Generals purchase a trillion dollar plot for America in the Graveyard of Empires

On Monday evening August 21^st, 2017 President Donald Trump looking like a hostage, made a stony speech to the American people regarding his generals taking over the war in Afghanistan.  It was the first major speech given since the removal of Donald Trump’s longest and most ardent supporter of the Trump Agenda, Steve Bannon.  The speech should have been entitled:   “Generals purchase a plot for America in the Graveyard of Empires.”

Trump, in a morose tone spoke about the huge debt of gratitude owed to our military families especially since 911.  It was evident how heavy his heart felt as he told those families they would be called upon once again to sacrifice their loved ones to that bottomless pit in Afghanistan. When Trump, with the enthusiasm of a hostage read off his prepared list of reasons why the decision to sacrifice more troops to the unwinnable war is crucial to American interests, it didn’t resonate.  

Reading from his script, President Trump said “our nation must seek “an honorable and enduring outcome worthy of the tremendous sacrifices.”  Really??  What outcome can possibly be worth the tremendous sacrifices already made?  Whose children will be the last to die in the war in Afghanistan, the children of those Americans who already died in Afghanistan?  But then that would be fine with the war profiteers.

Steve Bannon was the only one left putting the brakes on the Pentagon and State Department’s ravenous appetite for war.  With Bannon gone, The Intercept is reporting “The White House is now run entirely by Hucksters, Democrats and Generals.”  

Excerpt:

THE WHITE HOUSE IS NOW RUN ENTIRELY BY HUCKSTERS, DEMOCRATS, AND GENERALS

There is no one left in the White House who has any idea what they’re doing. At least nobody conservative.

President Donald Trump never tires of reminding audiences that he is not a politician, and he proves it on an hourly basis. He is by turns a nationalist, a populist, and a demagogue — but rarely acts as a traditional conservative.  With the far-right White House strategist Steve Bannon gone, the team left behind appears to be ill-equipped to maneuver the political challenges needed to turn the administration’s ambitious policy goals into successes…

Trump’s new chief of staff, John Kelly, is a retired general. His national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, is an active-duty general and the bane of Breitbart, the far-right website Bannon used to run…  Trump’s tepid 35 percent support, meanwhile, is concentrated among readers of Breitbart — which Bannon may return to. But no matter what Bannon does or says, his firing will be seen by some of his base as a betrayal of the cause, further eroding his support, leaving Trump further isolated.

As John Kelly’s opponents are dispatched one by one, a defenseless Trump may find himself among the targets. “Generals tend to suck at chief of staff, because the job is so political, but they tend to be good at getting a president to resign,” said one former senior Bush administration official.  Just ask Richard Nixon, or his chief of staff, retired General Al Haig.

That’s laughable, “Trump’s tepid 35 percent support is concentrated among readers of Breitbart.”  The media is so insular, so removed from the American people after 16 years of an unwinnable war, it’s as if they inhabit a different planet and speak a different language. 

No, America will not accept an escalation of the Afghanistan war based on “our nation must seek an honorable and enduring outcome worthy of the tremendous sacrifices that have been made”, especially the sacrifices of lives.”  The Generals are giddy with their new found money and power and they are on a spending spree.  From The Anti-Media:

Excerpt:

Trump’s Pentagon to Spend Nearly $500 Million on Gitmo Construction

On top of that, the Pentagon wants to spend $124 million to build a new barracks for prison troops, and another $100 million on a “migrant tent city,” which would come with housing for another 5,000 US ground troops.

The Gitmo facilities were described as falling apart years ago, though President Obama’s pretense of eventually closing the detention center outright had them holding off on upgrades. With Trump eager to fill the location back up, they are facing significant construction costs.

While President Trump is still trying to sort out exactly how to word his executive order, but the plan is clearly to expand the detention center at Guantanamo Bay and start throwing more detainees into the facility. The Pentagon’s planning ahead on picking up spending at the site…

The Pentagon envisions some $500 million in new spending, with roughly half set aside for a five-bed hospital, leading to criticism that THE PLAN COSTS $50 MILLION PER BED. Pentagon officials, however, warn that the old hospital is in serious risk of flat out collapsing.

Really?  You’re warning us that the old Gitmo is in “serious risk of flat out collapsing” and you want a billion dollars to build a new, and improved Gitmo.  Shit, bulldoze the disgusting reminder of the Bush torture chambers.  Talk about tearing down painful memorials.  Whatever prisoners you have evidence to try, put on trial and let the court settle it.  Put hardened criminals in American prisons.  We can take it, we’ve been doing this a long time.

Gee whiz with America $17.7 trillion in debt who’s going to pay for all that?  Our politicians spend for war like they are playing with Monopoly money.  They talk about raising “the debt ceiling” to pay for misadventures like the 16-year debacle in Afghanistan as if they are just placing bets at a craps table.  The change of Treasury Secretaries from one administration to the next is just Treasury passing the hymn book from Secretary to Secretary, no change of tune, second verse same as the first. 

We were warned about this during February, 2016 the last year of the Obama Administration.  From Sovereign Man:

Excerpt:

Here’s why (and how) the government will ‘borrow’ your retirement savings

According to financial research firm ICI, total retirement assets in the Land of the Free now exceed $23 trillion.  $7.3 trillion of that is held in Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs).  That’s an appetizing figure, especially for a government that just passed $19 trillion in debt and is in pressing need of new funding sources.

Even when you account for all federal assets (like national parks and aircraft carriers), the government’s “net financial position” according to its own accounting is negative $17.7 trillion.  And that number doesn’t include unfunded Social Security entitlements, which the government estimates is another $42 trillion.

The US national debt has increased by roughly $1 trillion annually OVER THE PAST SEVERAL YEARS.   The Federal Reserve has conjured an astonishing amount of MONEY OUT OF THIN AIR IN ORDER TO BUY A BIG CHUNK OF THAT DEBT.  But even the Fed has limitations.

The Federal Reserve prints up money out of thin air, the charges the U.S. taxpayers interest on those worthless securities to fund their debt.  Then when those funds are gone, congress allows the Treasury to crack into private and public pensions to fund their debt.  Then the Federal Reserve who’s practically insolvent, buys up the private and pension fund debt with their worthless Reserve Notes.  What a scam.

