Comments by "Xyz Same" (@xyzsame4081) on "The Humanist Report"
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Her husband: domestic violence charge (against Lauren) in 2004, nothing too bad, kicking, slapping or shoving her (she likely was not injured) but he spent a few days in jail. Showing his penis in a bowling alley to a few women incl a minor (also in 2004, they dated then. Lauren said she had not seen it, she was present at the site). He got some jail time in both cases, more for the indecent exposure - "Conservative" values.
The D party would strongly discourage such a candidate from even running, especially when you run on your "values".
The 6k grift related to their restaurants (likely STILL losing them money - and already doing poorly before the pandemic), is not the only thing, she also got an unusually high amount of milieage compensations from her campaign budgets. That may seem pathetic. But with 2 restaurants losing 240k in a year (2018 no newer data were given) not even the generous "consulting" contracts for her husband from 2019 and 2020 may be enough.
He does not work in the oil industry as well site supervisor anymore, his job became to help open and manage the restaurants (2013 & 2016) ....
Oh well ....
Of course a forclosed home with eviction notice - in 2010 - to round it off.
Dude used to work in the oil industry, not with a qualification that would justify two 460k contracts BUT enough for a secure (lower) middle class life even with 4 boys and even in CO - if the wife is a good homemaker or she has a side gig to bring in a little extra money. And her oldest boy was 14 (she got him at age 18) in Jan 2020, the youngest was 7 by then. I mean .... if a couple struggles with career and money one could consider not having a fourth child or do delay it until they are out of the woods. That child was born in 2012 or 2013 so only a few years after the lost their home.
I think she was eager to have a well paying career and "being" a restaurant owner seemed to be a good idea. I also assume that her husband did not like his oil job anymore, or was not all that good in it.
Because I doubt she could have landed a well paying job as employee and obviously was not capable of starting a more unconventional biz that needs some expertise. Think marketing, or sales, selling real estate, financial services .... Interior design, or offering office services. Looks like "managing" a restaurant is not all that easy, not even if it is gun themed and the staff does open carry.
Her being a frugal stay at home mum making the oil industry wage of her husband work, would have been more respectable than the clueless, ill-fated hustles and money grabbing schemes these 2 have going on.
The attempts to funnel money from the campaign into their pockets seems to be pathetic, why even bother and not be content with the big schemes (460k in 2019 and 2020 is not bad. She officially entered the race in Jan 2020, but of course she had contact with donors before).
But the pettiness is not so surprising if you factor in that they may be desperate for money. Like Trump has many pathetic grifts going on. Remember the veteran's charity that they used to make money from ?
That is likely as much as they dared to squeeze out of the campaign. Shows how stupid she is, even IF she would not go out of her way to be controversial and offensive, she could expect some opposition research from R opponents and D candidates.
Brazen stupidity - and probably a lot of financial pressure.
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@misty G the U.S. SPENDS already DOUBLE per person ! what other rich nations are spending Keiser Foundation 2017. France, Belgium Japan USD 4700 - 4900, Germany, Austria 5,600 /5,400. Most rich countries are in that range. Australia has kept a part of the pie for the private insurance industry, it shows in the costs. They do have a public option which covers basics and the expensive stuff (hospitals), but somehow they did not go the full mile and offer ALL that is needed for modern healthcare in one comprehensive non-profit package.
So Australians are more or less foreced to cover some services out of pocket or they need overpriced (of course ! it always is too expensive) private for-profit insurance.
That is a scheme that does favors to the industry (to the doctors who get more lucrative contracts
, which makes things expensive they had USD 6,000 in 2014 according to World Bank (all other numbers are from 2017). and then there is the U.S. with world record 10,240.
There is PLENTY of potential to save costs. But after cleaning up the mess and taking care of the backlog the savings should manifest. Much more streamlined billing, pharma prices like in canada or Europe or Japan.
There are estimates that 1 million people will need to be retrained, so that will cost in the beginning - they are currently producing red tape to protect the profit making scheme. All MfA bills have budgets for that - shows you how insane that system is when so many people are involved in producing red tape.
