Developers are Crabgrass : Redistribution of wealth. Clearly a function government performs. Taking general funds, raised by taxes and helping those deserving. It is the purpose of government to find a balance and seek an equilibrium. Need over greed. To ignore such a duty would be both unwise politically, and a great disservice to the nation. Critics always have a say.

Friday, August 21, 2020

Redistribution of wealth. Clearly a function government performs. Taking general funds, raised by taxes and helping those deserving. It is the purpose of government to find a balance and seek an equilibrium. Need over greed. To ignore such a duty would be both unwise politically, and a great disservice to the nation. Critics always have a say.

Sirota posting online at TMI, here, one big helping hand for a man. One instance, intended to be without sunshine, then Sirota and guest writers may decide it to be in the public interest to highlight the helping hand:

SCOOP: Trump Donor’s Firm Got Big Postal Service Payout
A trucking magnate poured $250,000 into a pro-Trump super PAC. His company saw a windfall from USPS contracts. Now, a Democratic congressman is calling for an investigation.
- by: Matthew Cunningham-Cook - Aug 20

Businesses controlled by a major financial supporter of President Donald Trump have seen a huge growth in payouts from the United States Postal Service during the Trump administration, a TMI review has found.
In 2018, an Iowa limited liability company owned by trucking magnate Wayne Hoovestol donated $250,000 to America First Action, a pro-Trump super PAC sanctioned by the White House. Later that year, the same company -- DRT, LLC -- gave $10,000 to the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC that has been chaired by Trump’s USPS board chair, Mike Duncan, shortly after Duncan joined the agency’s board.
Hoovestol’s companies, which include Eagle Express Lines, saw $453 million in revenue from the Postal Service in fiscal year 2019, up from $317 million in the 2016 fiscal year, according to Bloomberg Government contract data analyzed by TMI.
Contracting decisions at the USPS are controlled by the Postmaster General, who is appointed and supervised by the USPS board of governors. The board’s members are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
Hoovestol did not respond to a request for comment.
California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, who sits on the House Oversight Committee which has jurisdiction over the Postal Service, [said] “The United States Postal Service is supposed to be protected from pay-to-play practices -- it is not supposed to be run by Donald Trump’s political cronies, and it is not supposed to be a piggy bank for Trump’s corporate donors to loot,” [...] Americans deserve a postal service that isn’t turned into a weapon for Trump and the GOP’s political agenda.”
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has faced allegations that it is deliberately sabotaging the postal service to help Trump win re-election during a global pandemic, when it’s critical that people can vote by mail from their homes. TMI reported last week on Duncan’s roles with Republican super PACs and the Kentucky Republican Party. Duncan is scheduled to testify before the House next week. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy -- a major Republican fundraiser who joined USPS in May -- will testify before the Senate on Friday and the House next week as well.
[...] While campaign finance laws prohibit federal contractors from making contributions in federal elections, the super PAC donations linked to Hoovestol circumvent those restrictions because they came from a separate LLC, not the companies that have federal contracts with USPS.
“This is all part of the game,” said Craig Holman, an ethics lobbyist at Public Citizen. “You throw money at the feet of those who have power over your futures and you try to buy their favor. And usually it works.”
Donald Cohen, the executive director of In The Public Interest, a nonprofit that researches privatization, said [...] “The highest priority for businesses is that their profits are maintained,” “[...] Cutting corners means busting unions, reducing wages, reducing and paying less attention to safety. [...]"
Eagle Express has additionally received nearly $1.6 million in COVID relief funds from the federal government, according to data collected by covidstimuluswatch.org.
Photo credit: Alex Wong / Getty Image

[italics added, links in original]

The helping hand, in Trumpland, has zero connection to need or safety net for workers displaced by pandemic and losing healthcare coverage. Losers are Losers, Winners are Cronies, and Cronies turn out winning.

Trump and Cronies uber alles. So - Rank and file Postal employees may not like the idea they're there to service Trump cronies, but what can they do about it?

