For the most in-depth story on how this all came about, watch The Con. It just came out and It's available on Amazon as well as other sites. It a series of 5 episodes on the Mortgage Scam, with names of the enablers and the ones who fought against it. It's also the story of Addie Polk, a 90 year old black woman & widower, living in Akron Ohio. She shot herself dead when the police were coming to take her home in foreclosure. The home had been paid for and mortgage free for several years. Rather than becoming homeless after living in her home for 40 years, she shot herself in the chest. It's not over. It's the story of how we have NO ACCOUNTABILITY for any white collar criminals and why trump was elected. Thom, I hope you will begin to interview and discuss this crime against the people of the United States that is ongoing. 3 million American families lost their homes so far in this case of blatant fraud. My husband and I were one of them.
When it all started to unravel was when Al Gore chose not to fight in 2000 for the recount of the votes in Florida. The U.S. Supreme Court led by Scalia and Sandra Day O'Connor chose in favor of Bush in violation of the U.S. Constitution and Gore did nothing. Gore did get a nice payday reward from Google's owners but democracy took a hit from which it has not recovered. Bush chose Supreme Court justices and even when Obama was in office and should have selected a justice, he cowardly let the Mitch McConnell tell him he was not going to be able to do so. Obama had many options as the President of the USA but he rolled over without so much as a whimper. We have the same situation today with Biden's agenda being stopped by the Republicans and neoliberal members of the Democratic Party who do not want tax reform or money that will benefit all Americans and in particular workers and their families.
“We can have huge wealth in the hands of a relatively few people or we can have a democracy. But we can’t have both.” Supreme Court judge Louis Brandeis
We no longer have anything resembling a democracy in this country. If I was graduating from college today I would be researching which country to emigrate to and leave the USA behind. The situation is not salvageable.
It's safe to say that most Republicans could give a good goddamn about the example we are setting for the rest of the world. I know it's a hackneyed refrain; but think about it for a while, how really fcked up that is!
At the most critical time in human history when even basic survival on this badly damaged planet is called into question by the world's top climate scientists, when it has never been more urgent for Mother Earth's children to pull together to counteract the worst-case scenarios beginning to play out on all fronts -- the loss of key habitats and whole ecosystems, mass extinctions of numerous species reaching unbelievably critical levels, an unimaginably huge global problem dwarfing all others, even our propensity for endless war and cruelty -- THAT is the moment in history Republicans have chosen to actively refute the whole concept of democracy at its core! Of course it is.
Friends and foes the world over are watching this sad, stupid, sick political drama play out with horror and delight, respectively, in the biggest democracy that has ever existed. Foreboding is in the air. Like it or not, the "little people" of other nations simply cannot take their eyes off of us. They know how influential we are, for good or ill. The citizens of the world are literal hostages to the fickle whims of the citizens of America, which does not exactly inspire confidence, especially after four years of a psychopath in charge of the asylum.
The binary choice has never been more clear: We as a species will either "progress" toward a better future, or we will give in to the powerful reactionary forces closing in on all sides, threatening to drag humankind into oblivion. You can hear the drumroll.
At the astounding rate industrial exploitation is heating up the planet today, if we don't immediately stop degrading the atmosphere, the oceans, and the continents, or unless humans as the top predators go extinct altogether along with so many other species upon whom we depend, then we are without a doubt condemning future generations to a living hell.
Better hope reincarnation is not a thing ...nor all the bad karma, which in Western scientific terms is just predictable cause and effect.
You're seated at a bar and the person to your right says "Hey bud, the guy on your left is stealing your cash off the counter." And while you turn to confront the alleged thief, the seemingly good-natured stranger that alerted you to the issue takes the opportunity to pocket your money. When you turn back around he points to the now empty space beside your drink and says "See? I told you so.".
This is the story of our time. And this story is not intended to sow distrust between neighbors, it is meant to remind us that some of our metaphorical neighbors are not neighbors at all - they are hustlers with a commitment to nothing beyond the act of taking.
To think that people can be one issue voters and put everything at stake and vote republican, knowing the history of republicans always siding with corporate interests. Boggles my mind. “You can’t always get what you want, but you might sometimes get what you need” could be a motto of democrats. We need to hold their feet to the fire and get decent people in primaries. We are strapped with the system we have for now and every vote is critical in every election.
EVERYTHING is changing, but the grift. So if we are at a tipping point, let's get on with that too. Sometimes it takes a particularly egregious crime to get the laws changed. It took a psychopath in the White House to wake-up some all-too-content Americans. It took George Floyd to......well since the police reform talks broke down, we are yet to see what else will come from that travesty. At least people hit the streets all over the world.
We are the change. That is not trite. Each one teach one, and each woke one wake one. You do not have to tag me, Thom, I have known I am IT since I was 18 hanging with the activists. We are the conscience of this great nation.
I will say that many things in Europe are more expensive than here. When we would have workers come here to work they would buy clothes here because they were so expensive in Europe. Gas and Electricity are generally a lot more expensive in Europe. When I use to work in South Korea in the 90's I use to buy clothes and shoes because they were so cheap. Now I do not. In Korea when you look at available WIFI links it fills the phone. Many require no password because there are so many. South Korea is 52 million and is the size of Indiana, I can understand internet being cheaper in Europe. Homes and people are a lot closer together. Germany is 80 million and twice the size of Colorado. Colorado is 5 million. I live in a very rural neighborhood and we had to pay to get fiber installed. Nobody wanted to install it for free because of the distance between houses. Line of sight wireless worked for some but not all in a mountain area. The Fiber is cheaper than the wireless so we have about a 3 year payback. Traveling to Europe seems expensive to me.
