happened 30 or 40 years ago for which they were not even prosecuted in a court of law? Admittedly, the accusations against Kavanaugh were more serious, but they never saw the light of day at the time they happened. And whether or not Northam dressed up in black face at some party or the Virginia Attorney General put on black face at some party years ago shouldn't affect their careers at the present time. The question that should be asked is: what have they done of a positive nature for black people in the intervening years? Sum it up - both the positive and negative - and then come to a conclusion.

Jesus said, “He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone.” A woman taken in adultery was brought to him and the crowd asked him what should they do. Jesus could have said, "Go ahead and do what you usually do to adulterous women." That would have been stoning her to death. I think this applies to certain men in the news who have admittedly said or done minor things for which no criminal charges have been brought. This certainly applies to peccadilloes, minor or petty offenses or transgressions which are beneath the level to which the law applies or for which the statute of limitations has run out. Let's talk about the socio-economic conditions which should be improved for poor people of color and poor whites as well and not be so concerned about peccadilloes of the past which don't amount to a hill of beans.

Goodbye to the Dollar

by Chris Hedges, from truthdig, February 4, 2019

The inept and corrupt presidency of Donald Trump has unwittingly triggered the fatal blow to the American empire—the abandonment of the dollar as the world’s principal reserve currency. Nations around the globe, especially in Europe, have lost confidence in the United States to act rationally, much less lead, in issues of international finance, trade, diplomacy and war. These nations are quietly dismantling the seven-decade-old alliance with the United States and building alternative systems of bilateral trade. This reconfiguring of the world’s financial system will be fatal to the American empire, as the historian Alfred McCoy and the economist Michael Hudson have long pointed out. It will trigger an economic death spiral, including high inflation, which will necessitate a massive military contraction overseas and plunge the United States into a prolonged depression. Trump, rather than make America great again, has turned out, unwittingly, to be the empire’s most aggressive gravedigger.

The Trump administration has capriciously sabotaged the global institutions, including NATO, the European Union, the United Nations, the World Bank and the IMF, which provide cover and lend legitimacy to American imperialism and global economic hegemony. The American empire, as McCoy points out, was always a hybrid of past empires. It developed, he writes, “a distinctive form of global governance that incorporated aspects of antecedent empires, ancient and modern. This unique U.S. imperium was Athenian in its ability to forge coalitions among allies; Roman in its reliance on legions that occupied military bases across most of the known world; and British in its aspiration to merge culture, commerce, and alliances into a comprehensive system that covered the globe.”

When George W. Bush unilaterally invaded Iraq, defying with his doctrine of preemptive war international law and dismissing protests from traditional allies, he began the rupture. But Trump has deepened the fissures. The Trump administration’s withdrawal from the 2015 Iranian nuclear agreement, although Iran had abided by the agreement, and demand that European nations also withdraw or endure U.S. sanctions saw European nations defect and establish an alternative monetary exchange system that excludes the United States. Iran no longer accepts the dollar for oil on international markets and has replaced it with the euro, not a small factor in Washington’s deep animus to Teheran. Turkey is also abandoning the dollar. The U.S. demand that Germany and other European states halt the importation of Russian gas likewise saw the Europeans ignore Washington. China and Russia, traditionally antagonistic, are now working in tandem to free themselves from the dollar. Moscow has transferred $100 billion of its reserves into Chinese yuan, Japanese yen and euros. And, as ominously, foreign governments since 2014 are no longer storing their gold reserves in the United States or, as with Germany, removing them from the Federal Reserve. Germany has repatriated its 300 tons of gold ingots. The Netherlands repatriated its 100 tons.

The U.S. intervention in Venezuela, the potential trade war with China, the withdrawal from international climate accords, leaving the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the paralysis in Washington and disruptive government shutdown and increased hostilities with Iran bode ill for America. American foreign and financial policy is hostage to the bizarre whims of stunted ideologues such as Mike Pompeo, John Bolton and Elliott Abrams. This ensures more global chaos as well as increased efforts by nations around the globe to free themselves from the economic stranglehold the United States effectively set in place following World War II. It is only a question of when not if the dollar will be sidelined. That it was Trump, along with his fellow ideologues of the extreme right, who destroyed the international structures put in place by global capitalists, rather than socialists these capitalists invested tremendous resources to crush, is grimly ironic.

The historian Ronald Robinson argued that British imperial rule died “when colonial rulers had run out of indigenous collaborators.” The result, he noted, was that the “inversion of collaboration into noncooperation largely determined the timing of the decolonization.” This process of alienating traditional U.S. allies and collaborators will have the same effect. As McCoy points out, “all modern empires have relied on dependable surrogates to translate their global power into local control—and for most of them, the moment when those elites began to stir, talk back, and assert their own agendas was also the moment when you knew that imperial collapse was in the cards.”

The dollar, because of astronomical government debt now at $21 trillion, a debt that will be augmented by Trump’s tax cuts costing the U.S. Treasury $1.5 trillion over the next decade, is becoming less and less trustworthy. The debt-to-GDP ratio is now more than 100 percent, a flashing red light for economists. Our massive trade deficit depends on selling treasury bonds abroad. Once those bonds decline in value and are no longer considered a stable investment, the dollar will suffer a huge devaluation. There are signs this process is underway.  Central-bank reserves hold fewer dollars than they did in 2004. There are fewer SWIFT payments–the exchange for interbank fund transfers–in dollars than in 2015. Half of international trade is invoiced in dollars, although the U.S. share of international trade is only 10 percent.

“Ultimately, we will have reserve currencies other than the U.S. dollar,” the Bank of England Gov. Mark Carney announced last month.

Sixty-one percent of foreign currency reserves are in dollars. As these dollar currency reserves are replaced by other currencies, the retreat from the dollar will accelerate. The recklessness of America’s financial policies will only exacerbate the crisis. “If unlimited borrowing, financed by printing money, were a path to prosperity,” Irwin M. Stelzer of the Hudson Institute said recently, “then Venezuela and Zimbabwe would be top of the growth tables.”

McCoy explains what a world financial order untethered from the dollar would look like:

For the majority of Americans, the 2020s will likely be remembered as a demoralizing decade of rising prices, stagnant wages, and fading international competitiveness. After years of swelling deficits fed by incessant warfare in distant lands, in 2030 the U.S. dollar eventually loses its special status as the world’s dominant reserve currency.

Suddenly, there are punitive price increases for American imports ranging from clothing to computers. And the costs for all overseas activity surges as well, making travel for both tourists and troops prohibitive. Unable to pay for swelling deficits by selling now-devalued Treasury notes abroad, Washington is finally forced to slash its bloated military     budget. Under pressure at home and abroad, its forces begin to pull back from hundreds of overseas bases to a continental perimeter. Such a desperate move, however, comes too late.

Faced with a fading superpower incapable of paying its bills, China, India, Iran, Russia, and other powers provocatively challenge U.S. dominion over the oceans, space, and cyberspace.

The collapse of the dollar will mean, McCoy writes, “soaring prices, ever-rising unemployment, and a continuing decline in real wages throughout the 2020s, domestic divisions widen into violent clashes and divisive debates, often over symbolic, insubstantial issues.” The deep disillusionment and widespread rage will give an opening to Trump, or a Trump-like demagogue, to lash out, perhaps by inciting violence, against scapegoats at home and abroad.  But by then the U.S. empire will be so diminished its threats will be, at least to those outside its borders, largely meaningless.

