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For years I've been suggesting that Puerto Rico and DC should be states, 4 senators. At least 3 more House seats. Currently SSI is not available to PR because of a POTUS decision. cnbc.com/2022/04/21/sup…
Millions of PRs who receive SSI, who would rather live on the island, but currently live in the states. That SSI is portable. (436,000 …
For years I've been suggesting that Puerto Rico and DC should be states, 4 senators. At least 3 more House seats. Currently SSI is not available to PR because of a POTUS decision. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/21/supreme-court-decision-hurts-puerto-ricans-who-need-federal-benefits.html
Millions of PRs who receive SSI, who would rather live on the island, but currently live in the states. That SSI is portable. (436,000 people in Puerto Rico may potentially qualify for SSI).
What if they deployed themselves so that they could enable PR statehood?
DC is a reliable blue. PR more purple. Several of the Commonwealth governors have been Republican. Both, especially PR, should be granted statehood. End the colonialism.
The PR in the US diaspora are 75% Democratic.
Plus single issue voters. Here's what I posted elsewhere.
Marketing. Target the market. For many MAGATS Trump cost them money.
How many of Thom's readers are accountants? Lots of examples!
E.G. Truck drivers. I used to "among others" hear Surface Transportation Assistance Act whistleblowers. Trucker safety. Can document that Republicans are opposed. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/gop-industry-defeat-safety-rules-kept-tired-truckers-off-road
Some truckers also lost big because of the Trump tax "cuts." https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/04/trump-tax-bill-truckers-truck-drivers-deduction/
About 3.5 million drivers nationwide, making it the most common job in 29 states. All but three are Trump states. Eliminated a key exemption for dining and living expenses while on the road.
Also many truckers have "repetitive traumas" that could entitle them to benefits. Here's a typical fact pattern. Truckers have one of the most grueling and dangerous jobs across all industries—from days or weeks away from home, long driving hours, and intense physical and mental demands. So it’s not surprising that trucking injuries make up a huge percentage of workers’ compensation claims nationwide.
Occupational accidents involving truckers take various forms, causing an array of injuries that can negatively affect an injured truck driver’s life. The following are the most common South Florida trucker injuries drivers should be aware of:
Injuries from Falls
Aside from driving, you may have to climb onto elevated areas on the truck, use stairs and ladders, or deliver packages to upper floors in construction sites, warehouses, and buildings. You could slip and fall on stairs, ladders, unsecured openings, and even when entering and exiting your truck. Possible injuries can include broken bones, sprains, head trauma, and brain injuries, among others.
Repetitive Stress Injuries (RSIs)
Also known as repetitive trauma or strain injuries, these result from the repeated positioning or motions that you perform while working. These can also include overuse syndromes, repetitive motion disorders, and cumulative trauma disorders. RSIs typically affect soft tissues, including nerves, muscles, ligaments, and tendons. Common RSIs that truckers can develop include:
Bursitis
Carpal tunnel syndrome
Trigger finger
Tendinitis
Tennis elbow or epicondylitis
Ganglion cysts
Tenosynovitis
You might feel pain, tingling, numbness, weakness, and other sensations where you have a repetitive stress injury. Driving can lead to such injuries depending on how many hours you drive, how much rest you get, how you drive, and your posture while driving.
Struck Against or By Objects Injuries
Truck drivers know that opening cargo containers, lifting hitched trailers, and attaching trailers come with moving components or objects, such as winch bars, lift gates, pallet jacks, cartons, or boxes. Many drivers can get hurt while doing these tasks when they get struck against or by these things or loose cargo.
Musculoskeletal Injuries
Musculoskeletal injuries to the back, neck, and limbs can result from unloading and loading containers, cartons, boxes, bins, or tanks from trucks. They can also result from using loaders and dollies and while working on tires. In general, these are caused by overexertion, such as lifting heavy objects, but can also develop due to less strenuous movements, like climbing in and out of the truck.
In addition, musculoskeletal injuries are common among truckers because of the truck cab’s design, which can significantly impact your posture. Because the truck is your workspace, how you sit while driving for hours on end, how the mirrors are positioned, and how your body is positioned relative to the transmission, steering wheel, and other controls can have an impact on your musculoskeletal system.
