Okay,so De Satan brags about black/brown/poor voters he don't like being caught voting whilst an"ex-con",but what about those rich old folks/snowbirds over in The Villages who voted twice,either at home and in Florida,or voted the mail ballot for a dead spouse or family member,for Trump,or some other Repub con,what did De Satan say about them,eh??
So I guess it's all good assuming they voted Republican,not Democrat?Doesn't that sound a bit shady y'all?
Down here in Baghdad By the Sea, the last stage of construction of most projects is bankruptcy.
Legalized theft. Developers are adept at getting investment money, adept at getting suckers to buy above fair market value. Many of the projects are defective and lawsuits exhaust insurance coverage. All that is left goes into liquidation.
I don't know it as a fact but some business schools have analyzed how marks like JPMorgan, SoftBank sank hundreds of millions into a $47 billion con. Same for the marks that finance Don the con.
We are also the Medicare fraud capitol, bank fraud capitol. Some Florida real estate has been "under water" literally and figuratively as suckers actually bought properties that were submerged.
Sometimes the perpetrators, when caught, do show some remorse, but few spend any time in jail.
Whoa! I didn't know these things but boy, am I not surprised! The shoddy building projects might be the worst because people will eventually live in them and will be victims of substandard construction. It has long appeared that broad corruption has been part of Florida's life blood.
That incident in Miami is exactly what I was thinking. It is looking like that will not be a "one off" nightmare...ugh, Florida, the corruption is, literally, killing people.
Clair, and Florida's legislature and governor as so wrapped up in taking away the rights of the people and giving more to those corporations who run a lot of the cons, I don't see how things will be better there any time soon, that is, unless the Floridians rebel and kick some of those privileged white boys and their political girlfriends out of office. Nah, that'll never happen on a large enough scale. Too bad!
Hey Daniel, Florida sounds like "the wild west!" The rich cons can get millions from banks and other investors while banks can't even take care of the normal clients who just need good every-day service. That's just nuts!
For a while, you could take “classes” from people who taught how to invest with ‘OPM” — Other People’s Money — and walk off with a ton of cash. Banks and wealthy people learned how to make a profit center out of bankruptcy, and here we are …
Actually there are "legitimate" schools that teach it.
Not limited to Republicans. Some of the biggest investors in "low income" housing, big Democratic donors, use government financing as the mark. I remember the Savings and Loan scandal. Many people caught up on it. Mc Cain. Members of the Bush family. Many Democrats. A few did go to jail.
Many people seek loans for questionable enterprises. Everything in life is a gamble and watered down business ventures are generally a bad bet. It was folklore. Can't tell you how many people were stuck with bad low interest home equity loans. For many people, their home is their only investment and were sold that the value would increase every year and so loans were not taxable and they thought they had "free" money by borrowing.
Now that interest rates have risen, I get ads toting REITs yielding 15%. The risk/reward is iffy. Statistically, at some point, most chickens come home and are roasted.
“Real Estate” is an industry that often makes millionaires. The 2008 crash opened doors for all sorts of scams and lies, one of the biggest foisted on the American people was that poor borrowers and “liars loans” dragged us under. That’s not what happened at all, but it made a nice story and put the blame on people who had no way to defend themselves to the public. So Congress got away with bailing out the finance industry and letting people lose their homes by the millions across the country. Barney Frank didn’t try desperately to craft a new Glass Steagall because he wanted to stop poor people from buying houses. He did it because he wanted to separate risky investors from savings and loans that needed to keep depositors’ and borrowers’ accounts safely apart from the kind of out-of-their-minds investment schemes that brought giants to the brink of disaster in 2008, until American tax money saved them.
I heard Sarbanes Oxley/Dodd Frank whistleblower cases. You're mixing apples and oranges.
Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 involved consumer protection, resolution authority, systemic risk regulation, Volcker rule, and derivatives. It started the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a 21st century agency that implements and enforces Federal consumer financial law and ensures that markets for consumer financial products are fair, transparent, and competitive. The Republicans fought it because it protected consumers rather than lenders. and Trump tried to kill it.
I’m aware of all that, and Dodd-Frank didn’t start the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, though it facilitated its actions. The Bureau is the brainchild of Elizabeth Warren, who wanted to run it under Obama but was shut out. He put someone else in charge of a weakened Bureau, and she ran for the Senate.
I’m not mixing fruits. Losing Glass Steagall is what let our regular banks get into risky investments with depositor funds, and especially allowed them to screw around with mortgages, which is what turned the whole bundled-mortgage-investment scheme into a sh*tstorm mess. I helped an ex-Merril-Lynch guy write about this stuff soon after it all happened. I learned a lot.
Pat, your assessment of the 2008 financial crisis is spot on. Blaming people who wanted to own a home for what happened was racist and sexist as so many of the borrowers were people of color and women, often lied to about how the loans would work. It seems only rarely are rich corporations or individuals ever held accountable for anything, and even rarer still, punished for their destructive self-serving actions. I suspect Donald Trump will continue this streak.
Yes, I didn’t just pay attention when that was going on, I worked on a book with a high-placed investment VP who was there at the time, and he taught me a lot. The investment community tried to indemnify themselves against these horrible mortgage “products” failing, but the people who bought the products were left high and dry. And the people whose mortages WERE the products were in even worse shape. And borrowers who wanted to pay rents to stay in their homes, or who hoped to renegotiate were locked out of remedies because there was no one to pay rent TO, and nobody could unravel the bundled loans to figure out how to renegotiate one at a time. Insane. Nasty. And we used tax money to save the banks while letting the most vulnerable homeowners in the country go homeless.
I like that logic, but trying to put a limit on would be an exercise in futility. Even though giant “too big to fail” companies ARE damaging to our society and dangerous to the economy, they are also too strong to fight without some pretty strong legislative mojo. People don’t want anybody telling them they can’t have everything they can legally grab [or illegally, if they can get away with it].
KQED used to broadcast a show teaching viewers how to get rich using “OPM” - Other Peoples Money. It is shocking to realize that so many otherwise “progressive” folks think this way of earning a living is OK. It’s the Wall Street. “Greed is good”, get-rich-quick hustle.
Yes, it’s OK to make a living, even using borrowed funds, or “investment” funds — investment in people’s business startups is a long-honored area of enterprise, Venture Capital, with tax breaks to help it along when an investment goes sour, by the way—but it would be nice if people made their living without being predatory. Sadly, too many are predataory.
Hedge fund managers. I don't have any problem...until they take unfair advantage of their wealth to get special tax breaks.
Predatory. I encourage people to invest... It's just that there are so many criminals who prey on the public who have not been brought to justice. The funding for IRS and IGs have been cut by successive Republican administrations...and the Democrats could have been better.
Trump should be an object lesson. Caught screwing his investors, caught using a phony family charity, a scam "university". As I probably said previously, IMHO we should use an "appearance of impropriety" standard for everyone in public service and all professions.
It’s always OK to earn a living by to getting an education, learning a skill, working, and saving your money. We seem to have strayed a long way from these traditional values, leading to some very murky occupational choices like being a “hedge fund manager” -aka a professional gambler who plays with other peoples money and livelihoods and contributes nothing socially productive.
When my father in law died and we had everything settled, as we headed back to NC all I could think of was thank god I never had to set foot in FL ever again!
Right, and it's not new, I lived in Florida from late 1958 to early 1961 and real estate fraud was a standing joke even then. Real Estate that was State owned in the everglades and unbuildable because it was a swamp was being sold by con artists in NY.
Agh! I don't doubt it for a minute! My parents used to "snow bird" in Florida decades ago and my father refused, even back then, not to buy, he always rented. I know people who have bought in more recent years and they ALWAYS got screwed in resale. 1) there's the corruption which has led to 2) endless, constant overbuilding and ridiculous pricing, and that's just the tip of the iceberg, it's more complicated, I know. Even if we can save most of the country from fascism/authoritarianism, states like Florida, Texas, and others will institute some of the worst policies EVER. Many states already kept Medicaid from their citizens. You haven't seen anything yet if DeSantis and Abbott stay in power.