It is impossible to predict when this flight from the dollar will take place. By the second half of the 19th century, the U.S. economy had overtaken Britain, but it was not until the middle of the 20th century that the dollar replaced the pound sterling to become the dominant currency in international trade. The pound sterling’s share of currency reserves among international central banks fell from around 60 percent in the early 1950s to less than 5 percent by the 1970s. Its value declined from more than 4 dollars per pound at the end of WWII to near-parity with the dollar.  The British economy went into a tailspin. And that economic jolt marked for the British, as it will for us, the end of an empire.

---

Chris Hedges is a Truthdig columnist, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, a New York Times best-selling author, a professor in the college degree program offered to New Jersey state prisoners by Rutgers University, and an ordained Presbyterian minister.

Let the Obstacles Go Under the Bridge and Over the Dam

Dear friends,

There is nothing to worry about specifically, but there is much to think about generally.   We tend to zoom in on one or two areas of our life but fail to consider how they fit into the overall landscape. What meaning do we give things if they are not seen as part of something trying to unfold?   We call them problems or glitches or obstacles on our path. It is possible they are none of those things, but are road signs showing us what needs to be either released, developed or increased.

Our personal journey, if we look back on it, has included all manner of events.   We have had moments of great joy, love and creativity. We have also had those times of fear and dread and the feeling of being wronged.   They pass and we learn. What we are supposed to learn is something about ourselves! A broken heart in youth can help us realize just how much love we are capable of giving.   It might teach us to be more self-assertive or more present.

When things go sideways in any situation, there is a nugget of gold at the center.   Like real gold, it might take a little digging, a chipping away of our stubborn ideas to get the gift. Life is forever becoming what we do with it. Today is another opportunity to do the right thing; to say the words that heal, think the thought that elevates.   Until we pay attention to the whole picture and know what we need to know to rise above and move forward, until then we might agree with Edna St Vincent Millay who said ”life is not one damned thing after another, it is one damned thing over and over.”

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes www.centerforspirituallivingbakersfield.com

www.californiafreepress.net

Off the Top of My Head

Will Trump Bring the Troops Home From Syria and Afghanistan?

by John Lawrence, February 7, 2019

Short answer: NO! It's a meaningless question. The troops have never come home from any war the US has fought. There are still 35,116 military troops in Germany, 54,281 troops in Japan, 25,813 troops in Korea and 5,200 in Iraq. More importantly, the US has invested billions in real estate in these and other countries in the form of military bases such as Bagram AFB in Iraq and al-Asad base in Syria. There are also 36 bases in Germany, 23 in Japan, 15 bases in Korea and 12 bases in Iraq. The US has invested billions in infrastructure in other countries while neglecting its own infrastructure. It doesn't want to just abandon these bases so there will never be a complete troop withdrawal from any of these countries. The US has effectively colonized certain parts of every country it has ever been at war with in addition to the hundreds of other military bases in countries which are considered our allies.

Despite recently closing hundreds of bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States still maintains nearly 800 military bases in more than 70 countries and territories abroad—from giant “Little Americas” to small radar facilities. Britain, France and Russia, by contrast, have about 30 foreign bases combined as of 2015. Maintaining bases and troops overseas cost $85 to $100 billion in fiscal year 2014; the total with bases and troops in war zones is $160 to $200 billion. These hundreds of billions of dollars could be spent on building and maintaining US infrastructure, converting to renewable energy, subsidizing electric vehicles and ameliorating climate change.

On the other hand China is investing in infrastructure in other countries with its Belt and Road initiative. Instead of investing in military bases, China is investing in ports, railroads, shipping infrastructure, airports and raw materials. This is not a giveaway. China is loaning these nations who are the recipients the money while building with Chinese expertise and manpower. While China will reap the rewards of increased trade with these countries, they will also have an income stream of repayments on their loans coming back to them. It's a win-win for China and the recipient countries and a lose-lose for the money drain that US bases in foreign countries represents.

Case in point: Over the past decade, Venezuela received over $62 billion from China, which is 53 percent of all money lent by China to Latin America. China currently owns $23 billion worth of Venezuela's foreign debt, making it the country's biggest creditor. China needs Venezuela's oil and is willing to pay for it. But here's the rub. The US wants the current Venezuelan President Maduro out, but China wants him to stay in. The US wants a regime in Venezuela that is not "socialist." It doesn't have a problem with the socialist regimes in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark, however. Basically, it doesn't want regimes around the world that shout "Death to America" and "Yanqui Go Home." Maybe if these countries changed their rhetoric, we could all get along. But privatizing Venezuela's oil industry would leave China out in the cold with a potential loss of its sizable investment.

So will the US confront China over Venezuela? Will a US backed Venezuelan regime privatize Venezuela's oil industry? Will China fight to retain its $62 billion investment in Venezuela's nationalized oil industry? God only knows. Let's see how this plays out.

Be Awake and Aware

Dear friends,

     So much of our life depends on these little devices called batteries. When a device stops working it is usually because it needs a new one. It becomes a problem if we do not have a supply of the various sizes on hand. Then we go searching the house for some other device to borrow from.   I think of this as an analogy to ideas. When some area of our experience stops working well or seems stagnant, we often go on a search for something to make it function again. But if we are looking outside of our own mind, we will not find what is necessary. There may be a temporary fix, but soon we will see the need for real creative thinking.

     Most of us could use some new ideas in some area of our life.   We can be so used to dealing with lack or ill health that those conditions seem to be in charge. We have forgotten how things come to be in our personal experience. It is a real spiritual practice to not attribute Cause to anything other than consciousness. The Law of Mind is real and is infallible as principle. There is a power in mind that produces visible forms of ideas. Some call the Power God but it might as well be name “I AM, for what we announce ourselves to be is what is reflected to us in experience. The announcement is subconscious until we decide to think more spiritually about who we are and what is possible. “I am   a spiritual being living in the physical world. My Source of everything is in the Field of awareness that is Infinite and immediate.” That is a seriously new idea to most people.

     Let’s not be too hard on ourselves. Maintaining a consciousness of our spiritual heritage in this changing world is not easy. Simple, but not easy. That is why we meditate, take a metaphysical class, participate in spiritual community and monitor our thoughts. We write affirmations, practice the presence of Spirit right where we are, and stay grateful.   That is how we stay super-charged, ready to power up our perceptions and our expectations.   We are double A’s; Awake and Aware.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes www.centerforspirituallivingbakersfield.com

See also www.californiafreepress.net

A Letter Regarding Student Loan Debt

From  http://www.studentloanjustice.org/

Dear Congress Person,

The student loan program has grown into a big-government beast, and it is wrecking your constituents and this country.  While the obscene government profits on this program (The government books something like $75 Billion per year in profits, and even makes a profit on defaulted student loans), grow larger every year, and these profits are used to subsidize other big-government programs like Obamacare, the citizens are being sacked with outrageous levels of debt.  In the absence of standard, constitutional bankruptcy rights, and statutes of limitations, the citizens are easy prey for the lenders.  And make no mistake, Amy:  The Department of Education fights tooth-and-nail to keep bankruptcy rights away from these loans. 

This is not acceptable.  The Founding Fathers- who themselves were being wrecked under the weight of predatory debt to British banks and merchants- felt so strongly about the need for uniform bankruptcy protections, they called for exactly this ahead of the power to raise an army, ahead of the power to coin currency, ahead (even) of the power to declare war when they gave Congress its powers in Article I, Section 8.

I hope this is not lost on you,.  It is time for conservatives to stand up and put a stop to this reckless, big-government tyranny.  11 USC 523(a)(8) must be repealed immediately.  Student loans must be treated in the same manner as all other loans in bankruptcy proceedings.  The Founders saw this coming.