According to its own weekly financial statement, the Fed’s solvency is at precariously low levels (with a capital base of just 0.8% of assets).  And on a mark-to-market basis, the Fed is already insolvent. So it’s foolish to think they can continue to print money forever and bail out the government without consequence…  

But it’s just as foolish to expect them to continue bailing out America, especially when they have such large economic problems at home.  US taxpayers own the largest share of the debt, mostly through various trust funds of Social Security and Medicare.  But again, given the $42 trillion funding gap in these programs, it’s mathematically impossible for Social Security to continue funding the national debt.

Social Security is not supposed to fund the national debt.  Thanks to George W. Bush’s tax cuts, the entire burden of funding the government has shifted from the rich who make their money not by working, but basically gambling other people’s money, to the working poor.

This reality puts the US government in rough spot.

It’s not like government spending is going down anytime soon; it already takes nearly 100% of tax revenue just to pay mandatory entitlements like Social Security, and interest on the debt.  Plus the government itself estimates that the national debt will hit $30 trillion within ten years…

And if you think it’s inconceivable for the government to borrow your retirement savings, just consider the following:

1)   Borrowing retirement funds is becoming a popular tactic.

Forced loans have been a common tactic of bankrupt governments throughout history.

Plus there’s recent precedent all over the world; Hungary, France, Ireland, and Poland are among many governments that have resorted to ‘borrowing’ public and private pension funds.

2)   The US government has already done this with federal pension funds.

DURING THE MULTIPLE DEBT CEILING FIASCOS SINCE 2011, the Treasury Department resorted to “extraordinary measures” at least twice in order to continue funding the government.  What exactly were these extraordinary measures?  They dipped into federal retirement funds and borrowed what they needed to tide them over.

In fact, the debt ceiling debacles were only resolved because the Treasury Department had fully depleted available retirement funds.

3)   They’ve been paving the way to borrow your retirement savings for a long time.

Two years ago the government launched a new initiative to ‘help Americans save for retirement.’  It’s called MyRA. And the idea is for people to invest retirement savings ‘in the safety and security of US government bonds’.  Since then they’ve gone on a marketing offensive involving the President, Treasury Secretary, and other prominent politicians.

(Most recently Nancy Pelosi published an Op-Ed in the San Francisco Chronicle a few days ago promoting the program.)  They’ve also proposed a number of legislative reforms to ‘encourage’ American businesses to sign their employees up for MyRA.

Just last week, Congress introduced the “Making Your Retirement Accessible”, or MyRA Act, which would charge a penalty to employers whose workers don’t have a retirement account.  The proposed penalty is $100. Per worker. Per day.

Imagine a small business with, say, 10 employees who don’t have retirement accounts. The penalty to Uncle Sam would be a whopping $30,000 PER MONTH.  There’s a word for this. It’s called extortion.  Obviously when facing a $30,000 monthly penalty, an employer will pick the easiest option.

Given the absurd amount of government regulation on the rest of the financial industry, MyRA is the fastest choice.  This isn’t about fear or paranoia. It’s about facts.  And the reality is that the government in the Land of the Free is moving in the direction of borrowing more and more of your retirement savings.

If you still remain skeptical, remember that last year the government stole more from its citizens through Civil Asset Forfeiture than thieves in the private sector…  Or that just 45-days ago a new law went into effect authorizing the government to strip you of your passport if they believe in their sole discretion that you owe them too much tax.

No judge. No jury. No trial. They just confiscate your passport.  This is happening. It’s a reality that rational, thinking people should plan for.

You know, back in 2000 George W. Bush ran on privatization of Social Security and tax cuts for the rich.  He didn’t win the votes in congress on Social Security but he won big time with the help of Democrats to cut taxes on millionaires who, through those tax cuts are billionaires today. What they didn’t tell you is this:  after the controlled demolition of the Twin Towers on 9/11 and the huge financial cost to American workers, they passed the trillion dollar tax cuts for the rich.

In order to continue with the tax cuts for the rich and fund the unending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan plus all the other wars, congress came up with a funding parlor trick called “raising the debt ceiling.”  Congress allowed itself to borrow trillions from public and private pension funds to pay the bills that mounted up from the untaxable trillions in Derivatives trading, untaxable Wall Street profits and untaxable war profiteers. 

Each year as a trillion more was piled on the debt, congress would raise the “debt ceiling” without debate.  What they really were raising was the amount they would allow themselves to borrow from your pension/retirement/savings account.   From CNBC:

Excerpt: 

Mitch McConnell: 'Zero chance' US fails to raise the debt ceiling

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says there is "zero chance" the U.S. government will fail to raise the debt ceiling.  Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin wants Congress to lift the borrowing limit by the end of September.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday insisted the U.S. government will raise the debt ceiling and avoid defaulting on its debt.

"There is zero chance — no chance — we won't raise the debt ceiling. No chance," McConnell said at an event in Kentucky with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. "America's not going to default. And we'll get the job done in conjunction with the secretary of the Treasury."

Mnuchin has called for Congress to pass a bill to increase the borrowing limit by the end of September. By then, the Treasury will have exhausted its so-called extraordinary measures to continue its borrowing authority and risks defaulting on its debt.

So billionaire Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin will have exhausted his so-called “extraordinary measures” by September.  Remember what those extraordinary measures are?  Those extraordinary measures are stealing every last dollars from our retirement accounts and our pensions that was authorized the last time the debt ceiling was raised.  Now Mnuchin needs a new authorization lifting the amount he may steal from the nation’s retirement funds or the country will default on its debt.

DURING THE MULTIPLE DEBT CEILING FIASCOS SINCE 2011, the Treasury Department resorted to “extraordinary measures” at least twice in order to continue funding the government.  What exactly were these extraordinary measures?  They dipped into federal retirement funds and borrowed what they needed to tide them over.

In fact, the debt ceiling debacles were only resolved because the Treasury Department had fully depleted AVAILABLE retirement funds.

This is insane.  Why do the American people allow this heist to happen and then thank the politicians for “avoiding the fiscal cliff” by robbing us blind to pay for their wars and Wall Street’s untaxed profits.  And Mitch McConnell just matter-of-factly says “it’s a done deal.”  Everyone agrees. Well guess what Mitch, not everyone agrees, the people don’t. 