They are left to try to find a balancing fulcrum, perhaps a public voice and recognition, as best as one may exist. Workers within the USPIS face such a question, but persevere.

[This post was updated from its original content by revising its headline and leading text]

From Women's March - 10-2-2021 - imagery speaks

Image is cropped from one of a series of Buzzfeed images. Click the image to access the Buzzfeed coverage of that march. This was a major event in Washington, D.C., and it happened mid-way after Trump had been fired by voters in the 2020 election, and before the one approaching. To assert as MN GOP politicians have that abortion is not an issue is an insensitive fiction concocted in some smoke filled GOP backroom. Do not let a GOP intent to deceive misleed your vote. The issue IS ON THE BALLOT. Women deserve dominion over their bodies, we all deserve privacy in our lifetime decision making.

Cracker fear and loathing toward Critical Race Theory has its precedent.

The precedent - Integration dodging intent behind segregated "non-profit" private schools, after the Brown decision was issued. Leading a twisted mind, Paul Weyrich, to issue-monger.

Politico in 2014 posted the true history of the ginned up propagandized opposition to abortion among the nation's hordes of Evangelicals as the "Weyrich solution" to energize the base. Leading to grave mischief. Evangel-Jesus-jockeys, with fellow travelers, (many of whom are surveyed as not as worked up about Roe as Alito would want you to falsely believe). Some, "foaming-at-the-mouth" rabid, however -

This is for you, Gipper and crowd.

Click that Wikipedia image, get THE STORY (and a link to the enlarged image, copyright info and all). GET: Online info leading into a new year via some pre-1947 new "old thoughts." New to many first time voters - this cycle. Not the thoughts, but the history. A history not to be found in Gipper speech transcripts, nor the Gipper's presidential library papers. Hello, Joe, Dem Party history, so pay attention. Pre-Clinton, Pre-Obama, but Dem party new-old nostalgia. Good old ways. Show the guts to walk that talk.

War Crime - Crime Against Humanity - Today, Now.

Let's go Brandon?

Yes, it relates to a NASCAR event, NASCAR attendees making a statement. But given how fifteen bucks got disappeared, and now Build Back Inconsequentially is pending, shouldn't we all chant? Trust whoever you care to, but wouldn't you like to see trust earned? Actions speak louder than words, while inaction when action is needed speaks loudest? Truthfully so? Pharma prices if anything have gone upward since Trump left while Manchin's daughter's a part of it via her grotesque EpiPen market manipulation and price gouging (a/k/a contract, combination, conspiracy in restraint of trade to gain market segment monopolization). Who might they want to fool? Biden's Justice Department appearing to not be looking at EpiPen under antitrust criminal law? Student debt relief is an aim of many, yet Biden has made no move to be helpful. Never mind Medicare for All sidetracked - Not even cosmetic change is being made to Obama's Romneycare? Taking progressives for a buggy ride? DC redux? Money talks? A Congress of old owned lackeys? Let's go Brandon?

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MYOGA - Make Yacht Owners Gain Again

A RIGHT - not a privilege - EVERYBODY'S RIGHT - no limits

JOE BIDEN DOES NOT SUPPORT MEDICARE FOR ALL. That is because Biden's billionaires want to keep every last one of the people beholden, manageable that way, willing to compromise and to worry about the next paycheck and the mortgage, rather than worrying abstractly over the grossly unfair distribution of wealth and power in our nation. Reform of that situation is needed. HOWEVER, with the Biden White House team, we must wait for HOPE and CHANGE. He owes, as a career politician now a millionaire himself, after NOT ever biting a feeding hand. We need Bernie.

Bernie ran for President. Who cares?

Bernie Sanders early 2019 crowds from before the Democratic Party oligarchs did him in, Clyburn, Bloomberg, Biden - the usual suspects. What resonated with those crowds - a candidate for justice and fairness, finally and for us all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7DRwz0cAt0 Joe Biden could have a Lincolnian legacy, if he cuts and runs from the big donor class he has so far courted, makes his platform the heart of that speech and delivers on the promises. If there is the will, there is the way.