I could go on, and on, here, describing to you the massive damage that has been done to your constituents, the suicides we have documented, etc.  I will save my breath, but only point you to these articles from people at the Cato Institute, George Mason University, Bloomberg, and USA Today from the past year. All of them are saying the same thing:  Return bankruptcy rights to student loans. 

The Cato Institute:  

 George Mason University (Frank Buckley):  

 USA Today

 Bloomberg

Your boss has a conservative, a constitutional, and a moral duty to stand up for the people over the Department of Education.  I hope you are listening. 

Do you have any time this week or next to talk more about this?

Please let me know.  You can reach me anytime at 202-594-1120

Regards,

Alan Collinge

Off the Top of My Head

Trump's SOTU: He Didn't Write It, Of Course

by John Lawrence, February 6, 2019

Let's give Trump's speechwriters some credit.They probably got As in English. Some soaring rhetoric. Some non sequiturs (those are probably the parts Trump himself put in). He congratulated himself on getting our allies to spend $100 billion more on our common defense, but he didn't reduce our defense budget by that $100 billion. Instead he cheered himself that he had increased it. He did defy the MI complex by insisting he would bring troops home from Syria and Afghanistan and end those two most ignominious wars. Let's see if he really does it or will the Generals prevail and keep troops there in perpetuity. He doesn't want to give up Bagram Air Force Base, however, and al-Asad base in Iraq so he can "watch Iran." When it comes down to it, the US will not give up any of the bases that it has invested billions in building. They are like small cities complete with McDonald's and Burger Kings. Currently, the US owns and operates over 800 bases throughout the world. Is this an empire or what?

The Democrats need to take a stronger and more nuanced stand on "the Wall." There is already a wall in place on the border so this isn't a binary issue as some would have it: Wall or No Wall. The wall or barrier is made up of 299 miles  of vehicle barriers and 350 miles of pedestrian fence. The fencing includes a steel fence (varying in height between 18 and 26 feet) that divides the towns of Nogales, Arizona in the U.S. and Nogales, Sonora in Mexico. So we're really talking about extending the wall already in place in areas where it presently does not exist. This should be a no brainer as there are parts of the border where only a barbed wire fence separates the US from Mexico. Why don't the Democrats concede this?

It's true that most illegal persons and contraband comes through ports of entry and the deployment of high tech radar equipment could help to prevent that. It's also true that most illegal persons come in on legal visas and then overstay their visas and just disappear. The Dems need to get on board with Trump's issue and even co-opt it. Border security is important. However, more than just a wall needs to be put in place. This would include more personnel, more use of satellite surveillance, helicopters to quickly apprehend illegal border crossers etc. In fact funding should be taken away from the defense department which is used to fight its futile and losing wars and used for enhanced border security. That would be real defense.

This corner of California is suffering economic misery despite boom all around it

From the LA Times

Parked outside a Calexico job center, Jonathan Lopez leaned against his worn SUV and took a drag from a cigarette. He was waiting, yet again, for word on his unemployment application.

“A well-paying, full-time job is impossible to find,” the 39-year-old lamented as his son played nearby. “I have a family with four children and we struggle. It is a daily battle to make ends meet.”

As California has rebounded from the Great Recession, the Imperial Valley has largely defied attempts to expand its economy beyond seasonal farming and government work, and the county continues to suffer the highest unemployment rates in the state.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s latest five-year estimate, Imperial County's unemployment rate stands at 16% — four times greater than the state’s overall jobless rate of 4.2%.

“It’s much better than it was in 2009, when El Centro was mentioned as the highest unemployment in the nation at almost 30%,” county Supervisor Ryan Kelley said. “This is supposed to be the recovery, and every time there is a recovery, we seem to be the least-benefiting area.”

In recent years, locals have pinned hopes of economic salvation on a variety of new industries, such as geothermal energy, lithium extraction and the growing of industrial hemp.

El Centro City Councilman Jason Jackson said the valley — which has “all the things” that should be attractive to industry, like abundant water from the Colorado River and low power rates — is on the cusp of breaking out.

“We’re a little bit isolated,” he said. “We’ve always been thought of as an agricultural community, so industry has never really taken a good, solid look at us.”

Wedged in the southeast corner of the state, between the Mexico border and the Colorado River, the valley has depended heavily on agriculture ever since the Imperial Land Co. helped to bring large-scale irrigation in the early 1900s and transformed a barren desert into abundant farmland.

Although some argue the seasonal nature of farming has inflated county unemployment figures, there is no denying Imperial County is well-acquainted with economic adversity. The median household income is $44,770, well below the state median of $71,805, and nearly a quarter of its residents live below the poverty line. Statewide, that figure is 13.3%.

The vast expanse of flat, sunny land is seen by some renewable energy developers as ideal for solar farms. And the county is home to nearly a dozen geothermal power plants, which use a naturally heated underground reservoir to churn out pollution-free electricity around the clock.

“About five years ago, we saw a sustainable-energy boom, and we thought it would develop the workforce,” said Priscilla Lopez, interim director of the Imperial County Workforce Development Board. “But once built, they didn’t create jobs. You only need five or six people to run those plants.”

Jackson remains optimistic despite such concerns, noting that home builders are coming back to the valley “to look around” for the first time since the housing boom turned into a bust.

“It’s like a dance floor. Nobody wants to be the first couple to go out and dance, but once someone does, everyone goes out,” Jackson said. “I feel like we’re just waiting for that first couple to dance. We haven’t been able to land that one big fish yet.”

Continue Reading ...

Be Still and Feel the Beauty of Life

Dear friends,

Thomas Moore said “The ordinary acts we practice everyday at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest.”

Making a cup of tea, sitting quietly for a few minutes, petting the cat, watering the plants, making lunch for your kids, nursing the baby, shoveling snow from the walkway, showing your son how to tie a four in hand, fixing the toaster, reading something uplifting, dancing in the living room. Our soul is fed by simple acts of caring for it. It loves beauty and order. It is fed by the moment we are in……..or it is not.

 

Those who rush around in chaos are not honoring their own Being. “Not enough time” is the hue and cry of the unconscious. It is a matter of priorities and cultivating inner stillness. Like the hub that remains motionless while the wheel turns, our inner core is either stabilizing our emotions or is ignored. How we think of time is crucial to personal happiness and even our health.

Small conscious acts that help us to be more present wherever we are, is a kind of spiritual practice. I think of the difference between doodling and drawing. One is random action, the other is intentional and creative. We speak of wasting time as if slowing down and even doing nothing were not important. Yes, we all have obligations and work and families and duties to fulfill. But we also have a soul that craves quiet and beauty and order. We can feed it wherever we are with a little attention to the moment. What can we bring into this one that validates the presence of our own soul?

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes www.centerforspiritiualivingbakersfield.com

www.californiafreepress.net

Off the Top of My Head

Boeing Culpable in Lion Air Crash!

by John Lawrence, February 5, 2019

Last October a Lion Air 737MAX manufactured by Boeing crashed off the coast of Indonesia. All indications were that the pilots had struggled to keep the plane in the air while at the same time the plane's computers were forcing the nose down causing the plane to dive head first into the ocean. Now that the crash has been thoroughly investigated, it has been learned that  a few lines of computer code added to the plane's software without the pilots' knowledge was the culprit in causing the crash. It is a case of too much technology turning the plane's functions over to a computer and taking the pilots' ability to fly the plane literally out of their hands.

