OBOF TYMHM & MORE PART 26

 

 

 

WELCOME TO OPINIONS  BASED  ON FACTS (OBOF)

&

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (TYMHM)

YEAR THREE

 

Name	Published
OVERVIEW
OBOF & TYMHM PART 14	Dec  18, 2012
OBOF & TYMHM PART 15	Jan.  02, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 16	Jan.  08, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 16 EXTRA	Jan.  11, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 17	Jan.  15, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 18	Jan.  22, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 19	Jan.  29, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 20	Feb.  05, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 21	Feb.  14, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 22	Feb.  20, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 23	Feb.  27, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 23 SPECIAL	Mar.  06, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 24	Mar.  07, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 25	Mar.  12, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 25-EXTRA	Mar.  14, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 26	Mar.  19, 2013

 

 

IN THIS ISSUE

 

1.  President reaches out to Republicans for a Grand Bargain.

2.  Return to Sender.  Status of USPS.

3.  Facts as to where we are now.

4.  Introduction of Constitutional Amendment.

5.  F35 fighter problems.

 

 

 

 

PRESIDENT REACHES OUT

TO GAIN A

GRAND BARGAIN

By Floyd Bowman

Publisher

 "Opinions Based On Facts."

March 19, 2013

 

The week before last, President Obama invited 12 Republican Senators to privately dine with him at the White House.  Then this past week he went to Capitol Hill to meet with both Republican and Democrat Caucuses in both House of Congress.

 

The purpose was to repair his relations with the Lawmakers, hopefully to set the stage to negotiate for a "Grand Bargain" of entitlement reform and revenue increases to reduce the deficit.  This entitlement reform really scares me.  Considering his talk about a "Grand Bargain," and other information I have been hearing, I believe, he is considering changes in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid that just are not at all acceptable; not acceptable to me and not to 72% of America.

 

It has been reported that the President talked to Caucuses about immigration, guns, and energy policies, but above all emphasized the need to work together to create a long-term budget plan to reduce the deficit spending.  It has, also, been reported that Republicans received him well and Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma said that Obama was "genuinely reaching out, and Senator John McCain said that the conversations "could lead us to a Grand Bargain."

 

Now, I am going to try to keep a close eye on anything that may develop as a "Grand Bargain."  If it should  start to develop, as much as I support Pres. Obama, I am concerned that, based on past performance, he might start to give away the store.  If that should happen we all need to start contacting our legislators  and put pressure on them as to no changes in SS, Medicare, or Medicaid.

 

Senator Bernie Sanders, (I) of Vermont, is leading a strong charge in the Senate to keep the big three as they are.  Anytime you see or hear anything from him you can take it to the bank.  He is really a great man and really has his head on straight, as I call it.

 

Irrespective of the above, the two Parties are so far apart ideologically that this may not have a chance of happening anyway.  The Republicans will know he is serious only if he puts real tax reform - - with lower overall rates - - and serious entitlement cuts on the table.  I don't want to believe that the President would go that far, BUT WE HAVE TO WATCH IT CLOSELY.

~~~

Return to Sender

 

 

Fredric Rolando

Other Words / Op-Ed

Published: Sunday 17 March 2013

 

NOTE FROM FLOYD:

 

This article gives you the entire story about the Postal Service.  The point that I want to make at the beginning is, that when the step was taken to make the Postal Service pay up pensions and health benefits fund for 75 years in just 10 years, it was done for just one purpose.  As you might expect, this was accomplished with a Republican Congress.  It was done to make the Postal Service go broke, so that it could be abolished and then privatize the service.  This would make many rich people, richer.

 

It was known at the time that the Postal Service, or any other business for that matter, could not possibly do this and still make a profit.  This article really sets us straight as to how the Postal Service is really doing.  It must not be abolished and it should be relieved of the ridiculous burden that has been placed on it.

~~~

 

 

 

Rooted in the Constitution and older than the country itself, the U.S. Postal Service supports 7.5 million private-sector jobs in the mailing industry.  The Postal Service is essential to the fast-growing Internet sales industry.  And the USPS is navigating this struggling economy relatively well, even making an operating profit in the most recent quarter.

Yes, making a profit.  When you count how much money the Postal Service earned on postage, and subtract how much it spent delivering the mail and paying related bills, the Postal Service earned a $100 million profit in the last three months of 2012.  And remember, the USPS uses no taxpayer money.

So, why all this talk about the Postal Service losing money?  And why is Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe planning to end Saturday mail delivery?

There’s no question the Postal Service faces big challenges. Both email and a struggling economy are dragging down mail volume.  But the Postal Service’s financial problem is actually driven by Congress’s decision to “pre-fund” retiree health care costs.  Beginning in 2007, the USPS has been required to pay 75 years of those costs in advance, and to do so within just ten years.

 

This pre-funding accounts for about 80 percent of the “losses” sustained by the Postal Service over the last six years that you’ve heard so much about.  Indeed, that last quarterly profit was wiped out by a $1.4 billion pre-funding payment.