The Democratic Party has become a wing of the Republican Party.  But now, Donald Trump is threatening the raising of the debt limit if his Wall is not funded.   From Bloomberg:

Excerpt:

Trump Shutdown Threat Complicates Congress's Debt Ceiling Plans

President Donald Trump’s threats to shut down the government in October over border wall funding triggered concerns on Capitol Hill and could complicate Congress’s job of raising the debt ceiling…

Trump has made clear for months he wasn’t happy with the last bipartisan spending deal in May…   At the time, he tweeted that a "good" government shutdown may be needed…  House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters Wednesday that lawmakers aren’t interested in a government shutdown in October… 

Conservatives in the Republican Study Committee and House Freedom Caucus are pushing for deep cuts to entitlement tied to the debt ceiling which moderates in the party are not prepared to vote in favor of. That means Republicans will likely need to assemble a bipartisan vote that includes Democrats…

Bell said that in light of Trump’s stance, the Senate may choose a different path for the debt ceiling.  "A partial government shutdown prompted by failure to pass appropriations is one thing; a threatened default is in a different galaxy," he said. "While no one has a real plan that I can understand… 

Congress could also temporarily lift the debt ceiling…  “In a divided government when two parties were fighting in 2011, that was not an option,..” “In complete control government where leaders acknowledge that the debt ceiling has to be lifted, this is a viable option and why we are not too concerned…”

One solution may be to find a deal that allows both sides to claim victory. Congress could try to pass a portion of the $1.6 billion requested by Trump, or it could approve additional border security funding for other purposes…

So the Koch Brothers’ Freedom Caucus not only wants to raise the limit on how much the Treasury can “borrow” from the public and private pensions held in trust, no that’s not enough.  “The Conservatives in the Republican Study Committee and House Freedom Caucus are pushing for deep cuts to entitlement tied to the debt ceiling…  Get those a*& holes out of there.  The worst part is that members of the Freedom Caucus were brought into the Trump Administration by Mike Pence. 

What’s even more revolting than slashing entitlements as a sweetener to get more votes to “raise the debt limit” to fund escalation of the war in Afghanistan, is that everyone in Congress knows this is bullsh*t.  The war in Afghanistan isn’t ever going to end, it’s part of the Pentagon’s 20-year plan for war.  One of the very few honest congressman is speaking out is Thomas Massie of Kentucky.  From Free Thought Project:

Excerpt:

Brave Congressman Explains How US Keeps Afghan Heroin Trade Alive at Your Expense

Congressman Thomas Massie blows the lid off the US subsidized opium trade and taxpayer funds flowing into the hands of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

This week, President Donald Trump, just like his predecessor Obama, promised to continue the utterly corrupt failure of a brutal occupation that is Afghanistan—despite running on a campaign to end it. For decades, the United States has been subsidizing—to the tune of billions of US tax dollars—failed projects, infrastructure, military, police, and yes, even terrorism. Yet Afghanistan is worse off today than they were before the government lied to Americans, claiming they were responsible for 9/11 instead of Saudi Arabia.

In a recent speech on the state of the Afghanistan quagmire, Congressman Thomas Massie (R) KY, exposed some hard truths that very few people in Washington are courageous enough to address…

For years, Massie has pointed out that the US has blown billions of dollars on failed projects alone. As of last year, the number of failed projects totaled over 100 billion.  To put this number in perspective, the entire amount of money the United States allocates to spend on rebuilding America’s crumbling highways every year is less than half of what it’s blown on failed projects alone in Afghanistan.

In addition to $ trillion+ war, we've spent $113 billion rebuilding Afghan... that's 2x our own $50 billion annual federal highway spending!  Massie noted that hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on a hydroelectric damn that the US thought the Taliban would destroy.

However, they did not destroy it. Want to know why, Massie asked, “They get the electricity! We’re paying the light bill for the Taliban now.  They get 30 percent of the electricity in exchange for not blowing it up, or shooting the operators who are running the damn.”  US taxpayer dollars go to a hydroelectric dam in Afghanistan that provides 30% of its power to the Taliban. What's the goal in Afghanistan?

But it’s not just the wasted money giving terrorists electricity, THE US IS ALSO PROTECTING AND FUNDING THE DRUG TRADE.  Of that wasted $100 billion, $8 billion was spent failing to eradicate the Afghan opium trade. Not only did (the) this massive amount of money not stop the opium trade and production but it doubled it!

USA spent $8 billion to eradicate poppy in Afghanistan and they doubled annual production of poppy (opium). What's wrong with this picture?  Western profiteers are making a figurative killing off of heroin for the literal killing of people in Afghanistan…

The lunacy of continuing the occupation in Afghanistan, knowing the only ones who benefit from it are warlords, drug cartels, the CIA, terrorists, and the military industrial complex, is staggering.  Innocent people will die, your children’s children will be forever indebted to the Federal Reserve, and the global war machine—which knows no home country—will be empowered and expanded. For what?

“I had hoped the Afghanistan war would end soon, but now it’s inevitable that babies born during the war will be deploying to the war in 2019,” Massie said shortly after Trump’s speech Monday night.

President Trump, drain the swamp.  Your Administration has been overrun with military swamp monsters who know only war. You very somberly gave your obligatory Afghanistan speech on Monday, but by Tuesday you were ready for war.  You burst onto the stage on Phoenix and took on the Republican establishment full frontal.  From The Hill: 

Excerpt:

The Memo: Trump allies say he needs a GOP scalp

Republicans on Capitol Hill lament President Trump's aggressive behavior toward them, but some people in the president's orbit are urging him to up the ante even further.  They say that, far from making nice, Trump needs to instill fear so that lawmakers do not feel at liberty to thwart him.

“Most members of Congress are arrogant, and until a scalp is actually taken they are going to continue to be defiant,” longtime Trump friend Roger Stone told The Hill. “All he needs to do is punish one incumbent and I think you’d see a sea-change…”  Other Trump loyalists join Stone in arguing that the president should neither forgive nor forget…  

On Friday, Trump complained about the Senate’s filibuster rule, which has been a longtime vexation to him even as McConnell has indicated he has no interest in getting rid of it...  And the president took aim at Corker, who had publicly called his “stability” and “competence” into question…

Public Policy Polling, a Democratic-leaning firm, last month found only 30 percent of Republicans approving of McConnell’s job performance, while 46 percent disapproved. For Trump, 81 percent of Republicans approved and only 16 percent disapproved...

Stone argued that Trump is “far more popular and more influential with Republican primary voters than any members of Congress and any member of the United States Senate, and he has enormous leverage to go into party primaries.”

“It is of first importance that the military be subordinate to civilian government”

― John Rawls

On Monday evening August 21^st, 2017 a stoic President Donald Trump announced the Generals have taken over the Afghanistan War and would be sending more family’s children to serve as cannon fodder to keep the war profit gravy train running.  By Tuesday Trump was in his element.  Knowing the future lies not in the Party Elite but the people, Trump renewed his commitment to a fair and just America for all its people. 