It all started when Airbus announced a new version of their best selling A320 that was more fuel efficient. Boeing scrambled to come up with a competitive version of their 737. In doing this they redesigned the planes engines making them larger. This required the engines to be repositioned on the plane's wings, and, consequentially, there was a concern among Boeing engineers that this might lead to a stall under certain conditions. They chose to insert a few lines into the computer code that would automatically lower the plane's nose if the plane was about to stall. In order to to keep the price down so that the 737MAX would be price competitive with the new Airbus, Boeing didn't require any pricey pilot retraining  as a result of the upgrades.

The New York Times reported:

Understanding how the pilots could have been left largely uninformed leads back to choices made by Boeing as it developed the 737 Max more than seven years ago, according to statements from Boeing and interviews with engineers, former Boeing employees, pilots, regulators and congressional aides.Those decisions ultimately prompted the company, regulators and airlines to conclude that training or briefing pilots on the change to the flight control system was unnecessary for carrying out well-established emergency procedures.

The story of the change to that system, and how it came to play a central role in the Lion Air crash, shows how safety on modern jetliners is shaped by a complex combination of factors, including fierce industry competition, technological advances and pilot training. It illustrates how, in the rare instances when things go awry, the interplay of those factors can create unintended and potentially fatal consequences.The crash has raised questions about whether Boeing played down or overlooked, largely for cost and competitive reasons, the potential dangers of keeping pilots uninformed about changes to a critical element of the plane’s software.

There was a malfunction of the so-called maneuvering characteristics augmentation system, known as M.C.A.S. due to faulty data being fed to it by the angle of attack sensors which are devices on either side of the fuselage that measure how much the plane’s nose is pointing up or down. Preliminary findings from the investigation suggested that the sensor on the pilot’s side of the plane was generating erroneous data. So erroneous data triggered the M.C.A.S. system taking control out of the pilots' hands and forcing the plane's nose downward.

Again from the New York Times article, Behind the Lion Air Crash, a Trail of Decisions Kept Pilots in the Dark:

The bottom line was that there was no regulatory requirement for Boeing or its airline customers to flag the changes in the flight control system for its pilots — and Boeing contended that there was no need, since, in the company’s view, the established emergency procedures would cover any problem regardless of whether it stemmed from the original system or the modification.

At least as far as pilots knew, M.C.A.S. did not exist, even though it would play a key role in controlling the plane under certain circumstances.

However, pilots were concerned about the lack of knowledge regarding the M.C.A.S. system. “I would think this is one of those systems that the pilots should know it’s onboard and when it’s activated,” said Chuck Horning, the department chairman for aviation maintenance science at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

The faulty design of the Boeing 737MAX, in my opinion was that there was no intuitive way fro the pilots to take control of the plane away from the plane's computer once the M.C.A.S. system was activated. There was a way, however, if the pilots had been trained on it which was entirely too convoluted and unintuitive. The centerpiece of that procedure is to switch off two “stabilizer trim cutout” switches on the central console of the cockpit, and then flip open the handles on wheels near the knees of the captain and first officer. By cranking those wheels, the pilots can adjust the stabilizers manually in an effort to keep the plane from pitching up or down.

However, older 737s had another way of addressing certain problems with the stabilizers: Pulling back on the yoke, or control column, one of which sits immediately in front of both the captain and the first officer, would cut off electronic control of the stabilizers, allowing the pilots to control them manually. This is how it should have been done on the 737MAX.

In a car the driver can take over from cruise control just by stepping on the brake or the accelerator. It should have been as simple and intuitive for the pilots to take control of the plane as that, but it wasn't. In their haste to get a version of the plane on the market, Boeing and the FAA screwed up. It's as simple as that. So the fact that Boeing didn't require any pilot retraining and a faulty design was responsible for the death of 189 people. It was all about Boeing's profits.  Newer isn't always better, and too much technology can be worse than simpler technology.

Medicare for All Has Been Embraced by 2020 Democrats for One Key Reason: Bernie Sanders

Published on Sunday, February 03, 2019 by Al-Jazeera English

Just a few years ago Sanders' call for 'Medicare far all' was deemed too extreme, but things are very different now.

by Cristina Tzintzun

 

7 Comments

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speaks during a health care rally at the 2017 Convention of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee on September 22, 2017 in San Francisco, California. (Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

When all is said and done, there may be as many as two dozen Democratic hopefuls for the 2020 presidential nomination. But nearly all of them will have one thing in common: they'll be trumpeting one of Bernie Sanders' signature causes - upending our healthcare system in favour of a single payer system. We progressives call it, Medicare for All.

Since 2016, when the Independent senator from Vermont used his White House bid to call for Medicare for All so that all Americans have access to high-quality healthcare, the Democratic Party has bolted to the left. Nearly all of the candidates who have, up to now, announced their intentions to run for president in 2020 - and many of those who seem to be preparing to enter the race - support Medicare for All. 

"Nearly every American has experienced up-close the failures of our current system. That's why Bernie's initiatives on healthcare have taken hold with voters and the cast of Democratic hopefuls."

 

Julian Castro has said that passing Medicare for All would be his first priority as president. Elizabeth Warren has declared that she supports Medicare for All so "everyone gets covered and no one goes broke" because of the cost of healthcare. And Beto O'Rourke has said, "Medicare for All is the best way to get people covered."

It wasn't that long ago that advocating for a single payer system was thought to be political suicide. Yet, today, running on Medicare for All is one of the most popular positions. A recent poll showed that 70 percent of Americans supported Medicare for All. 

Ultimately, providing affordable healthcare for every American will be an uphill battle for any presidential candidate. In fact, some may still question the viability of a healthcare for all system. But the undeniable truth is that our current system has failed. It has left millions of Americans uninsured and struggling to get the healthcare they need even if they have insurance.

I ought to know. I live in the state with the highest uninsured rate in the country - Texas. While our state's elected leaders have long touted the expansive benefits of the so-called "Texas economic miracle", that miracle apparently did not include access to basic things like healthcare. You see, one in six Texans don't have health insurance.

Medicare for All could be an effective rallying cry for Democratic candidates. After all, Americans are tired of footing the bill for the most expensive healthcare in the world that still leaves millions of them uninsured. While Obamacare helped close the uninsured gap significantly, it didn't go far enough. The costs of healthcare are still soaring, and millions of Americans still don't have healthcare coverage. 

Nearly every American knows someone who doesn't have healthcare. My mother is one of the estimated 27 million that don't have health insurance. She has diabetes, and she is forced to cut her $12 pills in half to manage the disease because she can't afford the full cost for the medication she needs. When she is sick, she is afraid to go to the doctor because she can't afford it. Yet, she also can't afford to not get the medical care she needs.

Even if you are lucky enough to have health insurance, it is a bureaucratic nightmare of a system that often still leaves you owing thousands of dollars after an illness or injury.

Of course, some say that - because healthcare makes up one-sixth of the US economy - the issue is too challenging to tackle. But who are we kidding? An inefficient and expensive healthcare system is crippling our economy. Besides, surely, the most prosperous nation in the world can do a better job of caring for the citizens who helped make it so prosperous in the first place. 

Nearly every American has experienced up-close the failures of our current system. That's why Bernie's initiatives on healthcare have taken hold with voters and the cast of Democratic hopefuls. Those candidates have to know that it won't be enough in 2020 to simply say that you want to reform our current system or just try or make prescription drugs more affordable. Voters aren't looking to make gains on the margins, they are looking to end a system that they believe has wholly failed them. That's why we need Medicare for All. 

In 2016, Sanders' ideas were thought to be too extreme for the Democratic Party establishment. But, just a few years later, they are now the mainstream. It's unclear whether Sanders will once again enter the race for President. But this much is clear: his ideas have already won it.

