WELCOME TO OPINIONS BASED ON FACTS (OBOF)
&
THINGS YOU MAY
HAVE MISSED (TYMHM)
YEAR ONE
YEAR TWO
YEAR THREE
YEAR FOUR
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OBOF YEAR FOUR INDEX
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-01
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Jan. 02, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-02
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Jan. 09, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-03
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Jan. 15, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-04
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Jan. 24, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-05
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JAN 30, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-06
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Feb. 06, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-06 EXTRA
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Feb. 09, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-07
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Feb. 13, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-08
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Feb. 21, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-09
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Feb. 27, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-10
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Mar. 08, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-11
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Mar. 13, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-11 EXTRA
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Mar. 15, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-12
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Mar. 21, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-13
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Mar. 29, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-14
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Apr. 03, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-15
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Apr. 12, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-16
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Apr. 19, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-17
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Apr. 26, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-18
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May 03,
2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-19
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May 10,
2014
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OBOF TYMHM PART 14-20
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May 20,
2014
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OBOF TYMHM Vol 14 - No 21
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May 28, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM Vol 14 - Ho 22
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June 10, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM Vol 14 - No 23
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June 20, 2014
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OBOF TYMHM Vol 14 - No 24
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July 04, 2014
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Agenda
1.
Hello my Friends & Followers.
2.
Jack'em up & get jacked around.
corruption
first class.
3.
Freedom, Power, and the Conservative Mind.
HELLO!
MY FRIENDS
&
FOLLOWERS
No, I haven't fallen
off the world. I suspect some of you
have been wondering if that hasn't been the case. Shortly after my birthday party, that I last
wrote you about, I had a fall. I have gone
a long time without one, but I made up for it this time. At any rate, I am getting better now and back
with you. I do hope you are still
there.
I am starting off this
posting with a subject that has bothered me greatly for the past four years and
now I have decided to talk with you about it.
JACK'EM
UP
&
GET JACKED
AROUND
(CORRUPTION - -
FIRST CLASS)
Saving lives, saving
the Federal Government millions of dollars and provide much needed employment,
is all possible, except for the corruption of one United States Senator. I have personal knowledge of the facts I am
going to write about. I have been led to
believe that if I pursue these facts further it may become injurious to my
health.
I just turned 90 on
June 10th. At one time in my life, I was
Director of the Bureau of Fraud Investigation for the Department of Public Aid,
State of Illinois
You may very well ask,
"Why bother writing about this now, when the investigation is not yet
complete?" My answer is, I'm not at
all sure it will ever be complete as it may be that this Senator is so powerful
that he gets it swept under the rug.
Now, this all sounds
very melodramatic I know, but this is no fictional writing to be bought and
placed on your book self. It is real.
I am quite
sure that this Senator is involved in other corrupt activity, but I only
personally know the details about this one.
This began four years ago and there is so much detail a complete book
could and should be written some day, but not here and not now.
If, not here,
where? If, not now, when? I don't know the answer to those
questions. I only know that I want to
get some information out about this and OBOF is the only vehicle I have available
to me and you, my followers.
What is this
all about?
Four years ago this
month, a man, 57 years old, went fishing with his two son00s. On the way home he became very quiet and his
boys wanted to know if he was alright.
He told them that he was, but that was all he said.
When they got home, he
went, immediately, to his shop. Now,
this man has a Bachelors Degree and a Master Degrees and has been a mechanic a good
part of his life. I mention this so that
you know he is an educated man. Long story
short, a thought had come to him on the way home and he went to the shop to
make a prototype of what was in his head.
It was a very simplistic tool for changing a flat tire on trailers and
trucks. A lot of time was spent during
the ensuing days and months in the process of developing the design, stress
testing, developing a design that would work in rock, mud, black top and
concrete. In other words, just about
anywhere and with no moving parts, no hydraulic parts. Just what would be perfect for farmers and
ranchers.
I will plan to take the next step of
development and sales next week.
~~~
Freedom,
Power
and
the Conservative Mind
Robert Reich
NationofChange
/ Op-Ed
Published: Thursday 3 July 2014
On Monday, the Supreme Court struck down a
key part of the Affordable Care Act, ruling that privately-owned
corporations don’t have to offer their employees contraceptive coverage that
conflicts with the corporate owners’ religious beliefs.