More meddlesome in U.S. of A. politics. More money spent over Russians? Does that compute?

click here for image source plus NYTimes coverage.

Will there be blowback? There seems to be a disproportionate sense to DC's media-mania focus. Russians seem to make better theater, while Israelis generate movement on a scale Putin could only dream of? Essays and books could be written . . . However, in 2012 Romney and Bibi preceded Donald and Vlad mischief, in attempted outsider bias of U.S. national elections. Donald never visited Vlad in Russia. Romney did visit and schmooze Bibi, in Israel. "Double standard?" Go figure.

Doug Wardlow's police pal, Bob Kroll.

POLICE ENDORSED has to have a meaning, a context, and a discernible personality. G.R.Anderson writing over a decade ago, in a CityPages item, puts in a context, Bob Kroll, further fleshed out, here. It behooves the public to know who the supporters of a politician are, (photo above), since that reflects on the politician. "Rule of Law" must have a meaning to Kroll, one which few would share. Why is Mainstream Media not asking about POLICE ENDORSED, a Wardlow tout point?

IN ADDITION: In this image, isn't it Bob Kroll standing to the right hand of friend Wardlow? Looks like him. Paired Ellison haters? Anti-Muslim cohorts? How far back does the pairing go? And how has the pairing grown over time or evolved, from what start? Is there some Dobson joinder? The press should inquire.

Douglas Gary Wardlow did not merely throw the first stone . . .

He unleashed an ADF salvo, earning his ADF paycheck. Read about it, here, here and here. Outlawyered on appeal, Wardlow now apparently has no ADF paycheck. Others for ADF are pressing on. ADF appears to be a win-or-go-home team. James Dobson's team, so walk the line. Whatever you think you want, trust me, you do not want James Dobson anywhere near our attorney general office. A Berniecrat is the other choice, and is a good choice because Bernie's policies are the only future the Democratic Party has whether they accept that or not. Aimee Stephens is as human as I am, as human as Wardlow and Dobson and Hillstrom and Pelikan, the latter two seeming to have gone silent. Ms. Stevens should not be bedeviled in this Twenty-first Century. She merely wanted to be herself, do her job, and get her share. That is what each of us wants for ourselves. Evolution of politics is overdue. Ellison got piled on; is getting piled on. Click the above image.

Sell 'em Prosperity Gospel and feed 'em beans. Some never catch on.

What is Prosperity Gospel? It is: Channeling the mind of a brick into GOP and related dogma. Read this Minnesota story. Click the image to read its fine print. (image source: Bluestem Prairie) The image shows a part of the "mind" of a 30 yr. and still-going Prosperity Gospel faithful attendee. A Dev Crabgrass post fleshes things out. Islamaphobia is but one dimension of a larger "GOP base" stupidity. Stupidity you can bank on. HINT: Follow links in items linked here. Questions will get answered. And --- There's more -

DINO NEWS: Democrats in Name Only; they exist as a problem.

a DINO with an up-top money slot

This link. Al Franken in the linked WashTimes item is quoted:
“There are a lot of Minnesotans who are Franken-Trump voters. You have to go and talk to them, and you have to listen. That’s what we need to do. We need to listen.”
Al knows the score better. Al knows Sanders-Franken voter numbers dwarf that Trump-Franken segment, as to where Al needs to pay most attention, "to listen."

Al, in no uncertain terms, should be telling Tom Perez and the beltway money-bunnies of a new fresh smell in the air. Recognizing (in kind wording) one DINO foundation-family's drift, now, into irrelevancy is far from admitting what's relevant and moving full speed to the Bernie side of the force.

Dinosaurs, DINO ways and means, must and will be extinct (can you say "Primary Joe Manchin and Clair McCaskill"). As Al in the item says; listen. Hear Bernie sounding like a giant asteroid strike upon a DINO status quo. Indeed, primary the poster DINO-bunny of artful misdirection and status quo actions, Cory Booker. Gain attention from that, successful or not. Ideally, send Cory to work with Eric Cantor on Wall Street, where his heart is.