OPINIONS BASED ON FACTS (OBOF)
THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (TYMHM)
YEAR ONE
YEAR TWO
YEAR THREE
YEAR FOUR
YEAR FIVE
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OBOF
YEAR FIVE INDEX
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OBOF
TYMHM
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Jan.
07, 2015
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OBOF
TYMHM Vol 15 - No 1
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Jan.
19, 2015
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OBOF
TYMHM Vol 15 - No 2
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Feb. 03, 2015
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OBOF
TYMHM Vol 15 - No 3
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Feb. 23, 2015
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TYMHM Vol 15 - No 4
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Mar. 02, 2015
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TYMHM Vol 15 - No 5
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Mar. 06, 2015
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TYMHM Vol 15 - No 6
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Mar. 13, 2015
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TYMHM Vol 15 - No 7
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Mar. 23, 2015
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TYMHM Vol 15 - No 8
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Mar. 28,
2015
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TYMHM Vol 15 - No 9
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Apr. 13,
2015
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OBOF TYMHM Vol 15 - No 10
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May 02,
2015
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OBOF
TYMHM Vol 15 - No 11
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May 09,
2015
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OBOF
TYMHM Vol 15 - No 12
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May 19, 2015
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OBOF
TYMHM Vol 15 - No 13
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May 26, 2015
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OBOF
TYMHM Vol 15 - No 14
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May 29, 2015
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OBOF
TYMHM Vol 15 - No 15
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July 28, 2015
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OBOF
TYMHM Vol 15 - No 16
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Sept. 15, 2015
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Agenda
1. BACK AGAIN
2.
On the Road for Bernie in Iowa
3.
Buying a
President for 30 Bucks and Change.
4. Senator Bernie Sanders
for
President.
BACK
AGAIN
Hello folks! Well, I suspect it is about like starting
five years ago. I started then with no followers
and over the years it built up to between 300 and 350 readers.
If there are still one or, two or a few
of you still out there I want you to know that the last 6 moths has been pretty
rough physically. My 91st year, up to
now, has not been the greatest. However,
I am starting to do better and I am determined to get back with the world.
My last posting was July 28th and it
was a long one. If you are interested in
getting back with my train of thought, particularly, with regard to the
up-coming election, still over a year off, re-reading at least one or two of
the opening parts of that posting will set the stage for this posting and
future ones.
Before, I said that I wasn't going to
write about next years election until about July 2016. That was because none of the candidates at
that point turned me on, incl. Hillary.
That changed about 3 months ago when Senator Bernie Sanders interred the
race. I have followed him for a number
of years and I am convienced
I have told you in the past that I want
to post once a week on Fridays. I am not
going to say that now because I don't know for sure that I will be able
to. However, I am going to try as there
is a lot happening even besides the election.
You probably already know that the
field of Republican Presidential candidates has turned into a real circus with
17 now declared. Oh, I am wrong, as of
yesterday it is 16 as candidate Perry from Texas
The Republicans are now in the process
and threatening to shut down the government again.
There is also some discussion regarding
our currency. Some think there will be a
large change in October. Right now there
appears to be an increase in the talk about this matter. One article said it will start on Sept. 16. Time will tell and I'll keep an eye on it and
report what I find that seems, at least, reasonably creditable. So far, I am not ready to bring you more than
this. You might want to watch internet
for more yourself.
~~~
On the Road for Bernie in Iowa
Authors: Larry Cohen
Published: September 10, 2015
On a hot Iowa Labor
Day week- end everyone was feeling the Bern
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders
himself set the pace on Friday and Saturday as he met with Native Americans on
their reservation, and walked a picket line at Ingredion in Cedar Rapids. It
has been widely reported that he is the first major presidential candidate to
walk a picket line while campaigning since Robert Kennedy in 1968. That is as much a commentary on the gap for
Democratic candidates between their talk and their walk as anything else.
Ingredion, (should be spelled Greed), formerly Penford
products, produces starch for food products.
When they bought Penford, the new owners pledged to keep up employment
and work with the union, a local of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers
and Grain Millers Union . But as it often goes, after Ingredion took
over they demanded massive wage and benefit cuts. Now faced with continuing
management ultimatums, the workers are picketing while they negotiate and are
asking for community support. Ingredion’s CEO is paid $7 million a year and has
a golden parachute of $28 million. The
160 workers there and their families vs. the greed of management, is now
gaining notice and media coverage across Iowa
Sanders’ Labor Day talk to the New Hampshire AFL-CIO
underlined the difference between himself and other candidates. He again specifically supported the $15
minimum wage, opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and most importantly
connected his support for the expansion of collective bargaining rights to
sustainable economic growth.