The owners of Hobby Lobby,
the plaintiffs in the case, were always free to practice their religion. The Court bestowed religious freedom on their
corporation as well – a leap of logic as absurd as giving corporations freedom
of speech. Corporations aren’t people.
The deeper problem is the
Court’s obliviousness to the growing imbalance of economic power between
corporations and real people. By giving
companies the right not offer employees contraceptive services otherwise
mandated by law, the Court ignored the rights of employees to receive those
services.
(Justice Alito’s
suggestion that those services could be provided directly by the federal
government is as politically likely as is a single-payer federal
health-insurance plan – which presumably would be necessary to supply such
contraceptives or any other Obamacare service corporations refuse to offer on
religious grounds.)
The same imbalance of power rendered the Court’s decision in “Citizens United,” granting
corporations freedom of speech, so perverse. In reality, corporate free speech drowns out
the free speech of ordinary people who can’t flood the halls of Congress with
campaign contributions.
Freedom is the one value
conservatives place above all others, yet time and again their ideal of freedom
ignores the growing imbalance of power in our society that’s eroding the
freedoms of most people.
This isn’t new. In the
early 1930s, the Court trumped New Deal legislation with “freedom of contract”
– the presumed right of people to make whatever deals they want unencumbered by
federal regulations. Eventually (perhaps
influenced by FDR’s threat to expand the Court and pack it with his own
appointees) the Court relented.
But the conservative mind
has never incorporated economic power into its understanding of freedom.
Conservatives still champion “free enterprise” and equate the so-called “free
market” with liberty. To them,
government “intrusions” on the market threaten freedom.
Yet the “free market”
doesn’t exist in nature. There, only the fittest and strongest survive. The
“free market” is the product of laws and rules continuously emanating from
legislatures, executive departments, and courts. Government doesn’t
“intrude” on the free market. It defines and organizes (and often reorganizes)
it.
Here’s where the reality
of power comes in. It’s one thing if
these laws and rules are shaped democratically, reflecting the values and
preferences of most people.
But anyone with half a
brain can see the growing concentration of income and wealth at the top of
America has concentrated political power there as well — generating laws and
rules that tilt the playing field ever further in the direction of corporations
and the wealthy.
Antitrust laws designed to
constrain monopolies have been eviscerated.
Competition among Internet service providers, for example, is rapidly
disappearing – resulting in higher prices than in any other rich country.
Companies are being allowed to prolong patents and trademarks, keeping drug
prices higher here than in Canada
or Europe .
Tax laws favor capital
over labor, giving capital gains a lower rate than ordinary income. The rich get humongous mortgage interest
deductions while renters get no deduction at all.
The value of real property
(the major asset of the middle class) is taxed annually, but not the value of
stocks and bonds (where the rich park most of their wealth).
Bankruptcy laws allow
companies to smoothly reorganize, but not college graduates burdened by student
loans.
The minimum wage is
steadily losing value, while CEO pay is in the stratosphere. Under U.S.
Public goods paid for with
tax revenues (public schools, affordable public universities, parks, roads,
bridges) are deteriorating, while private goods paid for individually (private
schools and colleges, health clubs, security guards, gated community amenities)
are burgeoning.
I could go on, but you get
the point. The so-called “free market”
is not expanding options and opportunities for most people. It’s extending them
for the few who are wealthy enough to influence how the market is organized.
Most of us remain “free”
in limited sense of not being coerced into purchasing, say, the medications or
Internet services that are unnecessarily expensive, or contraceptives they can
no longer get under their employer’s insurance plan. We can just go without.
We’re likewise free
not to be burdened with years of student debt payments; no one is required to
attend college. And we’re free not to
rent a place in a neighborhood with lousy schools and pot-holed roads; if we
can’t afford better, we’re free to work harder so we can.
But this is a very parched
view of freedom.
Conservatives who claim to
be on the side of freedom while ignoring the growing imbalance of economic and
political power in America
~~~
If the good Lord is willing and the
creek don't rise, I'll talk with you again next week.
God Bless You All
&
God Bless the United States of America
Floyd