@Melissa. We are talking about 20 votes more or less in a voting public of over 100 Million people. That's why serious people say there was NO fraud in the 2020 election that would have affected the outcome.
I think the main point of prosecuting these 20 is to send a message that if you have been convicted of a felony and served your time you better be careful about voting- period. I wonder how many people don’t vote due to this fear. My bias is that that if you have paid your dues,you get to vote. And frankly why stop anyone from voting even if they are in prison? Most of those serving time probably have not tried to sabotage an election.
Yes, Jay, it is to scare people out of voting. I, too, am OK with people in and out of prison voting. They are citizens after all, and voting is the mark of being a citizen. The racism surrounding voting is, or should be startling to every American, but, alas, people of color often see it as just what white people do to them and many white people see it as what they have a right to do (to inferior people, of course). Every citizen when they turn 18, on their birthday, should be automatically registered to vote. The only thing they should have to do, is show up at the polls on the first day they choose to vote with their ID. Or, they request and fill out a mail-in ballot and sign it. When they move, they should simply report their new address. It should/could be that simple.
And yet Floridians famously voted to allow convicted felons to vote once they served their sentence. Of course, the will of the people was denied by that autocracy.
But I think I there was a hook: Convicted felons who had served their sentences in Florida can vote, but only after they had paid all their accumulated fines, penalties etc. Only a small faction of them actually can do that.
Wasn't that stipulation added later? It was my understanding that it was not part of the ballot measure. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but I remember something being changed post-election that vastly reduced the number of ex-felons that could take advantage of it. Maybe it was a judicial interpretation. I think all 3 branches of the Florida government are now hostile to democracy.
Right on! I do not believe anyone has the right to take away your constitutional (let alone civic duty) right to vote! The person doing so should be charged with treason!
Yes. How many convicted of felonies are even guilty. And often what is called a felony sounds worse than what it is.I was once charged with criminal trespass when I was in my 20's for parking in the wrong parking area. At the time I was a student living hand to mouth. I could not afford to fight it. Criminal trespass was thrown at me to satisfy some petty official.
You are correct Gjar15. I have a former client who is still in prison 25 years after the most bizzare trial and wrongful conviction. I have another formal client who had beenaccused of raping a six year old white girl (he was black. After months of work and digging, I got his case dismissed because the DNA showed up in another guy arrested for felony DUI. 13 years later, I found out he could not get a job or find a place to live because the poilice reports, with wrongful information, were easily available. I came out of retirement to file a motion to seal his entire arrest record. And I'm watching how Bill Barr lied about the Mueller report (which we all knew), and nothing happens. The rich get rich and the poor get poorer.No. There is no justice.Or very little.
Maggie , I often get frustrated and wonder about justice for the vulnerable. Then I hear about people like you and the good you do . You and people like you inspired me to get into the field I got into working in" social service" and "mental health" and juvenile "justice". I wanted to give back and make a difference and boy did I hit some roadblocks. And then I read your note and hope awakens. Jay
Exactly because the entire judicial system has become another means of exploiting the poor! The corporate police force (for the corruption by the corruption) is completely set up to continue the process of exploitation. It all needs to go. As I have said in previous posts just watch "Cops" and they clearly make statements such as "I pulled this guy over last week let's see what I can get him for now"! No probable cause nothing but of course they don't even need that any longer. In Florida (probably many more states) the judge in a traffic court is not a judge! Just a State Trooper doing a tour of duty COLLECTING MONEY FROM VICTIMS!
healthier if people were not stripped of their citizenship after being convicted of a felony. I don’t know about other countries.. here people in prison are regarded as subhuman.
True! The 2016 had only FOUR: three people who voted for Bunkerboy twice, and one person who fraudulently voted for a local official. ALL were on the right naturally.
You've got that right Benjamin. The election fraud claimed is usually a very tiny number, and this past couple of elections have been nearly 100% for Republicans, but nowhere has it impacted the outcome of an election. The con artists use those one or two fraudulent votes, nearly always caught right away to make their wild claims that millions of votes were fraudulent, and for what, to get a losing candidate into office? That's a pretty good con!
True, but DeSantis gets to use those 'fraudulent' voters as examples of what can happen if you go out and vote confidently when he is obviously 'gunning' for those voting while black, brown or poor. It could put a damper on voting if people are afraid to get in trouble with the law for doing so. DeSantis just does not want certain people to vote. Period.
Yeah, the accidental ex-con is a rank criminal, but the old Republican who votes in two places is just confused. Ri-i-i-ight! They talk out of both sides of their mouth, these Rs at the top of their Party, and their rank and file just keep letting them get away with it. Psychologist Jonathan Haidt said that respect for “authority” is at the top of the conservative value system, and it seems like that’s true. The Rs just let those in authority walk all over them. The liberal mind, Haidt said, holds “fairness” as paramount.
@Pat. I want de-satan to run. First because he is a dick and can't win, but more importantly he will siphon off votes from old bone spur in the primary thus pissing off those who might otherwise vote for the pussy-grabber in the general election... But basically I am FOR anything that might not help the liar-in-chief regain his frightful throne...
Liars and conmen - Republican societies’ new heroes. Morality gone! What a laughing stock these guys make of the USA to other democratic countries, and embolden Xi and Putin etc.
Has always been thus. The Republican party housed robber barons. Fisk and Gould. Chose a "vulture capitalist" as their presidential candidate in 2012 -- Mitt Romney.
I KNOW!! He is a classic example of a filthy rich, ruthless bastard. Know this, what do they call it? His memo? Manifesto, whatever, that lays out what the GOP will do if they get back in power. He wants to GET RID of critical social safety net programs. In less than 5 years of GOP takeover you will not have SOCIAL SECURITY or MEDICARE. Holy crap America, WAKE UP. Know who these charlatans are before it's too late and you vote them into power again!!!!!!!!!!!!
Clair, I am with you on your predictions about what Republicans want to do if elected en mass. They are into suffering as long as it is someone else who is doing it and as long as they can blame those people for their own suffering, something Nixon got going with the "war on drugs" and Reagan pushed with his lies about "wewlfare queens." Clinton didn't help with the work to welfare or welfare to work or whatever that BS was. Republicans and their corporations want to rule and set all the rules about who gets money and who doesn't, and it won't be people of color and women who will be doing the receiving. It is appalling, but the hypnotized Republican voters can't see it now and will somehow blame Democrats for it when it happens.
Crazy! I work in a Medicaid funded program. Because of that Jerk!!! We have to carry a paper to each medical appointment someone attends and get a signature on the form. It creates tons of work.
Laurie, yep, tons of unnecessary paperwork that will take months and months to process if it ever is, while everyone working in the field is inconvenienced and time-crunched, and for no reason that actually matters. Just plain wrong!
Yes, he has gotten the votes, apparently. The 47 % tape should be required viewing for voting, and be shown in civics classes everywhere! It was made by a young bartender at a fundraiser dinner. Most of it was not aired on Television. I wish more people could see it.
Laurie, yes, Mitt Romney's comments about the "takers" is one every American should see if they have not already. Those rich white men like him see themselves as being so magnanimous while everyone else, implying people of color and women, are the takers who give nothing, just sucking the blood from the American economy. That really is appalling, but those privileged white men get away with it. I am glad Romney didn't get elected president. He is so clueless, but he is Mormon which got him elected to the Senate from Utah. While there, he has not exactly been a shining light to help anyone, and he isn't particularly courageous either. If I cared enough, I might check out how he got his wealth and, beyond the required 10% tithe to the church, what he has given to help the community. Oh wait, those are the takers and giving them anything will just make them want to take more!