My own Iowa journey
took me to seven Labor Day stops in eastern Iowa Cedar
Rapids or Clinton , Davenport ,
and Dubuque
A John Deere employee described his eight years on
layoff as production shifted out of the country; a retired electronics worker
described the size of his plant’s workforce before and after NAFTA and failed
trade policy with China. Public-sector
workers well understood the connection between cuts in manufacturing and the
pressure to close schools and cut public services.
On this Labor Day there was also hope. Hope that Bernie
Sanders and those of us supporting the political revolution could begin to find
a path forward together. There was hope
that we had a candidate without super-PAC funding and that one day together we
could end super PACs and billionaire politics. There was hope that we could fund free public
higher education instead of following the Iowa
governor’s plan to gut the University
of Iowa
Yes, I will remember my visit to eastern Iowa
~~~
Buying a President for 30 Bucks and Change
Author:
Jim Hightower
NationofChange Op-Ed
Published: September 9, 2015
For today’s
report, I have a bunch of statistics for you. Wait — don’t run away! Where are you going? Come back here and sit
still while I drill these stats into your head! It’ll be fun, and you’ll learn
something.
I realize that
numbers can numb the brain, but this is a good story, and I promise that these
statistics are easy to absorb. In fact,
the number 400 pretty much sums up this story of political intrigue and
corruption involving some of America
Let’s start
with the “Billionaire 400,” a clique of the elite organized by the conniving
Koch brothers. These ultra-rich
right-wingers gather each winter in some warm-weather resort for a secretive,
invitation-only retreat. There, they
plot strategies and pledge money for electing politicos who’ll support their
vision of corporate rule in America
Then there are
the secretive super PACs that are sacking-up tens of millions of dollars to
back various presidential candidates. Again, a few hundred corporations and
rich families — each writing checks for hundreds of thousands and even millions
of dollars — have put up nearly half of all the money in these electioneering
committees.
Keep that 400
number in mind when I offer my sincerest congratulations to Mr. and Mrs.
Middle-Class America, since they are all the rage in this present presidential
contest, for Jeb, Hillary, and all the rest — even The Donald — say their
campaigns are all about the hurting middle class that hasn’t yet recovered from
the Great Recession.
Now, back to
our statistics: Jeb Bush got a million dollars each from 26 of his super PAC
backers; Hillary Clinton took a million each from nine funders; of the $16
million in Marco Rubio’s PAC, 78 percent came from only four donors; and Ted
Cruz got the most from the fewest, taking practically all of his $37 million
from just three fat-cat families. Well,
don’t look now, but after each one promises that they’ll do the most for the
Great Mass of the Middle Class, they disappear into the shadows and scurry off
to schmooze with the little group of Americans they truly love: The exclusive club of multimillionaires and
billionaires, who are shoveling those big bucks into those campaign pockets.
So while candidates
for the highest office in our land are soaking up applause for the grand
rhetoric they’re giving to the middle class, they’re also quietly sacking up
millions of dollars by pledging their steadfast fealty to the ruling class. Donating millions is not an innocent or noble
political transaction. Written on the
backs of each of their checks is their own corporate agenda, trumping the
people’s agenda.
Ironically,
it’s Donnie Trump, the bombastic billionaire, who candidly admits that these
so-called “gifts” amount to the outright, plutocratic purchase of politicians. He’s long been a campaign donor in order to
secure political favors, he confesses, and it works: “When I need something
from them … they are there for me.” There’s a word for that: Corruption.
But now, here
comes the antidote to this corruption of our politics by fat cats. Instead of being financed by 400 special
interests, Bernie Sanders’ campaign has raised its $15 million (as of July)
from over 400,000 ordinary Americans. In
fact, the average donation to Bernie is a heartwarming, soul-saving $31.30!
You can’t buy
a president for just over 30 bucks — but you can help elect one who isn’t owned
by Big Money.
And, isn’t
that the way democracy ought to be?
~~~
Senator Bernie Sanders
for
President.
Dear Floyd,
Back when I was in the U.S.