Assistance for the eldery / disabled will be expensive (but also create jobs in ALL regions) - but having people that come into your house (mobile services) and they live independently is more cost-efficient than to place them in a home. Moreover often the family if nearby can manage to keep them at the family home or in their home with a helping hand - when they couldn't afford a private help.
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Good framing Mike: it is not a handOUT it is a handBACK. (and if the millionaires and billionaires complain about the tax load - they just would need to pay better wages, not exploit desperate workers in poor countries, and not squeeze their supply chain like crazy (if they are smaller companies) resp. not establish their quasi monopolies.
Then they would make good but not the insane profits and they would not need to pay THAT much tax.
The money would circulate among population (wages), companies and government (taxes would be paid anyway, because other companies would do good if the ONLY way to avoid paying corporate tax is to invest, but before the money invested into government spending returns to the government, "money" would work some more shifts and facilitate MORE economic exchanges. It would provide the experience of wealth when many people (low income to regular income) consume goods and even more so services (as opposed to hoarding money).
Now money from manufacturing (and even more so from speculation) lands with the top which hoard it away (so it cannot do good). Money is like manure, if you pile it up it stinks, but if you spread it out on the fields (bringing the nutrients BACK into CIRCULATION) manure FACILITATES production / CREATION. (as money should do).
Right now much less (as share of all income) stays with regular people. So they do not have the purchasing power. The rich do not invest into PRODUCTIVE projects or research - not sufficiently considering how much of the income they suck up (and how much they already have been hoarding). There are industrial over capacities on the globe and the big companies in the branches had many mergers (they kept the brand names often, but they all belong to fewer and fewer individuals).
The money also does not go back to government that could spend it on behalf of regular people. Either creating jobs (infrastructure) or providing services that make a normal wages go further (public housing with affordable rent and security you can stay there if you pay the rent, subsidies for Medicare for All, free education, low cost chldcare, good and affordable mass transportation, ...)
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In other wealthy countries: you get a new job, HR asks for SS number, name, address (plus the same for dependent family members) and sends the data to the single payer agency. Done. - Same procedure if you get another job. - if you apply for maternity leave, a sabbatical, retirement:
At the end of the month the company deducts payroll tax for healthcare from the wage - and all companies must match that amount.
Example Austria: 3,8 % of the wage, the maximal YEARLY contribution is 2,400 USD, so the cap is at a yearly wage of USD 60,000 - and the company adds their payroll tax (almost the same amount) to the transfer to the public non-profit insurance agency.
That payroll tax is mandatory for every employee earning more than 500 USD per month. (Different mandates and contributions for farmers, self-employed, business owners - but all very affordable).
The mandate also constitutes a right - to full coverage (incl. for dependent family members, minors, students till age 26, stay at home spouse / parent).
The insured are assigned to an agency (in reality the "single" payer agency in countries, means often several institutions, often per state or province, sometimes under one
federal umbrella).
There is some (uncomplicated) paperwork if you apply for maternity leave, retirement, sabbatical, disability pension or unemployment benefits. Healthcare is automatically included in the provisions - you STAY insured with the same agency, and keep your insurance card. So there is no change in the proceedings for the doctors or patients (or family members that are insured with that person).
Doctors and hospitals do not have patients with different "plans" or coverage or deductibles. Which saves a lot of red tape. Biling is much easier and the doctors do not have to check what is covered and what not. Rates are well negotiated by the agency, but they do not have to chase the money, they get the full amount and on time.
Patients or doctors or pharmacists need no advisors to navigate a system that is set up to be straightforward and as simple and unified as possible.
So no one can extract profits from offering advice (also she the middleman of pharma in the U.S. Pharma Benefits Management). So no cushy upper class jobs for managements (and maybe sales staff if they are paid well) and no "investment opportunities for shareholders or 401k beneficiaries.