Trump, and I think by extension all of his supporters at or near the top, would like nothing better than to move America into the kleptocracy that is Putler's Russia. I still have sympathy for their general supporters. Those people know there is something wrong in America but can't quite point to it and so they find Trump's rhetoric appealing. He straight up lies to make very difficult social, economic, and political issues sound like they have simple fixes when they don't, but most people, I think, don't want to hear that.
You're right. But ol' Tweety didn't utter the founding principle he embraces: "There's a sucker born every minute!" I'm sure Barnum's one of his heroes he doesn't mention.
No ; But he did brag that he could get away with shooting a man on 5th Avenue and it would not hurt his votes. Sounds like somebody has some suckers to exploit.
Virginia, I do agree with you that liars and conmen are a string force with the Republican party these days, OK for a lot of days in the past too. They are just better at it now and do it right out in the open . I wish more people cared that they are lying and want it stopped. I know, that ain't gonna happen!
Hell, this is hell. I tell you this is hell! (Grandpa exclaiming from the movie "A House of a 1000 Corpses.) Sigh. God help us!..... sigh... What's the secret to never being sick? That's more important. As I've worked all my life, did not cheat anyone, and tried to be fair and nice... we've got people getting away with all this ridiculous underhanded stuff and no one bats an eye! There shouldn't be two systems of justice one for the rich and one for the poor. It should all be the same. No tennis court, luxury resort stuff. Make them do hard labor like washing dishes for the prison. And, to think Walmart has people put in jail for stealing a submarine sandwich because they were hungry. Where's the crime? The rich who commit crimes like the above should be stripped of every penny... every penny!
Lucy! That is the pain so many Americans feel, but they don't know where to direct their anger and frustration. They let the smooth-talking or more likely, loud squalling conmen distract them from the real causes of the pain and focus them on others who are easy targets. Yes, the conners should be put in prisons where they actually do have to work to pay back some of what they have stolen and have real terms like are given to Black men and women for marijuana, 10 years and more. Then, when released, they should no longer be permitted to work in finance at any level. Their whole fortunes should be tapped to pay back the people they stole from. OK, I know that won't happen, but at least most of it should.
Trump’s endless escapes from consequences are part of why we are where we are today. He is the lying front man for the party of mendacity. He went from one con on to a bigger con to a bigger con, on and on. He was planning on using the run for the presidency to line his pockets. When out of the blue he won, over four years he realized what opportunities he had for lining his pockets big time. The R’s quickly hopped on board mendacity train to try cement their hold on power by whatever evil means they could. The R’s really are lying, traitorous losers who have worked diligently to be able to operate openly as the greedy, selfish, disrespectful crooks that they are. At the core of all their hateful actions is a gross disrespect for anyone but themselves.
Sad sad truth about most of the people steering the R Party right now. It is actually surreal. We went from Eisenhower to Nixon in less than a decade. Listen to the tapes of Nixon talking to Johnson…years before Watergate…about the shady stuff the R’s did to sink the Paris talks and extend the war in Vietnam and win against H. Humphrey in ‘68. Nixon agreed it was treason! Not only did no one ever pay a price for that; they shoved it under a rug for fifty years. Rumors about it circulated for ages, but Rs just denied it and “profited from lessons learned” to do even worse. And the people of our country who had no power got nearly Six More Years of that war …the most deadly six of the whole war, expanded to illegal incursions into other countries, with horror visited upon horror to millions more people over there, and treating our own still-teenaged-soldiers (typical age over there, nineteen) like interchangeable parts on an assembly line. Many of the founders of the New Republican Party Mentality are graduates of the Nixonian School of Bold Action While Wearing Nice Shoes. (Somewhere along the line, it became a status symbol to wear very expensive shoes.) They foisted Half-Asleep Ronny on us, while the schemers began shredding our social safety net, exploded our homeless population, and ran secret illegal ops out of the White House basement. Bill Barr convinced Hubert H W to pardon those guys and stuff it right back under the rug with the Nixon stuff. We got a few years of Republican Lite Centrist Dems, during which we lost Glass Steagall and got some draconian laws that stacked the deck against poor people and POC, and then Big Time New American Century Guys came in with Glad-Hand Dubya, who were asleep at the wheel in September 2001, invaded a country on cooked-up “intelligence” allegations, contributed to chaos in the Middle East for generations, leaving millions of people to live in horror every day, and nobody paid ANY price for that. Then Obama held on by the skin of his teeth for a bit, while Mitch McConnell conned Congress and started his plan to pack the Supreme Court. Then the Dems thought it was Hillary’s turn to be president, but people said “No,” and Along Came Donald to— as Steve Bannon put it — “Blow It All Up.” They are getting close to doing that right now.
Pat, in response to your question "are we going to allow them to do that," I hope the answer is "no" but I see the efforts, again, of mainstream media to do that "false equivalency" BS and I am not sure Dems are up to fighting the insanity, of lying, cheating, defrauding, and misinforming the American people that is the Republican party these days. It is disgusting, but I don't know how to move us in a different direction.
I know exactly what you mean — that’s what’s keeping me up at night, too. WE MUST find our voice and make it heard. People don’t want condescension and a lecture, but we need someone with a voice that can be heard — and believed. It’s been too easy to demonize people telling the truth in favor of people dancing the Jingoistic dance for the masses.
Thank you, Pat, my sentiments exactly. At this point in time this corruption is so embedded in our culture it will take a twenty ton crane to dig it out.
I hope we can “get the vote out” and pull ourselves a little back from all this, maybe gain a little time to do something about it, but I’m seriously beyond worried …
I agree with everything, but we must not forget Russia’s role in 2016. If not for that Hillary MIGHT have won. Things would be very different right now.
I agree. You notice, the Republicans continue referring lately to Russia’s part in 2016 as though it didn’t happen, and they have amped up their denials lately, because we have plenty of evidence that it DID happen, and it is still is happening. I voted for Hillary, though I would way rather have voted for Bernie [I moved to Vermont some years ago, and while I am not always in agreement with Bernie, I know him to be a principled man with the people’s interests at the top of his value system, as evidenced by watching him in action over the years.] I KNOW Donnie’s shocking wn in 2016 was heavily aided by Russian disinformation, if not outright shenanigans [that I don’t think have been definitively proven]. Donnie is definitely a minority choice, which is why the Rs are racing around trying to tilt the scales where they can, so they have a chance of winnning again. Egad.
Yeah, and Russia to this day regards Trump highly in their media, there’s no doubt in my mind that they want him back in and most likely will try and interfere again in 2024.
Note that while the disinformation was proven I do believe the Mueller report contained more damning evidence but it was kept under raps by Bill Barr.
I’m with you there, Derek, and at the risk of becoming a conspiracy theorist, I think you make a lot of sense. Republican operatives were going to battleground states and demanding access to — and delivery of! — voting machines for them to check out, which takes the machine out of “secure” custody and puts those elections at risk. They weren’t supposed to do it, but they did!
Making anyone nervous yet? Then WE get to sound like the people we have been criticizing for their refusal to accept Biden’s election. They muddy the water, and then we can’t see a damned thing clearly any more.
Jenn, Wow! That was so well said. When one of Trump's cons worked, people just said, "Wow, that was so brazen of him, I wish I could have done that." When it failed, Trump and his crew learned that they could shoot for higher, and did. He has a lot of business admirers because they wanted to be able to do what Trump did and get their piece of the action. I find that when a criminal commits a small crime and gets away with it, if that crime was to get something the person didn't deserve, they try something even more daring next, then more and more until they actually are caught. Even then, they still get away with it because juries don't want to believe the person could have done such harm, so either acquit him or give him a really minor sentence. It is disgusting, but where we are. Trump committed massive fraud throughout the '70s, '80s, and 90's and is rewarded with a reality TV spot where he is allowed to project some kind of image of competence and intelligence, a false image, of course, a massive con in itself, but good enough to convince a whole lot of white and Latino voters to choose him, with no political experience, and a string of cons and lies behind him, as president. They chose a loer, now don't want to admit he was a loser, so defend "the Big Lie." that he won any kind of election. He didn't, and if not for the racist, disgusting wasteful electoral college, he wouldn't have been given any office.