While many hold out hope for the future under President Trump, the Deep State is fighting to control the President.  Right now the Generals have a bottomless wallet and their first purchase was a trillion dollar plot for America in the Graveyard of Empires”

By Patricia Baeten

Democrats, Republicans and media foment hatred demanding removal of Civil War monuments and rewriting of American history

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

― George Orwell, 1984

The Civil War monuments are a tribute to American’s ability to come together after a brutal civil war that pitted brother against brother, and forge peace through respect and understanding.  In other countries when there are civil wars, there are usually two factions and the winning faction enslaves or kills the losing faction.  But not in America, after that brutal Civil War the Generals were able to show respect for their counterparts.  Both sides had seen kids killed, brothers who killed brothers, families torn apart and a generation of Americans wiped out. 

They understood that the only way our country could be healed was to forge a respectful, inclusive country for all Americans, from the North and the South.  I can’t help but wonder what those Generals would say to each other if they were to hear the hatred today. If you start from a point of hatred what is your end goal?  Will you tear down each other’s monuments until there are no monuments, no heritage?  

Should we forget the lesson we learned from the civil war?  We learned after we fought against each other, “in the end we are one and we will defend ourselves as a country when threatened by anyone.”  Almost all Americans have ancestors who fought in the Civil War and not necessarily on the same side.  Do we canvass our neighborhoods to find out which side we are on? 

That is what this is really about, dividing the American people like they were divided during the Civil War.  I heard one person question “what kind of country allows monuments to the losing side?"  America that is what kind of country.  Do we want to re-fight the Civil War?  From Patrick Buchanan:

Excerpt:

America's Second Civil War

“They had found a leader, Robert E. Lee — and what a leader! … No military leader since Napoleon has aroused such enthusiastic devotion among troops as did Lee when he reviewed them on his horse Traveller.”  So wrote Samuel Eliot Morison in his magisterial “The Oxford History of the American People” in 1965.

First in his class at West Point, hero of the Mexican War, Lee was the man to whom President Lincoln turned to lead his army. But when Virginia seceded, Lee would not lift up his sword against his own people, and chose to defend his home state rather than wage war upon her…

Yet, on the militant left today, the name Lee evokes raw hatred and howls of “racist and traitor.” A clamor has arisen to have all statues of him and all Confederate soldiers and statesmen pulled down from their pedestals and put in museums or tossed onto trash piles.  What has changed since 1965?

It is not history. There have been no great new discoveries about Lee.  What has changed is America herself. She is not the same country. We have passed through a great social, cultural and moral revolution that has left us irretrievably divided on separate shores.

And the politicians are in panic.

Two years ago, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe called the giant statues of Lee and “Stonewall” Jackson on Richmond’s Monument Avenue “parts of our heritage.” After Charlottesville, New York-born-and-bred McAuliffe, entertaining higher ambitions, went full scalawag, demanding the statues be pulled down as “flashpoints for hatred, division, and violence.” 

Who hates the statues, Terry? Who’s going to cause the violence? Answer: The Democratic left whom Terry must now appease…  In Durham, North Carolina, our Taliban smashed the statue of a Confederate soldier. Near the entrance of Duke University Chapel, a statue of Lee has been defaced, the nose broken off.

Wednesday at dawn, Baltimore carried out a cultural cleansing by taking down statues of Lee and Maryland Chief Justice Roger Taney who wrote the Dred Scott decision and opposed Lincoln’s suspension of the right of habeas corpus. 

Like ISIS, which smashed the storied ruins of Palmyra, and the al-Qaida rebels who ravaged the fabled Saharan city of Timbuktu, the new barbarism has come to America. This is going to become a blazing issue, not only between but within the parties.

For there are 10 Confederates in Statuary Hall in the Capitol, among them Lee, Georgia’s Alexander Stephens, vice president to Jefferson Davis, and Davis himself. The Black Caucus wants them gone.

Mount Rushmore-sized carvings of Lee, Jackson and Davis are on Stone Mountain, Georgia. Are they to be blasted off?  There are countless universities, colleges and high schools like Washington & Lee named for Confederate statesmen and soldiers.

Across the Potomac from D.C. are Jefferson Davis Highway and Leesburg Pike to Leesburg itself, 25 miles north. Are all highways, streets, towns and counties named for Confederates to be renamed? What about Fort Bragg?  On every Civil War battlefield, there are monuments to the Southern fallen. Gettysburg has hundreds of memorials, statues and markers...

“Where does this all end?” President Trump asked.

America is in peril, there are dark, evil forces who are barraging us with messages of hatred and division.  Our politicians use the media to enforce those messages of hatred and division.  These forces do not want Americans to come together; if Americans come together we will not tolerate the economic slavery conditions levied against us by our politicians.  Our political elite class and their puppet masters are heavily invested in the ignorance of the American people.  From Fabius Maximus:

Excerpt:

Widespread ignorance bordering on idiocy is our new national goal….  The ideal citizen of a politically corrupt state, such as the one we now have, is a gullible dolt unable to tell truth from bullshit.  An educated, well-informed population, the kind that a functioning democracy requires, would be difficult to lie to, and could not be led by the nose by the various vested interests running amok in this country.

Most of our politicians and their political advisers and lobbyists would find themselves unemployed, and so would the gasbags who pass themselves off as our opinion makers…  For starters, there’s more money to be made from the ignorant than the enlightened, and deceiving Americans is one of the few growing home industries we still have in this country. A truly educated populace would be bad, both for politicians and for business.

It took years of indifference and stupidity to make us as ignorant as we are today…

If this lack of knowledge is the result of the years of dumbing down of high school curriculum and of families that don’t talk to their children about the past, there’s another more pernicious kind of ignorance we confront today. It is the product of years of ideological and political polarization and the deliberate effort by the most fanatical and intolerant parties in that conflict to manufacture more ignorance by lying about many aspects of our history and even our recent past…

No doubt, the Internet and cable television have allowed various political and corporate interests to spread disinformation on a scale that was not possible before, but to have it believed requires a badly educated population unaccustomed to verifying things they are being told. Where else on earth would a president who rescued big banks from bankruptcy with taxpayers’ money and allowed the rest of us to lose $12 trillion in investment, retirement, and home values be called a socialist?

In the past, if someone knew nothing and talked nonsense, no one paid any attention to him. No more. Now such people are courted and flattered by conservative politicians and ideologues as “Real Americans” defending their country against big government and educated liberal elites.