Coverage for stay at home parents, retired / disabled / unemployed persons, : the same as always (and the same as for millions of people).
Doctor, hospitals ? the same as always (all hospitals and approx. 80 % of practices have a contract with the agency). Costs: free at the point of service (as always) and modest co-pays (drugs).
Retired persons have to pay a reduced contribution (the equivalent to the payroll tax). It is deducted from the monthly money transfer they get. But if you are on minimum retirement that contribution is very modest and you have no co-pay for medications (which is usually around 6 - 7 USD per package, unless you are low income, or you need a lot of meds per month, there is helpf for that).
No one checks what is covered in a single payer country - Why would they - obviousy ! everything that is available in first world medicine is included - free at the point of service - and that changes all the time anyway.
There are people working at the agency whose job it is to be informed about the latest state of affairs, to make the arrangements with doctors and hospitals (spreading information about the latest medical development, likely that is a 2 way process).
That is of no concern to the insured / patients. They also do not want to know all the details about how they run the sewage system (public utility) and what technical innovations are available for maintainance (like robots to navigate the pipe system to check for leaks).
eHealth CEO: We spend 600 USD to win a patient but we earn 1000 per patient. (It is a waste of money, they would not be in business in a single payer country - and someone has to pay for that waste of money).
CEO: We train our sales staff well, they make 30,000 a year (he advertised that as "good" jobs - so also a pitch for potential employees).
His main mission was to promote the stock of the company, to get affluent Medicare recipients interested (who can afford the private Medicare Advantage packages to make Medicare a really good total package).
And to bash Medicare For All (of course, his company would vanish, no need for them in a genuine single payer system). So maybe he wanted to brag about how little they pay qualified staff to run their business model - so more profit for shareholders.
Qualified staff (they need some training and he advertised that as a strength of the company - so a sales pitch to the Medicare recipients who might use the services. I think the insurance companies and providers pay eHealth commissions so the question is how GOOD their advice is - the Medicare recipients will have a hard time to detect it if they are getting only the 2nd or 3rd best option in this overprices system - because some actors pay eHealthc more commission than others).
30k for sales staff is not exactely much (maybe it is basic salary in the training phase w/o sales related commissions).
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Back to financially comfortable "Nothing is more important than getting rid of Trump" Democrats: Warren AND Buttigieg have a lot of appeal to white, coastal, affluent, liberal voters with a degree. Does not make sense on the surface - their policy proposals (if there are any specifics, yes Warren, no Buttigieg) are very different.
If you believe that Warren is serious about her plans you would grade her as fairly left, and Buttigieg despite being so vague clearly wants to be perceived as "moderate".
So why do they share the same base ? -
Because these frequent and educated ! voters - who should theoretically be informed - like the VIBE they are getting from both candidates.
Buttigieg delivering his fluffy messages about unifying the country is good enough for THEM.
It is not that important for THEM that Warren likely will fold if she could win the presidency (and since she is like one of us they cannot grasp her weakness when it comes to attracting blue collars or to deal with Trump. Which are real, even if she would not already be signalling to the pary machine and the big donors).
Buttigieg only offers platitudes.
These comfortable Democrats will do fine nontheless. A candidate that afflicts the comfortable and comforts the afflicted is suspicious to them, many do not like the vibes they are getting from Sanders (they are right, some of them would net have less income, wealth. Still doing very well of course and then living in a better country. But often narrow self-interests beats vague do-gooder attitudes and generic claims how they wish everbody would do fine.
They appreciate that candidates like Warren, Buttigies (or Bloomberg) know to behave themselves and are obviously intelligent, and can string coherent sentences together.
They are not Trump, will not push to outlaw abortion.
If more presentable presidents with manners are puppets of a cabinet and admin filled with lobbyists, if the deep state and war machine drives them, if their policies create untold misery (see Obama) - the polished facade and colluding media keeps them in blissful ignorance.
The sensibilities of the upper class about uncough behavior and openly displayed meanness, corruption and cruelty will not be offended.