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© 2019 Al-Jazeera English

As You Think, So You Are

Dear friends,

California is very green right now. It has rained on and off for a couple of weeks. In fact, it is raining again right now. It has made things so beautiful, lush and alive. If it keeps up, however, there will be mudslides and devastation in certain areas. This is a classic case of “too much of a good thing.”

When I was young we talked about the influence of ideas on groups as “mob psychology.” If one could get a whole lot of people to agree with an idea, one could control that group and get them to do things they never expected to do. We pointed to Hitler’s youth and the KKK as perfect examples. In today's world, it is ever more dangerous because of social media and the tendency in our population to be undereducated and non-informed. There is a lack of interest in investigating claims. Too much access to those who would impose their ideas on impressionable minds is not a good thing.

When we do not understand the power of the mind, we are more likely to allow it to be invaded by fear and untruths. This insidious attempt to create fear and loathing is the greatest threat to our shared good. That is why New Thought teaching is so vital in the world right now. If known and practiced, it could bring about lasting peace and prosperity. It requires individuals to think for themselves, to monitor what they allow to enter their subconscious; to spend some time every day in silence feeling their own power. New Thought spirituality creates individuals who know who they are and who can see through false beliefs into the eternal Truth. That is what will heal our world.

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes www.centerforspirituallivingbakersfield.com

Check out www.californiafreepress.net

Off the Top of My Head

Howard Schultz for President?

by John Lawrence, February 4, 2019

The latest billionaire to throw his hat in the ring is Howard Schultz, the man who made Starbucks a household word. An American success story, Schultz grew up poor in the in the Canarsie Bayview Houses of the New York City Housing Authority. He was born on July 19 (my birthday), 1953. After going to college on an athletic scholarship, he became an appliance salesman and noticed that a particular store in Seattle was purchasing a lot of his product. Curious, he went out there and decided to stay. He signed on to a position behind the counter at the one and only Starbucks at that time as a barista. So he had hands on experience in preparing and selling coffee at the historic Pike Place Market where they throw fish around.

After a while Schultz saved up or got his hands on enough cash to buy the original Starbucks, and the rest is history. According to Wikipedia, Starbucks did not franchise its operation but retained ownership in every Starbucks it started. Today there are over 700,000 of them in 70 countries. Schultz has been involved in a number of other ventures and activities and is currently not involved with Starbucks except perhaps in some emeritus position.

So now he is free to run for President. He wants to run as a "centrist independent." He would not go through the primary process, but would be essentially a third party candidate. This means he would likely draw votes away from whomever the Democratic candidate may be, increasing the odds that Trump will be reelected. This phenomenon of American politics in which third party candidates tend to elect the candidate least associated with them has been seen before - in 2000 when Ralph Nader cost Al Gore the Presidency by drawing enough votes so that George W Bush was elected. This produced the disastrous events of the Iraq war which probably never would have been fought if Gore had been elected.

Schultz does not have the right stuff to be President in my opinion. He's a deficit hawk who is against Medicare for All as too expensive. Well then, how come other countries can do it for less money than the American medical system and for better outcomes? Other than wanting to reduce entitlement programs to balance the budget, Schultz doesn't have much to offer. He hasn't said which entitlement programs. Social security and Medicare? Would he reduce the largest entitlement program of all - the bloated military-industrial complex budget? He hasn't said. Trump will undoubtedly encourage Schultz to run. It would only benefit Trump.

I like Starbucks coffee. They have done an amazing job of bringing a quality (perhaps a bit overpriced) product to the marketplace in a quality environment with much attention to every detail. They have a great formula for their stores which seems to be replicated on every street corner. They also do right by their employees at least in comparison with most other corporations. However, Schultz, with no political experience and very few progressive ideas, has no business running for President. Support the Democratic candidate instead.

The Disaster of Howard Schultz

by Robert Reich

Wednesday, January 30, 2019

There are 3 big reasons why Howard Schultz’s self-proclaimed candidacy is troubling:

1. He could be a spoiler in 2020, splitting the vote and putting Trump back in the White House. Even Bill Burton, a former Obama adviser who has joined the Schultz team, publicly warned against third-party voting in 2016.

2. His message is without substance (he uses empty catchphrases like “silent majority” and “common sense solutions”) and his policy proposals are zilch. When asked by John Dickerson on CBS This Morning what his “big idea” was, Schultz declared: “The big idea is very simple: to unite the country. For us to come together. To do everything we can to realize that the promise of America is for everyone.” To the extent Schultz has defined his candidacy, it’s focused on what he’s against—for example, Democratic proposals to raise taxes and provide Medicare for All.

3. He represents the very worst aspect of America’s new billionaire class in politics: He simply anoints himself as a presidential candidate, declares he’s running as an independent so doesn’t have to put himself and his ideas through any party primary contest, and can spend an unlimited amount of his own money marketing himself and his candidacy. American democracy wasn’t built for this.

At this point, there’s not much we can do except tell every pollster we hear from that Howard Schultz should go back to selling coffee.

We Have No Limitations

Dear friends,

When we need something, there is no built-in limitation on it, according to Eric Butterworth in his book, "Spiritual Economics". We interpret a desire to express as a need, but really it is a prompting from within, a nudge from our own wholeness. Organic desires, such as for greater health, wealth, love or creative ideas arise from their own power to produce themselves through us. Like acorns that contain the oak tree in potential, desires point to success. The trouble is, if we think of it as something we do not have but must try to get in the world, we are blocking its advent into our experience.

Beware of thinking of yourself as “only human.” We are not. We have a spiritual heritage, one in which all possibility exists. It is like a field of arable soil just waiting for our sowing. We must plant the seeds of acceptance of our true nature. The more we see ourselves as direct descendants of an unlimited power, the easier life becomes for us. We discover we are dealing with a giving-ness that has no intention of withholding anything we claim as ours. It will come through us into the light of day with stunning originality.

And so we must go back to the basic law of life. Know what you desire but do not assume you know how it will happen. Let the Power that makes all things new surprise and delight you. As ancient scripture declared “It is it’s wish to give you the kingdom.” Your kingdom and mine may look different, but each will be perfect for us. Speak your word and trust the desire to fulfill itself.

Affirm: “The Power within knows what my heart desires. I give myself permission to be surprised and delighted with the immediate results.”

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes www.centerforspirituallivingbakersfield.com

Also check out www.californiafreepress.net

 

Off the Top of My Head

The US Creates the Migrant Situation in Latin America

by John Lawrence, February 3, 2019

Here's the playbook: 1) The US identifies a regime it doesn't like such as the Maduro regime in Venezuela. 2) The US applies economic sanctions. 3) The economy is ruined. 4) People flee the country looking for a better life. 5) Migrants show up at US border. 5) Trump builds a wall to keep them out.

If the US played a more constructive role in Latin America instead of promoting regime change such as the CIA backed coups in Argentina, Peru, El Salvador and Guatemala, there might be fewer economic migrants showing up at the US border. Some of these regimes that were overthrown were democratically elected. The US doesn't care. They were more interested in protecting the interests of United Fruit Corporation.

In the case of Venezuela there is a new twist. China is heavily invested in Venezuela's oil production. Venezuela has the highest know oil reserves in the world. However, US National Security Advisor John Bolton wants Venezuela's oil. He told Fox News: “It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela." Well, Dick Cheney wanted Iraq's oil too especially when Saddam Hussein threatened to trade it for currencies other than the US dollar. How did that work out? Never mind that oil should be left in the ground and not exploited economically if the earth is to survive climate change.