No other government agency or private company is required to pre-fund retiree healthcare.  This isn’t the same thing as postal pensions, which should be, and are, pre-funded. Most businesses just pay retiree health care bills when they’re due, but the pre-funding law forces the USPS to pay these bills all at once, far in advance.

Any other company would use its available funds to modernize so it can stay healthy.  The Postal Service should be taking advantage of the enormous growth in package delivery driven by Internet sales. Instead, because it must put every spare penny into pre-funding retiree healthcare, it’s stuck in crisis mode.

What’s more, the savings from dropping Saturday delivery would be much smaller than they appear.  Cutting Saturday service will drive away some Monday-through-Friday customers too, such as magazine and newspaper publishers that may just switch to other delivery services for the entire week.  A study by the Postal Regulatory Commission found that ending Saturday delivery would hurt the public and save significantly less than previous claims suggest.

Saturday delivery is particularly vital for the elderly, disabled, people in rural areas, and those who need medicine or equipment delivered to their doors.  No other company provides universal delivery service to every address in the country, six days a week.  Even private shippers such as FedEx and UPS use the U.S. Mail for up to a third of their final deliveries to customers’ doors because they can’t match the efficiency of the postal network.

Congress has required Saturday delivery by law for three decades.  Instead of trying to defy Congress, Postmaster General Donahoe should urge lawmakers to fix the pre-funding problem and give the Postal Service room to adapt for the future.

Letter carriers aren’t waiting for Donahoe to figure this out.  We’ll be out in full force across America on Sunday, March 24. At rallies in Mobile, Alabama, Bismarck, North Dakota, San Diego, California, and more than 100 other cities and towns, we’ll have a clear message for Congress — keep Saturday delivery, end the unnecessary pre-funding, and develop a real reform plan that gives the Postal Service the freedom to grow and innovate in the digital era.

~~~

FACTS AS TO

 WHERE WE ARE NOW

 

For democracy,   Robert Weissman President, Public Citizen
	Floyd:                                                                       3-9-13 Corporate profits have never been higher. The stock market just hit an all-time peak. A typical CEO makes more in a day than an average employee makes in a year. All of the gains in our economy from 2009 to 2011 (the last year for which there is data) went to the richest 1% of Americans. For the rest of us, not even the proverbial trickle. Meanwhile, Congress and the White House are sinking in the quicksand of a completely false deficit “crisis.” Blind or indifferent to its impact on everything from meat inspections to airport lines to job losses, Congress drove the country into the sequester, unnecessarily jeopardizing critical public safeguards and services. Congress — and, it must be said, and with disappointment, President Obama — are seriously considering cuts to Social Security and Medicare, two of the most effective and vital public programs in our nation’s history. Millions of Americans who want and need work can’t get a job, while those with jobs see their wages stagnate even as they have become more productive than ever before. Millions of Americans go hungry and do not have health care. Millions of Americans lost their homes or their savings or their pensions to Wall Street’s pathological pursuit of profits. It just doesn’t add up. The mega-rich and corporatized are doing as well or better than ever. Yet the rest of us are being asked to continue scraping along. There is enough — more than enough — to go around. The key phrase there being “go around.” Prosperity doesn’t go around anymore. It is, instead, sucked up and socked away by the few who already have it as if it is their birthright and theirs alone. The greediest individuals and corporations maniacally rake in all they can grab while muttering “mine, mine, mine.” Why is this happening? Why can’t our politicians see what’s right in front of them: Over here, people are suffering; over there, people with more money than they could ever spend are demanding still more? The reason, while insidious and dispiriting, is quite plain: Our politicians have become beholden to those with the money to keep them in or out of office. The problem of money in politics affects every challenge facing us as a society. You know better than to ignore this systemic and fundamental problem for sounding too “inside-the-Beltway” or seeming to be a step removed from other issues you care about. Think it’s long overdue that we join our peers throughout the developed world who ensure that affordable, quality health care is available to every one of their citizens? The insurance and pharmaceutical industries put puppets in office who will shout “socialized medicine” and “death panels” at the merest mention of an expanded and improved Medicare-For-All program that will at last provide health care as a matter of right and end our inhumane infatuation with allowing a handful of giant corporations to profit at the expense of millions of our fellow Americans. Think we ought to enact some commonsense curbs on Wall Street’s basest impulses — to which it has shown a seemingly bottomless susceptibility — before the Big Banks barrel toward the brink of disaster again? The financial behemoths spend practically without limit to push their agenda in the White House and on Capitol Hill. That agenda basically boils down to “Trust us.” Do you trust them? Think we should look at whether some industries have offshored too many good jobs? Special interests with deep pockets are scheming to extend NAFTA-style trade pacts over the entire globe in a race to the bottom for health and safety standards, environmental protections and worker rights. Think we should talk more about the morality of using drones — even to target U.S. citizens on U.S. soil? Some politicians will put your life — and the Constitution — in robotic crosshairs if it means increasing the stock value of their military-industrial sponsors. Think we should invest even a little more in solar and wind energy before we open up every wild space to drilling, allow BP to crack open the ocean floor again, and pipe toxic sludge from Canada straight through our nation’s heartland just so more oil can be exported overseas? The oil industry spends and spends and spends to get politicians elected who will perpetuate our addiction to fossil fuels and deny the science proving that we’re endangering our planet’s ability to sustain us. What can you do about it? Until we take back our democracy from the billionaires and multinationals, nothing is safe from their greed. That’s why Public Citizen devotes so much of our resources to researching, exposing and fighting — in all branches of government and at the grassroots; at the local, state and national levels — the ways corporate money corrupts our democracy. And that’s why I’m asking you to contribute whatever you can today. Whether you chip in $5, $50 or $500, every dollar helps carry on the work we’re doing together to put We the People back in charge of our country, our lives and our future. A pathogen is rotting our democracy from the inside out. We can eradicate it. But only with your help.
	P.S. Just this week, Public Citizen filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission to investigate whether Chevron broke a law against election spending by government contractors when it contributed $2.5 million to a Republican super PAC last fall. Yesterday, we launched a grassroots petition drive to put citizen pressure on Chevron to stop meddling with democracy for its own profit. Our effort has already made headlines in The Huffington Post, Roll Call, the San Francisco Chronicle and numerous other outlets. This is what Public Citizen does: we root out corporate corruption and crime, we bring our expertise and power to bear on the appropriate government agencies, we activate our nationwide network of citizen activists, and we make sure the media is telling the story. Make a generous contribution today so that we have the financial resources required to do the critical work we’re doing together.