For the most in-depth story on how this all came about, watch The Con. It just came out and It's available on Amazon as well as other sites. It a series of 5 episodes on the Mortgage Scam, with names of the enablers and the ones who fought against it. It's also the story of Addie Polk, a 90 year old black woman & widower, living in Akron Ohio. She shot herself dead when the police were coming to take her home in foreclosure. The home had been paid for and mortgage free for several years. Rather than becoming homeless after living in her home for 40 years, she shot herself in the chest. It's not over. It's the story of how we have NO ACCOUNTABILITY for any white collar criminals and why trump was elected. Thom, I hope you will begin to interview and discuss this crime against the people of the United States that is ongoing. 3 million American families lost their homes so far in this case of blatant fraud. My husband and I were one of them.
When it all started to unravel was when Al Gore chose not to fight in 2000 for the recount of the votes in Florida. The U.S. Supreme Court led by Scalia and Sandra Day O'Connor chose in favor of Bush in violation of the U.S. Constitution and Gore did nothing. Gore did get a nice payday reward from Google's owners but democracy took a hit from which it has not recovered. Bush chose Supreme Court justices and even when Obama was in office and should have selected a justice, he cowardly let the Mitch McConnell tell him he was not going to be able to do so. Obama had many options as the President of the USA but he rolled over without so much as a whimper. We have the same situation today with Biden's agenda being stopped by the Republicans and neoliberal members of the Democratic Party who do not want tax reform or money that will benefit all Americans and in particular workers and their families.
“We can have huge wealth in the hands of a relatively few people or we can have a democracy. But we can’t have both.” Supreme Court judge Louis Brandeis
We no longer have anything resembling a democracy in this country. If I was graduating from college today I would be researching which country to emigrate to and leave the USA behind. The situation is not salvageable.
It's safe to say that most Republicans could give a good goddamn about the example we are setting for the rest of the world. I know it's a hackneyed refrain; but think about it for a while, how really fcked up that is!
At the most critical time in human history when even basic survival on this badly damaged planet is called into question by the world's top climate scientists, when it has never been more urgent for Mother Earth's children to pull together to counteract the worst-case scenarios beginning to play out on all fronts -- the loss of key habitats and whole ecosystems, mass extinctions of numerous species reaching unbelievably critical levels, an unimaginably huge global problem dwarfing all others, even our propensity for endless war and cruelty -- THAT is the moment in history Republicans have chosen to actively refute the whole concept of democracy at its core! Of course it is.
Friends and foes the world over are watching this sad, stupid, sick political drama play out with horror and delight, respectively, in the biggest democracy that has ever existed. Foreboding is in the air. Like it or not, the "little people" of other nations simply cannot take their eyes off of us. They know how influential we are, for good or ill. The citizens of the world are literal hostages to the fickle whims of the citizens of America, which does not exactly inspire confidence, especially after four years of a psychopath in charge of the asylum.
The binary choice has never been more clear: We as a species will either "progress" toward a better future, or we will give in to the powerful reactionary forces closing in on all sides, threatening to drag humankind into oblivion. You can hear the drumroll.
At the astounding rate industrial exploitation is heating up the planet today, if we don't immediately stop degrading the atmosphere, the oceans, and the continents, or unless humans as the top predators go extinct altogether along with so many other species upon whom we depend, then we are without a doubt condemning future generations to a living hell.
Better hope reincarnation is not a thing ...nor all the bad karma, which in Western scientific terms is just predictable cause and effect.
You're seated at a bar and the person to your right says "Hey bud, the guy on your left is stealing your cash off the counter." And while you turn to confront the alleged thief, the seemingly good-natured stranger that alerted you to the issue takes the opportunity to pocket your money. When you turn back around he points to the now empty space beside your drink and says "See? I told you so.".
This is the story of our time. And this story is not intended to sow distrust between neighbors, it is meant to remind us that some of our metaphorical neighbors are not neighbors at all - they are hustlers with a commitment to nothing beyond the act of taking.
To think that people can be one issue voters and put everything at stake and vote republican, knowing the history of republicans always siding with corporate interests. Boggles my mind. “You can’t always get what you want, but you might sometimes get what you need” could be a motto of democrats. We need to hold their feet to the fire and get decent people in primaries. We are strapped with the system we have for now and every vote is critical in every election.
EVERYTHING is changing, but the grift. So if we are at a tipping point, let's get on with that too. Sometimes it takes a particularly egregious crime to get the laws changed. It took a psychopath in the White House to wake-up some all-too-content Americans. It took George Floyd to......well since the police reform talks broke down, we are yet to see what else will come from that travesty. At least people hit the streets all over the world.
We are the change. That is not trite. Each one teach one, and each woke one wake one. You do not have to tag me, Thom, I have known I am IT since I was 18 hanging with the activists. We are the conscience of this great nation.
I will say that many things in Europe are more expensive than here. When we would have workers come here to work they would buy clothes here because they were so expensive in Europe. Gas and Electricity are generally a lot more expensive in Europe. When I use to work in South Korea in the 90's I use to buy clothes and shoes because they were so cheap. Now I do not. In Korea when you look at available WIFI links it fills the phone. Many require no password because there are so many. South Korea is 52 million and is the size of Indiana, I can understand internet being cheaper in Europe. Homes and people are a lot closer together. Germany is 80 million and twice the size of Colorado. Colorado is 5 million. I live in a very rural neighborhood and we had to pay to get fiber installed. Nobody wanted to install it for free because of the distance between houses. Line of sight wireless worked for some but not all in a mountain area. The Fiber is cheaper than the wireless so we have about a 3 year payback. Traveling to Europe seems expensive to me.