That is the value of having Trump in office: he is an ugly face for ugly things. Obama was a good looking, eloquent, intelligent and polished figurehead for very ugly things.
Such votersare content to have a president that serves the oligarchy and the war machine and a cruel dysfunctional way too expensive for-profit healthcare industry- as long as he or she has manners and does not embarrass them with being obviously stupid and brazenly corrupt.
The Syrian regime change meddling of the U.S. with the help of Saudia Arabia and other nations cost hundreds of thousands of lives, and millions of people are replaced. That regime change war was planned in late 2001 already. It is interesting how the puppet in the White House changes but the agenda is still carried out.
It is NOT a civil war, the U.S. put fuel into the fire.
Libya was a stable, secular ! dictatorship with good services / welfare net for the citizens. Now they have open slave markets, and it is a failed state and hideout for jihadits, and the likes of ISIS, AlQaeda. Now the transit route to Europe is wide open (as long as Libya functioned as state under Gadhafi they controlled the borders so the human traffickers did not try, not at a large scale. (the refugee crisis fuelled the rise of many xenophobic parties).
Honduras coup - immediately supported by Hillary Clinton. They are a neoliberal nightmare now.
Under the Obama admin guns were delivered to the cartels in Mexico.
Under Obama shit happened at the border as well. Not as much, they did not intentionally make it worse (Bush and Obama admin avoided separating children from the adults, only if there were criminal charges they were jailed. Drug offenses or suspected human trafficking for instance. Crossing the border was not a reason to detain people in jail).
Obama did not push for inhumane treatment out of personal meanness and to earn brownie points for getting elected. If it would have been easy and cost-free to act more humanely he would have done so (Trump wouldn't).
But he was certainly not going to take a stand or spend political capital to ease the fate of (economic) refugees. Created due to decades of regime change wars of the U.S. government protecting the interests of U.S. oligarchs. Also during HIS terms (Honduras). At least Obama left Venezuela alone (as far as we know), but they spied on Petrobrass (also to steal technology from them).
I guess JFK also did not like what was going on in the South but he was not willing to risk anything politically. To end segregation and to enforce the right to vote for ALL which pissed off the Dixiecrats that voted for Democrats, they had a safe base in the South - until the Civil Rights Movement forced JFK and LBJ to do something.
This is a lesson Sanders has taken to heart. REAL change comes from the bottom up and the citizens must fight for it.
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Tell people that the candidates now hop on a watered down version of "medicare for all" (M. for America / M. for those who want it, etc.). They take a piggy ride on the brand, while ignoring that it is a specific bill that is about a genuine single payer system.
What most of them now seem to offer (because public opinion was shifted by Sanders) is a PUBLIC OPTION - which offers the possibility to OPT OUT. That seems to be a an innocent tweak or an improvement even ("Why not let the citizens chose and trust them instead of forcing them)
What they conceal - or do not realize - is that public option sets up the reform for failure.
The for profit insureres can keep the young, healthy and affluent and make good profits with cherrypicked pools.
I live in a single payer country: here a public option would slowly erode the systems. But the insurance companies have only a tiny slice of the market and know they do not get more. So they are well behaved (and regulated).
In the U.S. the healthcare insurers have a toxic culture, show predatory behavior and have the systems in place to screw the consumers, to lobby for more subsidies for the dysfunctional overpriced system to somehow keep it afloat.
In the U.S. a "public option" will set up the reform for failure, the reform will never be completed.
Some candidates did not do their homework, do not understand the dynamics in single payer countries (WHAT mechanisms and WHY they lead to good results) and they ignore the reality in the U.S. Plus some ideological bias (no the free market does not always get you better services, not with natural monopolies and not with healthcare).
Others may get it - and they shill for their donors while deceiving voters. I have that suspicion for Harris, Booker, Biden, Mayor Pete - he gets lots of donations from the industry and people employed in the industry. Only Trump gets more.
Wallstreet donors must be considered as well - they love their investements in for-profit healthcare.