~~~

INTRODUCTION

OF A

CONSTITUTIONAL  AMENDMENT.

For democracy,   Robert Weissman President, Public Citizen
	Floyd:                                                           3-12-13 Good news: Earlier today, Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Ted Deutch introduced resolutions in both houses of Congress for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. More good news: It’s called the Democracy Is For People Amendment. That’s right, Sen. Sanders and Rep. Deutch named their proposed constitutional amendment after Public Citizen’s campaign! Send a quick email to your representative and senators urging them to sign on as co-sponsors of the Sanders/Deutch Democracy Is For People Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Democracy Is For People Amendment not only would give Congress the authority to regulate money in politics, it also — and without additional congressional action — would end all corporate election spending. After all, democracy is for people. We are proud to have worked with Sen. Sanders and Rep. Deutch in crafting this landmark effort to reclaim democracy for We the People. There could be some bad news, though: If we don’t show our members of Congress — right away — that there is widespread support for this constitutional amendment among their constituents, it might never get off the ground. Learn more about the Democracy Is For People Amendment and ask your members of Congress to support it. When we launched our campaign for a constitutional amendment, we were almost a lone voice in the wilderness. Now, just three years later, two respected progressives in Congress have introduced a constitutional amendment that bears the name of our campaign. Make sure your members of Congress know that you expect them to join this historic movement by co-sponsoring the Democracy Is For People Amendment. Take action today, and maybe in another three years, corporations will no longer be able to overrun our democracy.
Onward,   Robert Weissman President, Public Citizen

~~~

 

Victims of F-35 Base.

 Vermont Prefers Sacrifice

 

Exerts from an article.

 

 

Vermont’s highest elected officials continue to promote class warfare in their reflexive support for basing the F-35 stealth nuclear-capable strike fighter in the middle of Vermont’s only urban area even though the world’s most expensive weapons system, $396 billion and counting, has been grounded since mid-January because it’s unsafe to fly.

 

Whether the Speaker of the House will let any of this legislation come to a vote is anybody’s guess, but the longer the delay, the more people will see reporting from sources such as the Defense Industry Daily suggesting that the F-35 “Can’t Turn, Can’t Climb, Can’t Run” or Business Insider explaining “How The F-35 Turned Into Such A Disaster” as bad news about the F-35 continues to accumulate.

 

Meanwhile, at least for the time being, none of it matters, because the world’s most expensive weapons system still can’t fly.

 

NOW THE FACTUAL

TRUTH!

By Floyd Bowman.

Publisher.

"Opinions Based On Facts."

March 19, 2013.

 

I have obtained the following information from a very reliable source that is directly connected to Lockheed Martin, the builder of the F35.  There have been 54 F35s built to date.  In the testing of all of these planes, there has not be any crashes and, of course, no deaths.  In the industry, the average when testing a completely new aircraft is 3 crashes and 1 death. 

 

The statements above relating to a base for the F35s in Vermont are extremely over exaggerated.  It is true that all F35s were grounded for a period of time, as in their continual test checking of all 54, they found one plane that had a crack in one blade of the engine.  It turned out to be a manufacturing flaw and did not show up in any of the other 53. 

 

The claims that the F35 can't turn, can't climb, can't run, and can't fly, simply are not true.  Test pilots have given the F35 excellent ratings.

 

While the F35 is referred to as the most expensive weapons system ever, it should be noted that the cost now, after building 54 planes, is 50% of the cost of the first production plane.  With each additional lot ordered the cost continues to go down.  If, however, they try to spread future orders out over a longer period of time the cost will go up.

~~~

If the good Lord is willing and the creek don't rise, I'll talk with you again next Tuesday March 26, 2013.

 

God Bless You All

&

God Bless the United States of America.

Floyd