The press interviews them and reports their opinions seriously without pointing out the imbecility of what they believe. The hucksters, who manipulate them for the powerful financial interests, know that they can be made to believe anything, because, to the ignorant and the bigoted, lies always sound better than truth:

“Stupidity is sometimes the greatest of historical forces,” Sidney Hook said once. No doubt.

That excerpt was written in 2014, “and the deliberate effort by the most fanatical and intolerant parties in that conflict to manufacture more ignorance by lying about many aspects of our history and even our recent past” seems to be the template that is being used to sell hatred and division today.

The dark forces of evil want to perpetuate ignorance because if Americans were to realize that maybe the opposite side has a point and their point isn’t so different from ours, maybe we are not the enemy.  Maybe our government and the two parties are the enemy of a free people.  Dr. Carol Swain wrote about the growing phenomena of White Nationalism back in 2002.  She recently was a guest on Justice with Judge Janine Pirro.  From Bizpac.review:

Excerpt:

Black professor gets the difference between whites who are tired of being browbeaten and real racists

Liberals are blaming President Trump for the rise of white nationalism, but a black professor says the movement started mushrooming 15 years before Trump became president.

Attorney and political scientist Dr. Carol Swain of Vanderbilt University predicted the rise of white nationalism in her 2002 book, “The New White Nationalism in America…  Dr. Swain underscored that white nationalism is different from the racist white supremacy movement, even though the left-wing media and liberals purposely conflate the two.

“I distinguish it from white supremacy because the people who were involved [in the white nationalism movement] were more intellectual,” said Swain, a graduate of Yale Law School. “They were not espousing racial violence or using epithets, but they had grievances. They felt that white people’s rights were being trampled on and no one was speaking up or listening to their grievances…”

Swain said the white nationalism movement took off — long before Trump took office — because whites were being marginalized and disenfranchised after decades of affirmative action and other government programs designed to benefit minorities. 

Adding to the disgruntlement is the constant browbeating by academia and the media — which are 97% liberal — calling ALL white people racist and claiming they have no right to complain about anything because they have “white privilege.” Look around you: There are plenty of poor, underprivileged whites…

This kind of anti-white rhetoric is being embraced by the left.  Dr. Swain said she first started noticing the growing white nationalism movement in 2000…  “At the time, when [whites] were stressing about the racial double standards, I saw the potential for the argument to resonate among young people,” she recalled. “The white community has its own problems. I knew the movement would grow unless we started addressing the issues.”

Swain said we all collectively need to tone down the racial identity politics and racist rhetoric and work together to improve race relations. “We need honest conversations, dialogue where people are listening to one another,” she said.

The last thing the politicians and the media want is for everyone to “collectively tone down the racial identity politics and for the people to work together to improve race relations.”  No, they want to continue to stoke hatred and blame President Trump.  They want to crucify Trump for his comments made after the violence in Charlottesville.  The media and the two parties are enraged that Trump had the audacity to refuse to take this opportunity the further stoke the flames of hatred and division.  From LaRouche Pac:

Excerpt:

London, U.S. Media Back the Antifa for Race Riots

Aug. 18, 2017 (EIRNS)—British and American media too numerous to count are backing and encouraging demonstrations of violent American "antifa" groups against President Trump, just three months after antifa rioters trashed sections of Hamburg and wounded hundreds of police during the G20 meetings.

The British intelligence intention of forcing Trump out of the White House remains constant since before his inauguration; but the "Russiagate" scheme has taken some sharp blows, from LaRouche PAC’s mass mobilization around the Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity report proving there was no Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee.

The British intelligence/George Soros-run operations have returned to the model of their "immigration" anti-Trump demonstrations of last Winter, but now with far more violence. 

In the Republican Party, "Blimps" (British Liberal imperialists) have been coming out against the President: Sen. Robert Corker said he was neither "stable" nor "competent"; losing candidates Mitt Romney, Lindsay Graham and Marco Rubio demanded he apologize for condemning antifa violence along with "white supremacist" violence.

Among Democratic elected officials, hysteria again reigns, with Rep. Steven Cohen of Tennessee putting up an impeachment resolution, one state senator advocating Trump’s assassination, losing Wisconsin candidate Russ Feingold agitating for mass resignations from all government bodies, etc.

Mass "protests" this Saturday in Washington, D.C. and Boston again involve violent antifa groups, against only a small "white nationalist" countergang in Boston and only Confederate statues in Washington.

President Trump’s warning of Aug. 16 is being confirmed, as monuments to Abraham Lincoln have been defaced in Washington, D.C., and burned and partly destroyed in Chicago. The Los Angeles Times on Aug. 15 ran "Who was responsible for the violence in Charlottesville?

Here’s what witnesses say," quoting more than a dozen witnesses completely confirming the President’s characterization of armed violence initiated by both sides, and more often by the antifa groups. Even witnesses quoted from antifa groups confirmed their own aggressive armed violence, along with that of the FBI-controlled "white supremacists..."

The Guardian printed a long political analysis, "The President of the United States is Now a Nazi Sympathizer," by columnist Richard Wolffe… London bookies are quoting up to 60% odds of Trump’s impeachment, indicating the bets Brits are making on this…

Funny thing, I don’t believe the Guardian’s Richard Wolffe criticized President Barack Obama as a “Nazi Sympathizer” when his administration financially backed the Nazi’s violent demonstration in Maidan Square, Ukraine when the elected president was driven out of office with a death threat over his head.  From RussiaToday:

Excerpt:

Far-right in US & Ukraine – same problem, different approach among politicians and media

While the recent surge in far-right violence in the US bears a striking resemblance to the situation in post-Maidan Ukraine, it gets strikingly different coverage in the MSM and entirely different reactions from Western politicians.

The ‘Unite the Right’ rally, which was held in Charlottesville, Virginia on Friday night and Saturday, attracted all sorts of far-right activists protesting the city’s plans to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from a local park.  The removal of the monument was approved in April, but the process was stalled due to multiple lawsuits.

Demonstrators at the march carried tiki torches, chanted Nazi slogans, including “Sieg Heil” and “Blood and Soil,” gave Nazi salutes, and carried various symbols associated with Nazi Germany, such as swastikas, black suns, and runes… 

The neo-Nazi torchlight processions which are frequently held in post-Maidan Ukraine, however, have received vastly different coverage in the Western media – though more often than not, they are completely ignored.  Ukrainian far-right activists hold marches each year on January 1, marking the birthday of WWII-era Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, who is hailed by many as a national hero.