Mmmmphmmmm, some of Trump’s sleazy ways out of trouble came about with that whole “too big to fail” idea — he had borrowed so much money from one bank, was listed on the bank’s balance sheet as an asset, since he owed the bank money. As long as he was not deemed a “bad loan,” the balance sheet continued to look good. So the bank loaned him more money FROM ANOTHER SEGMENT OF THE BANK to pay off the first loans, and they juggled him around like that, even though OTHER banks wouldn’t touch him with a fifty-foot pole. And he kept paying himself out of his floundering businesses available funds, and lived high while stiffing contractors and bankrupting businesses. Nice job, if you can get it. [It all started with Daddy bankrolling his start in the “gifter” business.]
And some business schools encourage it, Milliken went right from prison to teaching business at a college in Southern California, shamed as I am to admit it.
Though recently, when asked, I forecasted that Republicans would retake the House, I write to state unequivocally that I don’t accept my prediction. To start, I understand that the majority of households includes at least one person taking prescription drugs. I note this example not only to press the point of amplifying the ability, now, of Medicare to negotiate the price of prescription drugs, but also to make the case that the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act affords Democrats the credibility to run both on climate and on pocketbook issues connected to things that matter in people’s lives. I imagine Democrats also will underscore that if they hold the House and pick up two Senate seats (hardly far-fetched) that they will be poised, using budget reconciliation, to pass further transformative legislation addressing some of the major issues facing the country, while also improving life for tens and tens of millions of working people. This legislation includes 1) cutting the price of insulin for non-Medicare persons, 2) extending the child tax credit, 3) providing affordable, quality childcare and universal Pre-K, 4) investing in housing, in eldercare, in areas of immigration policy that qualify under reconciliation, and decidedly more.
Additionally, protecting choice is going to be upfront and center. This won’t be an issue just for women, but also for men, for Independent voters, and for some moderate Republicans. So will the matter of passing meaningful gun control legislation so we can send our children to school and not fret every minute for their safety.
Last, but hardly least, current polling indicates that everyday people are becoming increasingly aware of the import of overwhelming the ballot box with votes for democracy.
The Dems need to start shouting from the rooftops that the natural devastations occurring in Kentucky, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona… are due to climate change and the elected officials in their states refuse to act. That those elected officials are happy with the consequences of their intentional inaction.
I'm quite sure Andreesen Horowitz meant to write of Neumann's latest con "we love to see repeat[offenders], not "repeat founders."
America is one enormous con-job, if you fit certain demographics, that is, and Neumann, Trump and their cult of enablers understand the big con exceedingly well.
There are more Trump supporters than I like to admit, people who will gladly give him another chance (can't say "second" since he has already pulled so many frauds on Americans!). But that said, they still only amount to around 30% of Americans! Also, I suspect, many of them cynically support Trump when they know he is a liar and a con man. It is an interesting political science question about why people do that but from a practical perspective the only thing to do is get out the Democratic vote and put responsible and serious people in positions of public trust.
The model in my mind is a bifurcated support: 1) Those leveraging the con, and 2) the ignorant & credulous. That works for circus-tent revival type religion, as well.
where does the mushroom effect fit in? or does it? the mushroom effect is where one fraud, like WeWork, works so others jump on the bandwagon and do the same thing elsewhere.
A friend who had learned the statistics and mathematics of nuclear physics while on his PhD, answered an ad from a New York bank which needed such knowledge, 35 years ago, He has been in the front lines of high-flying finance ever since and is a now a very rich man. However he has remained honest. I asked him once - he would know the answer: "Was the 'crisis' of 2008 the most monumental robbery in the history of humanity?" He answered: "Yes." Then: "Are they still at it today?" . . . "Yes" . . . "Is it going to happen again?" . . . "Yes." And read the September 2020 Rand Corporation working paper: "Trends In Income From 1975 to 2018." Over this period the authors estimate that between $25 and $47 TRILLION were siphoned off from the 90% to the top 10. How to get rich? Rob, rob monumentally, win the class war, that will give you impunity!
We need honest people who work in many different fields to run for Congress. Copying the idea of Emily’s List might work. Form a nonprofit that trains and supports people to run for office. They are given lessons in American history, civics, rhetoric , and world events.
Not too long ago someone said to me..I quote “A con artist is someone who can take (steal) your wallet and then help you look for it.” Made perfect con sense to me!
I’ve watched VC repeatedly prefer to invest in the known flaws of their previous founders over the unknown of a new prospect. But mostly, they play a game by the same name as a great book for anyone near or interested in the VC model. It’s called The Power Law, and it’s essential a gambler’s game where VC expect a home run from 1/10 investments; 3/10 will return their money with modest gain; 3/10 will return to founders but not investors; and 3/10 will fail completely. With 30% odds they’ll at least not lose money, and 10% that they’ll recover enough to lavishly offset any losses, the power is not in quality investment or oversight, but in sipping martinis while waiting for the rolled dice to settle.
The irony of this particular deal, and I was a raving wework experience fan!!! with much to love, high-growth-deal-hype aside, is in comparing his encore run to the jail time Elizabeth Holmes rightfully will serve for misleading Theranos’ investors.
Okay,so De Satan brags about black/brown/poor voters he don't like being caught voting whilst an"ex-con",but what about those rich old folks/snowbirds over in The Villages who voted twice,either at home and in Florida,or voted the mail ballot for a dead spouse or family member,for Trump,or some other Repub con,what did De Satan say about them,eh??
So I guess it's all good assuming they voted Republican,not Democrat?Doesn't that sound a bit shady y'all?
Down here in Baghdad By the Sea, the last stage of construction of most projects is bankruptcy.
Legalized theft. Developers are adept at getting investment money, adept at getting suckers to buy above fair market value. Many of the projects are defective and lawsuits exhaust insurance coverage. All that is left goes into liquidation.
I don't know it as a fact but some business schools have analyzed how marks like JPMorgan, SoftBank sank hundreds of millions into a $47 billion con. Same for the marks that finance Don the con.
We are also the Medicare fraud capitol, bank fraud capitol. Some Florida real estate has been "under water" literally and figuratively as suckers actually bought properties that were submerged.
Sometimes the perpetrators, when caught, do show some remorse, but few spend any time in jail.
Whoa! I didn't know these things but boy, am I not surprised! The shoddy building projects might be the worst because people will eventually live in them and will be victims of substandard construction. It has long appeared that broad corruption has been part of Florida's life blood.
I still think of the many families who died in that Miami building collapse, and the few survivors...
That incident in Miami is exactly what I was thinking. It is looking like that will not be a "one off" nightmare...ugh, Florida, the corruption is, literally, killing people.
Clair, and Florida's legislature and governor as so wrapped up in taking away the rights of the people and giving more to those corporations who run a lot of the cons, I don't see how things will be better there any time soon, that is, unless the Floridians rebel and kick some of those privileged white boys and their political girlfriends out of office. Nah, that'll never happen on a large enough scale. Too bad!
If it was a luxury hotel you can bet there would be changes.
GOOD POINT!
Oh c'mon. Daniel. Where would Carl Hiaasen be without this palette?
Oh, Carl Hiaasen - now that’s funny!!! [And so is he.]
I wrote a novel also: Miami -90.
In a quick search, the mix sounds so delicious I'd consider buying a Kindle to read it, Daniel.