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An opinion from a sociologist: humans in stress situations either freeze, hide, flee or attack. some people naturally go into (stupid) attack mode. Now - you can't attack a virus. It is invisible. So they need a TANGIBLE enemy:
Dr. Fauci, the libs in general, the Chinese that designed the virus and then unleashed it, big pharma and Bill Gates (vaccines) and of course the mask mandate and everyone that pushes it. Methinks that Bill Gates is on his way to replace George soros, someone that sends our the misinformation must have realized that he is very old, and that they have to build up the next effigy.
That theory would also explain why so many right wing males refuse to wear masks. Attack mode is more plausible for males. In that audience there was peer pressure, no self resepcting cultist (incl. females) can be seen with a mask there.
But even among Republicans and Trump voters the females support the mask wearing much more than males.
Ardent Trump supporters are not giving up the comfort of having an enemy that is cleary identifyable and a crusade that they can fight for.
It is about managing their fear, the uncertainty.
"conservatives" do not fare well under drastic change. No human does but they are more than usual averse to it.
Trump was so stupid, if he had handled the crisis better and had done something about healthcare and a UBI he would smoothly sail to his reelection.
But the cult has always seen the pandemic as an obstacle to his reelection. he just had the (allegedly) good economy (never mind the signs for an upcoming recession in fall 2019 already (repo crisis). Boom ! Pandemic - and now even feckless Joe Biden has a good chance to win.
So the pandemic is even more emotionally charged for cult members than the rest of the population (save people that lost their job, or have family seriously ill with CoVid-19).
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Ah, those happy days when the (for-profit) mainstream media owned by a very few rich people successfully dominated the narrative. They controlled a) what would be discussed and b) which legitimate or harebrained arguments the public would be allowed to hear. The Dems could talk a good populist game, then turn around and do the opposite and sell out their voters. And at least the big shots in the party would profit from it. Because the salary and benefits they get for their jobs are just not enough.
The few people who saw though the scam in the past and who called them out, did not have a public platform. Free speech was not dangerous to the ruling class, the few dissenters had a very, very hard time to get attention and were reliably weeded out it they made it into mainstream media (and to some degree that even happened in academia).
The Soviets didn't get it right, no need to to resort to "unpleasant" measures like sending folks to work camps in Siberia for the crime of dissenting. There are much more refined and sophisticated methods to suppress dissent, truth, and an open public discourse.
That is why even the rulers of the European countries with elections in 2017 all of a sudden jumped on the bandwagon of "fake news" and "Russia might hack us, too" - just in case they face an embarrassing loss too they already work on their lame excuse.
And you have to build your case to justify censorship on the web, first start out mildly, let your willing stooges from Facebook, google, Twitter, establish the necessary software to apply censorship, and build from there over a few years.
The political establishment is under pressure in Germany, France, Austria, and the dissenters (sadly more often from the right, nationalistic side than the left ) can use social media and the web and can circumvent the "official" channels and establishment controlled media.
The claim that the integrity of the elections in France, Germany, I even heard Austria mentioned - by Sanders no less !, would be undermined by some made up wild stories on the web OR by Russian interference or hacking is ridiculous. The Russians could not swing the elections if they wanted to. This is on the politicians, not any foreign players. It is the fault of the political establishment if they have no good message to offer to the masses.
In all these nations they have reliable processes for the elections in place. No doubt they would rig them (like they do in the U.S.) if they could - well they can't.
They do hand counts, vote in person or by mail, no voting over the internet, no voting machines, purging of voter rolls is not possible, the polling stations are plentyful, registration to vote is automtic or not difficult, and voting usually happens on a sunday or holiday (or in the U.K. they can vote until 10 p.m.).
In the U.S. there is rigging of elections going on, probably including manipulation of the the voting machines or the calculation of the totals. Plus of course massive gerrymandering (for Congressional races and on the state level). All of that is pulled off by powerful people in the U.S. not by foreign actors - and nothing of that is possible in Europe.