A 2015 march, for example, received some coverage in the western media, but the neo-Nazi elements of the event were entirely watered down.  The far-right marchers in Ukraine were described in neutral terms: “nationalists” who chanted “patriotic” slogans, and carried torches and “red and black nationalist flags…”

Other neo-Nazi symbols in the Kiev march also managed to elude mainstream media coverage.  While the article admits that Bandera “was the ideological patron of resistance fighters who fought alongside invading German forces during World War II,” it also describes him as an “anti-Soviet insurgent branded by Moscow as a Nazi collaborator…”

Interesting, are the world leaders demanding that Neo-Nazi Bandera be condemned and Nazi marches in his honor be banned from the public square in Kiev?  From Veterans Today:

Excerpt:

All statues of Lenin pulled down across Ukraine

This destruction of historical monuments, regardless of whether they are of Judeo-Zionist Bolshevik mass murderer Lenin or anyone else, should be bitterly opposed as it is part of a crass attempt to wipe the collective memory of a nation. The same thing has already happened in Poland where over 2,000 Communist-era monuments have been removed…

Of course, the Ukrainian government is not carrying out this destruction for any reasons that benefit the people of Ukraine, rather, they are trying to strengthen the hatred of Russia and all things Russian in the minds of the Ukrainian sheeple. Rather than correctly identifying Lenin as a Judeo-Zionist and willing tool of the banking elite, they are falsely associating Lenin with Russia and using the images of Lenin as a convenient proxy for Russia – destroy the hated Lenin, he was a Russian don’t you know?

No statues of the former Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin have been left across Ukraine…  “A total of 2,389 monuments have been pulled down, including 1,320 statues of Lenin. As far as we know, there are no more (statues of) Lenin in the cities – on the territory controlled by Ukraine…”

Interesting, in Ukraine where the U.S. installed Ukrainian government is carrying out the destruction of monuments of Ukrainian heritage, not for the benefit of the people of Ukraine, but rather to strengthen the hatred of Russia.  By falsely associating Lenin with Russia, they bury the truth that Lenin was a Judeo-Zionist tool of the banking elite, just like America’s politicians today.

Our government along with the media are incensed that the American people elected Donald Trump, the antithesis of the globalists.  It appears that the politicians and media have decided to destroy President Trump by destroying America’s heritage.  First they must turn Confederate Generals and soldiers into Nazi’s just like the US is falsely linking Lenin to Russia a ploy to incite hatred and division.

Is this the new American heritage our politicians and media are creating?  No heritage, no past, no future. The only heritage the media and politicians want to leave the American people is the heritage of the present.  A future taken right from George Orwell.

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

― George Orwell, 1984

By Patricia Baeten

Congress and media stoke racial hatred as Trump disbands Deep States’ Alliance for American Manufacturing

“When the people fear the government there is tyranny, when the government fears the people there is liberty.”

How is it that a congress with only 10% approval rating from the people but has no fear of the people.  Is it because through legislation passed by this congress ensures that the people have no say about the outcome of elections?  After the passage of Citizens United which wrested the right to elect our leaders from the hands of the people and placed the power into the hands of special interests and billionaires, government no longer fears the people.

The American people have no power and suffer greatly from the actions of the treacherous congress.  Members of congress and the CIA controlled media are engaged in “divide and conquer” in America in order to preserve their power and wealth at the expense of the American people.  These are the same tactics we have seen most recently in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Rwanda.  Divide and conquer, capitalize on the peoples differences and choose one side over the other to stoke racial hatred and division. 

The “Never Trump” faction brought into the White House by Mike Pence with the consent of our treacherous congress is now demanding Trump be impeached for his speaking the truth about the alt-Right and alt-Left outbreak of violence in Charlottesville over the weekend.  Members of Pence’s “Alliance for American Manufacturing” who represent capitalist America who has crushed the American worker, are resigning from the council in protest to Trump’s “insensitivity.”

CEOs to Trump: 'We quit'

“Several CEOs and business leaders — the heads of Merck, Intel, Under Armour, the AFL-CIO, and the Alliance for American Manufacturing — have stepped down from President Trump's advisory councils following his initial remarks about violent protests in Charlottesville, Va. Now Wal-Mart CEO Doug McMillon has criticized the president, saying he "missed a critical opportunity to help bring our country together," but that he'll stay on the council. • Will there be more CEOs backing away from Trump?

The CEO’s on the council, who were selected by VP Mike Pence in order to continue the Deep State’s war on American workers now jump ship.  After President Trump failed to side with one over the other after the violent outbreak that resulted when properly permitted protesters were attacked by likely paid non-permitted violent protesters.  Comically Wal-Mart CEO Doug McMillon said “he missed a critical opportunity to help bring our country together,” but he’ll stay on the council.  Not likely he’ll miss the opportunity to keep his snout in the trough.

Wal-Mart CEO Doug McMillon:

What a profile in courage.  Wal-Mart whose slave wages cannot sustain a family and whose own workers can’t even afford to shop at Wal-Mart, relies on government handouts to maintain the gross profits that make the Walton Family some of the richest in the world.  From Zero Hedge:

Excerpt:

WalMart "Absolutely Shafted" Washington DC; Here's How

It’s been nearly a year since a grinning Doug McMillon recorded a video message to the world in which he explained that WalMart was set to raise the minimum wage for its lowest paid employees.  After all, McMillon said, “it’s our people that make the difference.”  11 months later, those “people” (the lowly shelf stockers and cashiers) aren’t materially better off than they were before, because handing someone $10/hour instead of $9 is such a small concession that you might as well have done nothing. In other words, $10 is no more of a “living wage” than $9 is…

First WalMart tried squeezing the supply chain by asking vendors to pass along savings to Bentonville and by charging a variety of storage fees. When that didn’t work, the company started firing people and cutting hours…

Some of the cuts came at the home office in Bentonville, meaning that the move to put a few extra pennies in the pockets of hourly workers resulted in the loss of hundreds of breadwinner jobs…  Earlier this month WalMart doubled down on the wage hike debacle by promising to raise wages for employees higher up the corporate ladder… The retailer announced the new wave of raises just days after saying it would close 269 stores and fire 16,000 people…

"The nation’s capital is now losing about 700 jobs a year at restaurants, hotels and other leisure and hospitality sector venues, a sharp reversal from the gain of 2,000 such jobs per year the city was enjoying before it hiked the minimum wage by 27%, first from $8.25 to $9.50 an hour in July 2014 and then to $10.50 in July 2015." Here's more:

Now, as D.C. employers brace for yet-another minimum-wage hike to $11.50 set for this coming July, Wal-Mart has called off two of the city’s most-prized retail developments.