Hugo Chavez wanted to use Venezuela's oil riches to benefit the people of Venezuela. But due to mismanagement the oil industry went downhill. Then he died. Maduro took over with the same goal, but hasn't been able to pull it off. Meanwhile, the US applied economic pressure through sanctions. Reuters reported last September:

Venezuela has sold 9.9 percent of shares in oil joint venture Sinovensa to a Chinese oil company, President Nicolas Maduro said on Tuesday, adding the OPEC nation expected some $5 billion in joint investment with China to boost its crude output.

He did not say how much Venezuela received or which company bought the shares in Sinovensa, which is partly owned by state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). China will own 49 percent in Sinovensa after the sale, he said.

Maduro traveled to China, his key foreign financier, last week in search of fresh funds for his cash-starved government, which is presiding over a grueling economic depression. But it remains unclear whether he secured any new credit lines.

Maduro said the Sinovensa sale formed part of plan to invest $5 billion over the next year in Chinese projects to double oil production and be able to send a million barrels per day to China. Venezuela’s oil production is at a 60-year low after years of little investment and crumbling infrastructure. ...

Over a decade, China invested over $50 billion in Venezuela through oil-for-loan agreements, securing energy supplies for its fast-growing economy while bolstering an anti-U.S. ally in Latin America....

Maduro on Tuesday said he could count on China as an ally to survive an “economic war” he accuses the United States of waging against Venezuela. U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has levied several rounds of sanctions on Maduro’s government.

So the US will have to confront China if it wants to take over Venezuela's oil fields. The US better be careful as to how it treats Latin American migrants. It seems they're the only potential friends the US has in Latin America. For the rest, it's "Yankee Go Home." Seriously though, the US could play a positive role by helping to take out the drug gangs and supporting the economies of Latin American countries instead of seeking to destroy them in order to effect regime change. It has provoked China enough already with the sanctions it applied to Huawei and other Chinese corporations for selling things to Iran. Not to mention the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou. The US is definitely poking the bear, but this time the bear is China, not Russia.

With Ocasio-Cortez/Markey Bill Reportedly on Horizon, Expert Says Green New Deal Must Include 'Fossil Fuel Phaseout'

Published on Thursday, January 31, 2019 by Common Dreams

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), another vocal backer of the broad proposal, suggests it has enough support to pass the U.S. House

by Jessica Corbett, staff writer

 

3 Comments

Democratic Sen. Ed Markey (Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) are working on Green New Deal legislation that could be made public as early as next week. (Photos: U.S. Congress)

Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (Mass.) are working on Green New Deal legislation that the pair may unveil as soon as next week, Axios reported late Wednesday.

Those plans were confirmed by a spokeswoman for Markey as well as Varshini Prakash, co-founder of the Sunrise Movement, the youth-led advocacy group that has led powerful protests across the country—including at the D.C. office of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.)—in favor of the proposal, which would combine bold climate action with green jobs and other measures aimed at creating a more just economy.

"Now is this country's chance to break free of climate half-measures and adopt policies that will actually save lives."
—Janet Redman, Greenpeace USA

The text of the bill, however, has not been finalized, according to Axios—meaning it is still unclear how closely it will align with the draft legislative document promoted by Ocasio-Cortez and the Sunrise Movement. That proposal called for a transition to 100 percent renewable energy within the next decade, a federal jobs guarantee program, universal healthcare, and a House Select Committee to hammer out the details.

While welcoming the news, Greenpeace USA climate director Janet Redman said in a statement that any Green New Deal bill must include a "fossil fuel phaseout" for it to be taken seriously.

The idea behind their proposal, she said, "is inspiring, bold, and transformative—but it won't get us to a future in which the most vulnerable are protected and global temperatures stop rising if it doesn't include a hard stop on fossil fuel expansion."

"We have to continue radical encouragement of climate leaders in Congress to get us where we actually need to be if we're serious about staving off the worst impacts of the climate crisis," Redman emphasized. "Now is this country's chance to break free of climate half-measures and adopt policies that will actually save lives."

HUGE news📣 a #GreenNewDeal bill is on the way
It's up to us to make sure it stays strong & is supported by our Reps, so we're laying out our game plan on Feb 5 at 8pm EST via livestream!

Join a nearby house party to tune in: https://t.co/mpuwpQGQCt https://t.co/9T5GLzBDuy

— Sunrise Movement 🌅 (@sunrisemvmt) January 31, 2019

While some Democrats who have announced their 2020 presidential candidacies—such as Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Kamala Harris (Calif.), and Elizabeth Warren (Mass.)—have said they support a Green New Deal, the Sunrise Movement has vowed to maintain pressure on members of Congress to ensure the plan put forward lives up to the bold proposal they've been fighting for and doesn't become a watered down bill that merely borrows the increasingly popular buzzword.

"The biggest win is it's on the radar... Presidential candidates are going to be asked if it is on their agenda. That is good."
—Greg Carlock, Data for Progress

 

"The biggest win is it's on the radar," Greg Carlock, one of the directors of the think tank Data for Progress, which has put out its own proposal for a Green New Deal, told the Washington Post on Thursday.

"The next win is we have a committee on which we can discuss it," Carlock added, referring to the U.S. House Committee on the Climate Crisis, which some progressives have criticized as Pelosi's "weak" replacement for the version envisioned in Ocasio-Cortez's draft.

However, as Carlock noted, it still provides an opportunity to push the idea forward. "We now have a space we didn't have three months ago. It is on the agenda," he said. "Presidential candidates are going to be asked if it is on their agenda. That is good."

Although the details of Ocasio-Cortez and Markey's plan aren't yet public, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)—another vocal supporter of the Green New Deal backed by climate campaigners—told MPR News this week that the broad proposal has enough support to pass the Democratically-controlled U.S. House.

"I'm one who is urging my colleagues to really take this opportunity to not just issue resolutions and talking points, but for us to actually put a real bill on the table and to allow us to have a real conversation on this issue," Omar said. Opposition to the proposal, she added, often comes from Republicans and those worried about changes in their daily lives.

"We will hear from folks who say, 'I can't drive my big truck,' or, you know, 'My family has been in this line of work for many generations,'" she said. "And for us it's about making sure that we're having a conversation with them about what it means to sustain a future for their children and their grandchildren."

With climate change deniers in Washington obstructing real solutions to the imminent crisis facing our planet, states like MN must lead the way forward on a #GreenNewDeal.

Our environment and our communities can't wait!https://t.co/70qpP5HB2H

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) January 30, 2019

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Off the Top of My Head

Don't Cry For Me Venezuela

by John Lawrence, January 31, 2019

We have seen a whole bunch of US and CIA backed coups in Latin America like the 1976 coup in Argentina that ousted the democratically elected Isabel Peron, the 1973 coup in Chile that ousted the democratically elected Salvador Allende and installed the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, the overthrow of the democratically elected, left-leaning Jacobo Arbenz in Guatamala. Arbenz was overthrown during the US-backed 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état leading to right-wing US-endorsed authoritarian governments.

The pattern is all too familiar. The people want a better life so they elect a socialist or left leaning President. In Venezuela's case it was Hugo Chavez in 1999. Unfortunately, Chavez died of cancer at the age of 58. His successor is the current democratically elected President, Nicolas Maduro who is also a left leaning socialist. Naturally the US wants to get rid of him because he's a left leaning socialist and also Chavez nationalized (or socialized) Venezuela's oil industry. Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world, but due to mismanagement it's not producing that much oil.