Awesome…
Hey Daniel, Florida sounds like "the wild west!" The rich cons can get millions from banks and other investors while banks can't even take care of the normal clients who just need good every-day service. That's just nuts!
For a while, you could take “classes” from people who taught how to invest with ‘OPM” — Other People’s Money — and walk off with a ton of cash. Banks and wealthy people learned how to make a profit center out of bankruptcy, and here we are …
E.G. Trump University?
Actually there are "legitimate" schools that teach it.
Not limited to Republicans. Some of the biggest investors in "low income" housing, big Democratic donors, use government financing as the mark. I remember the Savings and Loan scandal. Many people caught up on it. Mc Cain. Members of the Bush family. Many Democrats. A few did go to jail.
Many people seek loans for questionable enterprises. Everything in life is a gamble and watered down business ventures are generally a bad bet. It was folklore. Can't tell you how many people were stuck with bad low interest home equity loans. For many people, their home is their only investment and were sold that the value would increase every year and so loans were not taxable and they thought they had "free" money by borrowing.
Now that interest rates have risen, I get ads toting REITs yielding 15%. The risk/reward is iffy. Statistically, at some point, most chickens come home and are roasted.
“Real Estate” is an industry that often makes millionaires. The 2008 crash opened doors for all sorts of scams and lies, one of the biggest foisted on the American people was that poor borrowers and “liars loans” dragged us under. That’s not what happened at all, but it made a nice story and put the blame on people who had no way to defend themselves to the public. So Congress got away with bailing out the finance industry and letting people lose their homes by the millions across the country. Barney Frank didn’t try desperately to craft a new Glass Steagall because he wanted to stop poor people from buying houses. He did it because he wanted to separate risky investors from savings and loans that needed to keep depositors’ and borrowers’ accounts safely apart from the kind of out-of-their-minds investment schemes that brought giants to the brink of disaster in 2008, until American tax money saved them.
I heard Sarbanes Oxley/Dodd Frank whistleblower cases. You're mixing apples and oranges.
Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 involved consumer protection, resolution authority, systemic risk regulation, Volcker rule, and derivatives. It started the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a 21st century agency that implements and enforces Federal consumer financial law and ensures that markets for consumer financial products are fair, transparent, and competitive. The Republicans fought it because it protected consumers rather than lenders. and Trump tried to kill it.
Glass Stegall precluded savings and loans from making investments that weren't for home loans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_legislation
I’m aware of all that, and Dodd-Frank didn’t start the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, though it facilitated its actions. The Bureau is the brainchild of Elizabeth Warren, who wanted to run it under Obama but was shut out. He put someone else in charge of a weakened Bureau, and she ran for the Senate.
I’m not mixing fruits. Losing Glass Steagall is what let our regular banks get into risky investments with depositor funds, and especially allowed them to screw around with mortgages, which is what turned the whole bundled-mortgage-investment scheme into a sh*tstorm mess. I helped an ex-Merril-Lynch guy write about this stuff soon after it all happened. I learned a lot.
Pat, your assessment of the 2008 financial crisis is spot on. Blaming people who wanted to own a home for what happened was racist and sexist as so many of the borrowers were people of color and women, often lied to about how the loans would work. It seems only rarely are rich corporations or individuals ever held accountable for anything, and even rarer still, punished for their destructive self-serving actions. I suspect Donald Trump will continue this streak.
Yes, I didn’t just pay attention when that was going on, I worked on a book with a high-placed investment VP who was there at the time, and he taught me a lot. The investment community tried to indemnify themselves against these horrible mortgage “products” failing, but the people who bought the products were left high and dry. And the people whose mortages WERE the products were in even worse shape. And borrowers who wanted to pay rents to stay in their homes, or who hoped to renegotiate were locked out of remedies because there was no one to pay rent TO, and nobody could unravel the bundled loans to figure out how to renegotiate one at a time. Insane. Nasty. And we used tax money to save the banks while letting the most vulnerable homeowners in the country go homeless.
Disgusting!
"Heads they win Tails we lose".
I like that logic, but trying to put a limit on would be an exercise in futility. Even though giant “too big to fail” companies ARE damaging to our society and dangerous to the economy, they are also too strong to fight without some pretty strong legislative mojo. People don’t want anybody telling them they can’t have everything they can legally grab [or illegally, if they can get away with it].
Hey Pat, were those classes you spoke of on business cheating and conning, taught by faculty from Trump's academy?
Some of them, Ruth, but the sad thing is they were all over the place.
KQED used to broadcast a show teaching viewers how to get rich using “OPM” - Other Peoples Money. It is shocking to realize that so many otherwise “progressive” folks think this way of earning a living is OK. It’s the Wall Street. “Greed is good”, get-rich-quick hustle.
It's OK to male a living. Many people do not have capital to get started....
I meet people who self identify as "professional investors." Most are real estate speculators. However they're really gamblers. There are ways to lessen the risk.....https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/butterflyspread.asp
But gambling is an addiction.
Yes, it’s OK to make a living, even using borrowed funds, or “investment” funds — investment in people’s business startups is a long-honored area of enterprise, Venture Capital, with tax breaks to help it along when an investment goes sour, by the way—but it would be nice if people made their living without being predatory. Sadly, too many are predataory.
Hedge fund managers. I don't have any problem...until they take unfair advantage of their wealth to get special tax breaks.
Predatory. I encourage people to invest... It's just that there are so many criminals who prey on the public who have not been brought to justice. The funding for IRS and IGs have been cut by successive Republican administrations...and the Democrats could have been better.
Trump should be an object lesson. Caught screwing his investors, caught using a phony family charity, a scam "university". As I probably said previously, IMHO we should use an "appearance of impropriety" standard for everyone in public service and all professions.
It’s always OK to earn a living by to getting an education, learning a skill, working, and saving your money. We seem to have strayed a long way from these traditional values, leading to some very murky occupational choices like being a “hedge fund manager” -aka a professional gambler who plays with other peoples money and livelihoods and contributes nothing socially productive.
Heartbreaking — just pain damned heartbreaking …
When my father in law died and we had everything settled, as we headed back to NC all I could think of was thank god I never had to set foot in FL ever again!
'White Collar' crime, often goes unpunished or 'slap on the wrist' 'punished'.
Right, and it's not new, I lived in Florida from late 1958 to early 1961 and real estate fraud was a standing joke even then. Real Estate that was State owned in the everglades and unbuildable because it was a swamp was being sold by con artists in NY.
Agh! I don't doubt it for a minute! My parents used to "snow bird" in Florida decades ago and my father refused, even back then, not to buy, he always rented. I know people who have bought in more recent years and they ALWAYS got screwed in resale. 1) there's the corruption which has led to 2) endless, constant overbuilding and ridiculous pricing, and that's just the tip of the iceberg, it's more complicated, I know. Even if we can save most of the country from fascism/authoritarianism, states like Florida, Texas, and others will institute some of the worst policies EVER. Many states already kept Medicaid from their citizens. You haven't seen anything yet if DeSantis and Abbott stay in power.
Truly, this is where we are up against it. Totally agree. So much to keep in ming; so much to do.
😞
I heard Medicare appeals for 10 years.
My inside baseball info is stale, but Miami is still the capitol. https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/south-florida-is-ground-zero-for-medicare-fraud-6391954
@Melissa. We are talking about 20 votes more or less in a voting public of over 100 Million people. That's why serious people say there was NO fraud in the 2020 election that would have affected the outcome.
I think the main point of prosecuting these 20 is to send a message that if you have been convicted of a felony and served your time you better be careful about voting- period. I wonder how many people don’t vote due to this fear. My bias is that that if you have paid your dues,you get to vote. And frankly why stop anyone from voting even if they are in prison? Most of those serving time probably have not tried to sabotage an election.