Wal-Mart said it would close 154 stores in the U.S., mostly small-format locations. But even as the nation’s biggest retailer said it would keep opening supercenters, including 50 to 60 in the coming year, it told District officials that it won’t go forward with plans for two huge stores that were expected to create hundreds of new jobs in ONE OF THE CITY’S POORER SECTIONS.

What some hollow words from Wal-Mart CEO Doug McMillon in his criticism of President Trump, “he missed a critical opportunity to help bring our country together.”  What a joke, President Trump being schooled by Wal-Mart CEO Doug McMillon on how to bring the country together. 

Merck CEO Ken Frazier:

Ken Frazier, CEO of Merck a Big Pharma company responsible for thousands of deaths was first to resign.  From Natural News:

Excerpt:

Memo to Merck CEO Ken Frazier: Your company has easily killed 100,000 times the number of those killed in Charlottesville violence

In case you haven’t heard, Merck CEO Ken Frazier resigned from President Trump’s manufacturing council, blaming Trump for the violence in Charlottesville that killed one protester and two police officers (whose helicopter fell out of the sky for yet-unknown reasons).

Yet Ken Frazier himself should be arrested and imprisoned for carrying out mass chemical violence against all Americans through the fraudulent sales of toxic, deadly prescription pharmaceuticals and vaccines manufactured and sold by Merck on a daily basis. Nearly all of Merck’s drugs are “approved” by the FDA through an utterly fraudulent process of fake science, cherry-picked clinical trials and regulatory corruption and fraud.

Remember, Merck is the same company whose own virologists filed a False Claims Act with the federal government, explaining they were ordered by Merck management to fake vaccine trial results in order to “trick” the FDA. Merck’s entire mumps vaccine operation is a complete and total fraud…

Merck is to medicine, in other words, what Monsanto is to the food industry: They’re both steeped in evil, scientific fraud and deep deception.  The number of deaths in Charlottesville absolutely pales in comparison to the number of Americans killed each year by Merck and other pharmaceutical giants. As PharmaDeathClock.com documents in real time, chemotherapy drugs have killed 17.6 million people since the year 2000. SSRI drugs have killed over 700,000 people, and the generic category of “prescription drugs” shows at least 400,000 deaths.

Merck’s share of these deaths is substantial. So why aren’t millions of Americans marching in the streets to demand Ken Frazier’s scalp? (The answer, of course, is that public outrage is entirely manipulated by George Soros and the mainstream media to be directed at their political targets. It has nothing at all to do with the truth about which corporations or people are actually doing the most killing of innocents…)

Merck is also heavily involved in profiting off the opioid addiction epidemic that’s now ravaging America while generating record profits for companies like Merck. If anyone is committing mass violence against America, it’s people like Merck CEO Ken Frazier, a person who belongs behind bars for his continued sacrificing of human beings for corporate profits. The violence in Charlottesville is nothing at all compared to the violence carried out by Merck’s vaccine division alone, not to mention its other drugs.

Disgusting, what a profile in courage on the part of Merck’s Ken Frazier.  Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Intel's CEO Brian Krzanich

Intel’s CEO Brian Krzanich joined the cadre of clowns to jump out of the “Alliance for American Manufacturing” clown car stating "Earlier today, I tendered my resignation from the American Manufacturing Council. I resigned to call attention to the serious harm our divided political climate is causing to critical issues, including the serious need to address the decline of American manufacturing.”  Bleech.  Oh please, can someone hand me a Wal-Mart barf bag.  From Breitbart:

Excerpt:

Intel Lays Off 12,000 After Seeking Visas to Import 14,523 Foreign Professionals Since 2010

Technology giant Intel announced April 19 it will fire 12,000 skilled U.S.-based professionals — after already swelling its workforce with 14,523 requests in Washington D.C. since 2010 for visas to import foreign professionals through the controversial H-1B and Green Card programs.

The company said the layoffs were part of a restructuring plan to help shift its focus from desktop PCs to mobile devices. But the company is very profitable, and first-quarter 2016 profits were 14 percent above predictions. 

Amid the layoffs, Intel is one of the nation’s largest users of the H-1B outsourcing program which allows companies such as Disney and Abbot Laboratories to replace white-collar American professionals with cheaper professionals from India, China, and other countries.

Intel has insisted that it cannot find enough skilled American workers to fill its needs. From 2010 to 2015, it filed requests for up to 8,351 H-1B visas, plus 5,172 applications for permanent Green Cards for its foreign employees, according to MyVisasJobs.com. That data shows the company sought to hire 14,523 foreign professionals instead of many Americans eager to work at Intel.

So long, farewell auf wiedersehen, adieu.  Those words are too kind for a parasite like Brian Krzanich.  What the hell kind of council is “Alliance for American Manufacturing.” It sounds like a group organized by the Deep State to kill of what few good paying American jobs remain.

Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank

Under Armour CEO Kevin Plan resigned from Trump’s “Alliance for American Manufacturing” saying “Under Armour engages in innovation and sports, not politics" Plank said in a statement. He said he would "continue to focus my efforts on inspiring every person that they can do anything through the power of sport which promotes unity, diversity and inclusion."  Oh, what noble words.  But those words don’t apply to Under Armour whose sweat shirts are made in foreign sweat shops.  From Baltimore Sun:

Excerpt:

For Under Armour, why not 'UA Made in the USA'?

Wondering why Under Armour couldn't make some products in U.S.

When I consider what Kevin Plank, the CEO of Under Armour, has going on — running a global sports apparel company that broke $3 billion in sales last year; developing a new hotel in Fells Point across the harbor from UA's Baltimore HQ; rolling out a sparkling vision for the redevelopment of Port Covington, including a whiskey distillery; raising thoroughbred racehorses on historic Sagamore Farm — all I can say is: Whew!

Plank has proven to be a smart businessman and a good citizen of Baltimore and Maryland.  The only thing that seems to be missing from Plank's big plans is a factory that would put his fellow Marylanders to work making some of the products Under Armour sells around the world…

But why couldn't Under Armour stitch together some of its products here — in a Maryland city or town, where jobs are needed — and market them as "UA Made in the USA"?  Doesn't that declaration have cachet with its young, hip and fit customer base?