House, I was the first member of Congress to take constituents across the
border to Canada to
highlight the huge disparity between the cost of prescription drugs in the U.S.
On that first trip were a number of women struggling with breast
cancer.
I will never forget the tears in the eyes of women who were able
to buy the breast cancer drug tamoxifen in Canada at one tenth of the price
they were paying for that drug in the U.S.
In 2014, the pharmaceutical industry spent over $250 million on
lobbying and campaign contributions -- far more than any other industry in America
The time has come to say very loudly and very clearly that enough
is enough. The
greed of the pharmaceutical industry is killing Americans. It has got to stop.
Last year, 35 million Americans could not get their prescriptions
filled because they could not afford it.
People should not have to go
without the medication they need just because their elected officials aren’t
willing to challenge the drug and health care industry lobby. Yet that is exactly what is happening.
I have a plan to change this. Last week I introduced a bill in the Senate —
and when I am president, I will work to make it law — that will stop the
soaring costs of prescription drug prices.
My plan to reduce prescription drug prices is based around
getting a better deal for the American people, and keeping drug companies in
check over outrageous and unfair practices.
Medicare should negotiate
lower drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry. Due to a provision in law written by the
pharmaceutical industry, Medicare is banned from using its purchasing power to
lower prescription drug prices. My plan will empower Medicare to negotiate
lower costs for our seniors, and save us all money.
Americans should be able to
import drugs from Canada
We need better transparency
around drug costs. Right now, the
pharmaceutical industry can arbitrarily set prices for drugs, and the public
has very little insight into why certain drugs cost what they do — even though
some of the research costs are often funded with U.S. taxpayer dollars. I believe that drug companies should tell us
about how much drugs cost to research and develop, how much taxpayer money went
towards those costs, what drugs actually cost in the United States, and how
much they cost in other countries.
Generic drugs should be widely
available, and drug companies shouldn't be able to pay off competitors to keep
cheaper drugs off the market. Brand-name drugs
cost, on average, 10 times as much as generics. Right now, it is a common
practice for big drug companies to pay their competitors to restrict generic
drugs from the public. We need to ban
this practice, and make cheaper drugs readily available.
Drug companies that break the
law should face severe penalties. If any drug company
is convicted of criminal or civil fraud, they should face severe penalties
including the prospect of losing their government-granted monopoly on a drug. Over the last decade, most major-branded drug
makers have either settled or been convicted of fraud for violations including
off-label promotion, kickbacks, anti-monopoly practices, and Medicare fraud. It's time to step up the penalties for
breaking the law.
What good is it to live in the richest country on earth, if so
many of our people cannot afford medications that could save their lives?
The American people are sick and tired of paying the highest
prices for prescription drugs in the world. The skyrocketing prices of prescription drugs
are an example of the greed of the pharmaceutical companies that has to stop.
Now, I believe that the true solution is a national health care
system that puts people ahead of profits and health ahead of special interests,
and I will soon introduce legislation to provide a Medicare-for-all,
single-payer system to provide health care for all Americans.
But we must also address these outrageous costs of prescription
drugs, and my plan that I outlined here will do that.
Thank you for all you do.
In solidarity,
Bernie Sanders
~~~
Mon Aug 31, 2015
FROM
Floyd:
Seldom do you see me including something
about the Republicans, but I found this one very interesting. There is one observation in this article that
I think is right on target, not that there aren't some others too.
However, my wife, wanted me to run for
office once and she said "Tell them what they want to hear and then do
what you want after you get in."
Actually, needless to say, I never ran for any office. I couldn't do that. I think that is exactly what Trump is doing
and it is working. I don't think he has
the slights intention of doing things that he is spouting about now. It is the Democrats that need to be concerned
about him, not the Republicans.
~
Man, this is just hilarious.
For years, Republicans
have run for office on promises of cutting
taxes and bolstering business to stimulate economic growth,
pledging allegiance to a Reaganesque
model of conservatism that has largely become the party’s
orthodoxy.
But now the entire
rationale for the Republican Party's existence is being ripped out by the roots
by the fearsome Trumpenstein, leaving them scrambling to explain to their
ultrawealthy donors why their undisputed frontrunner is advocating levying
higher taxes on them:
In recent weeks, Mr.
