WELCOME TO OPINIONS BASED ON 0FACTS (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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Agenda
1.
Note of some changes.
2.
Oil pipeline.
3.
Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement.
4. Rigged trade deals.
5.
VA scandal - accountability.
FINALLY
FINALLY
FINALLY
THE COMPUTER AND I BOTH HAVE BEEN DOWN FOR SOME
TIME. WE ARE BOTH GOING TO TRY TO GET
WITH IT NOW. THANK YOU FOR HANGING IN
WITH ME.
NOTE OF SOME
CHANGES
I have made a couple
of minor changes that only affects the index.
For example, instead of referring to "Part" in the index it will
refer to "Vol." and instead of the posting an issue
"number" it will be prefixed by "No." Nothing earth sacking, but I did want to just
mention it to you.
In addition, I want to
point out that during the down time Part 14-19 and Part 14-20 were erased. If you had not read those before the down
time, you may want to go back and take a look.
They had some good info.
~~~
&
THE
PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP (TPP)
TRADE AGREEMENT
By Floyd Bowman, Publisher
"Opinions Based On Facts"
May 18, 2014
I wrote the
following two items on May 18th and then the bottom fell out for both the
computer and me. They are both as
apropos now as they were on the 18th.
You may be familiar
with the Ed Show on MSNBC with Ed Schultz, but in case you are not, I think he
is one of the better commentators on the tube.
He use to have the prime time slot every evening, but for some reason he
was replaced in that spot by Chris Hayes and Ed was given the 5:00 p.m. (edt)
slot once a week on Sunday.
There was so much
complaining from viewers that they brought him back to five evenings a week,
but at a terrible time slot 5 p.m. I am
in Oklahoma
Fortunately, I was
able to see him Friday (May 16th) from the very beginning. I would guess that this was one of his better
shows, covering the three items listed in the heading above. There is some real important information here
that I will summarize, but I would suggest that you go to his website and see
it for yourself.
An oil pipeline valve
ruptured in the Atwater Village near downtown Los Angeles Los Angeles River Los
Angeles
Ed asked us to imagine
what would happen, if something like this would occur out in the country area
where there would be no Los Angeles Fire Department to act quickly, as they
have in this case. This pipeline is
owned by Plains All American Pipeline Co. out of Texas Bakersfield , California to Los
Angeles
Compare this pipeline
with the Keystone XL pipeline, 130 miles for the Plains pipeline to 1,200 miles
for Keystone XL. In addition, Plains
pipeline carries 130,000 barrels to 830,000 barrels for the Keystone XL. Most of the Keystone XL is out in the middle
of nowhere. In addition, Plains line
carries light crude oil versus heavy sand crude that is very dirty. When talking about oil pipelines you have to
keep in mind that they corrode, they leak, and they burst.
If, what has happened
in Los Angeles
I can't place the
emphasis on the rest of Ed's remarks that he put forth. All I can do is tell you what he said and ask
you to imagine how strong Ed would be saying these things. He is really fired up about this and so am
I. I hope you will be too.
Ed said
"Folks we don't need this risk.
This is a Canadian oil project, coming across our soil. It will not add security to our Country, it
will not lower the price at our pump.
Let's be real about this thing.
This could easily happen right where these farmers and landowners are
saying we don't want this pipeline. And
if it does, it will be irreversible damage to the environment."
"All of
this is why President Obama needs to take a critical look at the Keystone XL
pipeline and pay no attention to the politicians. The Scientists must rule in this issue."
~~~
The Trans
Pacific Partnership (TPP)
Trade
Agreement.
By Floyd Bowman, Publisher
"Opinions Based on Facts."
May 18th 2014
Ed reported on the progress of the members that
would make up The Pacific Partnership Agreement. Take a look at the thirteen countries that
are involved in this secret negotiation.
There are thirteen beginning with South
Korea , Japan ,
Vietnam , Malaysia , China ,
Brunei , Australia , New
Zealand , Chile ,
Peru , Mexico , United
States of America , and Canada
Representatives from these countries are
meeting in Singapore
Every time the US has entered in trade agreements, every time
it has cost the US China China
has skyrocketed and the US
has lost 2.7 million jobs to China North America
Free Trade agreement (NAFTA). It has
been a classical failure as far as jobs are concerned and balance of trade.
~~~
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~~~
Rigged Trade Deals:
"Our
Job is to Notice"
Dave Johnson
Campaign
for America’s Future / Op-Ed
Published: Wednesday 28 May 2014
At last week’s New Populism conference, Sen. Elizabeth
Warren (D-Mass.) talked about how the multinational corporations rig the game
against working people. “Why are trade
deals secret? … because if the American people knew what was going on, they
would be opposed.”
For big corporations, trade agreement time is like
Christmas morning. They can get special
gifts they could never pass through Congress out in public. Because it’s a
trade deal, the negotiations are secret and the big corporations can do their
work behind closed doors.
We’ve seen what happens here at home when our trading
partners around the world are allowed to ignore workers rights and
environmental rules. From what I hear,
Wall Street, pharmaceuticals, telecom, big polluters, and outsourcers are all
salivating at the chance to rig the upcoming trade deals in their favor.
Why are trade deals secret? I’ve heard the supporters of these deals
actually say that they have to be secret because if the American people knew
what was going on, they would be opposed. Think about that. Real people – people whose
jobs are at stake, small business owners who don’t want to compete with
overseas companies that dump their waste in rivers and hire workers for a
dollar a day – those people, those people without an army of lobbyists – would
be opposed. I believe that if people across this country would be opposed to a
particular trade agreement, then that trade agreement should not happen.