There are no voting machines that could be hacked, the people cannot be hindered to go to vote. They have publicly financed TV (not sure about France, but certainly in Germany, Austria, UK) and there are fairness rules - like how many TV ads they are allowed to run, and that all viable candidates or parties that are on the ballot must be given equal airtime.
If the candidates and campaigns in Europe do not want to be hacked, they better ramp up security. And even better, try to not have communications that would be embarrassing or harmful.
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Grayzone had Ben Norton on about the CIA connections of Buttigieg, the shady connection of the people that financed the Iowa app. Incl. pro Israeli settlements billionaires seth ? Klathman (not sure about last name). The Clinton / Obama consultant class members - and Pete checks the boxes. Those consultants are Ivy league educated, tech savvy, 40 something, and they want their place at the trough.
James Carville is of the same mindset just from the past.
Tara Whatshername is a stragist star in Silicon Valley and in D.C. (2 Obama campaigns). -
There is a consultant class that leeches off, and when they found to their dismay that HRC will not enter the White House they came up with "Russia did it" - and then started the companies to "help" against that hyped up threat.
Same company (New Knowledge) that wrote the professional analysis for the Senate (Mueller report / investigation) regarding Russian intervention, is a company that offers solutions for the "fearsome" Russian interferences - I think the name is New Knowledge.
And they were caugh redhanded using a red flag strategy in a Alabama race Roy Moore (the sexual predator, judge and right winger) against the Republican posing as a Democrat Doug Jones.
They hired Russian bots to follow the rightwinger (cyrillic names and all) and then leaked how he got help from Russia for his reelection. (Despite the credible claims of inappropriate behavior towards females often teenagers this far right hyprocrite only narrowly lost the race).
Another disinformation stratgy against him. a Facebook page that seemed to be from Roy Moore (or supporters) proposing to make Alabama a "dry" country (prohibition of alcohol). The scheme: it was supposed to drive the booze lovers to the ballot box to vote against Moore. - a rightwing judge with credible accusations of sexual miscondonct (statute of limitations expired, he did not rape anyone, but he certainly had a habit of hitting on teenagers. Abuse of power, family values, he was and I think still is a judge. - and Democratic slimeballs thought they had to resort to such detpths ?
Hackable voting machines (they have contests, 11 years olds work on machines as used in elections, 2 kids hacked them in approx. 15 minutes each).
Voter roll purges. Machines where the safety features have never been activated (Ohio, parts of Texas.) and the Ohio judge will not even accept a court case about forcing the state to activate them. (Needless to say activists tried NOT the Democratic party). John Oliver did a show about election machines and that some are used where it is impossible to VERIFY the results. There is no audit possible, on principle.
(Other machines have a print as paper trail and backup evidence, althought he rules to demand a recount are complicated and prohibitive. There is meddling possible if those ballots are destroyed while they are evidence in an ongoing lawsuit (Tim Canova suing against the result of an election where Debbie Wasserman-Schultz "won". The civil servant that orderd the destruction of the ballots is the same that got into trouble in Florida midterms 2018 - then she had to step down.
Neither Democrats (in D.C.) nor Republicans (who run the state of Florida) showed any interest to pursue that obstruction of justice. Sure the R's would like to win the district of Debbie, but in the end she has the same donors as them, so it is all one club. They for sure would NOT want Tim Canova the grassroots indepedent to win the Congressional seat).
Corporate Media can swing elections much more than Russian troll farms (they have them, no doubt. But the CIA is much longer in that biz offline and now online and spends much more. Also online: trolls from Israel and I think from India (Modi) and China).
So what ?
The media drowning out Gabbard or Yang is highly effective election rigging on behalf of the special interests. And Sanders has to overcome a major disadvantage, but he is so strong now that he can win the uphill battle. With fairer coverage he would lead nationwide in the polls.
The ruling Democratic class and their helpers the consultants (often ex CIA, NSA spooks etc) nurture the illusion that in elections in which billions are spent the measly Russian trollfarms can make a dent.
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