“The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls. They got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear… They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying. Lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else… It’s called the American Dream, ‘cause you have to be asleep to believe it.” – George Carlin
As President Trump floats the idea of 50-year mortgages, Americans are being sold a new version of the American Dream – one that can never truly be owned, only leased from the banks, billionaires, and private equity landlords who profit from our permanent state of debt.
Which begs the question: Who owns America? Continue reading
This is just the latest adventures with President Trump who seems to just spew new things off the top of his head, for reasons that are beyond me, unless he somehow is truly worried for the midterm elections and his legacy. He and quite a few other Republicans in both the House and the Senate don’t really mind moving left of center and doing things that stand in contravention of sound economic policies and the traditional conservative philosophy.
Donald Trump floated two actual policies over the weekend. It’s very tempting to be intrigued at this news, because at least he came up with something one could loosely call an idea – about policy, no less. Unfortunately, they were both so stupid and unserious that they only serve to remind us: The less he attempts to think, the better off we all are. 
A few days ago, that question would not have been difficult to answer. The government shutdown was about cuts to Obamacare subsidies that were poised to cause the cost of health care to skyrocket for millions – and that would likely destroy the Affordable Care Act itself. It was about an increasingly lawless and authoritarian administration that had simply stopped participating in normal politics, preferring instead to deploy armed goons in communities across the country. It was about fighting back against a rogue regime to the enthusiastic hurrahs of a base that only last week came out to the polls to deal a hammer blow to the GOP.
For decades, New York City has been on the path of urban decline – the glittering wealth and glamour of Manhattan notwithstanding. It has been losing population for years as retirees, businesses, and anyone with the ability to leave have been abandoning the Big Apple for the sunshine of Florida – and elsewhere. Those anchored to New York City by jobs and families have jumped the border to New Jersey. Even the left-wing mavens and maestros of Manhattan are spending more time in homes in warmer, safer and less expensive red states to the south.
It’s astounding, the things we learn when the money runs out and governments actually have to start prioritizing for a change. As the Schumer Shutdown drags through Week Five with no end in sight, the country’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — aka “food stamps” — ran out of money on Saturday. And given who was taking, it’s a miracle that there was any money left at all.
Remember when Vice President Kamala Harris was the Biden administration’s border czar, but then the role became politically inconvenient while she was running for president, and so the media decided that it had never happened? Now another immigration-related retcon may be upon us. 
Throughout the years of my life, I’ve never witnessed one good thing come from Islam on the whole, which isn’t to say I haven’t known and actually befriended a few solitary Muslims during those years. But get to know them well enough, and soon the veneer slips away and their contempt for you and America comes through in the little nuances and subtext of conversations, as they regularly defend the indefensible in regard to their imams’ numerous anti-American rants and calls to violence against Christians, Jews and all other non-believers.
The US hostage crisis – also known as the government shutdown – has been going on for a month now.
Monsters don’t always come wrapped in the trappings of horror or myth.
“Throw the third switch!”