In the meantime, China has invested huge sums in Venezuela's oil industry in an attempt to get it up and running again and obtain the benefits of Venezuela's oil for China, a nation woefully deprived of any oil reserves. China is not too much concerned that Venezuela has a socialist government. The US playbook is to apply economic pressure by means of sanctions to Venezuela, bring the economy to its knees and then cheerfully install a President more to its liking. Hint: Not a socialist. So US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo has announced that the US recognizes Juan Guaido as Venezuela's President even though he's not been democratically elected.

This pits the US directly against China which has, so to speak, taken Venezuela under its wings. Again the Venezuelan people are mere pawns suffering under a crappy economic system made much worse by US sanctions. The Chinese need oil and Venezuela badly needs investment in its oil industry. The US would like to see Venezuela's oil industry privatized again. However, China now owns a 49% share of it so that privatization does not look like a good option as far as China is concerned. What does the US want - a privatization of the 51% still controlled by the Venezuelan government. Presumably Exxon or Chevron (which is being sued by the Ecuadoran government for pollution) would step in and become more or less equal partners with China? It will never happen.

So the US once again is involved in an oil dispute. Adding fuel to the fire, it prefers right wing dictatorships to democratically elected socialists. It didn't end so well in Iraq when the US couldn't tolerate Saddam's threat to sell oil in some currency other than dollars. Is it any wonder that Latin Americans are migrating here to get away from the economic conditions in their countries brought about by their own mismanagement and US sanctions? The oil needs to be left in the ground if global warming is to be prevented. Why are we fighting over access to oil? Can't we all get along and switch to renewables?

Just Like Iraq, Warns Venezuela's Maduro, US Wants to 'Get Hands on Our Oil'

Published on Wednesday, January 30, 2019 by Common Dreams

"We will not allow a Vietnam in Latin America," says nation's president ahead of opposition demonstrations on Wednesday

by Jon Queally, staff writer

 

7 Comments

Pro-government supporters attend a rally against U.S. President Donald Trump in Caracas, Venezuela in 2018. (Photo: Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters)

Warning that U.S. military intervention could lead to a Vietnam War-style conflict, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has said that while he's willing to open talks with opposition leaders he will not bow to the demands of foreign "imperialists" and accused the U.S. government and other right-wing forces—like was done in Iraq and elsewhere—of trying to get their "hands on our oil."

Maduro's latest comments, which came via interviews and a video posted online, arrived just ahead of planned street demonstrations by the nation's opposition on Wednesday and amid new threats via U.S. national security advisor John Bolton who continues to lead the charge for regime change on behalf of the Trump administration.

"If the U.S. intends to intervene against us they will get a Vietnam worse than they could have imagined."
—President Nicolas Maduro

In an interview with Russia's RIA Novosti published Tuesday, Maduro rejected demands by the opposition and the White House to step down or hold snap presidential elections. While the U.S. has recognized president of the National Assembly, Juan Guaido, as "Interim President" of the country, Maduro said that while he believes new parliamentary elections should be held the next presidential election would not be until 2025, as scheduled. Though the opposition largely boycotted the 2018 presidential election last May—and they were criticized as fraudulent by some—Maduro won with more than 67 percent of the vote.

"Presidential elections in Venezuela have taken place, and if imperialists want new elections let them wait until 2025," Maduro told RIA. However, he added, "I'm willing to sit down for talks with the opposition so that we could talk for the sake of Venezuela's peace and its future."

In a video posted to Facebook early on Wednesday, Maduro accused the U.S. "empire" of conspiring with right-wing forces both within Venezuela and abroad of conspiring together to seize power, but warned that any attempt to overthrow his government by force could result in yet another overseas civil war instigated at the behest of the Americans.

"We will not allow a Vietnam in Latin America," Maduro declared. "If the U.S. intends to intervene against us they will get a Vietnam worse than they could have imagined. We do not allow violence. We are a peaceful people."

He added, "I ask that Venezuela be respected and I ask for the support of the people of the U.S. so there isn't a new Vietnam, least of all here in our America."

Watch:

According to polling conducted inside Venezuela, an overwhelming majority of people—from across the nation's political spectrum—would oppose U.S. intervention and disapprove of the economic sanctions that the Trump administration has only increased in recent days. As Ben Norton reported for the Grayzone Project on Tuesday:

More than eight out of ten Venezuelans oppose international intervention, both military and non-military, in their country, as well as the crippling sanctions imposed by the United States to force leftist President Nicolás Maduro out of power.

According to a study conducted in early January 2019 by the local polling firm Hinterlaces, 86 percent of Venezuelans would disagree with international military intervention. And 81 percent oppose the US sanctions that have gravely hurt the South American nation’s economy.

While the Trump administration continues to back opposition forces and threaten military action, progressives and policy experts—including people like Jon Rainwater, executive director of Peace Action—argue that more peaceful and democratic alternatives exist to address the nation's very real economic and political problems.

"Imposing coercive economic measures has been a staple of American foreign policy for quite some time, despite their penchant for failure and the collateral damage often left in their wake," Rainwater wrote in an op-ed for Common Dreams on Tuesday. "As for the military option, there’s no reason to think it would go better than the invasions of Iraq or Afghanistan."

Instead, he suggests, the U.S. should end its threat and foster dialogue between Maduro, the opposition, and third-party actors who vow to put the interests of all Venezuelans first.

In addition to the United Nations, he wrote, "The Vatican as well several Latin American nations have brokered peaceful dialogue between the Maduro government and the opposition. Recently Uruguay and Mexico have called for resumption of talks and a 'new process of inclusive and credible negotiations with full respect for the rule of law and human rights' to prevent bloodshed."

The Trump administration and members of Congress, he added, should support the kind diplomacy that can deescalate tensions and avoid the possibility of war.

"We've seen the regime change movie before," Rainwater concluded, "and it doesn't end well. Let's take it off repeat, and speak up now to avoid another senseless, costly, ill-advised American war."

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How Lovingly Are We Expressing Intelligence?

Dear friends,

Ernest Holmes said a mouthful with these words: “Body or form is the necessary outcome of self-knowingness. In order to know there has to be something to be known. Body is a concrete manifestation existing in time/space for the purpose of furnishing a vehicle though which Life may express itself.” Page 373 Science of Mind.

Well! That would be you and me. We are one of the trillions of ways Life (God) brings itself out of the field of the invisible into the visible. We reveal its nature to the degree of our awareness that we possess its nature! What is its nature if not Intelligence and Love? How intelligently are we expressing Love? How lovingly are we expressing Intelligence?

There is freedom in self-realization. It varies in each one of us according to how much we can believe in our wholeness and spiritual origins. We did not arise in a void. We are the evidence of the activity of Spirit taking form for the joy of experiencing this particular dimension of reality. That puts us in a very favorable position. We have the entire Intelligence of the universe at our disposal. We are the owners of a vehicle that is fully loaded. As we give ourselves more opportunities to be seen and known for who we really are, our lives get better and better. God, itself, is silence. We give it voice. God is Love. We give it relationships. God is supply. We give it circulation. God is Joy. We give it play. God is creative. We give it something to create. God is peace. We prove it to be so.

Carol Carnes www.centerforspirituallivingbakersfield.com

Please circulate some supply through us via pay pal

www.californiafreepress.net

Off the Top of My Head

The New Retirement Calculations

by John Lawrence, January 30, 2019

Retirement has become a fuzzy concept. It used to be that there was a standard retirement age - 65 - that applied to everybody after which you drew a pension and with that, social security and your savings, you lived happily ever after. That scenario doesn't apply any more for most people. First of all pensions are a thing of the past. Most people have their retirement aspirations embodied in 401(k)s which means the stock market. If the stock market wins, you win; if the stock market loses, you lose.