Thea Lee, AFL-CIO: “What Is The Point Of These Trade Agreements?”
Thea Lee, Deputy Chief of Staff,
AFL-CIO spoke at length on trade. She
said that politicians hope the public doesn’t notice how the multinationals are
rigging the game. She said, “Our jobs is to notice” and “Our job is to turn up
the heat.”
Lee said she has to do “battle too often with my own
government both Democrats and Republicans around what the goals of trade policy
are. Is the whole point to have more trade agreements, lower trade barriers,
more trade volume? Or is it to use the US
“The people who are in charge of this policy have done a
crappy job.”
“The truth is we cannot
build a strong domestic economy here in the united states
Trade Deficits Kill The Virtuous Cycle
Lee said that as the economy begins to recover people go
to the store to buy things, which usually drives further recovery. Today,
instead they are too often buying stuff made elsewhere. (This is measured by
the huge trade deficit.) So instead of having the virtuous cycle, the trade
deficit sucks away the vigor and momentum of recovery.
We have assumed that if giant multinational corporations
are happy and making money the economy will be OK. But their ability to make money isn’t about
producing stuff in America, their ability to make money is about taking jobs
offshore to a less regulated environment where workers don’t have the right to
organize a union, the environment isn’t protected, where they pay low wages,
and then they bring the things made there back to sell to the consumer here. That’s
why we have this enormous trade deficit.
Our Government Doesn’t Even Talk About Balanced Trade
Lee said our government doesn’t even talk about balanced
trade, it’s not even a goal.
Progressives, populists, labor unions and others
concerned about trade don’t want to stop trade — trade isn’t bad, of course we
should import and export. But we need
better rules that govern trade so we can have a reciprocal relationship.
There has been an intellectual shift about how we
understand trade deals. When NAFTA came
along people who advocated for balanced trade deals were isolated. Economists approved NAFTA because it was
called “free trade” and economists thought that all trade was good and more
trade was better. Now there is an
intellectual understanding of how these trade deals have hurt America
Our Job
Is To Notice, To Turn Up The Heat
But too many Democrats want campaign contributions from
the big corporations, and hope their base doesn’t notice. Lee said, “Our job is to notice.”
~~~
In VA Scandal, Accountability
for
All Including Congress
Joe Conason
NationofChange / Op-Ed
Published: Sunday 25 May 2014
While Congress eagerly prepares its latest political
stunt — a resolution to oust Gen. Eric Shinseki as Veterans Affairs Secretary —
individual members might consider their own responsibility for the scandalous
inadequacy of veterans' health care. Unlike most of them, especially on the
Republican side, Shinseki opposed the incompetent war plans of the George W.
Bush administration that left so many American service men and women grievously
wounded. And unlike most of them, especially on the Republican side, Shinseki
has done much to reduce the backlog of veterans seeking care, despite the
congressional failure to provide sufficient funding.
Anyone
paying attention knows by now that those secret waiting lists at VA facilities
— which may have led to the premature deaths of scores of injured veterans —
are a direct consequence of policy decisions made in the White House years
before President Barack Obama got there. The misguided invasion of Iraq — carried out
with insufficient numbers of troops shielded by insufficient armor — led
directly to thousands of new cases of traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic
stress disorder, and other physical and mental disabilities requiring speedy
treatment.
A substantial portion of
the estimated $ 3 trillion price of that war is represented by the cost of
decent care for veterans. But even as the war raged on, the Bush administration
and Republicans in Congress repeatedly refused to appropriate sufficient funding
for veterans' health care. This
financial stinginess toward vets was consistent with Bush's refusal to take any
steps to pay for his expensive war (and decision to protect his skewed tax cuts
instead).
As Alec MacGillis pointed
out this week in the New
Republic
Breaking down the voting record, year after year, the
pattern along party lines is clear: Republicans regularly propose cuts in VA
funding and oppose increases sponsored by Democrats — a pattern that extends
back to the first years of the Iraq and Afghan conflicts and continues to this
day.
As recently as last February, Senate Republicans
filibustered a Democratic bill that would have added $20 billion in VA funding
over the next decade and would have built at least 26 new VA health care
facilities. The Republicans killed that
bill because Democratic leaders refused to add an amendment on Iran sanctions —
designed to scuttle the ongoing nuclear negotiations — and because they just
don't want to spend more money on vets.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who chairs
the Veterans' Affairs Committee, noted that the costs of the expansion bill
could be covered by savings from the end of troop deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan Washington
What those who have served should get is the kind of care
that has made the VA among the most successful health systems in the world (for
those who can access its services). Instead they will get political swaggering,
as members of Congress seek to score points against Obama by attacking
Shinseki, and dogmatic opportunism, as right-wing ideologues insist the VA is
just another big-government program to cut or even abolish. The Republicans who are susceptible to such
proposals should be very careful, lest they arouse the anger of the normally
conservative American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, whose leaders react
with anger and outrage to the idea of privatization.
As American Legion commander Dan Dellinger said in
congressional testimony last week, his organization overwhelmingly "finds
that veterans are extremely satisfied with their health care team and medical
providers."
Let's not be distracted by the usual spurious assaults on
"government health care." And let's not be misled by Washington's
loudmouths and poseurs — the warmongers who never face up to the price of their
bloody enthusiasm in lives and treasure. When politicians demand accountability from
their betters, including a war hero like Shinseki, let's remember that they
should be held accountable, too.
~~~
If the good Lord is willing and the creek don't rise, I'll talk with you
again next week. I think I may be able
to make it now, if the computer doesn't go down and I can keep up.
God Bless You All
&
God Bless the United States of America
Floyd