Would the men and women who already like and buy UA products pay a few bucks more for clothing manufactured at Port Covington, or on the Eastern Shore or, say, near Cumberland in Allegany County?

 Is Under Armour the NCAA's new cinderella team?

Under Armour is making waves in NCAA basketball, aiming for Nike's crown in the sneaker and apparel wars…  Sam Poser, an expert analyst of the sports apparel and shoes trade for the Sterne Agee investment group, said in a telephone interview that, if Under Armour could maintain quality and still make money, domestic manufacturing might be a possibility.

Product quality, he said, is vital to the UA brand, and product quality is tied to manufacturing costs. And cheap labor makes product quality sustainable…  But it seems that, if Under Armour were to make a choice to have a limited manufacturing operation here, it could save other costs, starting with shipping…

Products made in the U.S. are likely have a smaller carbon footprint. Most importantly, they would provide jobs for people in a city or county where the unemployment usually runs higher than Maryland's statewide rate.

Recently, Under Armour tried to woo NBA All-Star Kevin Durant to endorse UA's basketball shoes over Nike's. Plank's company offered Durant $280 million over 10 years. Durant still went with Nike, but clearly, as it surpasses Adidas and gains a bigger piece of the athletic footwear and apparel market, Under Armour has money to invest.

Maybe the company could invest some of it in American manufacturing.

"Imagine if they took $280 million that they were going to pay Kevin Durant and used that to pay U.S. workers," David Scharff, a Baltimore physician, wrote me in an email after I suggested in a recent column that Under Armour get into manufacturing at home. "How many Baltimoreans could they employ with $28 million a year? Two-hundred-and-eighty workers making $100,000 (pay, 401k, health benefits). What would it be worth in marketing value? What advantage over Nike would that be in the marketplace?"

It certainly seems like a way to differentiate a product line: "UA Made in the USA."

Thank God and Greyhounds he’s gone.  Can you imagine what Kevin Plant brought to the table of the “Alliance for American Manufacturing?”

Scott N. Paul former lobbyist for AFL-CIO and leader of AFL-CIO Richard Trumpka

The latest Rats to abandon the Pence selected ship of rats a/k/a “Alliance for American Manufacturing” council are Scott N. Paul and Richard Trumpka.  I have chosen to couple these two rats as they are both longtime Democratic tools who have failed America’s trade unions while enriching themselves.  Paul, feigning indignation stated “I’m resigning from the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative because it's the right thing for me to do” while Trumpka said he was “stepping down from Trump’s manufacturing council “effective immediately.”  Good riddance.  From Black Agenda Report:

Excerpt:

Freedom Rider: The Defeat of American Workers

    

American workers have been completely crushed by capitalism. That is the goal of the capitalists after all but working people in this country have fallen further and faster because they are without any political friends and because they declare allegiance to a compromised political party.

The evidence can be seen in the vote against union representation at the Renault-Nissan plant in Canton, Mississippi. Additional proof of the assault can be seen in the decision by the state of Wisconsin to promise electronics giant Foxconn $3 billion in subsidies to create 3,000 jobs.

Foreign auto makers and other industries have been building plants in southern states for many years. That region of the United States is the modern day embodiment of enslavement and Jim Crow segregation. It is among the most conservative regions, has little history of unionization and is always run by the white peoples’ party, which for the last 50 years have been the Republicans…

Mississippi won the race to the bottom to lure the Renault-Nissan corporation to build a plant in Canton, a suburb of Jackson, in 2000. The state made good on its promises and has given Renault-Nissan over $1.3 billion in subsidies...

Mississippi is a state which ranks last in anything good and first in everything bad. It is one of the poorest states with one of the most reactionary political systems. The large black population is under constant political assault. Medicaid expansion was rejected, SNAP benefit recipients are required to work for benefits or suffer from hunger.

… the state of Wisconsin and the Donald Trump administration announced another theft of public assets to benefit a multi-national corporate giant and once again under the guise of helping workers. Foxconn, maker of LCD screens for Apple and other companies, announced plans to open a plant in Wisconsin in 2020. That state agreed to give Foxconn $3 billion in tax incentives and pay $200 million every year in order to keep 3,000 people employed…

If the state of Wisconsin wants to provide 3,000 jobs it could simply hire 3,000 people, but employment is obviously not the real point. Wisconsin is under complete Republican control, the worst of the worst as it were, with the Koch brothers and their ilk in charge. In 2011 they succeeded in ending collective bargaining rights for state employees. The Obama administration neither said nor did anything on behalf of these workers. Other Democrats and labor unions chose to involve themselves in a losing electoral recall campaign and ended up with ignominious defeat for themselves and their voters.

These two states exemplify how the two wings of the political duopoly work together to eviscerate workers rights. The far right Republicans are openly hostile and the center right Democrats talk a good game. Unions also deserve some of the blame. They cling to the Democrats, even when they do less and less for their members. Union leaders are like many Democrats, political chumps, locked in the duopoly with a party that is dismissive of them and their people and never daring to make demands…

The Democratic Party recently made a big announcement about a “better deal” for working people that is even more insulting than their usual rhetoric. Despite all of the fanfare the deal doesn’t even advocate for an increase in the minimum wage. It says only that “many Democrats are calling to increase the minimum wage” and then presents a plan to raise the minimum to $15 per hour but not until 2024. This legislation is co-sponsored by the “revolutionary” Bernie Sanders…  But the Democrats don’t care about worker rights any more than Republicans do… 

Wisconsin residents will be on the hook for billions of dollars to Foxconn. Not only are their pockets going to be picked but the deal allows Foxconn to bypass environmental and other regulatory approvals so that it can dredge wet lands and access fresh water from lake Michigan. Theft of public funds and environmental degradation will all happen with an assist from government officials.

Make no mistake about it.  The violent outburst in Charlottesville was the result of radical factions on both the right and left funded by billionaires to marginalize the power of the people.  The real threat is to the political elite member of congress who will do anything to preserve their power and wealth.  President Trump is a threat to the status quo and by refusing to condemn one side and exonerate the other, he has exposed the violent ploy for what it was.  A ploy.

The “Alliance for American Manufacturing” is a Deep State appointed council of billionaires whose job is to ensure the further destruction of the American workforce.  Our brilliant President Trump basically told them to pound sand and disbanded the councils that serve to further destroy the American worker.  Good Riddance.  Glad to see you bite the dust.

By Patricia Baeten