Yes, Jay, it is to scare people out of voting. I, too, am OK with people in and out of prison voting. They are citizens after all, and voting is the mark of being a citizen. The racism surrounding voting is, or should be startling to every American, but, alas, people of color often see it as just what white people do to them and many white people see it as what they have a right to do (to inferior people, of course). Every citizen when they turn 18, on their birthday, should be automatically registered to vote. The only thing they should have to do, is show up at the polls on the first day they choose to vote with their ID. Or, they request and fill out a mail-in ballot and sign it. When they move, they should simply report their new address. It should/could be that simple.
Exactly. Here in Florida you have to pick your political party when you get your driver's licence. This has always been an invasion of privacy.
Of course it should be that simple but then trumpublicans would never hold the reins of power again.
Yep. Good point exactly.Jay
Ruth well said. Jay
And yet Floridians famously voted to allow convicted felons to vote once they served their sentence. Of course, the will of the people was denied by that autocracy.
But I think I there was a hook: Convicted felons who had served their sentences in Florida can vote, but only after they had paid all their accumulated fines, penalties etc. Only a small faction of them actually can do that.
Wasn't that stipulation added later? It was my understanding that it was not part of the ballot measure. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but I remember something being changed post-election that vastly reduced the number of ex-felons that could take advantage of it. Maybe it was a judicial interpretation. I think all 3 branches of the Florida government are now hostile to democracy.
Right on! I do not believe anyone has the right to take away your constitutional (let alone civic duty) right to vote! The person doing so should be charged with treason!
People shoul have their
Voting rights restored pounce their sentences have been served.
Yes. How many convicted of felonies are even guilty. And often what is called a felony sounds worse than what it is.I was once charged with criminal trespass when I was in my 20's for parking in the wrong parking area. At the time I was a student living hand to mouth. I could not afford to fight it. Criminal trespass was thrown at me to satisfy some petty official.
You are correct Gjar15. I have a former client who is still in prison 25 years after the most bizzare trial and wrongful conviction. I have another formal client who had beenaccused of raping a six year old white girl (he was black. After months of work and digging, I got his case dismissed because the DNA showed up in another guy arrested for felony DUI. 13 years later, I found out he could not get a job or find a place to live because the poilice reports, with wrongful information, were easily available. I came out of retirement to file a motion to seal his entire arrest record. And I'm watching how Bill Barr lied about the Mueller report (which we all knew), and nothing happens. The rich get rich and the poor get poorer.No. There is no justice.Or very little.
Maggie , I often get frustrated and wonder about justice for the vulnerable. Then I hear about people like you and the good you do . You and people like you inspired me to get into the field I got into working in" social service" and "mental health" and juvenile "justice". I wanted to give back and make a difference and boy did I hit some roadblocks. And then I read your note and hope awakens. Jay
Exactly because the entire judicial system has become another means of exploiting the poor! The corporate police force (for the corruption by the corruption) is completely set up to continue the process of exploitation. It all needs to go. As I have said in previous posts just watch "Cops" and they clearly make statements such as "I pulled this guy over last week let's see what I can get him for now"! No probable cause nothing but of course they don't even need that any longer. In Florida (probably many more states) the judge in a traffic court is not a judge! Just a State Trooper doing a tour of duty COLLECTING MONEY FROM VICTIMS!
Our society would be so much
healthier if people were not stripped of their citizenship after being convicted of a felony. I don’t know about other countries.. here people in prison are regarded as subhuman.
True! The 2016 had only FOUR: three people who voted for Bunkerboy twice, and one person who fraudulently voted for a local official. ALL were on the right naturally.
You've got that right Benjamin. The election fraud claimed is usually a very tiny number, and this past couple of elections have been nearly 100% for Republicans, but nowhere has it impacted the outcome of an election. The con artists use those one or two fraudulent votes, nearly always caught right away to make their wild claims that millions of votes were fraudulent, and for what, to get a losing candidate into office? That's a pretty good con!
True, but DeSantis gets to use those 'fraudulent' voters as examples of what can happen if you go out and vote confidently when he is obviously 'gunning' for those voting while black, brown or poor. It could put a damper on voting if people are afraid to get in trouble with the law for doing so. DeSantis just does not want certain people to vote. Period.
Thugs.
Yeah, the accidental ex-con is a rank criminal, but the old Republican who votes in two places is just confused. Ri-i-i-ight! They talk out of both sides of their mouth, these Rs at the top of their Party, and their rank and file just keep letting them get away with it. Psychologist Jonathan Haidt said that respect for “authority” is at the top of the conservative value system, and it seems like that’s true. The Rs just let those in authority walk all over them. The liberal mind, Haidt said, holds “fairness” as paramount.
Interesting.
If you are white and wear nice shoes, you get away with it.
Desanis is so small.
@Pat. I want de-satan to run. First because he is a dick and can't win, but more importantly he will siphon off votes from old bone spur in the primary thus pissing off those who might otherwise vote for the pussy-grabber in the general election... But basically I am FOR anything that might not help the liar-in-chief regain his frightful throne...
Liars and conmen - Republican societies’ new heroes. Morality gone! What a laughing stock these guys make of the USA to other democratic countries, and embolden Xi and Putin etc.
Has always been thus. The Republican party housed robber barons. Fisk and Gould. Chose a "vulture capitalist" as their presidential candidate in 2012 -- Mitt Romney.
The former king of Medicare fraud was elected governor and senator from my state and sits in the senate. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/mar/03/florida-democratic-party/rick-scott-rick-scott-oversaw-largest-medicare-fra/
I KNOW!! He is a classic example of a filthy rich, ruthless bastard. Know this, what do they call it? His memo? Manifesto, whatever, that lays out what the GOP will do if they get back in power. He wants to GET RID of critical social safety net programs. In less than 5 years of GOP takeover you will not have SOCIAL SECURITY or MEDICARE. Holy crap America, WAKE UP. Know who these charlatans are before it's too late and you vote them into power again!!!!!!!!!!!!
Clair, I am with you on your predictions about what Republicans want to do if elected en mass. They are into suffering as long as it is someone else who is doing it and as long as they can blame those people for their own suffering, something Nixon got going with the "war on drugs" and Reagan pushed with his lies about "wewlfare queens." Clinton didn't help with the work to welfare or welfare to work or whatever that BS was. Republicans and their corporations want to rule and set all the rules about who gets money and who doesn't, and it won't be people of color and women who will be doing the receiving. It is appalling, but the hypnotized Republican voters can't see it now and will somehow blame Democrats for it when it happens.
Crazy! I work in a Medicaid funded program. Because of that Jerk!!! We have to carry a paper to each medical appointment someone attends and get a signature on the form. It creates tons of work.
The people passing these laws want the system to be so confusing that they can get away with fraud. And their big donor to their campaigns.
Laurie, yep, tons of unnecessary paperwork that will take months and months to process if it ever is, while everyone working in the field is inconvenienced and time-crunched, and for no reason that actually matters. Just plain wrong!
" The more things change the more they remain the same". Mitt Romney was Governor of 'Blue' Massachusetts too. Go figure.
It’s crazy. What’s even more crazy--he’s still in office.
Yes, he has gotten the votes, apparently. The 47 % tape should be required viewing for voting, and be shown in civics classes everywhere! It was made by a young bartender at a fundraiser dinner. Most of it was not aired on Television. I wish more people could see it.
Laurie, yes, Mitt Romney's comments about the "takers" is one every American should see if they have not already. Those rich white men like him see themselves as being so magnanimous while everyone else, implying people of color and women, are the takers who give nothing, just sucking the blood from the American economy. That really is appalling, but those privileged white men get away with it. I am glad Romney didn't get elected president. He is so clueless, but he is Mormon which got him elected to the Senate from Utah. While there, he has not exactly been a shining light to help anyone, and he isn't particularly courageous either. If I cared enough, I might check out how he got his wealth and, beyond the required 10% tithe to the church, what he has given to help the community. Oh wait, those are the takers and giving them anything will just make them want to take more!