The only significant calculation is the amount of money you need to last you the rest of your life. The longer you live, the more money you'll need. If you run out of money before you run out of life, it'll be out on the street for you with all the rest of the homeless. It's a shame to see 80 and 90 year olds forced to live on the street where their demise will probably come rather quickly.

The Washington Post reported:

[There is] a growing crisis in American cities, which have seen a recent surge in deaths of homeless people due to soaring housing costs, extreme weather, the opioid epidemic, violent attacks and deadly viruses.

Across the country, in cities big and small, the hundreds of thousands of people who lack permanent shelter are facing elevated health risks as communities unsuccessfully search for solutions.

In metropolitan Denver, advocates and social workers documented the deaths of 231 homeless people last year, an increase of 35 percent over 2016, according to John ­Parvensky, president of the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless. New Orleans officials reported a record 60 homeless deaths last year, a 25 percent increase in two years. In Seattle, 169 homeless people died last year, double the number of homeless deaths recorded in King County, Wash., five years ago, according to the medical examiner.

So let's say the age you retire has nothing to do with your actual age. You could retire at 35 if you're rich enough by then. You could still be working at 80 if you still needed the money you get from working - earned income - in addition to whatever money you had from unearned or passive income. Passive income could be from savings, social security, rental income etc. However, there will come an age at which you have to retire - not because the government or some corporation said so - but because you're physically and/or mentally incapable of doing any more work. At this point you would have to have enough in savings which, when added to your passive income, would last you the rest of your life.

Now for some sample calculations. Let's say that when you reach the 'must retire' age, you figure that you might live another 20 years. So if you must retire at age 80 due to health reasons, you figure the longest you will live would be until age 100. Then you figure how much you need to draw down your savings on an annual basis to supplement your passive income. Let's say that's $5000. Then you would need to have $100,000. in savings by age 80. Of course, if you die sooner than age 100, the rest of the money in savings would go to the next generation which, if you care at all about your children, is the right thing to have happen. The more the better. Intergenerational transfer of wealth is what is greatly responsible for prospering families. The lack thereof is responsible for intergenerational poverty.

My off the cuff calculation roughly accords with the "4% rule" that a financial planner came up with. It works like this:

"the "4% drawdown rule," as it is known, says you should take out 4% — later revised to 4.5% — of your savings the year after you stop working. You then withdraw the same amount, adjusted for inflation, each year after that."

The accumulation of wealth was discouraged by Jesus. In the Bible Matthew says:

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Furthermore, Jesus said, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

This is not very good advice for people who don't want to become homeless themselves. Did the homeless take Jesus too seriously?

A Survival Guide to Two More Years

by Robert Reich

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MONDAY, JANUARY 28, 2019

It’s doubtful he’ll be leaving anytime soon. Even an impeachment will drag out for a long time. Here are 7 suggestions for what to do to survive in the meantime:

1. Don’t pay attention to what he says. Pay attention to what he does.

Disregard the ridicule, name-calling, threats, personal attacks, spectacle. These are distractions. 

Pay attention to his obstructions of justice, attempts to suppress the Mueller investigation, his attempts to take over Justice Department decisions over whom to prosecute, attempts to cut back freedom of the press, his profiting from his office, his endangering America internationally.

Make a ruckus about the big things, and push House Democrats to focus on them too.  

2. Keep track of what his cabinet is doing to gut health, safety, and environmental protections. 

Pay special attention to new rules and regulations, or changes in how regulations are enforced, that hurt people. 

Spread the word. Get House Democrats to expose and fight them. 

3. Don’t get lost in the procedural skirmishes over House subpoenas, executive privilege, impeachment.

Support big strategic objectives: getting big money out of politics, infrastructure, cutting drug costs, protecting the Affordable Care Act, and stopping bad laws coming over from the Senate.  

4. Watch what your state is doing, and be active there, too. 

Support legislators and governors making progress on climate change, reducing inequality, and public financing of elections.

Fight state legislators and governors cutting back on Medicaid, imposing draconian work requirements for public assistance, seeking an Article V constitutional convention.  

5. Prepare for 2020. 

Help reverse state voter ID laws. Instead of political gerrymandering, push for independent state commissions to set district boundaries. 

Have your state join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact to make the Electoral College irrelevant. Make sure people are registered to vote.

6. Don’t let the upcoming presidential primaries divide us. 

There are going to be a lot of candidates for the Democratic nomination. But regardless of what candidate emerges, keep your eyes on the prize of winning back the White House. 

7. Finally: Keep up your morale and energy. 

Don’t fall into cynicism or despair. We’ve already put limits on this catastrophe. Have faith: We’ll get America back. 

Welcome Your Greater Good

Dear friends,

There are times in every life when it seems as if nothing is working in our favor. Eventually we will come to the realization that we must take up a new idea. Perhaps we need to change how we work or even where and with whom. If we have been trying to make something function and it just isn’t responding, is it giving up if we let it go? That seems to be the big dilemma; not wanting to give up on something in which we have put our heart and soul, but which really needs to be released, at least temporarily while we regroup.

A shift in our focus also has a positive effect on our energy levels.

It is emotionally draining to try to resurrect a broken relationship or a dead end job. The moment we say yes to something better, is the moment we feel in charge again. Sometimes there is something more we need to know that cannot be found while we are entangled in the problem. We need to remove ourselves and be open to the insights that come with distance.  

Today is our day to step out of limitation and into freedom. Be ready to receive what comes when you are in a state of receptivity to change. Say this out loud:

“I am free of any and all ideas that have produced this current situation. I am open to what is trying to happen for my greater good. I see it, I welcome it, I accept it.”

Stay tuned in,

Carol Carnes www.centerforspirituallivingbakersfield.com

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Off the Top of My Head

The Dirt on Hillary

by John Lawrence, January 29, 2019

Here's what the Mueller investigation shakes down to in my prognostication. Trump said in a speech: "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing". Evidently, Russia did just that by hacking into Hillary's personal server. They then turned the emails over to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. Roger Stone, long time Trump operative, then contacted WikiLeaks to retrieve the emails for the Trump campaign. The emails turned out to be innocuous. In other words there was no dirt on Hillary, and they were worthless to the Trump campaign. Result: no advantage to Trump and questionable dirty tricks or criminality involved. Collusion? It's in the eye of the beholder.

There is plenty of shady stuff going on here including probably collusion with Putin over a business deal to build Trump Tower Moscow. But what to make of all this? Trump aides will be sent to jail for things like lying to Congress, but is there some larger criminality that might involve Trump himself? Who knows? Maybe a case could be made. But will it? The more likely outcome is that the American people will decide in the next election whether or not a brou ha ha over Hillary's emails, albeit involving Russia, is a serious crime or not.

All indications are that Trump's base will forgive him for anything including, as he famously said, shooting someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue. But his base in and of itself is probably not big enough to reelect him, that is unless Howard Schultz gets in the race as an independent and splits the Democratic vote. Howard Schultz, former CEO of Starbucks, and self made billionaire is undoubtedly an American success story having started out growing up poor in the New York City projects. Some of his views, however, amount to amateurish pet peeves similar to the ones that inspired Trump to run for President. Evidently, every billionaire with his or her private pipe dreams think they're qualified by definition. They're not.

I'm willing to bet Trump will be gone in 2020, and a Democrat will take over at least the Presidency. Let's hope it's someone from the progressive wing of the party and not someone who will simply rehash the old Obama/Clinton policies.