Trump has threatened to impose
tariffs on American companies that put their factories in other
countries. He has threatened to increase taxes on the compensation of hedge fund
managers. And he has vowed to change laws that allow American companies to benefit from cheaper
tax rates by using mergers to base their operations outside the
United States
This was certainly not
the way the Club For Growth expected things to be playing out as the primary
season kicks in to high gear:
Alarmed that those ideas might catch on with some of Mr. Trump’s Republican
rivals — as his immigration policies have — the Club for Growth, an anti-tax
think tank, is pulling together a team of economists to scrutinize his
proposals and calculate the economic impact if he is elected.
The irony of having
their nominee rise to prominence on the anti-immigrant hatred they would
normally exploit to keep their short-sighted base pulling the "R"
lever while the corporations behind the GOP curtain continue to reap more and
more tax breaks, only to see the same nominee turn around and start snapping
back at them, must be disconcerting, to say the least. The Times
quotes an American Enterprise Institute mouthpiece for the hedge fund industry who concurs, with a masterful degree of
understatement:
“Those aren’t the types of things a typical Republican candidate would say,” said Michael R.
Strain, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, referring
to the candidate’s comments on hedge funds, support for entitlement spending
and the imposing of trade tariffs. “A lot of these things are not things that
businesses would be happy about.”
Ya think?
The corporations
who speak through and fund the Club For Growth and the American Enterprise
Institute have bet big--to the tune of billions of dollars--on buying this
election. They stand to make enormous
profits in a Republican Administration that would turn their
"loopholes" in the tax code into gaping openings for unchecked,
untaxed profits to sail through. That is the entire reason the Republican
Party exists in the first place--it has nothing to do with immigration. That is the simply the red cape they wave to
infuriate the angry charging beast that makes up the GOP base.
The people who
run the Republican Party care as little about undocumented immigrants as they
do about abortion--in fact, they thrive on the cheap labor undocumented immigrants
provide.1 These shiny-object social issues are a means to an end, nothing more.
And that end is now being threatened,
big time. Even the hedge fund managers are reduced to pleading their
cause:
Anthony Scaramucci, a
managing partner of SkyBridge Capital who supports Gov. Scott Walker of
Wisconsin in the Republican presidential race, visited Mr. Trump last week to complain about the way he was talking about
hedge fund managers. Still
frustrated, Mr. Scaramucci took to Twitter over the weekend to say that Mr.
Trump is “misinformed” about the industry and that he and most of his
colleagues pay the highest marginal tax rate.
Weep for them. The Times
quotes another hedge fund master-of-the-Universe type who darkly warns that if
Trump keeps this up, the hedge funds will have to all band together and create
a SuperPAC to back a candidate who'll tell "their side of the story."
Except they've already done that--it's
called the entire remaining GOP
field.
Some voices on the right recognize a big potential problem (beyond Trump himself) looming here, and are trying to quickly sketch up some kind of back-of-the-envelope plan to deal with it. Others try to console themselves by acknowledging the obvious--Trump is just saying whatever gets him the most clicks and eyeballs and has no plan or intent on following through with anything he says. They cite his one-minute flip-flopping on the concept of a flat tax, for example, as indicative of the fact that he doesn't have a clue what he's saying. And that's probably true. But when your standard-bearer is undercutting the very reason for your existence with pro-tax populist rhetoric, and the base is eating it up, it's going to be very hard to move that train back onto the rails if and when the GOP somehow finds a way to deactivate its monster.
Some voices on the right recognize a big potential problem (beyond Trump himself) looming here, and are trying to quickly sketch up some kind of back-of-the-envelope plan to deal with it. Others try to console themselves by acknowledging the obvious--Trump is just saying whatever gets him the most clicks and eyeballs and has no plan or intent on following through with anything he says. They cite his one-minute flip-flopping on the concept of a flat tax, for example, as indicative of the fact that he doesn't have a clue what he's saying. And that's probably true. But when your standard-bearer is undercutting the very reason for your existence with pro-tax populist rhetoric, and the base is eating it up, it's going to be very hard to move that train back onto the rails if and when the GOP somehow finds a way to deactivate its monster.
~~~
If the
good Lord is will and the creek don't rise, I'll talk with you again next
Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. I'll start
trying to get it out on Friday, but it just depends on what my body tells me as
to when I actually make it, but I am determined to make it. Good to talk with you again.
God Bless You All
&
God Bless the United States of America
Floyd.
By the way, my e-mail address has changed it is as follows. fabowman.1924@gmail.com
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