👍🏼
Trump, and I think by extension all of his supporters at or near the top, would like nothing better than to move America into the kleptocracy that is Putler's Russia. I still have sympathy for their general supporters. Those people know there is something wrong in America but can't quite point to it and so they find Trump's rhetoric appealing. He straight up lies to make very difficult social, economic, and political issues sound like they have simple fixes when they don't, but most people, I think, don't want to hear that.
I understand they want to replace Washington's image with P.T. Barnum's!
@DZK. Barnum was a piker compared to old bone spur!
You're right. But ol' Tweety didn't utter the founding principle he embraces: "There's a sucker born every minute!" I'm sure Barnum's one of his heroes he doesn't mention.
Hey DZK, are you sure the conner in chief even knows who Barnum was/is?
Somehow, I suspect he learned who ol' PT was while still sitting on his daddy's knee.
No ; But he did brag that he could get away with shooting a man on 5th Avenue and it would not hurt his votes. Sounds like somebody has some suckers to exploit.
Virginia, I do agree with you that liars and conmen are a string force with the Republican party these days, OK for a lot of days in the past too. They are just better at it now and do it right out in the open . I wish more people cared that they are lying and want it stopped. I know, that ain't gonna happen!
Hell, this is hell. I tell you this is hell! (Grandpa exclaiming from the movie "A House of a 1000 Corpses.) Sigh. God help us!..... sigh... What's the secret to never being sick? That's more important. As I've worked all my life, did not cheat anyone, and tried to be fair and nice... we've got people getting away with all this ridiculous underhanded stuff and no one bats an eye! There shouldn't be two systems of justice one for the rich and one for the poor. It should all be the same. No tennis court, luxury resort stuff. Make them do hard labor like washing dishes for the prison. And, to think Walmart has people put in jail for stealing a submarine sandwich because they were hungry. Where's the crime? The rich who commit crimes like the above should be stripped of every penny... every penny!
Lucy! That is the pain so many Americans feel, but they don't know where to direct their anger and frustration. They let the smooth-talking or more likely, loud squalling conmen distract them from the real causes of the pain and focus them on others who are easy targets. Yes, the conners should be put in prisons where they actually do have to work to pay back some of what they have stolen and have real terms like are given to Black men and women for marijuana, 10 years and more. Then, when released, they should no longer be permitted to work in finance at any level. Their whole fortunes should be tapped to pay back the people they stole from. OK, I know that won't happen, but at least most of it should.
Ruth, that is a beautiful dream! I hope you don't mind but I'm going to start dreaming that very dream, thank you!
I would ask why Neumann is getting a second chance, but then how many has Trump gotten? I’ve lost count.
Trump’s endless escapes from consequences are part of why we are where we are today. He is the lying front man for the party of mendacity. He went from one con on to a bigger con to a bigger con, on and on. He was planning on using the run for the presidency to line his pockets. When out of the blue he won, over four years he realized what opportunities he had for lining his pockets big time. The R’s quickly hopped on board mendacity train to try cement their hold on power by whatever evil means they could. The R’s really are lying, traitorous losers who have worked diligently to be able to operate openly as the greedy, selfish, disrespectful crooks that they are. At the core of all their hateful actions is a gross disrespect for anyone but themselves.
Sad sad truth about most of the people steering the R Party right now. It is actually surreal. We went from Eisenhower to Nixon in less than a decade. Listen to the tapes of Nixon talking to Johnson…years before Watergate…about the shady stuff the R’s did to sink the Paris talks and extend the war in Vietnam and win against H. Humphrey in ‘68. Nixon agreed it was treason! Not only did no one ever pay a price for that; they shoved it under a rug for fifty years. Rumors about it circulated for ages, but Rs just denied it and “profited from lessons learned” to do even worse. And the people of our country who had no power got nearly Six More Years of that war …the most deadly six of the whole war, expanded to illegal incursions into other countries, with horror visited upon horror to millions more people over there, and treating our own still-teenaged-soldiers (typical age over there, nineteen) like interchangeable parts on an assembly line. Many of the founders of the New Republican Party Mentality are graduates of the Nixonian School of Bold Action While Wearing Nice Shoes. (Somewhere along the line, it became a status symbol to wear very expensive shoes.) They foisted Half-Asleep Ronny on us, while the schemers began shredding our social safety net, exploded our homeless population, and ran secret illegal ops out of the White House basement. Bill Barr convinced Hubert H W to pardon those guys and stuff it right back under the rug with the Nixon stuff. We got a few years of Republican Lite Centrist Dems, during which we lost Glass Steagall and got some draconian laws that stacked the deck against poor people and POC, and then Big Time New American Century Guys came in with Glad-Hand Dubya, who were asleep at the wheel in September 2001, invaded a country on cooked-up “intelligence” allegations, contributed to chaos in the Middle East for generations, leaving millions of people to live in horror every day, and nobody paid ANY price for that. Then Obama held on by the skin of his teeth for a bit, while Mitch McConnell conned Congress and started his plan to pack the Supreme Court. Then the Dems thought it was Hillary’s turn to be president, but people said “No,” and Along Came Donald to— as Steve Bannon put it — “Blow It All Up.” They are getting close to doing that right now.
Are we going to let them?
Pat, in response to your question "are we going to allow them to do that," I hope the answer is "no" but I see the efforts, again, of mainstream media to do that "false equivalency" BS and I am not sure Dems are up to fighting the insanity, of lying, cheating, defrauding, and misinforming the American people that is the Republican party these days. It is disgusting, but I don't know how to move us in a different direction.
I know exactly what you mean — that’s what’s keeping me up at night, too. WE MUST find our voice and make it heard. People don’t want condescension and a lecture, but we need someone with a voice that can be heard — and believed. It’s been too easy to demonize people telling the truth in favor of people dancing the Jingoistic dance for the masses.
Thank you, Pat, my sentiments exactly. At this point in time this corruption is so embedded in our culture it will take a twenty ton crane to dig it out.
I beyond worried, and even more disgusted.
I hope we can “get the vote out” and pull ourselves a little back from all this, maybe gain a little time to do something about it, but I’m seriously beyond worried …
Many, many generations and even then, let’s be honest, it’s hard to see how it (corruption) can be extracted. It’s embedded like a ‘forever chemical’.
Sadly I think you are right
I agree with everything, but we must not forget Russia’s role in 2016. If not for that Hillary MIGHT have won. Things would be very different right now.
I agree. You notice, the Republicans continue referring lately to Russia’s part in 2016 as though it didn’t happen, and they have amped up their denials lately, because we have plenty of evidence that it DID happen, and it is still is happening. I voted for Hillary, though I would way rather have voted for Bernie [I moved to Vermont some years ago, and while I am not always in agreement with Bernie, I know him to be a principled man with the people’s interests at the top of his value system, as evidenced by watching him in action over the years.] I KNOW Donnie’s shocking wn in 2016 was heavily aided by Russian disinformation, if not outright shenanigans [that I don’t think have been definitively proven]. Donnie is definitely a minority choice, which is why the Rs are racing around trying to tilt the scales where they can, so they have a chance of winnning again. Egad.
Yeah, and Russia to this day regards Trump highly in their media, there’s no doubt in my mind that they want him back in and most likely will try and interfere again in 2024.
Note that while the disinformation was proven I do believe the Mueller report contained more damning evidence but it was kept under raps by Bill Barr.
I’m with you there, Derek, and at the risk of becoming a conspiracy theorist, I think you make a lot of sense. Republican operatives were going to battleground states and demanding access to — and delivery of! — voting machines for them to check out, which takes the machine out of “secure” custody and puts those elections at risk. They weren’t supposed to do it, but they did!