Injuries from Truck Crashes
Truck crashes are among the most common causes of injuries for truckers. While truck crashes can be devastating when smaller vehicles are involved, truckers also get injured and killed in such accidents. In 2021 alone, 1008 truck occupants died in truck collisions, and many more were seriously injured. Injuries that truckers can suffer in collisions include fractured or crushed bones, traumatic brain injuries, facial and head injuries, severe lacerations and bruising, whiplash, internal organ damage, spinal cord injuries, burns, etc.
And hemorrhoids from sitting so much and stretching out the time between restroom breaks.
Although being screwed by Republicans. Truckers are conservative and by and large Trump Humpers. They sit in their cab s 6 to 8 hrs a day, listening to hate radio, and their minds are warped, trucking is not a job, which requires any kind of menta;l skills, definitely not a place to develop critical reasoning skills.
Progressive stations were bought out by Sinclair and Heartland, and now feature sports or hate radio.
Democracy's problem is that there are no progressive billionaires, because when they become millionaires, the only thing that they are concerned with is their own money, status, and power and thus perceive progressives, the supposed base of the Democratic party, as a threat to be extinguished, that they might have perpetual peace, to enjoy their ill gotten wealth and power
True, but if DNC knew what it were doing, as to truckers, they'd pierce through....
Speak to them individually, they get it...especially repetitive trauma.
Alas the DNC is run by a bunch of Troglydytes who live in the past, and can't change their ways and methodology, for doing so admits error, and people do not like admitting error. The belief is that if one is wrong about one thing, then they are wrong about everything, and besides rewriting the play book is time consuming tedious, and upsetting to the status quo.
I've said it before. The playbook of the DNC is to appease the Chamber of Commerce, PhRMA and AHIP, not to mention Bill Clinton's true love, international financial institutions, he praised them at least 21 times in his speeches, no wonder look who helped him get elected and took care of him after he left office.
The Democrats have a stable of old tired race horses, that pad around the paddock, acquiring what the party thinks are the necessary creds, like foreign service (our economy is global and dependent on foreign relations,trade, money exchange. As a result that put up old tired race horses like Hillary and Terry McAuliffe and are surprised when they lose elections.
The Republicans don't have a stable, they have a finger on the pulse of America, and the pulse is patriarchal, misoygnistic, anti LGBT racist and theocratic.Thus the rise of the Mike Johnson's and Donald J Trump, these people are the avatars of the Republican voter.
What progressives exist in the Democratic Party are anomalies, and represent districts which are safe, until they are Jerry Mandered, but the power in the Democratic party, like Nancy Pelosi and Rahm Emanuel, hate progressives, because progressives will raise taxes on the 10%, and it is the 10% that feed the DNC
I completely understand the apathy of minority groyps and even women, towards the Democratic Party, come electioneering they are very vocal, about equality,diversity, civil and human rights, but once elections are over, the promises are forgotten and ignoredd and it is business as usual, chasing petro dollars, PhRMA, AHIP, Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and today Big Tech.
However the constituents who have been used and neglected, haven't forgot and apathy sets in, even if it means electing their radical anemies to office. Humans have a penchant for cutting off the nose to spite the face. Ignore them, betray them and they have a burning desire to get even. The Democratic party has a problem, the needs and demands of it's base, and the needs and demands of it's donors.
Guess which has priority, no money or lots of money.
During the same interregnum in which a Democratic house, senate and executive (21 days) in wich they passed the Respect for Marriage Act, they could have passed an act that made Woman's health care, the law of the land, however too many Democrats knew that such a bill would be disadvantageous for their re election chances, and knew that gay marriage was no longer a major issue, and had been accepted (because people realized that it was not a threat to male domination, and female sovereignty is.
Keeping wages low, means keeping a positive return on investment high, and thus the Democrats talk labor, but do little about it when in power, on the contrary the likes of the Clinton's are anti labor, as Clinton's signing of NAFT and GAAT, created the swing states, which now determine the Presidential election.
Democrats always srambling for big bucks from the PTB, don't walk the talk, and people are catching on.
Want to take a stab at who profited from the bank bailout of Obama, and who ultimately profited from the Inflation Reduction Act, especially when many of the contracts wound up in global and even foreign corporations, and the reduction in the price of insulin only applies to Medicare, but not to the uninsured or private insurance.
Once again I am stuck with the choice of voting for pragmatic, spineless cowards, because the alternative Theocratic, white nationalist bigoted fascists are a threat I doubt I will survive.