Making anyone nervous yet? Then WE get to sound like the people we have been criticizing for their refusal to accept Biden’s election. They muddy the water, and then we can’t see a damned thing clearly any more.
Jenn, Wow! That was so well said. When one of Trump's cons worked, people just said, "Wow, that was so brazen of him, I wish I could have done that." When it failed, Trump and his crew learned that they could shoot for higher, and did. He has a lot of business admirers because they wanted to be able to do what Trump did and get their piece of the action. I find that when a criminal commits a small crime and gets away with it, if that crime was to get something the person didn't deserve, they try something even more daring next, then more and more until they actually are caught. Even then, they still get away with it because juries don't want to believe the person could have done such harm, so either acquit him or give him a really minor sentence. It is disgusting, but where we are. Trump committed massive fraud throughout the '70s, '80s, and 90's and is rewarded with a reality TV spot where he is allowed to project some kind of image of competence and intelligence, a false image, of course, a massive con in itself, but good enough to convince a whole lot of white and Latino voters to choose him, with no political experience, and a string of cons and lies behind him, as president. They chose a loer, now don't want to admit he was a loser, so defend "the Big Lie." that he won any kind of election. He didn't, and if not for the racist, disgusting wasteful electoral college, he wouldn't have been given any office.
Mark Burnett should be mentioned at this point. Without him, The Apprentice (NBC’s ‘reality’ TV show) would not exist.
Mmmmphmmmm, some of Trump’s sleazy ways out of trouble came about with that whole “too big to fail” idea — he had borrowed so much money from one bank, was listed on the bank’s balance sheet as an asset, since he owed the bank money. As long as he was not deemed a “bad loan,” the balance sheet continued to look good. So the bank loaned him more money FROM ANOTHER SEGMENT OF THE BANK to pay off the first loans, and they juggled him around like that, even though OTHER banks wouldn’t touch him with a fifty-foot pole. And he kept paying himself out of his floundering businesses available funds, and lived high while stiffing contractors and bankrupting businesses. Nice job, if you can get it. [It all started with Daddy bankrolling his start in the “gifter” business.]
Why Neumann is getting a second chance -- our Constitution protects theft -- bankruptcy.
And some business schools encourage it, Milliken went right from prison to teaching business at a college in Southern California, shamed as I am to admit it.
Only for some.
The ultimate entitlement.
Very well said.
Though recently, when asked, I forecasted that Republicans would retake the House, I write to state unequivocally that I don’t accept my prediction. To start, I understand that the majority of households includes at least one person taking prescription drugs. I note this example not only to press the point of amplifying the ability, now, of Medicare to negotiate the price of prescription drugs, but also to make the case that the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act affords Democrats the credibility to run both on climate and on pocketbook issues connected to things that matter in people’s lives. I imagine Democrats also will underscore that if they hold the House and pick up two Senate seats (hardly far-fetched) that they will be poised, using budget reconciliation, to pass further transformative legislation addressing some of the major issues facing the country, while also improving life for tens and tens of millions of working people. This legislation includes 1) cutting the price of insulin for non-Medicare persons, 2) extending the child tax credit, 3) providing affordable, quality childcare and universal Pre-K, 4) investing in housing, in eldercare, in areas of immigration policy that qualify under reconciliation, and decidedly more.
Additionally, protecting choice is going to be upfront and center. This won’t be an issue just for women, but also for men, for Independent voters, and for some moderate Republicans. So will the matter of passing meaningful gun control legislation so we can send our children to school and not fret every minute for their safety.
Last, but hardly least, current polling indicates that everyday people are becoming increasingly aware of the import of overwhelming the ballot box with votes for democracy.
@Barbara Jo. I agree, and thank you for that excellent summary of why the Democrats have a better chance this year, and why they deserve it!
The Dems need to start shouting from the rooftops that the natural devastations occurring in Kentucky, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona… are due to climate change and the elected officials in their states refuse to act. That those elected officials are happy with the consequences of their intentional inaction.
I believe that, too. The moderates we never hear from on threads won't buy crazy. That's a good sales pitch.
It helps to read and believe in your positive perspective. Thank you.
I'm quite sure Andreesen Horowitz meant to write of Neumann's latest con "we love to see repeat[offenders], not "repeat founders."
America is one enormous con-job, if you fit certain demographics, that is, and Neumann, Trump and their cult of enablers understand the big con exceedingly well.
There are more Trump supporters than I like to admit, people who will gladly give him another chance (can't say "second" since he has already pulled so many frauds on Americans!). But that said, they still only amount to around 30% of Americans! Also, I suspect, many of them cynically support Trump when they know he is a liar and a con man. It is an interesting political science question about why people do that but from a practical perspective the only thing to do is get out the Democratic vote and put responsible and serious people in positions of public trust.
The model in my mind is a bifurcated support: 1) Those leveraging the con, and 2) the ignorant & credulous. That works for circus-tent revival type religion, as well.
@DZK. I agree!
where does the mushroom effect fit in? or does it? the mushroom effect is where one fraud, like WeWork, works so others jump on the bandwagon and do the same thing elsewhere.
Probably a Wework course at Harvard Business School.
@Daniel. and one of the perps writes a book...
Ah yes, USA, the land of the free but also white.
The land of the free wealthy.
A friend who had learned the statistics and mathematics of nuclear physics while on his PhD, answered an ad from a New York bank which needed such knowledge, 35 years ago, He has been in the front lines of high-flying finance ever since and is a now a very rich man. However he has remained honest. I asked him once - he would know the answer: "Was the 'crisis' of 2008 the most monumental robbery in the history of humanity?" He answered: "Yes." Then: "Are they still at it today?" . . . "Yes" . . . "Is it going to happen again?" . . . "Yes." And read the September 2020 Rand Corporation working paper: "Trends In Income From 1975 to 2018." Over this period the authors estimate that between $25 and $47 TRILLION were siphoned off from the 90% to the top 10. How to get rich? Rob, rob monumentally, win the class war, that will give you impunity!
We need honest people who work in many different fields to run for Congress. Copying the idea of Emily’s List might work. Form a nonprofit that trains and supports people to run for office. They are given lessons in American history, civics, rhetoric , and world events.
Those sound like things that used to be taught in school.
Your 6 rules can probably be summarized as an old one: "Fake it 'till you make it."
I think Dr Reich missed one rule: Bully and intimidate anyone who catches on to the $hi7 you're pulling and tries to prevent it.
If that alone were true then women would rule the world and sadly they don't so there has to be at least one other step ;)
😂
Not in every place and not in every era is humanity destined to advance. - Primo Levi
If you steal $50 worth of stuff from a megacorporation like Walmart, they lock you in jail and call you a thief.
If you still millions in small amounts from ordinary people, they elect you to Congress and call you Senator.
Not too long ago someone said to me..I quote “A con artist is someone who can take (steal) your wallet and then help you look for it.” Made perfect con sense to me!
I’ve watched VC repeatedly prefer to invest in the known flaws of their previous founders over the unknown of a new prospect. But mostly, they play a game by the same name as a great book for anyone near or interested in the VC model. It’s called The Power Law, and it’s essential a gambler’s game where VC expect a home run from 1/10 investments; 3/10 will return their money with modest gain; 3/10 will return to founders but not investors; and 3/10 will fail completely. With 30% odds they’ll at least not lose money, and 10% that they’ll recover enough to lavishly offset any losses, the power is not in quality investment or oversight, but in sipping martinis while waiting for the rolled dice to settle.
The irony of this particular deal, and I was a raving wework experience fan!!! with much to love, high-growth-deal-hype aside, is in comparing his encore run to the jail time Elizabeth Holmes rightfully will serve for misleading Theranos’ investors.
@Dodie. Thankfully there IS a bridge too far...
True! It’s so rarely called to account.